We address the question of whether and to what extent explanatory and modelling strategies in systems biology are mechanistic. After showing how dynamic mathematical models are actually required for mechanistic explanations of complex systems, we caution readers against expecting all systems biology to be about mechanistic explanations. Instead, the aim may be to generate topological explanations that are not standardly mechanistic, or to arrive at design principles that explain system organization and behaviour in general, but not specific mechanisms. These abstraction (...) strategies serve various aims, including prediction and control, that are central to understanding the epistemic diversity of systems biology. (shrink)

Despite their centrality to medicine, drugs are not easily defined. We introduce two desiderata for a basic definition of medical drugs. It should: (a) capture everything considered to be a drug in medical contexts and (b) rule out anything that is not considered to be a drug. After canvassing a range of options, we find that no single definition of drugs can satisfy both desiderata. We conclude with three responses to our exploration of the drug concept: maintain a monistic concept, (...) or choose one of two pluralistic outcomes. Notably, the distinction between drugs and other substances is placed under pressure by the most plausible of the options available. (shrink)

Items were generated to explore the factorial structure of a construct of fundamentalism worded appropriately for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Results suggested three underlying dimensions: External versus Internal Authority, Fixed versus Malleable Religion, and Worldly Rejection versus Worldly Affirmation. The three dimensions indicate that religious fundamentalism is a personal orientation that asserts a supra-human locus of moral authority, context unbound truth, and the appreciation of the sacred over the worldly components of experience. The 15-item, 3-dimension solution was evaluated across Mexican (...) and American samples. Fit indexes point out the viability of the new inventory across these two samples henceforward referred to as the Multi-Dimensional Fundamentalism Inventory. Additional validity tests supported that the new inventory was negatively correlated with participants’ integrative complexity in a religious domain–specific way. (shrink)

We address the question of whether and to what extent explanatory and modelling strategies in systems biology are mechanistic. After showing how dynamic mathematical models are actually required for mechanistic explanations of complex systems, we caution readers against expecting all systems biology to be about mechanistic explanations. Instead, the aim may be to generate topological explanations that are not standardly mechanistic, or to arrive at design principles that explain system organization and behaviour in general, but not specific mechanisms. These abstraction (...) strategies serve various aims, including prediction and control, that are central to understanding the epistemic diversity of systems biology. (shrink)

Although the E-Z Reader model accounts well for eye-tracking data, it will be judged by new predictions and consistency with evidence from brain imaging methodologies. The stage architecture proposed for lexical access seems somewhat arbitrary and calculated timings are conservatively slow. There are certain effects in the literature that seem incompatible with the model.

Background Policy decisions about childhood vaccination require consideration of multiple, sometimes conflicting, public health and ethical imperatives. Examples of these decisions are whether vaccination should be mandatory and, if so, whether to allow for non-medical exemptions. In this article we argue that these policy decisions go beyond typical public health mandates and therefore require democratic input.Methods We report on the design, implementation, and results of a deliberative public forum convened over four days in Ontario, Canada, on the topic of childhood (...) vaccination.Results 25 participants completed all four days of deliberation and collectively developed 20 policy recommendations on issues relating to mandatory vaccinations and exemptions, communication about vaccines and vaccination, and AEFI (adverse events following immunization) compensation and reporting. Notable recommendations include unanimous support for mandatory childhood vaccination in Ontario, the need for broad educational communication about vaccination, and the development of a no-fault compensation scheme for AEFIs. There was persistent disagreement among deliberants about the form of exemptions from vaccination (conscience, religious beliefs) that should be permissible, as well as appropriate consequences if parents do not vaccinate their children.Conclusions We conclude that conducting deliberative democratic processes on topics that are polarizing and controversial is viable and should be further developed and implemented to support democratically legitimate and trustworthy policy about childhood vaccination. (shrink)

Background: Caring for a partner with primary malignant brain tumour can be a dramatic life-changing event. Primary malignant brain tumour is known to give poor life expectancy and severe neurological and cognitive symptoms, such as changed behaviour and personality, which demand greater caring responsibilities from spouses. Aim: The aim of the study is to explore ethical dilemmas spouses experience in the everyday care of a partner in treatment for primary malignant brain tumour. Research design, participants and research context: A phenomenological (...) and hermeneutic qualitative descriptive design was adopted as a method for collecting and analysing data. Ten spouses were interviewed twice using an in-depth, semi-structured interview guide. The interviews took place at the spouses’ homes or at the hospital. Ethical consideration: Ethical matters were considered throughout the research process. Permission from The National Committee on Health Research Ethics and the Danish Data Protection Agency was obtained. Findings: The analysis showed that the spouses perceived daily ethical dilemmas in caring for a partner with primary malignant brain tumour. Their life as well as their partner’s life had changed considerably. The main theme that emerged therefore was ‘oscillating in a changing relationship’. This theme was further elaborated in three subthemes that in more detail demonstrated the dilemmas: ‘doing the right thing in unpredictable daily situations’; ‘torn between patience and guilt’; and ‘living in a time of uncertainty, hope and despair’. Conclusion: Caring for a partner with changed behaviour and personality due to primary malignant brain tumour may involve exhausting ethical caring dilemmas. Spouses’ married life may change to a semi-professional asymmetrical relationship, which is challenged by the oscillation between acting responsibly for their partners’ well-being and caring dilemmas with no answer for what the right thing to do is. Mixed feelings of right and wrong, patience and guilt, hope and despair seem to be spousal companions through their partners’ progressing illness. (shrink)

Over the last ten years, „Theory U″, written by C.O. Scharmer in 2007, has earned broad international recognition. However, critical reviews of its grounding in social sciences and philosophy have been rare. After a brief introduction to Theory U this article examines its methodic approach in the context of its references to the universal history of Toynbee, and epistemological sources in the works of Nietzsche, Capra, Varela, Husserl, and Steiner. The investigation of Theory U’s historical and philosophical grounding comes to (...) the conclusion that it is evidently falling short of adequately capturing real world complexity and does not match widely accepted academic standards. Despite its evident deficiencies, Theory U deserves the merit of uniquely embracing non conventional schools of thought beyond the mainstream literature on leadership theories. (shrink)

O artigo que ora apresentamos problematiza a formação e os enfrentamentos da Associação Liberdades Poéticas para atender ao Objetivo Número 16 da ONU, “Paz, Justiça e Instituições Eficazes”. Trata-se de um grupo de voluntários, composto por pessoas de diferentes sexualidades, formações acadêmicas, atuações profissionais e faixas etárias, criado em 2020 durante a pandemia, que tem como premissa reconhecer a prática da leitura como um Direito Humano, indispensável à humanização e à transformação dos sujeitos. Atuamos com remição de pena por leitura (...) no sistema prisional paulista, que confere, às pessoas privadas de liberdade, quatro dias de redução na sentença para cada obra lida, em um limite de dez títulos/ano. Nossa fundamentação teórica sustenta-se em Antonio Candido, em Lynn Hunt, no Conselho Nacional de Justiça (CNJ), na Constituição Federal, entre outros. Concluímos que, apesar da orientação geral da ONU e dos esforços do governo federal com a publicação da Resolução 391/2021, do Conselho Nacional de Justiça, para flexibilizar a remição de pena por meio da leitura, agentes do sistema penitenciário no estado de São Paulo ainda operam sob uma lógica autoritária que não corresponde à do CNJ, tampouco à ODS 16. (shrink)

I. Ókor -- II. A középkor és a reneszánsz -- III. Az újkor.

Recenzja książki: John D. Barrow, Książka o niczym, tł. Łukasz Lamża, Copernicus Center Press, Kraków 2015, ss. 460.

In the 20th century the infiltration of scientific elements into philosophical currents not only reached its maximum, but also science itself became a "philosophical factor". We look at these processes in physics starting from the fall of mechanistic philosophy. The advent of relativity theory and quantum mechanics has changed physics as science and raised a host of philosophical questions. Traditionally philosophical questions concerning space, time and causality cannot be any longer considered with no help of these theories. Relativistic cosmology and (...) its observational successes in the last decades of the century, for the first time in the history of human thought, provided a global framework for both science and philosophy. And the current search for the final unifying theory of physics leads directly to the most foundational questions of an ontological character. We argue that the success of the 20th century physics strongly suggests a kind of structuralist ontology. /// No século XX, a infiltração de elementos científicos nas correntes filosóficas não só alcançou o seu máximo, mas também é verdade que a própria ciência se tornou um "factor filosófico". O presente artigo considera estes processos na física, a começar com a decadência da filosofia mecanicista. O advento da teoria da relatividade e da mecânica quântica transformou a física enquanto ciência e levantou uma plêiade de questões filosóficas. Questões tradicionais acerca do espaço, do tempo e da causalidade não podem mais ser consideradas sem o contributo destas teorias. A cosmologia relati-vista e os seus sucessos observacionais nas últimas décadas do século passado, e isso pela primeira vez na história do pensamento humano, fornecem um esquema global tanto para a ciência como para a filosofia. Além disso, a busca corrente de uma última teoria unificadora da física conduz directamente às questões mais fundacionais de carácter ontológico. O autor do artigo defende que os sucessos da física do século XX sugerem fortemente uma espécie de ontologia estruturalista. (shrink)

O presente artigo visa elucidar como o problema da verdade surge em Immanuel Kant a par da pergunta pelo critério de verdade, bem como assinalar a predominância deste. É com base na resposta a esta questão que, quanto ao autor, poderemos evitar incorrer em círculos dos quais se tornaria impossível sair. O problema assoma em como saber qual o critério de verdade? As reflexões remetem-nos para Kritik der reinen Vernunft e Prolegomena zu einer jeden kün ftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft (...) wird auftreten können, mas essencialmente, para Logik: ein Handbuch zu Vorlesungen. (shrink)

Il passo della Retorica (1358 a 10-21) dove è introdotta la distinzione óo e i' è uno dei più controversi dell'opera aristotelica. Il presente lavoro propone un chiarimento della natura e del ruolo di óo e i' nella costruzione di un'argomentazione dialettico-retorica. Tale chiarimento viene presentato attraverso un confronto tra Topici e Retorica che, se pur espressamente evidenziato da Aristotele stesso, sembra essere stato trascurato da quanti si sono occupati dell'esegesi di tale sezione della Retorica.

Each Site Specific is always and above all Time Specific, that is marked by Time and by the times from which it is generated, defined and set in a place. Space is a significant environment a work that works in the Work that re-means, in its transformation, the very connotations of performing action. To contain the never-ending process of meaning to which such a work would be subjected, it will be Time: that granitic categorial essence that philosophy, together with Space, (...) indicates as fundamental for any cognitive and speculative exercise. Moreover such an artifact, incorporating History and stories, re-reads – making them readable – living testimonies that animate the place of existence of subjects and objects that last the relative time of their existence, in an attempt to make them and itself eternal. As if the work could take charge of the task of triggering the memorative (making memory) device of the Real, a mysterious aesthetic mechanism that interfaces subjects and objects in the common project to adapt, know and make the world – which is more than the Real, imbued as it is of significant connections and correlations. The object work of art in its positioning (making room) in a place, invites the subject –through an imaginative pact – to signify the world through a simulation of sight that allows Man to pre-see his own possibility of existence before the unknown the real proposes him, responding to his personal S.o.S. he sends daily, threatened by the indecipherable fear of sinking in the unknown. (shrink)

Tradução do texto apresentado por Paul B. Preciado a Sociedade Psicanalitica.

Psychiatry is rapidly adopting digital phenotyping and artificial intelligence/machine learning tools to study mental illness based on tracking participants’ locations, online activity, phone and text message usage, heart rate, sleep, physical activity, and more. Existing ethical frameworks for return of individual research results (IRRs) are inadequate to guide researchers for when, if, and how to return this unprecedented number of potentially sensitive results about each participant’s real-world behavior. To address this gap, we convened an interdisciplinary expert working group, supported by (...) a National Institute of Mental Health grant. Building on established guidelines and the emerging norm of returning results in participant-centered research, we present a novel framework specific to the ethical, legal, and social implications of returning IRRs in digital phenotyping research. Our framework offers researchers, clinicians, and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) urgently needed guidance, and the principles developed here in the context of psychiatry will be readily adaptable to other therapeutic areas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Lawrence Ferrara’s Chapter Four in R. Phelps, R. Sadoff, E. Warburton, and L. Ferrara, A Guide to Research in Music Education, 5th Edition (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2005)Jack HellerIt is curious that Lawrence Ferrara disagrees with Jack Heller and Edward. J. P. O'Connor's view1 that "philosophy" is not "research," yet in the chapter headings in the book A Guide to Research in Music Education, (...) 5th Edition, Chapter 4 is labeled "Philosophical Inquiry," while other chapters are labeled "Qualitative Research," "Nonexperimental Research," "Quantitative Research," and "Historical Research" (italics added). Why not "Philosophical Research?" Maybe he, too, believes that philosophy is not research.In our Handbook Chapter2 we pointed out that research should be systematic and based on "empirical observation." To make things worse we said that research should try to provide "unbiased evidence." Ferrara ascribes to us a positivistic view that we did not make nor believe. That view, according to Ferrara is that the "key reason for their [our] dismissal of philosophical inquiry (notice inquiry not research) as a bona fide research design is the invariable criterion that they [we] assign to all research if it is indeed research: to present 'unbiased evidence.'" [End Page 89] We still believe that research should try to be as objective as possible while realizing that all observations are researcher dependent and have error. Research should strive to reduce error as much as possible.My reading of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions does not conflict with what was written in our Chapter. We did not claim that data are unbiased but rather that research should try to limit bias and try to interpret observations that can be supported by specific behavior.Philosophy, or more properly model building, should lead research. Assumptions that appear in a model are just that. They are assumptions. Not fact; not unbiased opinion. But these assumptions or philosophical conclusions should not be called research in music education because they do not provide any behavioral evidence as support. The deductive process used in philosophy (syllogistic reasoning, for example) should help to develop hypotheses that can be investigated by an inductive process (data collection). Philosophy is a time honored scholarly activity. We certainly do not mean to diminish its importance. All research should have a philosophical underpinning that should produce a theoretical model. This model then should be tested by research. Our Handbook Chapter takes this position. Philosophy is philosophy, not research.Ferrara paraphrases Rom Harre3 by stating thatthere are at least three realms of scientific research and theory: the first realm is marked by ordinary perception in which what is known is based on observable and empirically verifiable facts; in the second realm, perception may catch up with conception–there is a promise of technological development... through which researchers will eventually be able to 'observe' and empirically verify what they only conceived (as in philosophical inquiry) as the probable explanation; and in the third realm there are genuine theoretical acts of imagination... that will never be directly (italics added) perceived, for example, empirically observed or verified.Ferrara points out that this "positivist dictum [the Harre quote above]... is unrealistic in relation to actual (italics added) scientific research and practice."4 It is not clear to which "actual scientific research and practice" Ferrara refers. This entire view is misguided. Ferrara does not believe "the methodology of the natural sciences can appropriately be utilized in the human sciences and arts research, retaining the level of objectivity (italics added) achieved in the natural sciences." Who does Ferrara believes carries out natural science research? Are they not humans, constrained by the same problems of observation that all humans encounter? Are their observations more "objective" as Ferrara seems to believe? The natural scientist, like all other researchers, faces the issue of error in observing phenomena that all researchers face. (See the many examples of [End Page 90] this view in Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff.5 ) Neither philosophical inquiry, nor logical positivism, nor the "new realism" approach that Ferrara proposes for research is free from observational error. The role of all research is to minimize error.A quick romp through some... (shrink)

ABSTRACT With this article, we aim to address aspects related to the treatment of languages in the theoretical postulations of two linguists: Ferdinand de Saussure and Émile Benveniste. To do so, we examine selected works by these authors, seeking to discuss-based on evidence-the role they grant to languages in their formulations. The analyses allow us to demonstrate the protagonism of the diversity of languages as one of the points where the two linguists meet, even though there are differences in their (...) approaches. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 167-181, July 2022. A growing cadre of influential scholars has converged on a circumscribed definition of empathy as restricted only to feeling the same emotion that one perceives another is feeling. We argue that this restrictive isomorphic matching definition is deeply problematic because it deviates dramatically from traditional conceptualizations of empathy and unmoors the construct from generations of scientific research and clinical practice; insistence on an isomorphic form undercuts much of the functional value (...) of empathy from multiple perspectives of analysis; and combining the opposing concepts of isomorphic matching and self-other awareness implicitly requires motivational content, causing the RIM definition to implicitly require the kind of non-matching emotional content that it explicitly seeks to exclude. (shrink)

This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters (...) discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper. (shrink)

In the past ten years, there has been growing interest in and concern about protecting the privacy of personal medical information. Insofar as medical records increasingly are stored electronically, and electronic information can be shared easily and widely, there have been legislative efforts as well as scholarly analyses calling for greater privacy protections to ensure that patients can feel safe disclosing personal information to their health-care providers. At the same time, the volume of biomedical research conducted in this country continues (...) to grow. The budget of the National Institutes of Health, for example, was $20,298 million in 2001, having more than doubled from a budget of $9,218 million 10 years before. This growing body of research includes increased efforts to use stored medical records as a source of data for health services, epidemiologic, and clinical studies. (shrink)

O relato de experiência teve como objetivo desenvolver práticas de humanização que promovam a saúde na equipe de Enfermagem de uma UTI Neonatal em um hospital catarinense. Participaram da atividade, sete profissionais; destes, três eram enfermeiros(as) e quatro eram técnicas de Enfermagem. Realizaram-se encontros semanais com duração de uma hora, cujo método estruturou-se em três módulos denominados: Módulo 1: Autocuidado; Módulo 2: Trabalho em Equipe e Módulo 3: Processos reflexivos. Para o alcance dos objetivos estabeleceram-se técnicas de dinâmicas de grupo (...) e rodas de conversa. Os resultados possibilitaram novas reflexões sobre o autoconhecimento, troca de saberes entre os profissionais, bem como estratégias de resolução de conflitos. Sugere-se a continuidade de intervenções que preconizem a humanização, não somente nesse contexto, mas em diversos serviços de assistência à saúde. (shrink)