La tesis doctoral que desarrolló Marx entre 1838 y 1841 fue uno de los primeros trabajos filosóficos del pensador nacido en Tréveris. En el trabajo, que tituló Diferencia entre la filosofía de la naturaleza de Demócrito y Epicuro, quiere demostrar que hay una diferencia específica entre estos dos autores. Más allá de esto, el objetivo general era demostrar que las escuelas posaristotélicas o helénicas tienen un pensamiento propio que no copia ninguna de las tesis de sus predecesores. Pero, ¿por qué (...) Marx tomó a Demócrito y Epicuro y no a otros autores, como Sexto Empírico, Zenón de Citio o Antístenes? ¿Qué método utilizó Marx al realizar su tesis doctoral? En este escrito se quiere retomar ese texto, que para algunos no tiene mayor relevancia dentro de los primeros intereses filosóficos del alemán, para dilucidar que ya tenía nociones de un humanismo en el cual la libertad de la naturaleza física prima y en el que históricamente se empieza a acercar a las nociones materialistas y a dejar de lado los empantanados ríos de la metafísica hegeliana. (shrink)

The small-improvement argument is usually considered the most powerful argument against comparability, viz the view that for any two alternatives an agent is rationally required either to prefer one of the alternatives to the other or to be indifferent between them. We argue that while there might be reasons to believe each of the premises in the small-improvement argument, there is a conflict between these reasons. As a result, the reasons do not provide support for believing the conjunction of the (...) premises. Without support for the conjunction of the premises, the small-improvement argument for incomparability fails. (shrink)

En este artículo se analizan los conceptos hegelianos de infinito malo e infinito verdadero al hilo de una revisión de la noción de infinitud en la tradición filosófica alemana con la que discute. Puntualmente, abordaremos las formulaciones sobre la relación finitud-infinitud en la obra de Kant, Fichte y Schlegel antes de exponer la interpretación que hace Hegel de la manera en la que la filosofía trascendental y el romanticismo alemán se aproximaron a este asunto. Finalmente, presentamos la verdadera forma en (...) la que, según Hegel, hay que entender lo infinito. (shrink)

La formación docente es indispensable para responder a los requerimientos de la compleja sociedad actual. De su conocimiento, iniciativa, praxis y creatividad depende el éxito o el fracaso del sujeto que aprende. Al modificar el rol del docente se transforma la actitud de los estudiantes. ¿Cómo entender la formación filosófica transdisciplinar? Este texto responde a este y otros cuestionamientos: ¿cuáles son los planteamientos pedagógicos afines a la era digital? ¿en qué medida las TIC se encuentran al servicio de una filosofía (...) educativa transdisciplinar?, ¿cómo se explica ese enfoque en la formación del docente?, ¿cuál es la función de la formación en la innovación educativa?, ¿cómo formar para la ciudadanía mundial?, ¿cuáles son las contribuciones de las nuevas ciencias para la formación educativa? El crecimiento exponencial de la ciencia y de la tecnología nos obliga a pensar en procesos formativos innovadores. En tal sentido, resulta imprescindible el estudio de estas problemáticas. (shrink)

Theoreticians of civilization have defined a series of anomalies of the European culture as cultural maladies. But this notion was used from author to author with very different meanings, being vaguely defined or used as a simple metaphor. In the ideological discourse of the Third Reich the references to the maladies of the European culture are frequently correlated to the references to the savior Reich. The present study suggests the concept of axiological malady in order to designate more precisely a (...) series of unhealthy phenomenon of the European culture, for instance the puerilism. (shrink)

Aims and hypothesesIn an environment of absolute silence, researchers have found many of their participants to perceive phantom sounds. With this between-subject experiment, we aimed to elaborate on these research findings, and specifically investigated whether–in line with the fear-avoidance model of tinnitus perception and reactivity–fear or level of perceived threat influences the incidence and perceptual qualities of phantom sound percepts in an anechoic room. We investigated the potential role of individual differences in anxiety, negative affect, noise sensitivity and subclinical hearing (...) loss. We hypothesized that participants who experience a higher level of threat would direct their attention more to the auditory system, leading to the perception of tinnitus-like sounds, which would otherwise be subaudible, and that under conditions of increased threat, narrowing of attention would lead to perceptual distortions.MethodsIn total, N = 78 normal-hearing volunteers participated in this study. In general, the study sample consisted of young, mostly female, university students. Their hearing was evaluated using gold-standard pure tone audiometry and a speech-in-noise self-test, which is a sensitive screening test to identify subclinical hearing loss. Prior to a four-minute stay in an anechoic room, we randomized participants block design-wise in a threat and no-threat condition. Participants in the threat condition were deceived about their hearing and were led to believe that staying in the room would potentially harm their hearing temporarily. Participants were asked whether they perceived sounds during their stay in the room and rated the perceptual qualities of sound percepts. They were also asked to fill-out standardized questionnaires measuring anxiety, affect and noise sensitivity. The internal consistency of the questionnaires used was verified in our study sample and ranged between α = 0.61 and α = 0.90.ResultsIn line with incidence rates reported in the literature, 74% of our participants reported having heard tinnitus-like sounds in the anechoic room. Speech-in-noise identification ability was comparable for both groups of participants. The experimental manipulation of threat was proven to be effective, as indicated by significantly higher scores on a Threat Manipulation Checklist among participants in the threat condition as compared to those in the no-threat condition. Nevertheless, participants in the threat condition were as likely to report tinnitus percepts as participants in the no-threat condition, and tinnitus percepts were not rated as being louder or more unpleasant as a function of level of threat. For participants who did experience tinnitus percepts, a higher level of threat was associated with a higher degree of experienced unpleasantness. These associations were absent in those who did not experience tinnitus. Higher negative affect was only slightly associated with higher ratings of tinnitus unpleasantness.ConclusionWhereas our threat manipulation was successful in elevating the level of fear, it did not contribute to a higher percentage of participants perceiving tinnitus-like sounds in the threat condition. However, higher levels of perceived threat were related to a higher degree of perceived tinnitus unpleasantness. The findings of our study are drawn from a rather homogenous participant pool in terms of age, gender, and educational background, challenging conclusions that are applicable for the general population. Participants generally obtained normophoric scores on independent variables of interest: they were low anxious, low noise-sensitive, and there was little evidence for the presence of subclinical hearing loss. Possibly, there was insufficient variation in scores to find effects. (shrink)

PREFACEProf. Göran Sundholm of Leiden University inspired the group of Logic at Lille and Valparaíso to start a fundamental review of the dialogical conception of logic by linking it to constructive type logic. One of Sundholm's insights was that inference can be seen as involving an implicit interlocutor. This led to several investigations aimed at exploring the consequences of joining winning strategies to the proof-theoretical conception of meaning. The leading idea is, roughly, that while introduction rules lay down the conditions (...) under which a winning strategy for the Proponent may be built, the elimination rules lay down those elements of the Opponent's assertions that the Proponent has the right to use for building winning strategy. It is the pragmatic and ethical features of obligations and rights that naturally lead to the dialogical interpretation of natural deduction.During the Visiting Professorship of Prof. Sundholm at Lille in (2012) the group of Lille started delving into the ways of implementing Per Martin-Löf's Constructive Type Theory with the dialogical perspective. In particular, Aarne Ranta's (1988) paper, the first publication on the subject, was read and discussed during Sundholm’s seminar. The discussions strongly suggested that the game-theoretical conception of quantifiers as deploying interdependent moves provide a natural link between CTT and dialogical logic. This idea triggered several publications by the group of Lille in collaboration with Nicolas Clerbout and Juan Redmond at the University of Valparaíso, including the publication of the book (2015) by Clerbout / Rahman that provides a systematic development of this way of linking CTT and the dialogical conception of logic. However the Clerbout / Rahman book was written from the CTT perspective on dialogical logic, rather than the other way round. The present book should provide the perspective from the other side of the dialogue between the Dialogical Framework and Constructive Type Theory. The main idea of our present study is that Sundholm's (1997) notion of epistemic assumption is closely linked to the Copy-Cat Rule or Socratic Rule that distinguishes the dialogical framework from other game-theoretical approaches. One way to read the present book is as a further development of Sundholm’s extension of Austin's (1946, p. 171) remark on acts of assertion to inference. Indeed, Sundholm (2013, p. 17) gave the following forceful formulation: When I say therefore, I give others my authority for asserting the conclusion, given theirs for asserting the premisses.Per Martin-Löf, in recent lectures, have utilized the dialogical perspective on epistemic assumptions to get out of a certain circle that threatens the explanation of the notions of inference and demonstration. A demonstration may be explained as a chain of (immediate) inferences starting from no premisses. That an inference J1... Jn—————Jis valid means that the conclusion J can be made evident on the assumption that J1, …, Jn are known. The notion of epistemic assumption thus enters in the explanation of valid inference. We cannot, however, in this explanation understand 'known' in the sense of demonstrated, for then we are explaining the notion of inference in terms of demonstration, whereas demonstration has been explained in terms of inference. Martin-Löf suggests that we here understand 'known' in the sense of asserted, so that epistemic assumptions are judgements others have made, judgements for which others have taken the responsibility; that the inference is valid then means that, given that others have taken responsbility for the premisses, I can take responsibility for the conclusion:The circularity problem is this: if you define a demonstration to be a chain of immediate inferences, then you are defining demonstration in terms of inference. Now we are considering an immediate inference and we are trying to give a proper explanation of that; but, if that begins by saying: Assume that J1, …, Jn have been demonstrated – then you are clearly in trouble, because you are about to explain demonstration in terms of the notion of immediate inference, hence when you are giving an account of the notion of immediate inference, the notion of demonstration is not yet at your disposal. So, to say: Assume that J1, …, Jn have already been demonstrated, makes you accusable of trying to explain things in a circle. The solution to this circularity problem, it seems to me now, comes naturally out of this dialogical analysis. […]The solution is that the premisses here should not be assumed to be known in the qualified sense, that is, to be demonstrated, but we should simply assume that they have been asserted, which is to say that others have taken responsibility for them, and then the question for me is whether I can take responsibility for the conclusion. So, the assumption is merely that they have been asserted, not that they have been demonstrated. That seems to me to be the appropriate definition of epistemic assumption in Sundholm's sense. One of the main tenets of the present study is that the further move of relating the Socratic Rule rule with judgemental equality provides both a simpler and more direct way to implement the constructive type theoretical approach within the dialogical framework. Such a reconsideration of the Socratic Rule, roughly speaking, amounts to the following. 1.A move from P that brings-forward a play-object in order to defend an elementary proposition A can be challenged by O. 2.The answer to such a challenge, involves P bringing forward a definitional equality that expresses the fact that the play-object chosen by P copies the one O has chosen while positing A. For short, the equality expresses at the object-languaje level that the defence of P relies on the authority given to O to be able to produce the play-objects she brings forward. More generally, according to this view, a definitional equality established by P and brought forward while defending the proposition A, expresses the equality between a play-object (introduced by O) and the instruction for building a play-object deployed by O while affirming A. So it can be read as a computation rule that indicates how to compute O's instructions. Let us recall that from the strategic point of view, O's moves correspond to elimination rules of demonstrations. Thus, the dialogical rules that prescribe how to introduce a definitional equality – correspond – at the strategic level – to the definitional equality rules for CTT as applied to the selector-functions involved in the elimination rules. So, what we are doing here is extending the dialogical interpretation of Sundholm's epistemic assumption to the rules that set up the definitional equality of a type.The present work is structured in the following way:•In the Introduction we state the main tenets that guide our book•Chapter II contains a brief overview of Constructive Type Theory penned by Ansten Klev with exercises and their solutions. •Chapter III offers a novel presentation of the dialogical conception of logic. In fact, the first two sections of the chapter provide an overview of standard dialogical logic – including solved exercises, slightly adapted to the content of the present volume. The rest of the sections develop a new dialogical approach to Constructive Type Theory. •Chapters IV and V contain the main body of our study, namely the relation between the Socratic Rule, epistemic assumptions, and equality. The chapter provides the reader with thoroughly worked out examples with comments. •After the Final Remarks the book containsa.An appendix containing a an overview of all the rules for the new formulation of dialogical approach to constructive type theory developed in the book; b.a brief outline of Per Martin-Löf's informal presentation of the demonstration of the axiom of choice.c.two examples of a tree-shaped graph of an extensive strategy. Acknowledgments: Many thanks to Mark van Atten (Paris1), Giuliano Bacigalupo (Zürich), Charles Zacharie Bowao (Univ. Ma Ngouabi de Brazzaville, Congo), Christian Berner (Lille3), Michel Crubellier (Lille3), Pierre Cardascia (Lille3), Oumar Dia (Dakar), Marcel Nguimbi ((Univ. Marien Ngouabi de Brazzaville, Congo), Adjoua Bernadette Dango (Lille3 / Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire), Steephen Rossy Eckoubili (Lille3), Johan Georg Granström (Zürich), Gerhard Heinzmann (Nancy2), Muhammad Iqbal (Lille3), Matthieu Fontaine (Lille3), Radmila Jovanovic (Belgrad), Hanna Karpenko (Lille3), Laurent Keiff (Lille3), Sébastien Magnier (Saint Dennis, Réunion), Clément Lion (Lille3), Gildas Nzokou (Libreville), Fachrur Rozie (Lille3), Helge Rückert (Mannheim), Mohammad Shafiei (Paris1), and Hassan Tahiri (Lisbon), for rich interchanges, suggestions on the main claims of the present study and proof-reading of specific sections of the text. Special thanks to Gildas Nzokou (Libreville), Steephen Rossy Eckoubili (Lille3) and Clément Lion (Lille3), with whom a Pre-Graduate Textbook in French on dialogical logic and CTT is in the process of being worked out – during the visiting-professorship in 2016 of the former. Eckoubili is the author of the sections on exercises for dialogical logic, Nzokou cared of those involving the development of CTT-demonstrations out of winning-strategies. Special thanks also to Ansten Klev (Prague) for helping with technical details and conceptual issues on CTT, particularly so as author of the chapter introducing CTT. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the small-improvement argument fails since some of the comparisons involved in the argument might be indeterminate. I defend this view from two objections by Ruth Chang, namely the argument from phenomenology and the argument from perplexity. There are some other objections to the small-improvement argument that also hinge on claims about indeterminacy. John Broome argues that alleged cases of value incomparability are merely examples of indeterminacy in the betterness relation. The main premise of his (...) argument is the much-discussed collapsing principle. I offer a new counterexample to this principle and argue that Broome's defence of the principle is not cogent. On the other hand, Nicolas Espinoza argues that the small-improvement argument fails as a result of the mere possibility of evaluative indeterminacy. I argue that his objection is unsuccessful. (shrink)

In recent years, social scientists have turned their critical lens on the historical roots and contours of their disciplines, including their politics and practices, epistemologies and methods, institutionalization and professionalization, national development and colonial expansion, globalization and local contestations, and their public presence and role in society. The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass offers current social scientific perspectives on this reflexive moment in the social sciences. Examining sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, legal theory, and religious studies, the volume's contributors (...) outline the present transformations of the social sciences, explore their connections with critical humanities, analyze the challenges of alternate paradigms, and interrogate recent endeavors to move beyond the human. Throughout, the authors, who belong to half a dozen disciplines, trace how the social sciences are thoroughly entangled in the social facts they analyze, and are key to helping us understand the conditions of our world. Contributors. Chitralekha, Jean-Louis Fabiani, Didier Fassin, Johan Heilbron, Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, Kristoffer Kropp, Nicolas Langlitz, John Lardas Modern, Álvaro Morcillo Laiz, Amín Pérez, Carel Smith, George Steinmetz, Peter D. Thomas, Bregje van Eekelen, Agata Zysiak. (shrink)

Non-classical views about important issues in logic and its philosophy are a distinctive trait of Shahid Rahman's work. This volume has been designed, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, as a gathering place for unconventional approaches, original ideas and attempts to question well-established standards. Some of the world top philosophers and logicians contributed to a brilliant collection of papers, some of which doubtlessly leave their mark on the work to come in logic and in philosophy of formal sciences. Contributors (...) are: Philippe Balbiani, Diderik Batens, Johan van Benthem, Giacomo Bonanno, Walter A. Carnielli, Newton C. A. Da Costa, Michel Crubellier, Francisco A. Doria, Dov M. Gabbay, Olivier Gasquet, Gerhard Heinzmann, Andreas Herzig, Jaakko Hintikka, Justine Jacot, Reinhard Kahle, Erik C. W. Krabbe, Decio Krause, Franck Lihoreau, Kuno Lorenz, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Graham Priest, Stephen Read, Manuel Rebuschi, Greg Restall, Gabriel Sandu, Gerhard Schurz, Francois Schwarzentruber, Yaroslav Shramko, Goran Sundholm, John Symons, Christian Thiel, Nicolas Troquard, Tero Tulenheimo, Jean Paul Van Bendegem, Daniel Vanderveken, Yde Venema, Heinrich Wansing, Jan Wolenski and John Woods. (shrink)

This letter responds to a letter by Moti Gorin in the same issue, September‐October 2024, of the Hastings Center Report.

Western society today is less unified by a set of core values than ever before. Undoubtedly, the concept of moral consensus is a difficult one in a liberal, democratic and pluralistic society. But it is imperative to avoid a rigid majoritarianism where sensitive personal values are at stake, as in bioethics. Bioethics has become an influential part of public and professional discussions of health care. It has helped frame issues of moral values and medicine as part of a more general (...) effort to find consensus about some of the most perplexing questions of our time. But why is it thought that a moral consensus is important or that it deserves respect? How does moral consensus acquire legitimacy in a society that includes diverse value systems? How is moral consensus possible and how do small groups help create or distort consensus processes? Written by a medical school professor trained in philosophy, this timely work tackles these questions from philosophical, historical, and social scientific standpoints. It begins by describing the traditional ambivalence about consensus in Western culture as well as the uncertain relationship in modernity between consensus and expertise. After outlining the current bioethical consensus, the book gives philosophical and political analyses of the idea of consensus, then assesses the role of consensus in national ethics commissions and in the ethics committee movement. Moreno constructs an original, naturalistic philosophy of moral consensus, referred to as "bioethical naturalism", and then applies sociology and social psychology to actual consensus processes. The book concludes with an account of bioethics as a consensus-oriented social reform movement. This insightful volume will be essential reading for bioethicists, philosophers, physicians, members of ethics committees, and all those concerned with ethical and social issues in health care. (shrink)

Since Darwin, Biology has been framed on the idea of evolution by natural selection, which has profoundly influenced the scientific and philosophical comprehension of biological phenomena and of our place in Nature. This book argues that contemporary biology should progress towards and revolve around an even more fundamental idea, that of autonomy. Biological autonomy describes living organisms as organised systems, which are able to self-produce and self-maintain as integrated entities, to establish their own goals and norms, and to promote the (...) conditions of their existence through their interactions with the environment. Topics covered in this book include organisation and biological emergence, organisms, agency, levels of autonomy, cognition, and a look at the historical dimension of autonomy. The current development of scientific investigations on autonomous organisation calls for a theoretical and philosophical analysis. This can contribute to the elaboration of an original understanding of life - including human life - on Earth, opening new perspectives and enabling fecund interactions with other existing theories and approaches. This book takes up the challenge. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical enquiry into the educational consequences of Spinoza’s political theory. Spinoza’s political theory is of particular interest for educational thought as it brings together the normative aims of his ethical theory with his realistic depiction of human psychology and the ramifications of this for successful political governance. As such, the book aims to introduce the reader to Spinoza’s original vision of civic education, as a project that ultimately aims at the ethical flourishing of individuals, while being (...) carefully tailored and adjusted to the natural limitations of human reason. This author-meets-critics includes scholars in philosophy, education and Spinoza studies. (shrink)

This article is based on a public lecture hosted by the Monash University Centre for Human Bioethics in Melbourne, Australia on 11 April 2013. The lecture recording was transcribed by Vicky Ryan; and, the original transcript has been edited — for clarity and brevity — by Vicky Ryan, Michael Selgelid and Jonathan Moreno.

Andrés el Capellán: dialéctica y juego en el amor. Resumen de Tesis de doctorado en Filosofía de Nicolás José Martínez Sáez.

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a precise concept of at least a certain kind of disease-mongering, showing how pharmaceutical marketing can commercially exploit certain diseases when their best definition is given through the success of a treatment in a clinical trial. We distinguish two types of disease-mongering according to the way they exploit the definition of the trial population for marketing purposes. We argue that behind these two forms of disease-mongering there are two well-known problems in the (...) statistical methodology of clinical trials (the reference class problem and the distinction between statistical and clinical significance). Overcoming them is far from simple. (shrink)

In her foreword to Science Next, Elizabeth Edwards wrote of science as a tool for social progress: "Innovation is not simply the abstract victory of knowledge [or] the research that gave me years to live; the next science can advance human flourishing and serve the common good. That's the kind of world I want to leave for my children, and for yours." With these words, she joined a tradition that goes back to America's founders, who saw America itself as a (...) "great experiment." Yet while no one can deny that science undergirds the American Dream, it has long been fertile terrain for the "culture wars." Along with arguing the pros and cons of abortion and healthcare, policymakers must now grapple with advancements that raise questions about what it means to be human: we've decoded the genome, but should we modify it to enhance certain "desirable" traits? If we can, should we prolong life at any cost? Will we soon be counting robots, cyborgs, and chimeras among our friends and family?The first book to unpack our love/hate relationship with science from our country's origins to today, The Body Politic is essential reading for science buffs and concerned citizens alike.Jonathan D. Moreno is editor of the Center for American Progress' online magazine Science Progress and professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Author and editor of many seminal books and articles on science and science policy, he divides his time between Philadelphia, PA, and Washington, DC. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IRBs Under the MicroscopeJonathan D. Moreno (bio)The spring and summer of 1998 were seasons in the sun for institutional review board (IRB) aficionados. Rarely have the arcana of the local human subjects review panels been treated to so much attention in both the executive and the legislative branches of government, not only at the federal but also at the state level. And it looks as if the attention (...) will continue for some time. The spate of interest is due to a series of coincidences: a powerful House of Representatives subcommittee held hearings after its chairman learned about the IRB system during a previous session on research in underdeveloped communities; the Department of Health and Human Services’s Inspector General (DHHS-IG) released a report on IRBs; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research completed a report on clinical trial monitoring; the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) readied a report on research involving persons with mental disorders; the states of Maryland and New York completed studies of research with subjects who lack decision-making capacity; and advocacy groups protested a psychiatric research project involving inner city children.Underlying these proximate causes for the IRB blitz is a growing realization that the already considerable clinical trial enterprise will expand significantly over the next few years. Congress is talking about giving the politically popular NIH half again the budget it currently receives, which in turn will stimulate more commercially supported research. The director of the National Cancer Institute is considering a five-fold increase in the number of subjects enrolled in oncology studies over the next several years. Phase I cancer studies are among the most ethically sensitive, so IRBs will have more work cut out for them if this goal is reached. Adding to the rush of interest in IRBs are the government’s recent apology to the survivors of the syphilis study in Tuskegee, continuing congressional dissatisfaction with the way the Pentagon handled its vaccine distribution during the Gulf War, and the controversy about AZT trials in developing countries.On the HillCongressman Christopher Shays, the moderate Connecticut Republican who has developed an interest in human research issues, convened hearings on human [End Page 329] subjects research and the IRB system on 11 June 1998. Shays chairs the House Government Reform/Human Resources Subcommittee. The committee’s ranking minority member is Edolphus Towns of Brooklyn, NY, who shares Shays’s interest in this area.The immediate rationale for the hearings was the release that day of the DHHS-IG report, Institutional Review Boards: A Time for Reform. The subtitle was changed from A System in Jeopardy apparently after some people in DHHS expressed reservations about its seemingly alarmist tone, but the IG staffers who testified before Shays’s subcommittee insisted that they stood behind the message that the IRB system is in trouble if considerable reforms are not undertaken. Among the factors in the research environment cited as support for the bleak forecast: managed care, commercialization, multi-site trials, high IRB workloads, minimal IRB oversight of approved studies, conflicts of interest, insufficient training of IRB members and investigators, and lack of IRB self-studies (DHHS-IG 1998).As is normally the case for congressional oversight hearings, the first panel of witnesses consisted of executive branch officials, including Eric Meslin, Executive Director of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and Gary Ellis, Director of the Office for Protection from Research Risks (OPRR). Shays pressed Ellis on the extent to which OPRR conducts on-site investigations of complaints about abuse of human subjects. Admitting that on-site investigations are rare, Ellis suggested that the agency is inadequately staffed to follow up on complaints as quickly as it might wish. The members of Congress who were present at the hearings generally expressed concern about the DHHS-IG’s findings.The second panel that day, which Shays was unable to attend, set a different tone. Four of the panelists—Paul Appelbaum of the University of Massachusetts at Worcester, Robert Levine of Yale University, Angela Bowen of the Western IRB (a private clinical trials review firm), and I—were invited as authorities on the current condition of the IRB system. Bert Spilker... (shrink)

Recent research in philosophy of science has shown that scientists rely on a plurality of strategies to develop successful explanations of different types of phenomena. In the case of biology, most of these strategies go far beyond the traditional and reductionistic models of scientific explanation that have proven so successful in the fundamental sciences. Concretely, in the last two decades, philosophers of science have discovered the existence of at least two different types of scientific explanation at work in the biological (...) sciences, namely: mechanistic and structural explanations. Despite the growing evidence about the radically different nature of these two types of explanation, no inquiry has been conducted to date to determine the ontological reasons that might underlie these differences, nor the way in which these types of explanations can be systematically related with each other. Here, we aim to cover this gap by connecting this plurality of research strategies with the existence of emergent levels of reality. We argue that the existence of these different—and apparently incompatible—explanatory strategies to account for biological phenomena derives from the existence of “ontological jumps” in nature, which generate different regimes of causation that in turn demand the development of different explanatory frameworks. We identify two of these strategies—mechanistic modelling and network modelling—and connect them to the existence of two ontological regimes of causation. Finally, we relate them with each other in a systematic way. In this vein, our paper provides an ontological justification for the plurality of explanatory strategies that we see in the life sciences. (shrink)

In his paper “Wellbeing and Changing Attitudes Across Time”, Krister Bykvist investigates the challenge that changing attitudes pose for attitude-sensitive theories of well-being in determining temporal wellbeing. He offers both a useful tool to investigate the conceptual space of possible answers, namely an attitudinal matrix, as well as a seemingly plausible constraint on such an answer, which he terms ‘diagonalism’. This paper draws on his matrix to provide an argument against diagonalism and offer an error theory regarding its intuitive force. (...) Using his matrix, I sketch my own view of temporal well-being according to which it is not a single unified concept, but can rather be understood in two different ways (‘better for’ vs. ‘better off’), both of which are interesting in their own right. (shrink)

Consensus is commonly identified as the goal of ethics committee deliberation, but it is not clear what is morally authoritative about consensus. Various problems with the concept of an ethics committee in a health care institution are identified. The problem of consensus is placed in the context of the debate about realism in moral epistemology, and this is shown to be of interest for ethics committees. But further difficulties, such as the fact that consensus at one level of discourse need (...) not imply consensus at another, oblige us to look more closely at the deliberative process itself. That yields two complementary methods of deliberation that have proven their worth. Finally, placing ethics committees in the context of Dewey's philosophy of social intelligence suggests that consensus should be regarded primarily as a condition rather than as the goal of inquiry. Keywords: ethics committee, consensus, moral authority CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In this paper, we bring together Foucault's biography and oeuvre to explore key concepts that support the analysis of nurses' acts of resistance. Foucault reflected on the power relations taking place in health services, making his contribution especially useful for the analysis of resistance in this context. Over three decades, he proposed a nonnormative philosophy while concomitantly engaging in transgressive practices guided by values such as human rights and social justice. Hence, Foucault's philosophy and public activism are an apparent contradiction, (...) but we argue that when analysed together they allow for a different understanding of his work. We describe the evolution of the concept of resistance in Foucault's work, supported by the approaches of Brent Picket (1996) and Miguel Morey (2013). Foucault started his work considering the idea of transgressiveness as it connects to being at the margins of society. He then spent considerable time elaborating the concept of power and identifying resistance strategies as forms of power exercise. In doing so, he considered that people engage with social change from multiple positions, including limited desire for change, fomenting reforms, or engaging in everyday revolutionary acts. As he further elaborated on power relations and defined resistance, Foucault asserted that resistance involves both repressive and productive dimensions of power, governance of biological life, state governance, and deliberate practices of illegalisms. Finally, Foucault shifted his attention to the freedom of ethical subjects, proposing the use of counter‐conduct and counter‐discourses to speak truth against oppression. Such framework offers a comprehensive lens for analysing nurses' acts of resistance within the complexities of the healthcare system and in society. In summary, Foucault's conceptual framework on resistance expands the role of nurses, to understand them not only as caregivers, but also as political agents capable of confronting and transforming oppressive institutional practices. (shrink)

Scholars have long been captivated by the parallels between birdsong and human speech and language. In this book, leading scholars draw on the latest research to explore what birdsong can tell us about the biology of human speech and language and the consequences for evolutionary biology. They examine the cognitive and neural similarities between birdsong learning and speech and language acquisition, considering vocal imitation, auditory learning, an early vocalization phase, the structural properties of birdsong and human language, and the striking (...) similarities between the neural organization of learning and vocal production in birdsong and human speech. After outlining the basic issues involved in the study of both language and evolution, the contributors compare birdsong and language in terms of acquisition, recursion, and core structural properties, and then examine the neurobiology of song and speech, genomic factors, and the emergence and evolution of language. Contributors: Hermann Ackermann, Gabriël J.L. Beckers, Robert C. Berwick, Johan J. Bolhuis, Noam Chomsky, Frank Eisner, Martin Everaert, Michale S. Fee, Olga Fehér, Simon E. Fisher, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Jonathan B. Fritz, Sharon M.H. Gobes, Riny Huijbregts, Eric Jarvis, Robert Lachlan, Ann Law, Michael A. Long, Gary F. Marcus, Carolyn McGettigan, Daniel Mietchen, Richard Mooney, Sanne Moorman, Kazuo Okanoya, Christophe Pallier, Irene M. Pepperberg, Jonathan F. Prather, Franck Ramus, Eric Reuland, Constance Scharff, Sophie K. Scott, Neil Smith, Ofer Tchernichovski, Carel ten Cate, Christopher K. Thompson, Frank Wijnen, Moira Yip, Wolfram Ziegler, Willem Zuidema. (shrink)

Transformar el modo de vida individual es necesario para abordar la crisis ecosocial, y resulta perentorio que las políticas comprometidas con su resolución promocionen una capacidad individual de acción ecosocial. Sin embargo, parece que cierta brecha motivacional está obstaculizando la transformación del modo de vida individual. A fin de dar respuesta a esta brecha, ensayamos una mixtura del enfoque de las capacidades con las teorías de Hartmut Rosa. Argumentamos que la resonancia natural funge de factor personal de conversión necesario, si (...) bien no suficiente, para la capacidad de acción ecosocial; y que una política que promocione la resonancia natural se adecuaría también a los requisitos impuestos al desarrollo humano tanto por el enfoque de las capacidades como por la sostenibilidad. (shrink)

Most everyday tasks involve multiple modalities, which raises the question of how the processing of these modalities is coordinated by the cognitive system. In this paper, we focus on the coordination of visual attention and linguistic processing during speaking. Previous research has shown that objects in a visual scene are fixated before they are mentioned, leading us to hypothesize that the scan pattern of a participant can be used to predict what he or she will say. We test this hypothesis (...) using a data set of cued scene descriptions of photo-realistic scenes. We demonstrate that similar scan patterns are correlated with similar sentences, within and between visual scenes; and that this correlation holds for three phases of the language production process (target identification, sentence planning, and speaking). We also present a simple algorithm that uses scan patterns to accurately predict associated sentences by utilizing similarity-based retrieval. (shrink)

When people communicate, they coordinate a wide range of linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors. This process of coordination is called alignment, and it is assumed to be fundamental to successful communication. In this paper, we question this assumption and investigate whether disalignment is a more successful strategy in some cases. More specifically, we hypothesize that alignment correlates with task success only when communication is interactive. We present results from a spot-the-difference task in which dyads of interlocutors have to decide whether they (...) are viewing the same scene or not. Interactivity was manipulated in three conditions by increasing the amount of information shared between interlocutors. We use recurrence quantification analysis to measure the alignment between the scan-patterns of the interlocutors. We found that interlocutors who could not exchange feedback aligned their gaze more, and that increased gaze alignment correlated with decreased task success in this case. When feedback was possible, in contrast, interlocutors utilized it to better organize their joint search strategy by diversifying visual attention. This is evidenced by reduced overall alignment in the minimal feedback and full dialogue conditions. However, only the dyads engaged in a full dialogue increased their gaze alignment over time to achieve successful performances. These results suggest that alignment per se does not imply communicative success, as most models of dialogue assume. Rather, the effect of alignment depends on the type of alignment, on the goals of the task, and on the presence of feedback. (shrink)

Ouvrage majeur de la philosophie de Malebranche, De la recherche de la verite constitue un moment cle dans la reflexion philosophique a l'age classique. Si son inspiration est cartesienne, Malebranche y soutient d'emblee une theorie originale de la connaissance, de la verite et de la causalite: notamment la these de la vision en Dieu des idees et l'analyse des causes de l'erreur. Plus qu'une theorie de la connaissance, c'est donc une theorie complete de l'esprit humain et de ses multiples fonctions (...) que nous livre l'ouvrage. Cette nouvelle edition de la Recherche de la verite donne a lire pour la premiere fois dans un format accessible a tous, un texte majeur de la pensee moderne, heritier de l'age classique et annonciateur des Lumieres: les textes sont etablis a partir des deux dernieres editions de 1700 et 1712 revues par Malebranche lui-meme, et des trois premiers volumes des oeuvres Completes publiees sous la direction d'Andre Robinet; l'orthographe a ete modernisee. La ponctuation a fait l'objet d'une revision systematique; les textes cites en langue etrangere ont ete traduits ou retraduits, et leurs references mises a jour afin de tenir compte des editions les plus recentes. Enfin, le lecteur trouvera, dans ce premier volume, une presentation eclairante de cette oeuvre par Jean-Christophe Bardout, offrant ainsi des grilles de lecture et de comprehension de cet ouvrage majeur du XVIIe siecle, qui n'avait jusqu'alors fait l'objet d'aucune etude specifique. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:FINALITY AND INTELLIGIBILITY IN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ANTONIO MORENO, O.P. Graduate Theological Union Berkeley, California I N SCIENCE AND philosophy the final cause has always..,been controversial. To biologists the problem is complicated, but many believe that it is impossible fo give a complete description of the phenomenon of life without taking into oonsideration the teleological aspect of it. Thus Rensch: A special feature of all living organisms is the (...) fact that biological processes in general appear to be: 'meaningful.' They are not only appropriate to the immediate conditions, but also seem to be directed to some purpose which in individual development is only achievE:d at a relatively late stage and after many modications of form.1 Simpson's approach to this problem is shaped by the conviction that biology should attempt to answer all the questions, one of whioh is the reason for a living being's activity: "Here, ' What for '-the dreadful teleological question-not only is legitimate but also must eventually be asked about every vital phenomenon." 2 To understand how finality is realized in biology, let us first turn briefly to the nature of the final cause. The Nature of the Final CaU8e Aristotle deals with causes in the seeond book of his Physics: It is through the causes that scientific conclusions about mobile heings are demonstrated. Movement is intelligible when we discover the causes that produce it. Among the 1B. Rensch, Biophilosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 107. 2 G. Simpson, Th,is Vi.ew of Life (New York: Ifarcourt, 1964),.pp. 104-108. l ANTONIO MORENO, O.P. causes, the first and most important is the final cause, which is defined as "that for the sake of which a thing is done." 3 The final cause is the motive or reason which impels the agent to operate. Motion is the vehicle by whioh the goal is attained and, consequently, the other causes exercise their causality in dependence on the final cause. Hence, Aquinas says: " The final cause is called the cause of causes, because it is the cause of the causality of all the causes. For it is the cause of the efficient ca:usality; and the efficient cause is the cause of the causality of both the matter and the form.".j, The final cause directs, inclines, and attracts; impelled by this attraction, the efficient pushes and exercises its action. Aquinas asserts that those who reject the final cause destroy the intelligibility of science, inasmuch as they suppress the motive or first reason which justifies motion. The final cause is not the cause that executes the adion, for this is the agent's function, the efficient cause. The final cause is the reason why the agent acts. Therefore, the efficient cause presupposes the final: "The end is not the cause unless it moves the agent to act. If there is no action the final cause does not exist." 5 It is interesting to note that many biologists believe that the existence of finality destroys causality, when actually the opposite is true. For example, Simpson says: " The finalist was often the man who made a liberal use of ignaV'a ratio,... when you failed to explain a, thing by the ordinary process of causality, you could ' explain ' it 1by reference to some purpose of nature." 6 A simple desirn or attraction is not a cause unless it is fol3 Aristotle, Ph&sias (Trans. W. D. Ross) Book II, 3, 194b34. (Oxford, 1962). 4 Thomas Aquinas, In V Metaph., Iect. 3, n. 782. Of. Summa Theol., I, q. 105, a.5. 5 Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, trans. English Dominican Fathers (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1952), q.5, a. l. 6 G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 274. FINALITY IN BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION 3 lowed by the activity of the agent. The desire to attain the goal is called the " intention " of the action, even when the goal is not achieved, as happens in many of our actions. Failure does not destroy finality; inactivity does. For that which is first in the intention is the last to be achieved as the effect. The intention does not... (shrink)

Since Darwin it is widely accepted that natural selection (NS) is the most important mechanism to explain how biological organisms—in their amazing variety—evolve and, therefore, also how the complexity of certain natural systems can increase over time, creating ever new functions or functional structures/relationships. Nevertheless, the way in which NS is conceived within Darwinian Theory already requires an open, wide enough, functional domain where selective forces may act. And, as the present paper will try to show, this becomes even more (...) evident if one looks into the problem of origins. If there was a time when NS was not operating (as it is quite reasonable to assume), where did that initial functional diversity, necessary to trigger off the process, come from? Self-organization processes may be part of the answer, as many authors have claimed in recent years, but surely not the complete one. We will argue here that a special type of self-maintaining organization, arising from the interplay among a set of different endogenously produced constraints (pre-enzymatic catalysts and primitive compartments included), is required for the appearance of functional diversity in the first place. Starting from that point, NS can progressively lead to new (and, at times, also more complex) organizations that, in turn, provide wider functional variety to be selected for, enlarging in this way the range of action and consequences of the mechanism of NS, in a kind of mutually enhancing effect. (shrink)