Le volume coordonné par Fabienne Baghdassarian et Gweltaz Guyomarc’h, intitulé Réceptions de la théologie aristotélicienne. D’Aristote à Michel d’Éphèse, paru chez Peeters en 2017, dans la collection dirigée par Pierre Destrée, est le fruit d’un colloque organisé par les éditeurs à l’Université Jean Moulin (Lyon 3) en octobre 2014. Il réunit onze contributions, certaines présentées lors de ce colloque et d’autres inédites, consacrées aux tensions problématiques internes à la théologie d’Arist...

Einstein Versus Bohr is unlike other books on science written by experts for non-experts, because it presents the history of science in terms of problems, conflicts, contradictions, and arguments. Science normally "keeps a tidy workshop." Professor Sachs breaks with convention by taking us into the theoretical workshop, giving us a problem-oriented account of modern physics, an account that concentrates on underlying concepts and debate. The book contains mathematical explanations, but it is so-designed that the whole argument can be followed with (...) the math omitted. Professor Sachs' story begins with classical and nineteenth century physics, describes the early discoveries in particle theory, and introduces the "old" quantum theory, which evolved into the quantum mechanics of the Copenhagen School. Such important ideas as the Einstein Photon Box experiment and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox, and Schrodinger's Cat Paradox are clearly expounded, followed by a completely fresh explanation of relativity in conceptual terms, showing how apparent paradoxes can be removed by Einstein's own interpretation, especially that of his later years. Professor Sachs gives a detailed comparison of the fundamentals of the quantum and relativity theories, suggesting how the contradictions might be resolved. In an epilogue, he makes suggestions, with reference to religious notions, Taoism, and Buber's theory of I-Thou, for generalizing Einstein's approach beyond physics. (shrink)

In this paper I shall venture into an area with which I am not very familiar and in which I feel far from confident; namely into phenomenology. My main motive is not to get away from standard, boring, methodological questions like those of induction and demarcation; but the conviction that a phenomenological account of the empirical basis forms a necessary complement to Popper's falsificationism. According to the latter, a scientific theory is a synthetic and universal, hence unverifiable proposition. In fact, (...) in order to be technologically useful, a scientific hypothesis must refer to future states-of-affairs; it ought therefore to remain unverified. But in order to be empirical, a theory must bear some kind of relation to factual statements. According to Popper, such a relation can only be one of potential conflict. Thus a theory T will be termed scientific if and only if T is logically incompatible with a so-called basic statement b, where b is both empirically verifiable and empirically falsifiable. In other words: T is scientific if it entails ¬b; where b, hence also ¬b, is an empirically decidable proposition. (shrink)

Visual Agnosia is a comprehensive and up-to-date review of disorders of higher vision that relates these disorders to current conceptions of higher vision from cognitive science, illuminating both the neuropsychological disorders and the nature of normal visual object recognition.Brain damage can lead to selective problems with visual perception, including visual agnosia the inability to recognize objects even though elementary visual functions remain unimpaired. Such disorders are relatively rare, yet they provide a window onto how the normal brain might accomplish the (...) complex task of vision. Visual Agnosia reviews a century of case studies of higher-level visual deficits following brain damage, places them in the general context of current neuroscience, and draws relevant conclusions about the organization of normal visual processing. It is unique in drawing on research in cognitive psychology, computational vision, visual neurophysiology, and neuropsychology to interpret the agnosias and draw inferences from them about visual object recognition.Following a historical account of agnosia research, Visual Agnosia offers a taxonomy of a wide range of agnosia syndromes, describing and interpreting the syndromes in terms of the latest theoretical models of visual processing and ultimately bringing them to bear as evidence on a variety of questions in the study of higher vision.Martha J. Farah is Associate Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Visual Agnosia is included in the Issues in Biology of Language and Cognition series, edited by John Marshall. (shrink)

By moving away from the traditional reductionist reading of the quantum theory of atoms in molecules, in this paper we analyze the role played by QTAIM in the relationship between molecular chemistry and quantum mechanics from an emergentist perspective. In particular, we show that such a relationship involves two steps: an intra-domain emergence and an inter-domain emergence. Intra-domain emergence, internal to quantum mechanics, results from the fact that the electron density, from which all the other QTAIM’s concepts are defined, arises (...) from the wavefunction as a coarse-grained magnitude. Inter-domain emergence involves an analogical link, a mapping, between QTAIM’s entities, such as topological atoms and bond paths, and the entities that populate the molecular-chemistry domain, such as chemical atoms and chemical bonds. (shrink)

Can the theory and practice of the yogic tradition serve as a challenge to dominant cultural and political norms in the Western world? In this essay I demonstrate that modern yoga is a creature of fabrication, while arguing that yogic norms can simultaneously reinforce and challenge the norms of contemporary Western neoliberal societies. In its current and most common iteration in the West, yoga practice does stand in danger of reinforcing neoliberal constructions of selfhood. However, yoga does contain ample resources (...) for challenging neoliberal subjectivity, but this requires reading the yogic tradition in a particular way, to emphasize certain philosophical elements over others, while directing its practice toward an inward-oriented detachment from material outcomes and desires. Contemporary claims about yoga’s counterhegemonic status often rely on exaggerated notions of its former “purity” and “authenticity,” which belie its invented and retrospectively reconstructed nature. Rather than engaging in these debates about authenticity, scholars and practitioners may productively turn their energies toward enacting a resistant, anti-neoliberal practice of yoga, while remaining self-conscious about the particularity and partiality of the interpretive position on which such a practice is founded. (shrink)

One of the reasons why moral enhancement may be controversial, is because the advantages of moral enhancement may fall upon society rather than on those who are enhanced. If directed at individuals with certain counter-moral traits it may have direct societal benefits by lowering immoral behavior and increasing public safety, but it is not directly clear if this also benefits the individual in question. In this paper, we will discuss what we consider to be moral enhancement, how different means may (...) be used to achieve it and whether the means we employ to reach moral enhancement matter morally. Are certain means to achieve moral enhancement wrong in themselves? Are certain means to achieve moral enhancement better than others, and if so, why? More specifically, we will investigate whether the difference between direct and indirect moral enhancement matters morally. Is it the case that indirect means are morally preferable to direct means of moral enhancement and can we indeed pinpoint relevant intrinsic, moral differences between both? We argue that the distinction between direct and indirect means is indeed morally relevant, but only insofar as it tracks an underlying distinction between active and passive interventions. Although passive interventions can be ethical provided specific safeguards are put in place, these interventions exhibit a greater potential to compromise autonomy and disrupt identity. (shrink)

This paper explores the ‘indigenous’ philosophy of education of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, a Malay-Muslim scholar who’s theoretical work culminated in the establishment of a counter-colonial higher education institution. Through presenting al-Attas’ life and philosophy and by exploring the arguments of his critics, I aim to shed light on the challenges and paradoxes faced by indigenous academics working at the interface of philosophy and education.

In the spring of 2003, Jacques Derrida sat down for a public debate in Paris with Algerian intellectual Mustapha Chérif. The eminent philosopher arrived at the event directly from the hospital where he had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the illness that would take his life just over a year later. That he still participated in the exchange testifies to the magnitude of the subject at hand: the increasingly distressed relationship between Islam and the West, and the questions of (...) freedom, justice, and democracy that surround it. As Chérif relates in this account of their dialogue, the topic of Islam held special resonance for Derrida—perhaps it is to be expected that near the end of his life his thoughts would return to Algeria, the country where he was born in 1930. Indeed, these roots served as the impetus for their conversation, which first centers on the ways in which Derrida’s Algerian-Jewish identity has shaped his thinking. From there, the two men move to broader questions of secularism and democracy; to politics and religion and how the former manipulates the latter; and to the parallels between xenophobia in the West and fanaticism among Islamists. Ultimately, the discussion is an attempt to tear down the notion that Islam and the West are two civilizations locked in a bitter struggle for supremacy and to reconsider them as the two shores of the Mediterranean—two halves of the same geographical, religious, and cultural sphere. Islam and the West is a crucial opportunity to further our understanding of Derrida’s views on the key political and religious divisions of our time and an often moving testament to the power of friendship and solidarity to surmount them. (shrink)

BackgroundConsidering ethical issues in midwifery care is essential for improving the quality of health services and the client's satisfaction. This study aimed to develop and validate the code of ethics for Midwives in Iran (ICEM).Materials and methodsThis was a mixed sequential study that was performed in three phases including a qualitative study, a review, and the content validity assessment. The first phase was a qualitative study with a content analysis approach. The data were collected by conducting in-depth semi-structured individual interviews (...) with 14 midwifery and ethics experts. The purposive sampling method was used to recruit the participants and sampling continued until data saturation. The data were analyzed using the conventional content analysis described by Graneheim and Lundman. Lincoln and Guba’s criteria were used to confirm the trustworthiness of the data. Then, a narrative review of the selected national and international codes of ethics for Midwives was performed to complete the items of the ICEM. For validity assessment, the face and content validity of the items of ICEM was assessed by 15 experts to calculate the content validity ratio (CVR) and index (CVI).ResultsFourteen experts were interviewed in the qualitative phase, and 207 codes were extracted from a content analysis which were categorized into 23 sub-categories and 6 main categories. The extracted codes were considered as the items for ICEM that were completed by a review of the selected national and international code of ethics for Midwives. The content validity and ratio assessment of the items demonstrated an average CVI = 0.92 and CVR = 0.85. Then, the final version of ICEM was developed with 92 items in 6 domains about; 1) "professional Commitments" with 30 items; 2) "providing midwifery services to the client and her companions” with 26 items; 3) “relationship with colleagues" with 11 items; 4) “herself” with 6 items; 5) “education and research” with 8 items; and, 6) “management” with 11 items.ConclusionICEM was prepared with 92 items in six sections that facilitate its use for midwives who are working in the different fields of care, counseling, education, research, and management. In this new version of the ICEM, the items related to recent social-, scientific, and technical improvements were considered for providing ethical midwifery care. (shrink)

I argue here that a clearer conception of Gandhi's nonviolence is required in order to understand his resonance for contemporary environmentalism. Gandhi's nonviolence incorporates elements of both the brahmin or ascetic, as well as the ksatriya or warrior. Contemporary environmental movements by and large over-emphasize the self-abnegating, self-denying and self-scrutinizing ascetic components of Gandhi's thought, to the neglect of the confrontational and warrior-like ones. In so doing, they often also over-emphasize the ethical dimension of Gandhi's thought, missing the discursive political (...) dimension with which this Gandhian ethics is interwoven. I will argue here that the warrior-like and confrontational political aspect of Gandhi's nonviolence must be brought to the fore in discussions of environmentalism. In so doing, Gandhi can be read as an advocate of a certain form of "ecological" citizenship, requiring both the scrutiny of one's bodily consumptive behaviours, as well as the placement of one's body on the frontlines of aggressive political contestation. (shrink)

When cognitive neuropsychologists make inferences about the functional architecture of the normal mind from selective cognitive impairments they generally assume that the effects of brain damage are local, that is, that the nondamaged components of the architecture continue to function as they did before the damage. This assumption follows from the view that the components of the functional architecture are modular, in the sense of being informationally encapsulated. In this target article it is argued that this “locality” assumption is probably (...) not correct in general. Inferences about the functional architecture can nevertheless be made from neuropsychological data with an alternative set of assumptions, according to which human information processing is graded, distributed, and interactive. These claims are supported by three examples of neuropsychological dissociations and a comparison of the inferences obtained from these impairments with and without the locality assumption. The three dissociations are: selective impairments in knowledge of living things, disengagment of visual attention, and overt face recognition. In all three cases, the neuropsychological phenomena lead to more plausible inferences about the normal functional architecture when the locality assumption is abandoned. Also discussed are the relations between the locality assumption in neuropsychology and broader issues, including Fodor's modularity hypothesis and the choice between top-down and bottom-up research approaches. (shrink)

The Magic of Truth defends truth’s relativity by examining its role in the arts and sciences, as well as in our own lives and traditions. This book argues that no field of study can progress without calling into question the traditional view of truth as a clear, objective image.

Farah Nayeri addresses the difficult questions plaguing the art world, from the bad habits of Old Masters, to the current grappling with identity politics. For centuries, art censorship has been a top-down phenomenon--kings, popes, and one-party states decided what was considered obscene, blasphemous, or politically deviant in art. Today, censorship can also happen from the bottom-up, thanks to calls to action from organizers and social media campaigns. Artists and artworks are routinely taken to task for their insensitivity. In this (...) new world order, artists, critics, philanthropists, galleries and museums alike are recalibrating their efforts to increase the visibility of marginalized voices and respond to the people's demands for better ethics in art. But what should we, the people, do with this newfound power? With exclusive interviews with Nan Goldin, Sam Durant, Faith Ringgold, and others, Nayeri tackles wide-ranging issues including sex, religion, gender, ethics, animal rights, and race. By asking and answering questions such as: Who gets to make art and who owns it? How do we correct the inequities of the past? What does authenticity, exploitation, and appropriation mean in art?, Takedown provides the necessary tools to navigate the art world"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

The eye may be window to the soul, but neuroscientists aim to get inside and measure the interior directly. There's also talk about moving some walls.

What if neurofeedback or other types of neurotechnological treatment, by itself or in combination with behavioral treatment, could achieve a successful “rewiring” of the psychopath’s brain? Imagine that such treatments exist and that they provide a better long-term risk-minimizing strategy compared to imprisonment. Would it be ethical to offer such treatments as a condition of probation, parole, or prison release? In this paper, I argue that it can be ethical to offer effective, non-invasive neurotechnological treatments to offenders as a condition (...) of probation, parole, or prison release provided that: the status quo is in no way cruel, inhuman, degrading, or in some other way wrong, the treatment option is in no way cruel, inhuman, degrading, or in some other way wrong, the treatment is in the best interests of the offender, and the offender gives his/her informed consent. (shrink)

This paper investigates the philosophical tensions between secular-liberalism and Islam, and reviews Islamic conceptualisations of knowledge, personhood and education, in order to conceptualise shakhsiyah Islamiyah as an authentic and credible form of personal agency within an Islamic worldview. It begins by examining the liberal critique of Islamic education and explores notions of authority and autonomy in Islamic educational theory. It proposes that these tensions exist to varying degrees in all educational practice. Some theoretical work to develop an Islamic understanding of (...) personal autonomy as selfhood is presented and translated into a concept of shakhsiyah Islamiyah. Finally, the possibility of understanding shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self is explored. (shrink)

In this essay, the authors analyze the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of inequalities and socio-economic vulnerabilities. We argue that the current pandemic has been looked at mainly through the lens of biology, leaving sociological blind spots in the response to this pandemic that have had adverse effects. We conclude with the suggestion that apart from recommendations from health sciences, policy makers must also take into account local societal structures in order to design effective policies to control the contagion.

This paper discusses the use of deep brain stimulation for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders in children. At present, deep brain stimulation is used to treat movement disorders in children and a few cases of deep brain stimulation for psychiatric disorders in adolescents have been reported. Ethical guidelines on the use of deep brain stimulation in children are therefore urgently needed. This paper focuses on the decision-making process, and provides an ethical framework for (future) treatment decisions in pediatric (...) deep brain stimulation. I defend a shared decision-making model in case of deep brain stimulation for neurological and psychiatric disorders in children. To protect the vulnerable child patient, a dual consent process is needed where parents or parental guardians give their consent, and the child gives his/her assent. (shrink)

Human rights law has been called upon to help with the problem of persistently high greenhouse gas emissions. An obligation on states and other legal entities to lower their emissions (mitigation) is said to be deducible from that body of law. I refute this thesis. First, I consider two practical difficulties—causality and non-triviality—that face a plaintiff who, with emission mitigation as the objective, attempts to prove a human rights violation using the regular pattern of proof for a violation. Proponents of (...) the “human rights approach” to mitigation have held that proof of an emission “contribution” by the defendant together with proof of an “impact” by climate change on the plaintiff’s human rights are sufficient to discharge the evidentiary burden for the proof of causation. The rest of the causation chain is simply presumed. Thus, the original proof pattern for a human rights violation is abandoned. The proponents’ answer to the triviality difficulty has been to aggregate emitters into very large entities and sue _them_. However, aggregation can be shown to lead to a _reductio ad absurdum_. In my argument’s second part, I identify a more fundamental difficulty with the human rights approach to mitigation: The defendant’s emissions do not amount to a norm violation. Everyone contributes emissions without legislative or other prohibition. Treaty law on climate change itself recognizes emitting behaviour as lawful and permits the continuation of state emissions through to at least 2050. A rise in global warming from preindustrial levels to 1.5° Celsius with room for an even greater rise to close to 2° Celsius has been _budgeted for_ by the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The setting up of a budget affirms the normalized status of within-budget emissions. This universal license to emit denies the human rights approach to mitigation the very conditions of application of human rights law. (shrink)

Zunächst wird anhand von drei europäischen Schriftstellern, Ärzten und Historikern und in Form von zusammengesetzten Auszügen eine Zusammenfassung der arabisch-islamischen Medizin während 500 Jahren vorgelegt.Die Ethik im allgemeinen und dann in der Medizin der Araber im speziellen wird fortfahrend sehr klar dargestellt.Da im Islam die Wissenschaft sehr gelobt und vorangetrieben wird, ist die schnelle Entwicklung der modernen Medizin – Klonen, Organverpflanzung, Exitus, Sterbehilfe etc. – nicht in Kontradiktion mit der Religion, vorausgesetzt, daß die Einheit Gottes und die Würde seiner Propheten (...) – Moses, Jesus und Mohammed – nicht und die Würde des Menschen selbst nicht erniedrigt wird. (shrink)

Like people, academic fields grow, acquire an identity, establish goals, and ultimately impact the world in various ways. Here we check in with our young friend Neuroethics—a field I want to see develop and thrive. This won't happen if it keeps returning to issues like cognitive enhancement or neural causation of behavior and responsibility, with minor adjustments of its analyses. Neuroethics is at its best when scanning the horizon for new scientific and technical developments that intersect in new ways with (...) ethics and law. Consider the development of open‐ and closed‐loop deep brain stimulation for behavioral disorders. Under what conditions are patients responsible for their behavior when it is influenced by an implanted system? Neuroethics has also increased understanding of people's beliefs and attitudes toward neuroscience and its applications because effective policy must take empirical facts into account. (shrink)