El presente artículo se interroga por la noción de sujeto implícita en el proceder empleado por Tribunales de Familia para casos de violencia hacia la mujer en Chile. Considera las implicancias que tienen las leyes en el contexto del proceder de los casos de violencia, para terminar revisando ciertas nociones desprendidas del operar jurídico, a partir de una lectura que incluye aspectos de las ciencias humanas y del psicoanálisis. Se expone, finalmente, cómo estas nociones están enraizadas en y, a su (...) vez, sostienen ciertos discursos respecto a la violencia hacia la mujer, que permiten determinadas modalidades de subjetivación.The present article discusses the notion of subject implicit in the procedures of Family Courts in case of women violence in Chile. The article takes in to account the influence of laws in the context of violence cases and it finishes reviewing certain notion taken from the juridical work. This is done beginning with a reading based on human sciences and psychoanalysis. Finally, the article point out the roots of these notions and, at the same time, discusses certain discourses related to woman violence that allow certain subjectivation modes. (shrink)

Since Barry Stroud's classic paper in 1968, the general discussion on transcendental arguments tends to focus on examples from theoretical philosophy. It also tends to be pessimistic, or at least extremely reluctant, about the potential of this kind of arguments. Nevertheless, transcendental reasoning continues to play a prominent role in some recent approaches to moral philosophy. Moreover, some authors argue that transcendental arguments may be more promising in moral philosophy than they are in theoretical contexts. Against this background, the current (...) volume focuses on transcendental arguments in practical philosophy. Experts from different countries and branches of philosophy share their views about whether there are actually differences between "theoretical" and "practical" uses of transcendental arguments. They examine and compare different versions of transcendental arguments in moral philosophy, explain their structure, and assess their respective problems and promises. This book offers all those interested in ethics, meta-ethics, or epistemology a more comprehensive understanding of transcendental arguments. It also provides them with new insights into uses of transcendental reasoning in moral philosophy. (shrink)

The hypothesis that anatomically modern homo sapiens could have undergone changes akin to those observed in domesticated animals has been contemplated in the biological sciences for at least 150 years. The idea had already plagued philosophers such as Rousseau, who considered the civilisation of man as going against human nature, and eventually.

Bereits mit Grundung der Universitat Helmstedt im Jahr 1576 wurde eine mit zehn Lehrstuhlen sehr gut ausgestattete Philosophische Fakultat installiert, die die Grundlage fur die irenisch-humanistische Ausrichtung der Helmstedter Theologie und Philosophie bildete. Jens Brunings Studie Innovation in Forschung und Lehre nimmt bewusst nicht die Glanzzeit der Academia Julia im spaten 16. und im 17. Jahrhundert in den Blick, sondern erstmals den Zeitraum um 1700, in dem sich die Helmstedter Universitat in einer problematischen Phase des Ubergangs befand und zudem durch (...) die Grundungen der Universitaten in Halle (1694) und Gottingen (1737) starke Konkurrenz erhielt. Die Helmstedter Professorengeneration der 1720er und 1730er Jahre schaffte es schliesslich, u.a. mit der Durchsetzung einer den Aristotelismus ablosenden eklektisch ausgerichteten Philosophie, der Einfuhrung der experimentellen Naturlehre und der "Historia Litteraria", die Philosophische Fakultat der Universitat noch einmal zu den fuhrenden Einrichtungen ihrer Art im Alten Reich zu machen. In dieser Zeit zeigt sich ein bemerkenswerter Modernisierungsschub, der sowohl die Lehrfacher und Lehrinhalte als auch die Organisation von Wissenschaft in Form gelehrter Gesellschaften und Zeitschriften und nicht zuletzt den einsetzenden Funktionswandel der Philosophischen Fakultat betraf. Brunings auf den Bestanden der Herzog August Bibliothek und des Staatsarchivs Wolfenbuttel basierende Studie untersucht dabei insbesondere die Laufbahnen des Lehrpersonals, die inhaltliche, institutionelle und methodische Seite des Lehrbetriebs, das Selbstverstandnis der Fakultat sowie das spezifische Profil des dort vermittelten Wissens und fragt ausserdem nach deren Rolle und Bedeutung in der Fruhaufklarung. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been adapted for use in qualitative health research, where it’s often used as a method for conducting interviews and analyzing interview data. But how can phenomenologists study subjects who cannot accurately reflect upon or report their own experiences, for instance, because of a psychiatric or neurological disorder? For conditions like these, qualitative researchers may gain more insight by conducting observational studies in lieu of, or in conjunction with, interviews. In this article, we introduce a phenomenological approach to conducting (...) this kind of observational research. The approach relies on conceptual grounding to focus a study on specific aspects of the participants’ experiences. Moreover, the approach maintains the openness to novel discoveries that qualitative research requires while also providing a structured framework for data collection and analysis. To illustrate its practical application, we use examples of hemispatial neglect—a neurologic disorder in which patients characteristically lack awareness of their own illness and bodily capacities. However, the approach that we describe can be applied more broadly to the study of complex illness experiences and other experiential alterations. (shrink)

Addiction is a common condition affecting millions of people worldwide of which only a small proportion receives treatment. The development and use of healthcare services is influenced by how addiction is understood (e.g., a condition to treat, a shameful condition to stigmatize), notably with respect to how volition is impacted (e.g., addiction as a choice or a disease beyond one’s control). Through semi-structured qualitative interviews, we explore the implicit views and understandings of addiction and volition across three stakeholder groups: people (...) with lived experience of addiction, clinicians with experience treating addiction, and members of the public without lived experience of addiction. We notably examine whether three paradigms, i.e., three philosophical sets of understandings about the nature of reality and knowledge (realism, relativism, pragmatism) reflect how stakeholders envision addiction and volition in the context of addiction. The use of these paradigms allows for the characterization of different stances on addiction and volition and an assessment of the coherence of beliefs about these matters. Our findings demonstrate that few participants relied on a single epistemic paradigm when describing their views. Furthermore, there were notable differences in understandings of volition between the clinician group, who were more oriented toward pragmatism, and people with lived experience of addiction, who were less oriented toward realism. Despite its limitations, our study suggests that a greater appreciation for the complexity of views held by different stakeholders about addiction and volition could help critically assess the search for coherence expressed in academic and policy debates. (shrink)

Today it is widely accepted among philosophers ofanalytical inclination that there are two theoriesabout what endows words with their extensions: thetheory of natural kinds and the so-called Californiansemantics. It is widely agreed that the first issuperior to the second because it can not only explainthe indexicality of the extension of natural kindterms as well as their social character but also avoidGoodman''s paradox of projectibility. Natural kindterms can not be corrupted concepts since theirmembers are grouped by objective similarity.It will be shown (...) that there is a third way besidesthe two above-mentioned theories. It shares theadvantages of Natural Kind theory without making useof the problematic concept of objective similarity.Its main feature is not to claim that extensions arethere once and forever but that concepts evolve byusing concepts. (shrink)

This paper aims to show, on the one hand, that the humility mentioned in book 7 of the Confessions would become the prelude for Augustine to the humility that constitutes the true conversion, and, on the other hand, that the context in which this humility presented itself is continentia. In a passage of linguistic beauty (conf. 8, 27), Augustine describes the struggle that occurred between allegorical persons: those who pulled him back with the chain of the past, and those who (...) urged him forward towards the decision to embrace continentia. The enjoyment of love not only requires the truth that remains forever, but also the steadfastness of all the emotions that come together in the lasting unity of the will. According to the author, Augustine in his Confessions has Christianised the Roman uirtus of continentia. (shrink)

Das Selbstverständnis des demokratischen Rechtsstaates ist durch ein facettenreiches Spannungsverhältnis von Moral und Recht geprägt. So bindet etwa das Grundgesetz mit der Verpflichtung zur Achtung und zum Schutz der Würde des Menschen wie auch mit dem Bekenntnis zu”unverletzlichen und unveräußerlichen“Menschenrechten alles staatliche Handeln an zentrale Postulate einer universalistischen Moral. Wenn Menschenwürde keiner noch so mehrheitlichen Meinung zur Disposition stehen dürfen, müssen sie dem politischen Streit entzogen sein. Diesem konstitutionalistischen Verständnis des Rechtsstaates scheint ein radikaldemokratisches Modell der Republik entgegenzustehen, nach dem (...) eine politisch autonome Gesellschaft allein vermittels Gesetzen auf sich einwirkt, die aus Verfahren chancengleicher Teilnahme an politischer Willensbildung hervorgehen. Nach diesem Modell kann es keine außerpolitische Quelle rechtlicher Legitimität geben. Doch was bedeutet es für den Legitimitätsanspruch des demokratischen Rechtsstaates, wenn er gar nicht allen von der Herrschaft : etroffenen9 jene Rechte gleichumfänglich gewähren kann, die politische Autonomie konstituieren? Wie verträgt sich der idealisierte Gedanke einer vollständig inklusiven politischen Selbstbestimmung mit dem faktisch unausweichlichen Umstand, dass die Mehrheit der Rechtsadressaten immer einer Minderheit von Autoren gegenübersteht? Muss nicht jede realistische demokratische Lösung des juridischen Legitimationsproblems hinter dem kategorischen Anspruch zurückbleiben, den unverzagte Moraltheoretiker im Anschluss an Kant für das Menschenrecht reklamieren? Welche normative Rolle spielt dann der Begriff der Menschenwürde im diskurspragmatisch entschlüsselten Spannungsfeld von Moral und demokratisch erzeugtem Recht? (shrink)

In der Rekonstruktion zentraler Gedanken beschranke ich mich auf die Philosophie des Organischen. Zunachst fuhre ich in Jonas' Stufenfolge des organischen Lebens und die "hochste" Stufe--d.i. seine Bestimmung des Menschen--ein und erganze diese Bestimmung; sodann rekapituliere ich seine Lesart der Stufen des Organischen uber die Stufe des einfachen Organismus bis zum hochentwickelten Tier unter Einbeziehung von moglichen naturwissenschaftlichen Einwanden. Endlich erortere ich Jonas' phanomenologisches Verstehen der Evolution "vom Hochsten aus" und konfrontiere es mit einer evolutionstheoretischen "Erklarung von unten" am Beispiel (...) einer evolutionstheoretischen Erklarung "von unten", die Wolf Singer in seiner neurophysiologisch-evolutionistischen Erklarung des menschlichen "Bewusstseins" aus Elementen, Strukturen und Funktionen des Gehirns vorgeschlagen hat. (edited). (shrink)

In this paper, we are interested in the effects of institutional context on public attitudes towards climate policies, where institutions are defined as the conventions, norms and formally sanctioned rules of any given society. Building on a 2014 survey experiment, we conducted thirty qualitative interviews with car-owners in Oslo, Norway, to investigate the ways in which institutional context and political-value orientation affect public attitudes towards emissions policies. One context (presented as a text treatment) highlighted individual rationality, emphasising the ways in (...) which local pollution impacts the individual citizen; the other highlighted social rationality, emphasising the wider significance of carbon emissions and global responsibility for climate change. We analysed the effects of these contexts on attitudes, finding that institutional context influenced individuals’ perspectives as well as their attitudes towards climate policies. Groups with different value orientations differed in terms of their evaluations but not their interpretations of these contexts. (shrink)

An understanding of the ethical implications of their work is now essential for all scientists. This accessible textbook clearly explains bioethical theories and their philosophical foundations to science students, enabling them to confidently take part in the key ethical debates of biotechnology. Over 200 activities introduce topics for personal reflection and discussion points encourage students to think for themselves and build their own arguments. Highlighting the potential pitfalls for those new to bioethics, each chapter features boxes providing factual information and (...) outlining the philosophical background. Accompanying online podcasts by the author (two of whose podcasts on iTunesU have attracted over 3 million downloads) explain points that might be difficult for beginners. Detailed case studies provide an insight into real-life examples of bioethical problems. Within-chapter essay questions and quizzes, along with end-of-chapter review questions, allow students to check their understanding and encourage broader thinking about the topics discussed. (shrink)

The present contribution focuses on the place of religion in the public domain and revolves around three concepts: vulnerability, recognition and tragedy. Focusing on these three notions, I will endeavour to shed some light on the complex relationship between religion and the public arena. More specifically, I will draw attention to the fact that the struggle for recognition can often lead to tragedy. There is no adequate political solution to this problem. The reason for this is that the nature of (...) the recognition religious people desire differs from that which the political system seems to be able to offer. Nevertheless, and I hope to elaborate this in what follows, an appropriate answer to this problem needs to be found, since the danger exists that the struggle for recognition might derail . It is in this perspective that I turn to religion. Whereas politics manoeuvres within the domain of solvable problems, religion offers people a framework to deal appropriately with problems for which no solution appears to exist, or at least not an immediate one. In situations of inner conflict, religion can open up perspectives of hope for solidarity. (shrink)

With disagreement, doubts, or ambiguous grounds in end–of-life decisions, doctors are advised to involve a clinical ethics committee. However, little has been published on doctors’ experiences with discussing an end-of-life decision in a CEC. As part of the quality assurance of this work, we wanted to find out if clinicians have benefited from discussing end-of-life decisions in CECs and why. We will disseminate some Norwegian doctors’ experiences when discussing end-of-life decisions in CECs, based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen Norwegian physicians (...) who had brought an end-of-life decision case to a CEC. Almost half of the cases involved conflicts with the patients’ relatives. In a majority of the cases, there was uncertainty about what would be the ethically preferable solution. Reasons for referring the case to the CEC were to get broader illumination of the case, to get perspective from people outside the team, to get advice, or to get moral backing on a decision already made. A great majority of the clinicians reported an overall positive experience with the CECs’ discussions. In cases where there was conflict, the clinicians reported less satisfaction with the CECs’ discussions. The study shows that most doctors who have used a CEC in an end-of-life decision find it useful to have ethical and/or legal aspects illuminated, and to have the dilemma scrutinized from a new perspective. A systematic discussion seems to be significant to the clinicians. (shrink)

Mehr Markt und Wettbewerb im Gesundheitswesen, so der Tenor aktueller gesundheitspolitischer Debatten, soll Transparenz schaffen, Kosten senken, Missbräuche verhindern und die Qualität der Leistungen steigern. Marianne Rychner zeigt anhand objektiv-hermeneutischer Materialanalysen, in welcher Weise professionalisierte ärztliche Praxis und die Logik des Marktes in einem Widerspruch zueinander stehen. Dies wird deutlich anhand einer detailgetreuen Rekonstruktion zweier ärztlicher Konsultationen. In der Interaktion zwischen Ärztin und Patient entfaltet sich eine komplexe Handlungslogik. Diese konfrontiert die Autorin mit aktuellen Versuchen, der ärztlichen Praxis den (...) Charakter eines marktkonformen Produkts zu geben. (shrink)

The movement advocating the formal certification of clinical ethics consultants may result in major changes to the field of clinical ethics consultation by creating a new standard of care. The actual certification process is still in the development phase, but unanswered questions include: What will certification cost, and, Who will pay? Currently there is little salary support for ethics consultants and no regulation requiring healthcare institutions to offer clinical ethics consultation. Without the support of healthcare administrators and accreditation bodies, this (...) may remain unchanged.Healthcare administrators may be unwilling to pay for certification or professional services if accreditation bodies do not require healthcare institutions to provide certified ethics consultants’ services. If consultants will not be reimbursed or paid, they may not seek certification. If certified consultants are required, healthcare administrators may look for ways to cover the costs for providing this service, including insurance or third-party reimbursement and direct billing of patients for consultations, which may affect who performs and who participates in ethics consultation. However, this is less than ideal, as bioethicists believe ethics consultation should be available to all as part of providing safe, quality ethical care and support and guidance for patients, families, and healthcare staff.Going forward, bioethicists should study quality improvement, patient safety, and cost-savings resulting from certification-eligible clinical ethics consultants’ activities. Administrators and financial personnel can be surveyed regarding their support for the certification process. Bioethicists should enlist the help of patient rights and safety advocacy groups, professional medical associations, and healthcare administrators. Bioethicists should invite accreditation bodies, healthcare administrators, and financial personnel to collaborate in the development of the certification process. Without their support, certification may be of value only to the bioethics community, and may have little standing in actual clinical healthcare institution settings. (shrink)

Dans notre État laïque et démocratique, les débats relatifs aux sujets d’éthique ne semblent pas pouvoir être menés dans une ambiance apaisée. Loin d’entendre des échanges ouverts et rationnels, nous assistons à des joutes oratoires emplies de condamnations incohérentes et de prédictions aussi catastrophistes qu’infondées. Pourtant, au moment même où l’espace public et médiatique semble refuser le débat lucide et raisonnable, un nouveau territoire offre l’occasion de le mener à bien : celui des séries télévisées. Véritable phénomène culturel d’une ampleur (...) inédite, l’essor des séries télés, outre sa fonction de divertissement, permet aux questions d’éthique d’être véritablement posées et discutées. Depuis la question de la vie jusqu’à celle de la mort, depuis la question des services corporels à celle des comportements sexuels, les séries couvrent tout le champ de l’éthique contemporaine. Populaires sans céder au populisme, elles s’offrent indéniablement des outils au service de la réflexion éthique. (shrink)

As Hannah Arendt has famously argued, politics is a matter of words and deeds. The inability to share language renders politics, which is dependent on speech, impossible. The Trump era not only is symptomatic of a loss of language and of politics, this essay argues, but also reveals an extreme nihilism that is worthy of question and thought. No less a philosopher-rhetorician than Friedrich Nietzsche offers us a diagnosis of this condition, most pithily in the six-moment history of Western philosophy (...) that he presents in Twilight of the Idols.1 Nietzsche frustrates many, offering no prescription, no cure. His history of the "error" that is reason leads into a quandary. In a situation that... (shrink)

An evolutionary theory of schizophrenia needs to address all symptoms associated with the condition. Burns' framework could be extended in a way embracing behavioural signs such as catatonia. Burns' theory is, however, not specific to schizophrenia. Since no one single symptom exists that is pathognomonic for “schizophrenia,” an evolutionary proposal of psychiatric disorders raises the question whether our anachronistic psychiatric nosology warrants revision.

I think that the international movement of doing philosophy with children consists of two main lines: the first line aims at elementary and seconday school philosophy and the second line aims at philosophy as an after-school enrichment. I'm mainly engaged in doing philosophy with children outside school.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, France was the main site of the controversy around the so-called eoliths, supposedly human-made tools of Tertiary Europe. In contrast to the more common situation where scientists have to make sure that an object stabilized in a laboratory is not an artifact of the lab but a natural object, in the eoliths debates the opposite was the case. The eolith proponents tried to render plausible the object's artificial, that is human, origin. In (...) their case, the objects would only be of scientific interest if they were artifacts not geofacts (naturally flaked stones). The paper ties in with existing literature on the French eoliths movement and investigates the successive eoliths debates in Britain. In Bruno Latour's terms, eoliths as archaeological evidence for Tertiary Man in Europe could gain in reality through a successful enlisting of the collaboration of human and non-human actors such as scientists, theories, publications, taxonomies, technologies, institutions, etc. Indeed, networks were established among scientists, preferably of powerful institutions, the 'tools' were integrated or denied a place in existing taxonomies of prehistoric artifacts, experiments were carried out to demonstrate their chance or designed origin, and their convergence or incompatibility with a certain theoretical framework was discussed. Arguments often revolved around questions of negative evidence, since both proponents and opponents of eoliths as tools were aware of the fact that the eoliths' strongest tie to reality would be evidence of the toolmakers themselves. Several known hominid fossils, among them those of doubtful age, were thus proposed as Tertiary shapers of the 'tools'. These hypothetical 'Englishmen' and their supposed artifacts were enmeshed in particular theories of human evolution, marked as they were by the racism and nationalism widespread at the time. (shrink)

Carpendale & Lewis (C&L) propose that social knowledge is constructed from triadic interactions. This account generates testable predictions concerning social knowledge in infancy. Current evidence is not entirely consistent with these predictions. Infants possess action knowledge before they engage in triadic interactions, and triadic use of an action does not always precede knowledge about the action.

Multinational corporations (MNCs) have brought attention to the challenges of business ethics in intercultural settings. A lack of understanding regarding cultural pluralism in business ethics education has motivated some scholars to consider a broader lens, one that recognizes the influence of religion (Spalding and Franks 2012). Management awareness of the similarities and differences that stem from deeply held beliefs is essential, as unstated thoughts and feelings caninfluence starting assumptions, even before ethical decision-making processes begin. If deeply entrenched cultural traditions and (...) religious values remain implicit and/or misunderstood, collaborative efforts may be derailed due to an inadvertent lack of respect and understanding. Because many Westerners remain unfamiliar with Muslim-based beliefs, the authors advance business ethics education by offering an overview of business practices in the Middle East. A modeland exercise are presented as tools to promote awareness of cultural perspectives. This platform for understanding will help adult learners see how their personal origins can shape and influence management thought. (shrink)

Computational psychiatry is a quickly evolving discipline that aims to understand psychopathology in terms of computational, hence algorithmic processes. While cognitive phenomena, especially beliefs or ways of “reasoning”, can more easily be formalized, meaning re-described in mathematical terms and then entered computational models, there is speculation as to whether phenomenology might be formalizable too. In other words, there are speculations in terms of what aspects of the human experience, rather than specific cognitive processes alone, can enter computational models. Here, we (...) explore the possibility of formalizing and modeling a phenomenological account of schizophrenia, using the concepts of “minimal self” and “intentionality”. To test the applicability of these concepts for formalization and modeling, we first aim to clarify some misunderstandings around the very nature of minimal self and intentionality, namely: whether these concepts entail a “minimal” sense of self, or might be better described in “transparent” sensory-integration and information processing terms. We then try to apply the concepts to a computational logic based on Marr’s levels of description, a fundamental account for understanding the rationale of computational psychiatry. Overall, we are asking via what conditions phenomenology can enter a computational logic. (shrink)

From the 1960s, mathematical and computational tools have been developed to arrive at human population trees from various kinds of serological and molecular data. Focusing on the work of the Italian-born population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, I follow the practices of tree-building and mapping from the early blood-group studies to the current genetic admixture research. I argue that the visual language of the tree is paralleled in the narrative of the human diasporas, and I show how the tree was actually (...) mapped onto the surface of the earth. This visual and textual structure is mirrored in the liberal discourse of unity in diversity that has been criticized as running counter to the socio-political effects of human population genetics. From this perspective, one may ask how far the phylogenetic diagram in its various forms is a manifestation of the physics of power that according to Michel Foucault consists in mechanisms that analyse distributions, movements, series, combinations, and that uses instruments to render visible, to register, to differentiate and to compare. It is one among other disciplinary technologies that ensure the ordering of human diversity. In the case of intra-human phylogenetic trees, population samples and labels are one issue. Another is that the separated branches seem to show groups of people, who have in reality been interacting and converging, as isolated. Often based on so-called isolated peoples, molecular tree diagrams freeze a hierarchical kinship system that is meant to represent a state before the great historical population movements. (shrink)

Is the Miranda warning, which lets an accused know of the right to remain silent, more about procedural fairness or about the conventions of speech acts and silences? Do U.S. laws about Native Americans violate the preferred or traditional "silence" of the peoples whose religions and languages they aim to "protect" and "preserve"? In Just Silences, Marianne Constable draws on such examples to explore what is at stake in modern law: a potentially new silence as to justice.Grounding her claims (...) about modern law in rhetorical analyses of U.S. law and legal texts and locating those claims within the tradition of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault, Constable asks what we are to make of silences in modern law and justice. She shows how what she calls "sociolegal positivism" is more important than the natural law/positive law distinction for understanding modern law. Modern law is a social and sociological phenomenon, whose instrumental, power-oriented, sometimes violent nature raises serious doubts about the continued possibility of justice. She shows how particular views of language and speech are implicated in such law.But law--like language--has not always been positivist, empirical, or sociological, nor need it be. Constable examines possibilities of silence and proposes an alternative understanding of law--one that emerges in the calling, however silently, of words to justice. Profoundly insightful and fluently written, Just Silences suggests that justice today lies precariously in the silences of modern positive law. (shrink)

This contribution presents an adult education workshop implemented in the field of early childhood education. One of the specificities of education and care practices lies in the competences of the professionals to give a central role to the detailed observation of situations, in order to adjust their modalities of action. How can such observational work be developed and transformed? A participatory research-training approach aims to support the co-construction of an analytical view on observable phenomena in the course of interactions. In (...) a perspective of interactional analysis, it focuses on the modalities that favor the construction of such an analytical posture. (shrink)

During the last decades several tools have been developed to anticipate the future impact of new and emerging technologies. Many of these focus on ‘hard,’ quantifiable impacts, investigating how novel technologies may affect health, environment and safety. Much less attention is paid to what might be called ‘soft’ impacts: the way technology influences, for example, the distribution of social roles and responsibilities, moral norms and values, or identities. Several types of technology assessment and of scenario studies can be used to (...) anticipate such soft impacts. We argue, however, that these methods do not recognize the dynamic character of morality and its interaction with technology. As a result, they miss an important opportunity to broaden the scope of social and political deliberation on new and emerging technologies.In this paper we outline a framework for building scenarios that enhance the techno-moral imagination by anticipating how technology, morality and their interaction might evolve. To show what kind of product might result from this framework, a scenario is presented as an exemplar. This scenario focuses on developments in biomedical nanotechnology and the moral regime of experimenting with human beings. Finally, the merits and limitations of our framework and the resulting type of scenarios are discussed. (shrink)

In this book, Marianne Moyaert develops a new interreligious appropriation of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical philosophy. Viewed in context of his philosophical, anthropological, and ethical work, Ricoeur’s fragmentary reflections on the encounters between religions provide insights on global cooperation practices and religious identity concerns.

Neuropalliative care developed to address the needs of patients living with life‐limiting neurologic disease. One critical consideration is that disease‐related changes to cognition, communication, and function challenge illness experiences and care practices. We conducted an ethnography to understand neuropalliative care as a phenomenon; how it was experienced, provided, conceptualized. Personhood served as our conceptual framework; with its long philosophical history and important place in nursing theory, we examined the extent to which it captured neuropalliative experiences and concerns. Personhood contextualized complex (...) losses, aligning the impact of functional and relational changes. Cognition, communication, and functional alterations stretched conceptions of personhood, insinuating it can be relational, fluid, adaptive. Although normative conceptions of personhood guided research and decision‐making, ethical considerations suggested personhood could be transformed, remade. We consider the implications of our findings through three themes. First, we examine how literature on illness experience fails to integrate the realities of people living with and dying from neurologic disease; we counter this by interrogating the concept of experience. Second, we turn to Ricoeur's work on recognition to illuminate relational conceptions of personhood to inform care practices. Finally, we reflect on how personhood can bridge the gap left by functional changes, enhance relational engagement, and promote dignity at the end of life. (shrink)

With Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotical theory two different kinds of creative metaphorical reasoning in science can be identified. The building of remainder metaphors is especially important for creating new scientific models. We show that the conveyor belt metaphor provides an excellent example for Peirce's theory. The conveyor belt metaphor has recently been invented in order to describe the oceanic transport system. The paradigm of the oceanic conveyor belt strongly influenced the geoscience community and the climate change discussion.