Ce livre contient les actes d'un seminaire de recherche qui fut organise au sein de l'Institut superieur de philosophie a Louvain-la-Neuve en 1996. Centre sur des problemes de methodologie souleves par l'edition, la traduction et l'interpretation des textes anciens et medievaux, ce seminaire poursuivit le but de mettre en relief les presuppositions philosophiques qui sous-tendent toute decision methodologique. Ainsi Philipp W. Rosemann essaie de montrer dans sa contribution que le neo-medievisme actuel ne peut etre compris que dans le contexte du (...) mouvement postmoderne; Jos Decorte et Charles Burnett analysent les fondements theoriques de la pratique medievale de la traduction; Laura Rizzerio parle de la difficulte d'interpreter une philosophie qui, comme celle de Platon, questionne la valeur de l'ecriture; Steve G. Lofts se penche sur les connections entre strategies d'interpretation et philsophie de l'histoire chez Cassirer. D'autres contributions decrivent de nouvelles approches methodologiques a des problemes anciens, tels la difficile question de l'authenticite et chronologie des oeuvres aristoteliciennes (Christian Rutten) ou le probleme de la traduction des textes thomistes (C. Brouwer - M. Peeters). (shrink)

Within current debates about the future impact of Artificial Intelligence on human society, roughly three different perspectives can be recognised: the technology-centric perspective, claiming that AI will soon outperform humankind in all areas, and that the primary threat for humankind is superintelligence; the human-centric perspective, claiming that humans will always remain superior to AI when it comes to social and societal aspects, and that the main threat of AI is that humankind’s social nature is overlooked in technological designs; and the (...) collective intelligence-centric perspective, claiming that true intelligence lies in the collective of intelligent agents, both human and artificial, and that the main threat for humankind is that technological designs create problems at the collective, systemic level that are hard to oversee and control. The current paper offers the following contributions: a clear description for each of the three perspectives, along with their history and background; an analysis and interpretation of current applications of AI in human society according to each of the three perspectives, thereby disentangling miscommunication in the debate concerning threats of AI; and a new integrated and comprehensive research design framework that addresses all aspects of the above three perspectives, and includes principles that support developers to reflect and anticipate upon potential effects of AI in society. (shrink)

Using telephone interviews among a random sample of 537 Dutch children aged 7–12 years old, we investigated the prevalence of fear reactions to television news among younger and older children and among boys and girls, what types of news items children in different age and gender groups refer to as frightening, and whether children's fear reactions to regular adult television news differed from their fear reactions to a special children's news program. Overall, 48.2 % of the children who reported watching (...) the adult or children's news programs, reported fear reactions to adult news, while 32.6 % reported fear of children's news content. For both types of news programs, younger children and girls more often reported fear than older children and boys did. The most prevalent fear-inducing news content categories were interpersonal violence, fires, accidents, and disasters, and visual depictions of the consequences of violence. (shrink)

In humans over 15% of X‐linked genes have been shown to ‘escape’ from X‐chromosome inactivation (XCI): they continue to be expressed to some extent from the inactive X chromosome. Mono‐allelic expression is anticipated within a cell for genes subject to XCI, but random XCI usually results in expression of both alleles in a cell population. Using a study of allelic expression from cultured lymphoblasts and fibroblasts, many of which showed substantial skewing of XCI, we recently reported that the expression of (...) genes lies on a contiunuum between those that are subject to inactivation, and those that escape. We now review allelic expression studies from mouse, and discuss the variability in escape seen in both humans and mice in genic expression levels, between X chromosomes and between tissues. We also discuss current knowledge of the heterochromatic features, DNA elements and three‐dimensional topology of the inactive X that contribute to the balance of expression from the otherwise inactive X chromosome. (shrink)

The most common difficulty in translation studies has traditionally been the dilemma between the historical and synchronic approaches in the analysis and description of the culture of translation. On the one hand the culture of translation might be presented as the sum of various kinds of translated texts (repertoire of culture), on the other hand it might be described as the hierarchy of the various types of translations themselves. The first approach assumes plenty of languages for such description, in the (...) latter one suggests only one language for the same representation. A cultural critic faces the same problems. In these perspectives the translation reveals important mechanisms of the performance of culture. First of all it is the semiotic interpretation of the theory of translation, introduced by the number of scientists beginning with R. Jakobson and including U. Eco who put together interlinguistic, intra-linguistic, and inter-semiotic translations, so crucial for the further understanding of culture. As a result, the general notion of culture might be described as the process of total translation. And secondly, the othervaluable contribution to the theory of translation has been made by both M. Bakhtin and J. Lotman in terms of the synthesis of two traditions in semiotics of culture resulted in juxtaposing such notions as dialogism and autonomy — creolization, polyphony, counterword, and translation. (shrink)

Grandiose narcissistic traits refer to exploitative and arrogant attitudes, while vulnerable narcissistic traits entail hypersensitivity to judgment and low self-esteem. Little is known about how individuals with narcissistic traits can improve their attitudes toward themselves and others. The current research puts self- and other compassion forward as possible targets to alleviate some of destructive patterns of narcissism. Generally, self-compassion has previously been associated with beneficial effects on psychological wellbeing, while other compassion is advantageous for interpersonal relationships. This study explored the (...) relationship between narcissistic traits and the efficacy of experimental compassion inductions. Student and community participants completed grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic trait, SC and OC state questionnaires, and either an SC or OC induction. It was expected that individuals with higher narcissistic traits would benefit from the inductions and show higher SC after but would have greater difficulty showing meaningful increases in OC. The results indicated that individual differences in grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic traits are related to the magnitude of improvements following the inductions: the theorized lack of SC in individuals with vulnerable oversensitivity to judgment traits seems possible to be counteracted through different types of compassion exercises. Moreover, higher grandiose exploitativeness–entitlement and global vulnerable narcissistic traits related to less increases than others. However, directly inducing OC in individuals with these traits was linked to greater OC improvements than improvements after inducing SC. Overall, the present findings suggest that self-compassionate behavior can be improved in individuals with high oversensitivity and that other compassionate behavior could potentially be increased if, specifically, other compassion exercises are utilized when higher levels of certain narcissistic traits are present. (shrink)

Before the so-called 'bill Moureaux ', the health insurance policy in Belgium was contracted out by the government to the health workers and the health funds. Also in other sectors, government contracted out. This subsidiarity has advantages and disadvantages. Especially because of the unbearable budgetary excesses, this situation started to change since the beginning of the eighties, starting with the hospital sector. In the early nineties, the management of the sickness insurance also went through some radical changes. The budgetary envelope (...) is now mainly established by those who finance the system, e.g. the government and the social partners, who must take their responsibilities. In this new perception, all partners must be made truly accountable.Government must pass on statistic material in order to be able to pursue a well-informed policy. It must also crank up some social debates, namely about the demographic ageing.Health funds and organisations of physicians need a further democratization. The health funds must accomplish at the same time several functions: pressure group, service and consumer defence. (shrink)

In view of the aging and dejuvenation of the working population and the expected shortages in employees’ skills in the future, it is of utmost importance to focus on older workers’ employability in order to prolong their working life until, or even beyond, their official retirement age. The primary aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between older workers’ employability (self-)perceptions and their intention to continue working until their official retirement age. In addition, we studied the role (...) of potential antecedents of their perceived employability at three different levels: training and education in current expertise area as well as in an adjacent expertise area (individual level factor), learning value of the job (job level factor), and organizational career management practices (organizational level factor). Data were collected by means of e-questionnaires that were distributed among two groups of Dutch older (45-plus) white collar workers. The samples consisted of 223 employees of an insurance company, and 325 university workers, respectively. Our research model was tested separately in each sample using Structural Equation Modeling. We controlled for effects of respondents’ (self-)perceived health and (self-)perceived financial situation. Similar results were found for both samples. First, the relationship of perceived employability with the intention to continue working until one’s retirement age was positive, whereas the relationship between a perceived good financial situation with the intention to continue working until one’s retirement age was negative. Secondly, as regards the potential antecedents, results showed that the learning value of the job was positively related to perceived employability. In addition, an employee’s perception of good health is a relevant correlate of perceived employability. So, whereas perceived employability contributes to the intention to continue working until one’s retirement age, a good financial situation is a push factor to retire early. In order to promote the labor participation of older workers, this study indicates that organizations should focus on the learning possibilities that are inherent to one’s job rather than on providing additional training or career management. Further research is needed to test the generalizability of our results to other samples. (shrink)

Benenson et al. amass impressive evidence of robust sex differences as support for expanding “staying alive” theory. We argue for a broader and more domain-specific conceptualization focusing on life history tradeoffs between survival and mating success. Using three examples – women's disgust, fear of rape, and cultivation of bodyguards – we illustrate these tradeoffs and suggest a broader theoretical framework.

This study examines the extent to which the highly diverse and volatile Dutch electorate received a diverse offer of political newspaper coverage during the 2006 general election campaign. We measured the level of diversity of five subscription based national newspapers with a partisan history and two free dailies. Two forms of diversity were examined: party diversity and issue diversity. The diversity of party coverage in the free dailies was greater than the diversity across all newspapers. Whereas free dailies paid a (...) relatively large amount of attention to new and opposition parties, traditional newspapers paid a relatively large amount of attention to the parties with whom they were aligned during the period of “pillarization”. Conversely, we only found small differences in the distribution of attention to issues. The diversity of issue coverage across newspapers was larger than the diversity within newspapers. (shrink)

Training in scientific integrity continues to be an important topic in universities and other research institutions. Its main goal is to prevent scientific misconduct and promote good scientific practice. However, there is still no consensus on how scientific integrity should be taught. Moreover, the perspective of those who receive such training is often underrepresented. Yet it is precisely their interests and needs that must be considered when developing educational programs. Against this backdrop, we conducted a mixed-methods study with the goal (...) of capturing students’ perspectives on the teaching of scientific integrity. Using our online Scientific Integrity course, we explore what specific aspects of digital teaching on scientific integrity are valued, and explore other topics of interest from students’ perspectives on scientific integrity. The article presents (1) students’ self-assessment before (Q1) and after (Q2) taking the online Scientific Integrity course at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany (2) students’ feedback on the course format, video, exam, organization, and support (Q2) (3) a list of other topics of interest in the area of scientific integrity (Q2). The research outcomes demonstrate an improvement in the study participants’ self-assessment after following the online course and there is a general satisfaction among the students in regard to the course digital format and its components although a desire to have more exchange and discussion was expressed. Further topics of interest in the area of scientific integrity that study participants would like to learn about have a practical appeal and among others include research pressure, examples of applications, preventive measures, theory of science, citation rules, funding of university research. Although the results relate to our course, they provide insight into students’ perspectives on online teaching of scientific integrity. Thus, they may be helpful to higher education institutions developing online courses on scientific integrity that are tailored to university students. (shrink)

Knowledge of the ethical and legal basis of medicine is as essential to clinical practice as an understanding of basic medical sciences. In the UK, the General Medical Council requires that medical graduates behave according to ethical and legal principles and must know about and comply with the GMC’s ethical guidance and standards. We suggest that these standards can only be achieved when the teaching and learning of medical ethics, law and professionalism are fundamental to, and thoroughly integrated both vertically (...) and horizontally throughout, the curricula of all medical schools as a shared obligation of all teachers. The GMC also requires that each medical school provides adequate teaching time and resources to achieve the above. We reiterate that the adequate provision and coordination of teaching and learning of ethics and law requires at least one full-time senior academic in ethics and law with relevant professional and academic expertise. In this paper we set out an updated indicative core content of learning for medical ethics and law in UK medical schools and describe its origins and the consultative process by which it was achieved. (shrink)

Contemporary Western societies are obsessed with the “obesity epidemic,” dieting, and fitness. Fat people violate the Western conscience by violating a thinness norm. In virtue of violating the thinness norm, fat people suffer many varied consequences. Is their suffering morally permissible, or even obligatory? In this paper, I argue that the answer is no. I examine contemporary philosophical accounts of oppression and draw largely on the work of Sally Haslanger to generate a set of conditions sufficient for some phenomena to (...) count as oppression, and I illustrate the account’s value using the example of gender oppression. I then apply the account to fat people, examine empirical evidence, and argue that the suffering of fat people counts as oppression. (shrink)

In _Violence and Civility_, Étienne Balibar boldly confronts the insidious causes of violence, racism, nationalism, and ethnic cleansing worldwide, as well as mass poverty and dispossession. Through a novel synthesis of theory and empirical studies of contemporary violence, the acclaimed thinker pushes past the limits of political philosophy to reconceive war, revolution, sovereignty, and class. Through the pathbreaking thought of Derrida, Balibar builds a topography of cruelty converted into extremism by ideology, juxtaposing its subjective forms and its objective manifestations. Engaging (...) with Marx, Hegel, Hobbes, Clausewitz, Schmitt, and Luxemburg, Balibar introduces a new, productive understanding of politics as antiviolence and a fresh approach to achieving and sustaining civility. Rooted in the principles of transformation and empowerment, this theory brings hope to a world increasingly divided even as it draws closer together. (shrink)

Next SectionFollowing the influential Gifford and Reith lectures by Onora O’Neill, this paper explores further the paradigm of individual autonomy which has been so dominant in bioethics until recently and concurs that it is an aberrant application and that conceptions of individual autonomy cannot provide a sufficient and convincing starting point for ethics within medical practice. We suggest that revision of the operational definition of patient autonomy is required for the twenty first century. We follow O’Neill in recommending a principled (...) version of patient autonomy, which for us involves the provision of sufficient and understandable information and space for patients, who have the capacity to make a settled choice about medical interventions on themselves, to do so responsibly in a manner considerate to others. We test it against the patient–doctor relationship in which each fully respects the autonomy of the other based on an unspoken covenant and bilateral trust between the doctor and patient. Indeed we consider that the dominance of the individual autonomy paradigm harmed that relationship. Although it seems to eliminate any residue of medical paternalism we suggest that it has tended to replace it with an equally (or possibly even more) unacceptable bioethical paternalism. In addition it may, for example, lead some doctors to consider mistakenly that unthinking acquiescence to a requested intervention against their clinical judgement is honouring “patient autonomy” when it is, in fact, abrogation of their duty as doctors. (shrink)

In this paper we consider an intuitionistic variant of the modal logic S4 (which we call IS4). The novelty of this paper is that we place particular importance on the natural deduction formulation of IS4— our formulation has several important metatheoretic properties. In addition, we study models of IS4— not in the framework of Kirpke semantics, but in the more general framework of category theory. This allows not only a more abstract definition of a whole class of models but also (...) a means of modelling proofs as well as provability. (shrink)

Aristotle argued that you need some wealth to live well. The Stoics argued that you could live well with or without wealth. But the Cynics argued that wealth is a hinderance. For the Cynics, a good life consists in self-sufficiency, or being able to rule and help yourself. You accomplish this by living simply and naturally, and by subjecting yourself to rigorous philosophical exercises. Cynics confronted people to get them to abandon extraneous possessions and positions of power to live better. (...) And while the Cynics were experts in living in this way, their ascetic lifestyles made their message curious to some audiences. This paper reflects on Cynic ascetic practices and the ways others perceived them. (shrink)

Research ethics committees are charged with providing an opinion on whether research proposals are ethical. These committees are overseen by a central office that acts for the Department of Health and hence the State. An advisory group has recently reported back to the Department of Health, recommending that it should deal with inconsistency in the decisions made by different RECs. This article questions the desirability and feasibility of questing for consistent ethical decisions.

To speak of ‘the real subject’ or ‘the primary aim’ of a Platonic dialogue usually means to magnify one aspect of it at the expense of other aspects as important. Such is not my intention. It is quite clear, however, without prejudice to the philosophic value of any of the topics discussed, that the Protagoras is an attack upon the sophists as represented by Protagoras, the greatest of them. Hippias and Prodicus are present and some of the great man's glory (...) is reflected upon them; they are also no doubt to some extent implicated in his defeat, though they seem quite unaware of the fact. (shrink)

It is a fundamental cornerstone of thermodynamics that entropy (SU,V\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$S_{U,V}$$\end{document}) increases in spontaneous processes in isolated systems (often called closed or thermally closed systems when the transfer of energy as work is considered to be negligible) and achieves a maximum when the system reaches equilibrium. But with a different sign convention entropy could just as well be said to decrease to a minimum in spontaneous constant U, V processes. It would then (...) change in the same direction as the thermodynamic potentials in spontaneous processes. This article discusses but does not advocate such a change. (shrink)

This paper explores ethical issues relating to the management of patients who are terminally ill and unable to maintain their own nutrition and hydration. A policy of sedation without hydration or nutrition is used in palliative medicine under certain circumstances. The author argues that this policy is dangerous, medically, ethically and legally, and can be disturbing for relatives. The role of the family in management is discussed. This issue requires wide debate by the public and the profession.

Grote's powerful defence of Thrasyllus' canon should have taught us at least not to reject lightly any dialogue which, like the Hippias Maior, is there classed as genuine. The burden of proof lies with those who attack our dialogue. Raeder, Ritter, and Apelt consider it to be genuine, while Ast, Jowett, Horneffer, and Röllig declare against it, as also Gomperz, Zeller, and Lutoslawski.

Individual and Society in Buddhism. W. G. Weeraratne. Metro Printers Ltd., Colombo. 101pp £2.

The classical Athenian philosopher Socrates was tried in 399 BCE on the basis of two notoriously ambiguous charges: corrupting the youth and impiety (in Greek, asebeia). A majority of the 501 dikasts (Athenian citizen-jurors) voted to convict him. Socrates was ultimately sentenced to death by drinking a hemlock-based liquid. This well-known account of the trial is by Plato, one of Socrates' students and a famous philosopher in his own right. Whether Socrates was punished unjustly is a contested issue which to (...) this day inspires discussions about the nature and meaning of justice. (shrink)