The aim of this study was to explore ethically problematic situations in the long-term nursing care of elderly people. It was assumed that greater awareness of ethical problems in caring for elderly people helps to ensure ethically high standards of nursing care. To obtain a broad perspective on the current situation, the data for this study were collected among elderly patients, their relatives and nurses in one long-term care institution in Finland. The patients (n=10) were interviewed, while the relatives (n=17) (...) and nurses (n=9) wrote an essay. Interpretation of the data was based on qualitative content analysis. Problematic experiences were divided into three categories concerning patients’ psychological, physical and social integrity. In the case of psychological integrity, the problems were seen as being related to treatment, self-determination and obtaining information; for physical integrity, they were related to physical abuse and lack of individualized care; and for social integrity, to loneliness and social isolation. This study provided no information on the prevalence of ethical problems. However, it is clear from the results that patient integrity warrants more attention in the nursing care of elderly patients. (shrink)

We argue that the pratyabhijñā system of Kaśmir Śaivism holds an inconsistent position. On the one hand, the Pratyabhijñā regards Śiva as an impersonal mechanism and the universe, including persons, as not having agency; call this the Impersonal Component. On the other hand, it considers Śiva himself as a person, and individual persons as having agency sufficient to respond to Śiva; call this the Personal Component. We maintain that the Personal Component should be affirmed and the Impersonal Component rejected. The (...) Impersonal Component’s claim that Śiva is unaware of and unaffected by his manifestation should be rejected, and the doctrine of satkāryavāda should be modified. The universe is Śiva’s manifestation, in the first instance, but it also has a relative autonomy from him. Moreover, humans have agency and freedom. Their actions effect Śiva. He grows and develops in response to his manifestation. (shrink)

This article analyzes the way in which the Israeli military exercises control over life in Gaza by regulating who and what may enter or leave. Using primary source documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act proceedings, the article details a military bureaucracy that micro-manages requests to move people and goods through Gaza’s crossings. For example, the transfer of chickpea paste requires approval from a senior military official holding the rank of major general, and soldiers evaluate the quality of care (...) offered to an orphan by his or her surviving parent, as a condition of authorizing the child’s passage to his parent’s home. The article discusses the effects of such control on the lives of those inside Gaza, including their exercise of rights and their social and economic choices. It then explores the motivations behind the restrictions, relying on statements and actions by Israeli officials. The article extends the current literature on deliberately nonrational bureaucracies in the context of rule by a foreign power by showing how the Israeli military bureaucracy maintains some functions of control over the local population in Gaza, despite its withdrawal and dismantling of its military government. It concludes by noting that the effects of the travel restrictions and their purpose are relevant to the normative debate over their legitimacy and suggests areas for further research. (shrink)

Biofeedback mechanisms (a) between individuals, (b) between the individual and the society structures which shape individual cognitions, and (c) within the individual genetic biochemical circulation, may explain the diversity of trustworthiness potential and the option of mutual trust for every individual in any given society.

This essay discusses critically the ways in which different metaphors employed to illustrate the practices of knowledge production and knowledge acquisition as well as scientific and scholarly research shape our understanding of the academic form of life. The essay examines the metaphors of knowledge and their role in academia by means of philosophical analysis and a rhetorical analysis of language, thereby defending the core values of academic freedom. It focuses on two pairs of metaphors highly relevant to the tensions characteristic (...) of contemporary academic work: verticality and horizontality, on the one hand, and change and stability, on the other. The entanglement of perspectives from philosophy and historical rhetoric serves a metaphilosophical goal here: to show that our philosophical understanding of the nature of inquiry will be considerably enhanced if we seriously, and with both historical and literary sensibilities, study the metaphors we use in characterizing our epistemic and cognitive projects. (shrink)

The COVID-19 vaccine is one way to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Indonesia has produced Indovac, a COVID-19 vaccine made by Biofarma which has the opportunity to be distributed to countries in the Indo-Pacific Region. This article aims to explain the opportunities and challenges of Indonesia's vaccine diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic to the Indo-Pacific region through Biofarma. By using a vaccine diplomacy approach and qualitative methods with System Dynamic analysis, this article concludes that (i) The opportunity for Indonesia's vaccine (...) diplomacy to the Indo-Pacific is 44% and (ii) The simulation results for all parameters have the opportunity to increase Indonesia's progress in the Indo-Pacific except for the parameters of cooperation with special actors vaccine. The challenges for Indonesia's Covid-19 vaccine diplomacy to the Indo-Pacific come from the United States, India, Japan, Australia and Singapore. (shrink)

The article focuses on the transformative potential of colours described by Rudolf Steiner. Steiner’s colour definitions are approached through the aesthetics of religion, investigating religion as a sensory and mediated practice. The goal is to clarify the identifiable features of the anthroposophical use of colour and how the Steinerian conception of colour relates to the anthroposophical worldview. Steiner’s conception of colours was strongly influenced not only by theosophy but also by J. W. von Goethe’s theory of colour and his ideas (...) of metamorphosis. Steiner’s colour definitions are discussed both through his published lectures and through his own drawings and paintings. These pictures were intended to function as models for artists working with anthroposophical art, and they can be understood as specific sensational (i.e. sensory) forms that many later artists have produced variations of. Steiner’s use of colour is approached particularly through his Nature Mood sketches (1922) and his painting New Life (Mother and Child) (1924). The analysis of artworks made in the anthroposophical tradition can deepen our understanding of Steiner’s conception of colours and its transformative potential. (shrink)

This essay is based on a double perspective provided by literary reading and philosophy for approaching the problem of evil through a critical analysis of certain texts and characters constructed and represented in them, particularly Kant’s theodicy essay and its most important pre-text, the Book of Job. This methodology yields a novel approach to the familiar issue of theodicy vs. anti-theodicy. Our methodology differs from the more standard ways of examining philosophical ideas expressed in literature. In the case discussed here, (...) the use of literary figures... (shrink)

This article analyses the discussion about the ‘new materialism’ or ‘material feminisms’ as an interplay between transdisciplinarity – moving beyond canons and disciplines – and affective interdisciplinary encounters. The previous discussion is taken in a slightly different direction, by arguing that a politics of materiality is at work in the debate, which is implied in affective interdisciplinary encounters. It is argued that despite the transdisciplinarity, the relations of natural science engagements to both social science and humanities feminisms are pivotal. Two (...) specific cases are analysed: the politics of definition, where ‘materiality’ tends to be equated with ‘natural science matters’, and the matter and politics of race. In the latter, race ‘sticks’ to the materiality of materialist feminism, which tends to be left out of the sphere of the presumably new and exciting material feminisms. (shrink)

This article focuses on religiousness and spirituality in the art works of psychiatric patients of Nikkilä Hospital, Finland. The pictures analysed here belong to a collection held at the Helsinki City Museum and they were made during the twentieth century. The theoretical frame of the study is a cultural study of mental health. The collection is approached as presenting a specific kind of imagery which has connections not only to the personal history and diagnoses of the patients; their cultural context (...) and hospital environment is also taken into account. The religiousness and spirituality of the Nikkilä collection are also compared with outsider art and examples of art history internationally. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a politico-philosophical perspective to reassess the much-contested role of truth in politics to put forth a principle of political action that will make sense of a “right to unmanipulated factual information,” which Hannah Arendt understands as crucial for establishing freedom of opinion. In developing a principle of epistemic responsibility, I will show that “factual truth” plays a key role in Arendt’s account of political action and provides a normative order that can extricate her account from (...) charges of immoralism. The article will be divided into three sections: section 1 deals with the distinction between rational truths and factual truths, and the question of their validity, section 2 deals with what a principle of political action is, and lastly, section 3 proposes a principle of “epistemic responsibility” that becomes action-guiding in the political sphere, in order to shed new light on the 2013 Gezi Park protest, one of the recent democratic uprisings of our century. (shrink)

In Waartoe Wetenschap? onderzoekt Frans W. Saris de wetenschap in evolutionair perspectief en hij bepleit een radical enlightenment in een dertiental essays en een toneeltekst waarin zulke uiteenlopende wetenschappers verschijnen als ...

French scientist Henri Poincaré is one of the leading thinkers in the field of philosophy of science with his determinations on science and scientific activity. Poincare's understanding of science is expressed as conventionalist because he asserts that all sciences, including mathematics, consist of conventions and definitions. In this article, Poincare's views on how scientists should evaluate the data obtained from observation and experiment in their studies and the hypotheses that describe the relationships between these data are discussed. In the article, (...) it is also thought that especially Poincare's claims about the structure of science and the nature of scientific activity are important in terms of understanding some scientific views that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the extent of anti-corruption reporting by ASEAN companies and examine whether coercive factors influence the level of disclosure. The authors adopt indicators from the Global Reporting Initiative version 4.0 to measure the extent of anti-corruption disclosures in 117 companies’ reports. Informed by a coercive isomorphism tenet drawn from the institutional theory, the authors propose that several institutional factors influence the extent of their voluntary disclosures. The findings reveal that a large degree of variability difference between (...) the average levels of anti-corruption disclosure in Thailand and the Philippines. The dependence on government tenders and foreign ownership are associated with the level of disclosure. Surprisingly, the United Nation Global Compact membership is not a significant determinant of anti-corruption reporting. This signifies that the membership in the international initiative does not correspond to individual company’s commitment to disclose anti-corruption information. In spite of significant efforts undertaken by global organizations to combat corruption, the level of anti-corruption disclosure is significantly different among the four countries under study. The disclosure of sensitive information such as the confirmed incidences of corruption cases requires careful consideration by the top management as it is subjected to legal implications and reputational risks. Thus, impression management can complement the coercive pressure in explaining the level of anti-corruption reporting. This study is among the first studies which explores the association between coercive factors and the level of anti-corruption disclosure in ASEAN region. (shrink)

During the past decade, women’s and human rights ‘language’ has moved from the margins to the ‘mainstream’ of international law and politics. In this paper, the author argues that while feminists and human rights activists criticise the ‘mainstream’s interpretation of women’s and human rights, ‘we’ do not question what becoming part of the mainstream and the cosmopolitan classes has meant for us. Drawing on examples of how women’s and human rights arguments have been used in the post-conflict state-building process in (...) Afghanistan, the author attempts to show how international women’s rights and human rights advocacy campaigns planned by well-meaning humanitarians in Western capitals can backfire when implemented in politically complex environments. (shrink)

This study aimed to describe and compare the views of nurses and older patients' relatives on factors restricting the maintenance of patient integrity in long-term care. The purposive sample comprised 222 nurses and 213 relatives of older patients in four Finnish long-term care institutions. The data were collected using a self-developed questionnaire addressing five sets of factors relating to patients, relatives, nurses, the organization and society. The maintenance of patient integrity was restricted by: (1) social factors, including lack of respect (...) for long-term geriatric care and lack of adequate resources; (2) patient factors relating to forgetfulness; and (3) factors relating to nurses and relatives in maintaining patient integrity. Better maintenance of patient integrity requires that more consideration is paid to issues of social respect and to the availability of adequate resources. Closer attention must be given to patients who are forgetful and unable to take part in decision making. (shrink)

This paper examines the legitimacy of the US government’s argument that it must “balance liberty and security” with regard to its policy of trying enemy belligerents in military commissions rather than federal courts. I distinguish between three senses of “balance,” and argue that the policy is ambiguous between the second (internal) and third (emergency external) senses of balance. Neither line of reasoning justifies the policy, however. On the second sense, it is unjustified because it constitutes an arbitrary limitation of the (...) rights of some for the sake of the security of others. It thus violates the government’s duty to decide questions of policy in accordance with accepted legal procedures. Alternately, if the policy is intended to be an exercise of emergency powers, then it violates what I call the government’s juridical duty to serve as a guardian of justice. I offer an alternative justification for emergency measures, one that is based on the model of self-defense. I conclude that although the exercise of military commissions in times of emergency can be justified, the current exercise is illegitimate. (shrink)

With a focus on hormone treatments, this article contributes to recent problematizations of the ontology of bodies, illnesses and medication. Hormone treatment is conventionally understood to comprise preparations like pills, patches or injections, and following from this understanding, the materiality of risk is perceived as potential adverse effects of pharmaceuticals within individual bodies. By discussing Finnish trans persons’ experiences of hormone treatments, and drawing from material feminisms and trans/feminist studies, this article rethinks what ‘hormone treatments’ and their risks materially entail. (...) Stressing the importance of accounting for the relationality of risks, the article suggests that hormone treatment risks can be seen as Baradian ‘phenomena’ that materialize contextually within specific ‘treatment apparatuses’ and the power relations that saturate them. This process of materialization includes the gendering of risks and how the gender binary itself may at times constitute a risk. (shrink)

This article describes a descriptive-qualitative method for analyzing and reviewing several textbooks for high school as samples commonly used by teachers and students in their teaching–learning to reveal possible misconceptions. This study focused on the subjects of quantum numbers and electronic configuration. From the advanced literature review to analyze the samples the occurrence of various misconceptions was noted. All textbooks described correctly the four symbols of quantum numbers, but none correlates correctly the magnetic-angular quantum number to the Cartesian labeled orbitals. (...) All textbooks consider mistakenly the meaning of aufbau as the building-up energy of orbitals by following (n + ℓ, n) rules on describing the electronic configuration for all atoms. Only one textbook states that the electronic configuration of transition metal atoms (3d series) can be described in the following order of shell (n), thus giving rise to two types of electronic configurations, [Ar] 3d 4s (Type I) beside [Ar] 4s 3d (Type II), leading further misconception. All textbooks described favorably an unpaired electron of ms = + ½ due to the specific agreement, which is a potential misconception in applying Hund’s rule. In drawing the diagram boxes of orbitals, they are arranged in increasing or decreasing the numeric mℓ, due to the specific agreement, and again leading to a potential misconception on describing the quantum number of electrons issued. Three textbooks introduced the terms of the last and the xth electron associated with the quantum numbers, leading to serious further misconceptions. No books stated that the ordering energy of the (n + ℓ, n) rule is true only for the first twenty atoms. (shrink)

Neuroconstructivism, Vol. 1: How the Brain Constructs Cognition implies that brain functioning depends on biofeedback and ecological trajectories. Using the building blocks of Boolean algebra known as logic gates and models of distributed control systems, I suggest that levels of regulatory states are responsible for optimal, pathological, and developmental processes. I include the impact of regulatory and nonregulatory functions on structural development.

In this study, we theorize humanness in organizations as a property of practice. We apply practice theory to examine how humanness becomes enacted in a business organization as people prioritize organizational and individual ends in their work activities. Our empirical case study examines the everyday interactions of development team members in an R&D organization of a large Nordic cooperative. Challenging the dominant individualist and structuralist approaches in humanness and human dignity studies, we identify and locate four different aspects of humanness (...) in organizational practices. As a result, we show how the emergence of humanness is an ongoing process that transpires through two mechanisms: site shifting and reconciliation; that is, people shift between different sites of the social, consisting of different sets of practices with underlying disparate assumptions of humanness, which requires reconciliation. These findings provide a basis for an alternative theorizing of humanness in organizations. (shrink)

This first-time and excellent English-Arabic production of an eleventh-century work by the moral philosopher Miskawayh consists of “Conclusive Answers to Disparate Questions” put to him by Tawhidi, a literary intellectual. The book should not be viewed simply as a window for the modern English reader on what occupied the minds of thinkers in that milieu and of that period. As Vasalou notes in the introduction, the work does not quite fit into the Arabic genre of the Aristotelian Problemata literature, where (...) one expects to find straightforward arguments between opposed views on specific topics; the work is sui generis in consisting of brief but serious “teacher” responses to a series of disconnected and what often seem to be simplistic but taunting questions raised by an inquirer whom we know to have been as knowledgeable in philosophy as the respondent himself. (In one about how customs of different nations originate, the respondent's curt answer is that he neither knows nor cares to know, this not being a matter that adds to knowledge!) It is this strange feature of the work—rather than the classical answers provided by the philosopher—that has occupied contemporary scholars (like Mohammed Arkoun) who have worked on the subject. What was Tawhidi's intention in putting such questions to Miskawayh?As Vasalou points out, the questions often seem articulated more in the form of wonderment about a common fact (“Why is it so?”) than to stimulate a pedantic answer (“This is what the textbook says”). For example, why is it that we can create images for ourselves of what we consider to be the most hideous but are unable to conceive images of the finest or purest or most beautiful? Surely, if we could, we would be able to live happier lives! Miskawayh's classical answer on souls and body humors here seems to miss the point of the question completely. “Why is laughter infectious?” expresses a similar wonderment not addressed in the answer. The question “What is the wisdom of there being mountains?” elicits a scientific answer, but the reader wonders whether it is the kind of answer the questioner was after, or whether instead he was trying to draw out Miskawayh on the theory of possible worlds (as in the famous exchange between Ibn Sina [Avicenna] and al-Biruni). In a similar vein, Tawhidi asks, “Why is it that we grow older but the process isn't reversed?” to which Miskawayh readily gives the textbook answer. But is that what Tawhidi was after?On the other hand, some questions and answers (such as some on injustice, or luck, or worthiness) seem quite genuine and straightforward, but one wonders if Tawhidi is complaining in them about his own hard life and unfortunate circumstances to one of whom he is envious and considers to be less worthy and more fortunate than himself. (Unlike Miskawayh, Tawhidi was never able to land himself a secure position or income.) It is in this latter context, perhaps, that we can better understand the psychological background of the several questions on suicide Tawhidi also includes in his bag of queries. In the end, we are left to wonder whether Tawhidi was simply luring Miskawayh to show himself to be a “novice” and if the latter innocently fell into the trap. Whatever the answer, the book is informative and entertaining. (shrink)