Karie Schultz’s short and well-written book makes an important contribution to the history of early modern political thought. In six careful and cogent chapters, Schultz reconstructs the arguments...

Il lavoro di Kari Palonen è rimasto negli anni una fonte di ispirazione per gli storici concettuali e intellettuali e per i teorici politici. La sua carriera e i suoi contributi lo rendono un interlocutore ideale per una conversazione sulla pratica congiunta della storia concettuale e dello studio del pensiero politico. Questa intervista, condotta da Rosario López e José María Rosales, si è svolta come una delle sessioni del seminario online _On the Joint Practice of Conceptual History and the Study (...) of Political Thought_, organizzato da Concepta: Research Seminars in Conceptual History and Political Thought l’8 e il 9 gennaio 2024. (shrink)

In science as in mathematics, it is popular to know little and resent much about category theory. Less well known is how common it is to know little and like much about set theory. The set theory of almost all scientists, and even the average mathematician, is fundamentally different from the formal set theory that is contrasted against category theory. The latter two are often opposed by saying one emphasizes Substance, the other Form. However, in all known systems of mathematics (...) throughout history, mathematicians have moved fluidly between ideas conceived of as thing-like, property-like, and process-like. On the other hand one way to advance science is to better distinguish between thing, property, and process. All this constitutes a distracting background for those interested in, or distressed by, the possible application of category theory to science, and to mathematics as well. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that the ethics of environmental economy must search for a virtue-ethical basis. The traditional utilitarian approach has been the dominant ethical paradigm in neoclassical economics, but it is very problematic regarding environmental issues. Alternative orientations for an environmentally responsible economy can be found from the history of economics, especially from the Aristotelian tradition, and recent discussions about values in nature. Through these, one can look for economic virtues which are ecologically sound and, at the (...) same time, socially and culturally possible. Some such virtues do already exist which must be interpreted only ecologically. Others can be found from the economic ethics of Antiquity. Economic virtues are usually followed unconsciously and alternatives are scarce. The ethics of ecological economics must develop ecologically meaningful virtues: through that it can make a place for new environmentally sound practices and policy. (shrink)

We introduce a new model of reduction inspired by Kemeny and Oppenheim’s model [Kemeny & Oppenheim 1956] and argue that this model is operative in a “ruthlessly reductive” part of current neuroscience. Kemeny and Oppenheim’s model was quickly rejected in mid-20th-century philosophy of science and replaced by models developed by Ernest Nagel and Kenneth Schaffner [Nagel 1961], [Schaffner 1967]. We think that Kemeny and Oppenheim’s model was correctly rejected, given what a “theory of reduction” was supposed to account for at (...) that time. But their guiding insights about what constitutes scientific reduction—increases in explanatory scope and systematization—reflect actual practices of current reductionistic neuroscience. The key rehabilitative step to make their insights fit current scientific details is to restate them using resources from recent work on causal-mechanistic explanation. We begin with a scientific case study, drawn from the relatively new field of “molecular and cellular cognition”. It provides an explanation of the well-known Ebbinghaus spacing effect on learning and memory in terms of interactions between a transcriptional enhancer protein and its inhibiting phosphatase in neurons recruited into the memory trace. Next we briefly describe some popular models of reduction from mid-20th-century philosophy of science. We point out how these models fail to illuminate key features of our scientific case study. Finally we present our causal-mechanistically updated Kemeny and Oppenheim-inspired model and argue that it nicely accounts for the details of our scientific case study. We close with a remark that will hopefully undercut the surprise many may feel to learn that a long-rejected philosophical account of reduction actually is at work in one of the most prominent reductionistic endeavors in current science. (shrink)

The notion of an instrument in the quantum theory of measurement is studied in the context of transformation valued linear maps on von Neumann algebras and their *-subalgebras. An extension theorem is proved which yields among other things characterizations of the Fourier transforms of instruments and their noncommutative analogues. As an application, an ergodic type theorem for a general class of transformation valued functions on a locally compact group is obtained.

This article considers how the metaphor of the vaccine line and the subjectivity of the line jumper came to frame COVID vaccination experiences. Drawing on analysis of interviews (n = 24) with self-identified vaccine line jumpers, this article reports on three narratives that arose across interviews: (1) vaccine line jumping is a necessary strategy of health-advocacy, (2) vaccines are personal healthcare tools earned through individual merit, and (3) vaccine refusal is a problem of belief rather than access. Findings advance research (...) about the personalization of vaccination and public health while contributing insights about the constrained subjectivities that people adopt in individualistic health landscapes. (shrink)

This paper considers a solution to a scenario found in Tom Regan’s Case for Animal Rights, offered by Daniel Kary. Regan considers a case where either one human or any number of dog’s must be sacrificed. He chooses the human because they would be harmed more than any dog would be. This is initially puzzling since Regan claims that humans and dogs have equal inherent value (the objective value as an end that entities have). Kary’s solution argues the human should (...) be saved since their possible experiences have greater intrinsic value (the objective value as an end that experiences have) than those of any number of dogs’. The rationale is that dog experiences are too similar to be additive. The paper acknowledges that Kary’s alternative solution is more plausible than Regan’s, but it ultimately fails to be convincing. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive exposition of the work of one of the most important intellectual historians and political theorists writing today.

The current antireductionist consensus rests in part on the indefensibility of the deductive-nomological model of explanation, on which classical reductionism depends. I argue that the DN model is inessential to the reductionist program and that mechanism provides a better framework for thinking about reductionism. This runs counter to the contemporary mechanists’ claim that mechanism is an alternative to reductionism. I demonstrate that mechanists are committed to reductionism, as evidenced by the historical roots of the contemporary mechanist program. This view shares (...) certain core commitments with reductionism. It is these shared commitments that constitute the essential elements of the reductionist program. (shrink)

The conceptual history of politics in post-WWII (West-) Germany is connected to the history of academic political science. From the Bundestag plenary debates (beginning in September 1949) both the controversies on the political science itself and the contributors of both contemporary scholars and the ‘classics’ of the understanding of politics can be studied. The digitalisation of parliamentary debates opens up new chances for conceptual research in this regard. The article studies the conceptual commitments in the use of the discipline titles (...) (Politikwissenschaft, Politische Wissenschaft, Politologie, Politikforschung, Politische Theorie, also political science) and actors (Politologe, Politikprofessor, Politstudent etc), and looks at who is mentioned in debates, for example, political scientists in early West Germany (Dolf Sternberger, Theodor Eschenburg, Wilhelm Hennis), and political theorists (Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt), Formulae from Weber’s Politik als Beruf seem to be most frequently evoked in the Bundestag. (shrink)

For Aristotle, man is part of nature, a “political animal” with the faculty of reason. In this sense, Aristotelian virtue ethics can be said to relate virtues to nature. On the one hand, virtues lean on the natural dispositions of man as a social animal. On the other hand, virtues are connected to praxis, that is, with man’s active realization of his inherent biological, social and cultural potential. Recently, the material value ethics of Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann developed the (...) Aristotelian tradition in a naturalistic direction, posing the problem of the value of life and connecting this question to the question of virtue. Virtues sensitize us to values and are, therefore, especially important for ethical praxis. I claim that precisely because of its historical and cultural concreteness, virtue ethics can besuccessfully applied to environmental issues. In critical connection with common mentalities, naturalistic virtue ethics can be a politically effective way of ethical thinking. Furthermore, we can avoid the trap of relativism by suggesting strong environmental values and virtues. An example would be the health of ecosystems and of humans. (shrink)

Next SectionThe principle of respect for autonomy has shaped much of the bioethics' discourse over the last 50 years, and is now most commonly used in the meaning of respecting autonomous choice. This is probably related to the influential concept of informed consent, which originated in research ethics and was soon also applied to the field of clinical medicine. But while available choices in medical research are well defined, this is rarely the case in healthcare. Consideration of ordinary medical practice (...) reveals that the focus on patient choice does not properly grasp the moral aspects involved in healthcare. Medical decisions are often portrayed as if doctors and patients in confidence confront specific decisions about examinations or treatment, yet the reality often involves many different participants, with decisions being made over time and space. Indeed, most of the decisions are never even presented to patients, as it would be unethical to suggest something that is not medically justifiable. The options patients do confront are somewhat arbitrarily constructed within the narrow framework of both what is deemed to be medically appropriate and how the healthcare system is organised practically. While the autonomy discourse has proven valuable, a failure to distinguish between the fields of medical research and clinical medicine has generated a focus on patient choice that does not reflect what is really at stake in healthcare settings. This is alarming, because the current discourse misrepresents medical practice in a way that actually contributes to bioethical self-delusion. (shrink)

This book brings together essays dealing with the question of zoopoetics both as an object of study—i.e. texts from various traditions and periods that reflect, explicitly or implicitly, on the relationship between animality, language and representation—and as a methodological problem for animal studies, and, indeed, for literary studies more generally. What can literary animal studies tell us about literature that conventional literary studies might be blind to? How can literary studies resist the tendency to press animals into symbolic service as (...) metaphors and allegories for the human whilst also avoiding a naïve literalism with respect to the literary animal? The volume is divided into three sections: “Texts,” which focuses on the linguistic and metaphorical dimensions of zoopoetics; “Bodies,” which is primarily concerned with mimesis and questions of embodiment, performance, and lived experience; and “Entanglement,” which focuses on interspecies encounters and the complex interplay between word and world that emerges from them. The volume will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of animal studies, area studies and comparative literature, gender studies, environmental humanities, ecocriticism, and the broader field of posthumanism. (shrink)

This article examines narratives, images, and stories that give insight to everyday experimentation and ethical self‐formation. I use the case of World Vision and its early leaders to unpack genealogies of American evangelical humanitarianism. Rather than seeking to identify American evangelicalism’s normative ethical stance, I aim to expand the discussion in anthropology of ethics on ethical self‐formation through examining the tensions, reflections, and processes of becoming among evangelical humanitarians. In doing so, I examine two focal areas of ethical self‐formation among (...) early World Vision leaders. The first is oscillation between and mixing of passion and compassion frameworks in the American evangelical imagination. Second, I identify a range of temporal frames that evangelicals draw on to make sense of and formulate ethical responses to human needs encountered abroad. (shrink)

Recently, some mechanists have embraced reductionism and some reductionists have endorsed mechanism. However, the two camps disagree sharply about the extent to which mechanistic explanation is a reductionistic enterprise. Reductionists maintain that cellular and molecular mechanisms can explain mental phenomena without necessary appeal to higher-level mechanisms. Mechanists deny this claim. I argue that this dispute turns on whether reduction is a transitive relation. I show that it is. Therefore, mechanistic explanations at the cellular and molecular level explain mental phenomena. I (...) make my case in part by noting that mechanisms at higher levels are composed of mechanisms at lower levels. Compositional relations are transitive. In addition, they are explanatory. I conclude that there are explanatory linkages from cellular and molecular mechanisms to mental phenomena within a hierarchy of nested mechanisms. (shrink)

We confront the following popular views: that mind or life are algorithms; that thinking, or more generally any process other than computation, is computation; that anything other than a working brain can have thoughts; that anything other than a biological organism can be alive; that form and function are independent of matter; that sufficiently accurate simulations are just as genuine as the real things they imitate; and that the Turing test is either a necessary or sufficient or scientific procedure for (...) evaluating whether or not an entity is intelligent. Drawing on the distinction between activities and tasks, and the fundamental scientific principles of ontological lawfulness, epistemological realism, and methodological skepticism, we argue for traditional scientific materialism of the emergentist kind in opposition to the functionalism, behaviourism, tacit idealism, and merely decorative materialism of the artificial intelligence and artificial life communities. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of science have attempted to articulate a theory of non-epistemic emergence that is compatible with mechanistic explanation and incompatible with reductionism. The 2005 account of Fred C. Boogerd et al. has been particularly influential. They argued that a systemic property was emergent if it could not be predicted from the behaviour of less complex systems. Here, I argue that Boogerd et al.'s attempt to ground emergence in complexity guarantees that we will see emergence, but at (...) the cost of rendering it either trivial or epistemic. There are three basic problems. First, neither the measures of complexity explicitly mentioned by Boogerd et al. nor the most popular measures in the literature can do the practical and theoretical work that they assign to complexity. Second, I argue that while the success of their view depends on restricting the base of information available to the reductionist, this cannot be done in a way that is metaphysically neutral with respect to emer.. (shrink)

Background/Objective The act of surgery involves harming vulnerable patients with the intent that the results will improve their health and, ultimately, help the patients. Such activities will inevitably entail moral decisions, yet the ethics of surgery has only recently developed as a field of medical ethics. Within this field, it is striking how few accounts there are of actions within the operating room. The aim of this systematic review was to investigate how much of the scientific publications on surgical ethics (...) focus on what take place inside the operating room and to explore the ethical issues included in the publications that focus on medical ethics in the operating room. Methods We conducted a systematic search of the Medline and Embase databases using a PICO model and the search terms “surgery”, “ethics” and “operating room”. Papers were included if they focused on doctors, entailed activities inside the operating room and contained some ethical analysis. Thematic synthesis was used for data extraction and analysis. Findings Fewer than 2% of the scientific publications on surgical ethics included activities inside the operating room. A total of 108 studies were included in the full-text analysis and reported according to the RESERVE guidelines. Eight content areas covered 2/3 of the included papers: DNR orders in the OR, overlapping surgery, donation of organs, broadcasting live surgery, video recordings in the OR, communication/teamwork, implementing new surgical technology, and denying blood to Jehovah’s Witness. Discussion/Conclusions This systematic review indicates that only a small fraction of scientific publications on the ethics of surgery focus on issues inside the operating room, accentuating the need for further research to close this gap. The ethical issues that repeatedly arose in the included papers included the meaning of patient autonomy inside the operating room, the consequences of technological advances in surgery, the balancing of legitimate interests, the dehumanising potential of the OR, and the strong notion of surgeon responsibility. (shrink)