v. 1. Classical roots and medieval discussions -- v. 2. Renaissance controversis, later scholasticism, and the elimination of the intelligible species in modern philosophy.

This spectacular discovery attracted a lot of media attention. This edition will be published in Brill's Texts and Sources on Intellectual History (BSIH) in August.

Patient-centered pharmacy practice involves increased pharmacist engagement in patient care. This increased involvement can sometimes require diverse decision-making when handling various situations, ranging from simple matters to major ethical dilemmas. There is literature about pharmacy ethics in developed Western countries. However, little is known about pharmacists’ practices in many developing countries. For example, there is a paucity of research conducted in the area of pharmacy ethics in Jordan. This study aimed to explore the manner in which ethical dilemmas were handled (...) by Jordanian pharmacists, the resources used and their attitudes towards them. Semi-structured, face to face interviews were carried out with 30 Jordanian registered pharmacists. The transcribed interviews were thematically analysed for emerging themes. Four major themes were identified: legal practice; familiarity with the code of ethics; personal judgement, cultural and religious values; and Experience. Findings showed that ethical decision-making in pharmacy practice in Jordan was decisively influenced by pharmacists’ personal moral values, legal requirements and managed by exercising common sense and experience. This pointed to gaps in Jordanian pharmacists’ understanding and application of basic principles of pharmacy ethics and highlighted the need for professional ethics training, incorporating pharmacy ethics courses in pharmacy undergraduate curricula, as well as professional development courses. This study highlighted that paternalism, personal values and legal obligations were major drivers influencing decision-making processes of Jordanian pharmacists. Findings also highlighted an inclination towards lack of respect for patient autonomy. This illuminated the need for increasing pharmacists’ literacy in professional ethics. (shrink)

Robots are slowly, but certainly, entering people's professional and private lives. They require the attention of regulators due to the challenges they present to existing legal frameworks and the new legal and ethical questions they raise. This paper discusses four major regulatory dilemmas in the field of robotics: how to keep up with technological advances; how to strike a balance between stimulating innovation and the protection of fundamental rights and values; whether to affirm prevalent social norms or nudge social norms (...) in a different direction; and, how to balance effectiveness versus legitimacy in techno-regulation. The four dilemmas are each treated in the context of a particular modality of regulation: law, market, social norms, and technology as a regulatory tool; and for each, we focus on particular topics? such as liability, privacy, and autonomy? that often feature as the major issues requiring regulatory attention. The paper then highlights the role and potential of the European framework of rights and values, responsible research and innovation, smart regulation and soft law as means of dealing with the dilemmas. (shrink)

Ex-vivo tissue engineering is a quickly developing medical technology aiming to regenerate tissue through the introduction of an ex-vivo created tissue construct instead of restoring the damaged tissue to some level of functionality. Tissue engineering is considered by some as a new medical paradigm. We analyse this claim and identify tissue engineering’s fundamental characteristics, focusing on the aim of the intervention and on the complexity and continuity of the process. We inquire how these features have an impact not only on (...) the scientific research itself but also on the ethical evaluation of this research. We suggest that viewing tissue engineering as a new medical paradigm allows us to develop a wider perspective for successful investigation instead of focusing on isolated steps of the tissue engineering process in an anecdotal way, which may lead to an inadequate ethical evaluation. We argue that the concept of tissue engineering as a paradigm may benefit the way we address the ethical challenges presented by tissue engineering. (shrink)

This paper discusses some aspects of the controversies regarding the operation of the agent intellect on sensory images. I selectively consider views developed between the 13th century and the beginning of the 17th century, focusing on positions which question the need for a (distinct) agent intellect or argue for its essential "inactivity" with respect to phantasms. My aim is to reveal limitations of the Peripatetical framework for analyzing and explaining the mechanisms involved in conceptual abstraction. The first section surveys developments (...) of Aristotelian noetics and abstraction in Ancient and Arabic philosophy. The second section presents a discussion of some "positive" accounts on abstraction and the agent intellect, and some "negative" accounts. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Epidemiologists’ discussions on causation are not always very enlightening with regard to the notion of ‘cause’ in epidemiology. Epidemiologists rightly work from a science-based approach to causation in epidemiology, but largely disagree about the matter. Disagreement may be partly due to confusion of the question of useful concepts for causal inference in epidemiological practice with the question of the metaphysical presuppositions of causal concepts used in epidemiology. In other words, epidemiologists seem to confuse the practical results of epidemiological research at (...) the population level with the metaphysical views about the reality of disease causation at the individual level in their writings on causation. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Leibniz's overall view of the relationship between reasoning and computation is discussed on the basis of two broad claims that one finds in his writings, concerning respectively the nature of human reasoning and the possibility of replacing human thinking by a mechanical procedure. A joint examination of these claims enables one to appreciate the wide scope of Leibniz's interests for mechanical procedures, concerning a variety of philosophical themes further developed both in later logical investigations and in methodological contributions to cognitive (...) psychology. (shrink)

When debating the cognitive value of the novel, philosophers often focus on the resemblance between real and fictional world. Therefore, it is a hardly surprising that modernist literature, such as Franz Kafka’s novels, are rarely used as examples to support claims about the novel’s cognitive value. In my paper, I therefore offer a starting point for the development of a theory on the novel’s cognitive value that also works for modernist literature by building on Paul Ricoeur’s conception of productive imagination. (...) Starting from a case study of a short story of Kafka, I develop an account of the novel’s cognitive value that is based on the tension between the literary work’s invitation to interpretation and its simultaneous resistance against interpretation. (shrink)

Explanatory pluralism is the view that the best form and level of explanation depends on the kind of question one seeks to answer by the explanation, and that in order to answer all questions in the best way possible, we need more than one form and level of explanation. In the first part of this article, we argue that explanatory pluralism holds for the medical sciences, at least in theory. However, in the second part of the article we show that (...) medical research and practice is actually not fully and truly explanatory pluralist yet. Although the literature demonstrates a slowly growing interest in non-reductive explanations in medicine, the dominant approach in medicine is still methodologically reductionist. This implies that non-reductive explanations often do not get the attention they deserve. We argue that the field of medicine could benefit greatly by reconsidering its reductive tendencies and becoming fully and truly explanatory pluralist. Nonetheless, trying to achieve the right balance in the search for and application of reductive and non-reductive explanations will in any case be a difficult exercise. (shrink)

This paper investigates the working-method of three important philosophers of explanation: Carl Hempel, Philip Kitcher and Wesley Salmon. We argue that they do three things: construct an explication in the sense of Carnap, which then is used as a tool to make descriptive and normative claims about the explanatory practice of scientists. We also show that they did well with respect to, but that they failed to give arguments for their descriptive and normative claims. We think it is the responsibility (...) of current philosophers of explanation to go on where Hempel, Kitcher and Salmon failed. However, we should go on in a clever way. We call this clever way the “pragmatic approach to scientific explanation.” We clarify what this approach consists in and defend it. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse the fruitfulness of Ronald Giere’s comparative model for causation in populations. While the original model was primarily developed to capture the meaning of causal claims in the biomedical and health sciences, we want to show that the model is not only useful in these domains, but can also fruitfully be applied to other scientific domains. Specifically, we demonstrate that the model is fruitful for characterizing the meaning of causal claims found in classical genetics, epidemiology and (...) electoral sociology. Additionally, we propose an adapted comparative model which is needed to get a grip on higher level causal claims. We show that such claims are present in population genetics, epidemiology and electoral systems research. We conclude with some reflections on the implications of our findings for the issue of causal pluralism. (shrink)

The essays in this book clarify the technical, legal, ethical, and social aspects of the interaction between eHealth technologies and surveillance practices. The book starts out by presenting a theoretical framework on eHealth and surveillance, followed by an introduction to the various ideas on eHealth and surveillance explored in the subsequent chapters. Issues addressed in the chapters include privacy and data protection, social acceptance of eHealth, cost-effective and innovative healthcare, as well as the privacy aspects of employee wellness programs using (...) eHealth, the use of mobile health app data by insurance companies, advertising industry and law enforcement, and the ethics of Big Data use in healthcare. A closing chapter draws on the previous content to explore the notion that people are 'under observation', bringing together two hitherto unrelated streams of scholarship interested in observation: eHealth and surveillance studies. In short, the book represents a first essential step towards cross-fertilization and offers new insights into the legal, ethical and social significance of being 'under observation'. (shrink)

This article reports on Flemish college students’ news orientations and their uses of traditional and new media for news within a public service media environment. We used five homogeneous focus groups that covered variation in news media use. The analysis of the focus groups revealed major differences in news behaviors and attitudes between participants who mainly depended on traditional media for news, and those who also went online for news. While a growing body of research reports on young people’s increasing (...) use of online media for news, particularly among those that are most disengaged with traditional news media, our findings indicated that only the most eager news-users were motivated to gather information online. Additionally, we found that traditional media, in particular national quality papers and the Flemish public service newscast, were still the main reference points for public affairs information among our participants. (shrink)

Studies on the 1616 and 1633 actions brought against Galilei by the Index and the Inquisition generally presumed that part of the documentation was still to be unveiled. This assumption was frequently accompanied by the hypothesis that some available documents were forgeries, merely composed to justify the 1633 condemnation. New documents from the Archive of the Roman Inquisition, including a censure of Saggiatore, official acts concerning the public dissemination of the verdict, and applications for permission to read Galilei¹s works, show (...) that the 1984 edition of his trial was not exhaustive. It is argued, however, that these documents were not concealed intentionally by the Holy Office and their not being found so far has been mainly due to the poor organisation of the Archive. Gianfranco Catelli, Gouhier e la cosiddetta dottrina della terza nozione primitiva In questo studio non si condivide l’opinione, dominante per molti decenni, che il cosiddetto dualismo cartesiano sia dovuto ad un “malinteso”, che può chiamarsi originario, dato che a rimanerne coinvolti furono alcuni tra i primi seguaci della filosofia di Cartesio. Una presa di posizione, questa, che, già sviluppata in altri precedenti lavori, viene qui riproposta relativamente a H. Gouhier, lo studioso che più di ogni altro, con ricchezza di documenti e sottigliezza di analisi interpretative, ha sostenuto la tesi del “malinteso” e ha individuato nella dottrina della terza nozione primitiva la spiegazione autenticamente cartesiana del rapporto sussistente tra anima e corpo. Una interpretazione di cui nel presentge studio si mostra tutta la debolezza, soprattutto se la si considera alla luce dell’altra dottrina, anch’essa cartesiana, ma di gran lunga più articolata, che fa del rapporto tra anima e corpo un nesso da spiegarsi in analogia al rapporto che nel linguaggio intercorre tra il segno e il suo significato. (shrink)

In light of the growing use of tablets for news reading and mobile news consumption behaviors, this study examined whether an innovative way of structuring news on the tablet that mimics mobile news behaviors reinforced attention for, and learning from, news. Specifically, it was theorized that the chronological and associative structuring of news articles into so-called developing news stories would lead to more attention for news, and better recall and comprehension of news, than the linear print newspaper structure that newspaper (...) publishers continue to copy from print to tablet. A multiple-day experiment was set up using the eye-tracking method to measure and control for attention. The results show that the developing news structure increased comprehension of news substantively, independently of attention effects; no effects were found on attention and factual recall. (shrink)

Results of an online survey reveal that, in contrast with the general belief, college students do not at all seem to be heavy users of online news media and online news features. A cluster analysis shows that the use of online news media and interactive features differs among the students, a majority of them being traditional users and some, non-users. Logistic regressions demonstrate that the level of digital skills is a better predictor of news media and interactive features use than (...) demographics. This article invites scholars in online journalism to emphasize on students’ differences rather than on similarities when it comes to measuring the impact of online news use. Our results suggest that online skills as a prerequisite for using online news media and features should be centrally taken into account in future research. (shrink)

Previous research has found that news coverage on immigration is often biased in negative ways and that it inspires the formation of negative attitudes towards immigrants. However, academic research about this link between news consumption and attitudes towards immigrants among adolescents remains limited. The current study aims to test this association from a media-exposure and intergroup-contact perspective using survey data from 875 adolescents in Flanders, Belgium. The findings show that only television news consumption, thus no other types of news consumption, (...) was associated with adolescents’ attitudes towards immigrants. Intergroup contact within the friend group, outside the school context, was linked to more positive attitudes. This study nuances earlier findings that news consumption predicts attitudes towards immigrants. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze how the Spanish newspapers covered an international event such as the Egyptian spring from 2011 to 2013. From the perspective of the representation of Arab-Islamic issues, this study carries out a quantitative content analysis on the four reference newspapers in Spain (ABC, El Mundo, El País, and La Vanguardia) to find out whether there was an Islamophobic or Islamophilic treatment during the Egyptian revolution. The results of the 3,045 articles analyzed show that (...) Spanish newspapers were remarkably interested in Egyptian events and that cultural discourses were not relevant in the coverage. However, it is necessary to specify these outcomes by newspaper, because each paper proposed its own take on the matter based on information provided by press agencies. (shrink)

With dying increasingly becoming a medicalised experience in old age, we are witnessing a shift from concern over death itself to an interest in dying ‘well’. Fierce discussions about end-of-life decision making and the permissibility of medical intervention in dying, discursively structured around the notion of a ‘good’ death, are evidence of this shift. This article focuses on ‘autonomy’ and ‘dignity’ as key signifiers in these discussions. Rather than being fully fixed and stable, both signifiers are contingent and carry a (...) variety of meanings within different discursive projects. The article aims to distinguish the varieties of these signifiers by elaborating existing theoretical perspectives on autonomy and dignity, and also, starting from a perspective on mass media as sites of meaning production and contestation, to study the contingency of autonomy and dignity in Belgian newspaper coverage of four prominent euthanasia cases. By means of a discourse-theoretical textual analysis, this study exposes a dominant—yet contested—articulation of rational-personal autonomy and of dignity in external terms as something that can be obtained, retained or lost, rather than in terms of intrinsic human integrity. These logics of representation reflect a more general late modern dominance of liberal autonomy and of dignity as being closely connected to self-identity, but at the same time result in limited visibility of alternative ways of experiencing an autonomous and dignified death. (shrink)