Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 4, Page 265-280, October 2022. Concerns around comprehension and recall of consent information by research participants have typically been associated with low health and research literacy levels. In genomics research, this concern is heightened as the scientific and ethical complexities of genetics research, such as biobanking, genetic susceptibility, data sharing, and incidental findings may be more difficult for potential research participants to understand. However, challenges to research participants’ comprehension of consent information may be compounded by (...) factors beyond health and research literacy levels. To identify factors that may impact research participants’ understanding and recall of consent information, we designed a qualitative study to explore whether participants enrolled in a tuberculosis genetics study in Cameroon understood the objectives of the study, the risks and benefits and certain key aspects of the study such as biobanking and data sharing. The results showed that research participants had limited understanding and/or recall of the TBGEN-Africa study goals and methods. Some participants were of the opinion that TBGEN-Africa was not a genetics study because tuberculosis is not an inheritable condition. Factors that may have hindered understanding and/or recall of study information are diagnostic misconception, and information overload and situational vulnerability. There is a need for improved practices to support research participants’ understanding of consent information in genetics studies including designing the consent process in ways that minimize psychological distress and diagnostic/therapeutic misconception. (shrink)

Wiredu’s call for democracy by consensus is illustrated by his description of traditional African consensual rationality. This description contains the attribution of immanence to African consensual rationality. This paper objects to this doctrine of immanence. More importantly, the doctrine of immanence has led to the attribution of pure rationality to traditional African consensual practices. With reference to Aristotle’s three components of persuasion, I object to deliberation as purely rational and impervious to extraneous factors. I further argue that it is because (...) deliberation is not always perfectly rational that the process of consensus can suffer three forms of social conformity: conformity to dominant players, to numerical opinion majority, and to group-centrism. These forms of conformity mean that a consensus task order could lead to decisions of more inclusive value, but not necessarily decisions of more epistemic value. The concept of agonistic inquiry is employed to tackle what I see as the dangers of conformity and complacency in the project of inclusivity, and this is to strike a crucial balance between too-consensual and purely adversarial forms of deliberation. (shrink)

Internationally renowned as one of the great French philosophers of the twentieth century, the late Emmanuel Levinas remains a pivotal figure across the humanistic disciplines for his insistence--against the grain of Western philosophical tradition--on the primacy of ethics in philosophical investigation. This first English translation of a series of twelve essays known as _Alterity and Transcendence_ offers a unique glimpse of Levinas defining his own place in the history of philosophy. Published by a mature thinker between 1967 and 1989, (...) these works exhibit a refreshingly accessible perspective that seasoned admirers and newcomers will appreciate. In today's world, where religious conceptions of exalted higher powers are constantly called into question by theoretical investigation and by the powerful influence of science and technology on our understanding of the universe, has the notion of transcendence been stripped of its significance? In Levinas's incisive model, transcendence is indeed alive--not in any notion of our relationship to a mysterious, sacred realm but in the idea of our worldly, subjective relationships to others. Without presupposing an intimate knowledge of the history of philosophy, Levinas explores the ways in which Plotinus, Descartes, Husserl, and Heidegger have encountered the question of transcendence. In discourses on the concepts of totality and infinity, he locates his own thinking in the context of pre-Socratic philosophers, Aristotle, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, and Descartes. Always centering his discussions on the idea of interpersonal relations as the basis of transcendence, Levinas reflects on the rights of individuals (and how they are inextricably linked to those of others), the concept of peace, and the dialogic nature of philosophy. Finally, in interviews conducted by Christian Chabanis and Angelo Bianchi, Levinas responds to key questions not directly addressed in his writings. Throughout, _Alterity and Transcendence_ reveals a commitment to ethics as first philosophy--obliging modern thinkers to investigate not merely the true but the good. (shrink)

Réinventer l'humanisme. Retrouver le sens de l'humain. Et pour y parvenir, redéfinir des notions simples l'Autre, l'amour, la liberté, la responsabilité... Humanisme de l'autre homme éclaire les grands thèmes de la pensée d'Emmanuel Lévinas. Texte intégral.

Deux cours. Les deux derniers professés par Emmanuel Lévinas en Sorbonne, durant l'année universitaire 1975-7976. Deux cours qui sont comme une glose méditative autour de quelques mots : Dieu, la mort, le temps. En ouverture, la mort et le temps. Pour la première fois, ces deux notions qui parcourent l'œuvre entière du philosophe sont longuement explicitées. Parallèlement, Lévinas renoue avec sa recherche sur le mot Dieu, inversant les termes du diagnostic heideggerien : lorsque la philosophie a confondu, dès son (...) origine, Dieu et l'être, ce n'est pas tant le second qui a été oublié, c'est d'abord le premier qui a été éclipsé. La tâche de la pensée revient alors à libérer Dieu de l'emprise métaphysique. Au final, ces deux textes éclairent sous un autre jour et à partir d'un angle nouveau trois des thèmes majeurs de la réflexion d'Emmanuel Lévinas. Mais ils reviennent aussi, au gré d'une parole vagabonde, sur d'autres notions fondamentales de l'œuvre : la responsabilité, Autrui, la patience, le Dire, la transendance, le témoignage... (shrink)

Levinas on the possibility and need for humanist ethics In Humanism of the Other, Emmanuel Levinas argues that it is not only possible but of the highest exigency to understand one's humanity through the humanity of others. In paperback for the first time, Levinas's work here is based in a new appreciation for ethics and takes new distances from phenomenology, idealism, and skepticism to rehabilitate humanism and restore its promises. Painfully aware of the long history of dehumanization that reached (...) its apotheosis in Hitler and Nazism, Levinas does not underestimate the difficulty of reconciling oneself with another. The humanity of the human, Levinas argues, is not discoverable through mathematics, rational metaphysics, or introspection. Rather, it is found in the recognition that the other person comes first, that the suffering and mortality of others are the obligations and morality of the self. (shrink)

La 4ème de couv. indique : "Avec "Hors sujet", Emmanuel Levinas revient et approfondit sa réflexion sur le noyau dur de sa philosophie : la relation avec l’Autre. Méditation superbe qui entraîne vers l’analyse des "Droits de l’homme et droits d’autrui", une approche singulière du "Langage quotidien" et de la "rhétorique sans éloquence", ou encore de "La Transcendance des mots". En chemin, le philosophe retrouve la trace de ceux auprès desquels il a fortifié sa propre pensée – Merleau-Ponty, Jankélévitch, (...) Leiris, mais aussi Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig ou Jean Wahl. Une magistrale leçon de philosophie.". (shrink)

In their article ‘Is Pregnancy a Disease? A Normative Approach’, Anna Smajdor and Joona Räsänen contend that, on several of the most prominent accounts of disease, pregnancy should be considered a disease. More specifically, of the five accounts they discuss, each renders pregnancy a disease or suffers serious conceptual problems otherwise. They take issue specifically with the dysfunction account of disease and argue that it suffers several theoretical difficulties. In this response, we focus on defending the dysfunction account against their (...) main objections and show why a version of the dysfunction account is viable on account of the indispensability of normativity in biology and medicine. After disarming their main objections to the dysfunction account, we briefly respond to their treatment of the normality of pregnancy and then draw a distinction between adverse symptoms and underlying causes to show why even though pregnancy may have ‘disease-like’ features, it is not a disease. (shrink)

Bernard Matolino argues that the communal foundation of classical African communitarianism should be discarded if communitarian theories would be of any use to modern African political theory. He sets out to propose a theory of communitarianism that not only suits modern African realities but would also be useful to any people including non-Africans. I argue that what he ends up doing is proposing cosmopolitanism, calling into question the “Afro” designation of the title of his theory. I also argue that his (...) position on the relationship between the individual and the community is technically not communitarianism of any sort, calling into question the “communitarian” appellation in his theory. His attempt to divorce communitarianism from communalism is unsuccessful, making communitarianism as unsuitable as a theory of world relations as Matolino claims it is unsuitable for contemporary multiethnic African societies. (shrink)

When the Matrix trilogy was published in the mid-1980s, it introduced to mass culture a number of post-human tropes about the conscious machines that have haunted our collective imaginaries ever since. This volume explores the social representations and significance of technological developments - especially AI and human enhancement - that have started to transform our human agency. It uses these developments to revisit theories of the human mind and its essential characteristics: a first person perspective, concerns and reflexivity. It looks (...) at how the smart machines are used as agents of change in the basic institutions and organisations that hold contemporary societies together: for example in the family and the household, in commercial corporations, in health institutions, or in the military. Its main purpose it to enrich the ongoing public discussion of the social and political implications of the smart machines by looking at the extent to which they further digitalize and bureaucratize the world, in particular by asking whether they are used to develop techno-totalitarian societies that corrode normativity and solidarity. talize and bureaucratize the world, in particular by asking whether they are used to develop techno-totalitarian societies that corrode normativity and solidarity. (shrink)

In the early 1990s, W.J.T. Mitchell and Gottfried Boehm independently proclaimed that the humanities were witnessing a ‘pictorial’ or ‘iconic turn’. Twenty years later, we may wonder whether this announcement was describing an event that had already taken place or whether it was rather calling forth for it to happen. The contemporary world is, more than ever, determined by visual artefacts. Still, our conceptual arsenal, forged during centuries of logocentrism, still falls behind the complexity of pictorial meaning. The essay has (...) two parts. In the first, it tries to assess the exact meaning of the ‘pictorial’/’iconic turn’, and (re)places it into the context of Anglo-American visual studies and German Bildwissenschaften. It the second, it addresses the famous claim by the philologist Ernst Robert Curtius that ‘image sciences are easy’ by advocating for three ‘turns of the screw’ to make visual studies more difficult: a shift from iconology to symptomatology, a shift from extensive to intensive and a shift from the indicative to the subjunctive. (shrink)

From the biblical text to the Jewish Philosophy of the Twentieth Century, from Walter Benjamin and Emmanuel Levinas to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Giorgio Agamben, from Rilke’s poetry to the poetry of Paul Valéry, the problem of Face, expression and language have been a central topic of Jewish Thought. Among these problems, the discussion of sacred time and profane time becomes the place to think about the problem of Revelation. The main objective of this article is to (...) analyze the Revelation from the perspective of Jewish Thought in relation to the language and problem of the divine Face. It will focus on this, by exploring the philosophy of Levinas and its connection with the biblical text, opening from there the reflection towards other authors in a friendly dialogue. (shrink)

Building on prior research related to impact of information communication technology and operational risk management in the context of medium and small enterprises, the focus of this study was to investigate the relationship between ICT operational risk management and performances of MSEs. To achieve the focus, the research investigated evaluating models for understanding the value of ICT ORM in MSEs. Multiple regression, Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance and Repeated-Measures Multivariate Analysis of Variance were performed. The findings of the distribution revealed that (...) only one variable made a significant percentage contribution to the level of ICT operation in MSEs, the Payback method. It may thus be inferred that the Payback method is the prominent variable, explaining the variation in level of evaluation models affecting ICT adoption within MSEs. Conclusively, in answering the two questions degree of variability explained and predictors, the results revealed that the variable contributed approximately 88.4% of the variations in evaluation models affecting ICT adoption within MSEs. The analysis of variance also revealed that the regression coefficients were real and did not occur by chance. (shrink)

Die Phänomenologie stellt eine der Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie dar und findet in zahlreichen Wissenschaften sowie in Praxis und Therapeutik starke Resonanz. Nach 120 Jahren Wirkungsgeschichte füllt die Bibliothek phänomenologischer Werke zahllose Bücherregale und selbst für Expert:innen ist die Forschungsliteratur mittlerweile unüberschaubar geworden. An allgemeinen Einführungen sowie spezialisierter Fachliteratur mangelt es dabei keineswegs, wohl aber an einem Handbuch, in dem sowohl der Vielfalt der historischen Entwicklungen als auch dem berechtigten Wunsch nach innerer systematischer Kohärenz Rechnung getragen wird. Das Handbuch Phänomenologie schließt (...) diese Lücke. Ausgewiesene Autor:innen bereiten in eigens für diesen Band verfassten Artikeln komplexe sachliche Zusammenhänge übersichtlich auf. Durch seinen Aufbau eignet sich das Handbuch sowohl für Anfänger:innen als auch für Fortgeschrittene. Anhand bündig präsentierter Grundbegriffe und Verfahren konturiert das Handbuch die Spezifik der phänomenologischen Methode, spart dabei jedoch nicht die Kontroversen und methodologischen Neuausrichtungen aus, die von ihrer Lebendigkeit und Vielstimmigkeit zeugen. Ein umfangreicher Schlussteil ist der Rezeption und Anwendung in einzelnen Wirkfeldern gewidmet. Als Hilfsmittel zur eigenständigen Erschließung der phänomenologischen Denkrichtung und zu ihrer Anwendung auf aktuelle Probleme zeichnet sich das Handbuch durch seine Leser:innenfreundlichkeit und einen stark forschungspraktischen Bezug aus. Ein Kompendium, das sich bald als ABC der Phänomenologie etablieren dürfte. (shrink)

Kwame Nkrumah invokes the doctrine of emergentism in the hope of reconciling theism - a tenacious part of the African worldview - with materialism. However, in this article I seek to show that this reconciliation is not only ultimately unsuccessful, but is actually impossible. Towards this end, I identify weaknesses in what I call the six argumentative pillars of Nkrumah’s theory of emergentism (which he calls “philosophical materialism”), namely, his arguments regarding the origin of the cosmic material, the primary reality (...) of matter, idealism, categorial convertibility, dialectic change, and the self-motion of matter. The article should provide not only alternative perspectives to Nkrumah’s metaphysics, but also highlight some broader metaphysical implications for both strong and weak emergentism. (shrink)

Tome 1. L'être relationnel : essai d'ontologie hénologique -- tome 2. L'un multiple : essai d'ontologie hénologique.

"Dieu existe-t-il?", question religieuse par excellence, est sans doute également la première question fondamentale de la métaphysique. Peut-on savoir si Dieu existe au moyen de notre intelligence? Le monde existe, mais peut-on convenir qu'il a pour cause un infini? Et quelle est alors la voie de passage du fini à l'infini? Le sens est la figure de l'Etre : c'est là le fait primaire et fondamental du réel.

Nous arrivons ici au terme de Metaphysica theoria. Nous avons conduit nos investigations en direction de la compréhension philosophique du réel. Il en ressort un point de convergence important et significatif : la compréhension de l'homme se fait à partir du rapport à la Totalité, à l'Être. Metaphysica Theoria est une vision des thèmes éternels : Dieu, l'être, l'homme. Une telle démarche demande souplesse intellectuelle et faculté de penser au-delà des formules toutes faites.

La personne comme question est un sujet qui n'a cessé d'alimenter la réflexion de l'auteur, ceci en s'appuyant sur Husserl. De la préhistoire du concept de personne à son épanouissement médiéval puis jusqu'à sa réactivation phénoménologique, la personne est un combat pour le soi. La perspective généalogique adoptée dans ce livre vise à montrer que c'est la genèse du concept biblique de personne qui montre le véritable sens d'être de la personne, alors que le concept juridique en est dérivé. Citant (...) les auteurs clé de ce concept de personne, ce livre en retrace l'histoire. (shrink)

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo mostrar que el rasgo más significativo del pensamiento del joven Hegel consiste en el análisis de los fundamentos primitivos de la religión cristiana y en la crítica a su desarrollo eclesiástico y doctrinal. Esto se expresa tanto en las diversas interpretaciones que en su período juvenil Hegel elabora sobre las enseñanzas de Jesús, a través de las cuales intenta reformar el espíritu del cristianismo, como en el sentido y función que le atribuye a la (...) religión cristiana en la configuración de la realidad ética, política y social del mundo moderno occidental. Para la realización de dicha tarea se analizan algunos de los más importantes escritos de Hegel de su período en Tubinga, Berna y Frankfurt. (shrink)

Au cours de cet entretien, Emmanuel Renault nous offre un aperçu de la manière dont la thématique de la reconnaissance est traitée en France aujourd’hui, notamment à travers le renouveau des études sur Hegel et Marx. Il explique la façon dont la reconnaissance a pu s’ériger en paradigme (en dépit de ses usages multiples et variés en France comme ailleurs), au cours de la dernière décennie et le rôle joué par Axel Honneth dans ce procès. Finalement, il explicite sa (...) manière d’envisager la pratique de la philosophie politique et son projet d’une critique du capitalisme. Emmanuel Renault nous livre également un commentaire critique mais constructif sur la manière dont Paul Ricœur envisage la reconnaissance et suggère quelques pistes concernant les possibles développements futurs des usages de la reconnaissance. (shrink)

Theories of Legal Relations is an astute examination of existing legal systems that explores the notion of legal relationships and frameworks, using various analytical approaches to legal theory including subjectivist, objectivist, psychological and empirical. Emmanuel Jeuland defends the logical anteriority of relationships in law and their universality (e.g. in the new Chinese Civil Code), addressing new issues such as the possibility of legal relationships with natural and artificial entities. He delves into the consequences of these potential relationships in terms (...) of theory of law, legal reasoning and theory of justice. Chapters discuss legal relationships within legal systems globally, including the intention to create a legal relationship in the UK, declaratory judgments in the US, relationship of courtesy in Germany, and the commercial relationship in France. Providing a well-rounded analytical investigation into legal relations involving relational autonomy, this timely book will be an ideal read for both legal and interdisciplinary scholars interested in legal philosophy, society and culture. Other academics concerned with relationships with natural or artificial entities will also find this book to be a stimulating read. (shrink)

Das 20. Jahrhundert war durch eine radikale Rückbesinnung auf die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von Sprache gekennzeichnet. Der neuzeitliche Traum einer restlosen Benennung des Weltganzen wird fraglich, wenn ihr Medium – die propositionale Aussagelogik – unter Verdacht gerät. Der Band wirft die brisante Frage auf, ob der für das Jahrhundert prägende linguistic turn nicht so sehr in einer Hinwendung, als vielmehr in einer »Abwendung« vom Sagen besteht, die sich in der Entsagungsgeste von Melvilles Bartleby emblematisch verkörpert. Einzelanalysen zu literarischen Strategien bei (...) Mallarmé, Wittgenstein, Celan, Foucault, Adorno, Derrida, Lévinas u.a.m. führen vor, wie Unterlassen nicht nur ein kritisches, sondern auch stets ein schöpferisches Moment in sich birgt. (shrink)

Included here are some cases that highlight exceptional behaviour under the novel coronavirus pandemic that cuts across religious boundaries. The Christian cases were drawn from the United States and South Korea; Islamic cases were drawn both from India and Iran; and the Hindu and Sikh cases were highlighted from India. Of these, notably, Iran is a declared theocracy, whereas the United States and India are arguably contexts of rising Christian and Hindu theocracies. We are familiar with the evidence of the (...) positive role of religions in society. This paper brings together exceptional cases where irrationality, control and selfishness trump wisdom and altruism. The evidence highlighted here shows that people are capable of suspending reason and behaving with a motive inspired by faith, even when it is clear there might be serious personal and social costs involved. (shrink)

Ce volume est la première étape dans la question philosophique de l'existence de Dieu. Qu'est-ce qu'être intelligent sinon la capacité de rechercher et de recevoir la vérité? Il y a plus : la raison peut conduite à la fois, à Dieu. Et même, l'acte de foi est essentiellement un acte d'intelligence. La connaissance de Dieu vivifie la raison et la couronne. L'intelligence a été donnée par Dieu à l'homme et, avec elle, les idées dont l'être est l'âme et Dieu l'intelligence (...) suprême. (shrink)

Process of postmodernism in Indonesia; articles.

This article seeks to question the relationship between “Political”, “Life” and “Action”, returning to the reading of Hannah Arendt’s concept of “ vita active ” in The Human Condition. Particularly, going back to the subject of “action” as a condition of possibility of “political life”. To do this, this analysis will focus on the thought of Philo, especially in a strange text in his corpus: The contemplative life or supplicants. The aim of the paper is to reflect on the place (...) where philosophical reflection and theological reflection as a political forms are installed and what implications does this has: what happens when the foundation of teaching does not pass through the “ vita activa ” but by a passive life under consecration to the task of reflection and study: can we raise from there a communal manner that constitutes politics as in-action? (shrink)

Rwanda is a country that experienced the tragic genocide against Tutsi in 1994. In the aftermath of this, a number of initiatives were taken in the country for sustainable peace through reconstruction and reconciliation. In the education sector, peace and values education is part of the school curricula. The study at hand explores, through document analysis, the perspectives of peace education in primary school curricula of Rwanda. This study aims at explicit and implicit perspectives in which primary school curricula reflect (...) peace education. Though the identified perspectives seem to be promising as far as sustainable peace education is concerned, further empirical studies are recommended to explore how the stated topics, values and teaching methods are put into practice in teaching and learning process. (shrink)