"Ist der Patient ein Mensch?" is a collection of articles. Its central topic is the question if the object of modern medicine is still the human being or if just organs and tissues are treated by medical doctors? The drawing on the book cover shows a lung instead of a human patient lying in a hospital bed. The approaches to this topic are diverse and surprising. E.g. the surgeon Ankersmit argues that it is impossible for him to see the human (...) being in the body lying on the operation table because then he would be unable to perform his work professionally. Other texts stretch the topic of the book to the questions whether medical doctors are human beings or if the human being of today is a "patient" in the sense of a current crisis of anthropology. Also questions like patient autonomy and communication with patients are tackled. The book is edited by Helmut Hofbauer, Lukas Kaelin, Hendrik Jan Ankersmit & Walter Feigl. Authors are: Lukas Kaelin, Gabriele Baumann, Hendrik Jan Ankersmit, Renate Heinz, Claus G. Krenn, Alexander Lapin, Sigrid Pilz, Margot Ham-Rubisch, Petra Herzeg, Klaus Spiess, Lucie Strecker, Paul Ferstl, Helmut Hofbauer & Peter Kampits. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

An architect and architectural philosopher, Berlage created a series of buildings and a body of writings that probed the problems and possibilities of Modernism. His principal texts, given here in English for the first time, present a vital chapter in the history of European Modernism.

Das Sammelwerk legt umfassend den Stand der Staatstheorie dar und arbeitet die Beiträge der bedeutendsten Staatsdenker und der wichtigsten Strömungen des Staatsdenkens zum heutigen Staatsverständnis exemplarisch heraus.Renommierte Philosophen, Historiker, Sozial-, Kultur- und Rechtswissenschaftler aus Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen in ganz Europa stellen in 15 gleichgewichteten Kapiteln das Staatsdenken von der Antike bis zur Postdemokratie facettenreich heraus. Jedes Kapitel firmiert unter einem Schwerpunkt, angefangen beim klassischen und konservativen über das liberale und feministische bis hin zum anarchistischen und religiösen Staatsdenken. Einen besonderen Stellenwert (...) nimmt dabei das Staatsdenken in anderen Kulturen ein, darunter China, Indien, die arabische Welt sowie das vor- und das postkoloniale Afrika.Die Schlussbetrachtung zum "Staat der Zukunft" bilanziert die Probleme von Souveränitätsverlust, Staatszerfall und Postdemokratie vor dem Hintergrund von Globalisierung, Ökonomisierung und Individualisierung.Praktische Querverweise und ein umfassendes Literaturverzeichnis erleichtern den Zugriff, detaillierte Stichwort- und Personenregister runden das Werk ab.Mit Beiträgen von:Helga Albrecht, Andreas Anter, Olaf Asbach, Friedrich Balke, Ernst Baltrusch, Michael Becker, Hannah Bethke, Karl-Heinz Breier, Michael Brie, Norbert Campagna, Lars Distelhorst, Sabine Doyé, Dominik Finkelde, Oliver Flügel-Martinsen, Alexander Gantschow, Eva Geulen, Gerhard Göhler, Dieter Grimm, Martin Gronau, Gregor Hain, Hendrik Hansen, Leonhard Harding, Oliver Hidalgo, Wilhelm Hofmann, Frauke Höntzsch, Dana Ionescu, Matthias Jestaedt, Dirk Jörke, John Kannankulam, Stefan Koslowski, Oliver W. Lembcke, Rochus Leonhardt, Roland Lhotta, Mathias Lindenau, Marion Löffler, Gundula Ludwig, Günter Maschke, Jean-Christophe Merle, Dominique Fabian Miething, Andreas Niederberger, Claudia Opitz-Belakhal, Henning Ottmann, Gregor Paul, Thore Prien, Walter Reese-Schäfer, Claudia Ritzi, Samuel Salzborn, Stefano Saracino, Birgit Sauer, Peter Seyferth, Thomas Schölderle, Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann, Ulrich Seeber, Veith Selk, Harald Sippel, Tine Stein, Kazuhiro Takii, Ulrich Thiele, Andreas Vasilache, Rüdiger Voigt, Christian Wendt, Stefanie Wöhl, Joachim Wurst, Holger Zapf und Barbara Zehnpfennig. (shrink)

Hendrik Lorenz presents a comprehensive study of Plato's and Aristotle's conceptions of non-rational desire. They see this as something that humans share with animals, and which aims primarily at the pleasures of food, drink, and sex. Lorenz explores the cognitive resources that both philosophers make available for the explanation of such desires, and what they take rationality to add to the motivational structure of human beings. In doing so, he finds conceptions of the mind that are coherent and deeply integrated (...) with both philosophers' views about such topics as the relation between body and soul, or the nature of the virtues. (shrink)

""Catching Ourselves in the Act" is no less than an attempt to explain intelligence. Delightful how the author dismantles traditional views in.

In this paper, we first classify different types of second opinions and evaluate the ethical and epistemological implications of providing those in a clinical context. Second, we discuss the issue of how artificial intelligent could replace the human cognitive labour of providing such second opinion and find that several AI reach the levels of accuracy and efficiency needed to clarify their use an urgent ethical issue. Third, we outline the normative conditions of how AI may be used as second opinion (...) in clinical processes, weighing the benefits of its efficiency against concerns of responsibility attribution. Fourth, we provide a ‘rule of disagreement’ that fulfils these conditions while retaining some of the benefits of expanding the use of AI-based decision support systems in clinical contexts. This is because the rule of disagreement proposes to use AI as much as possible, but retain the ability to use human second opinions to resolve disagreements between AI and physician-in-charge. Fifth, we discuss some counterarguments. (shrink)

Translation:Hendrik Josephus POS, „Phénoménologie et linguistique.“ In: Keur uit de verspreide geschrift en van Dr. H. J. Pos. Vol. I. Assen: Van Loghum Slaterus 1957, p. 131–141.

The project 'Facing Forward' started with a collaboration between five institutions: the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam, De Appel arts centre, W139, the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and the art magazine Metroplis M. Having previously organized the lecture series and publications 'Right About Now: Art & Theory in the 1990s' (2005/2006) and 'Now is the Time: Art & Theory in the 21st Century' (2008/2009), the organizing committee decided to take the final (...) step in this timeline and turn its attention to the far horizon. Informed by a shared interest in the role that history, speculation, and utopianism play in the field of contemporary art and design (as well as the larger context of global, socio-economic and political developments), a selection of seven themes emerged from the conversations of the initial organizers. These would eventually shape the seven lecture and discussions events - collected in this volume of essays - publicized under the banner Art & Theory From a Future Perspective. A great number of internationally renowned speakers were invited to reflect on the proposed themes during often sold-out events, which were presented at the Oude Lutherse Kerk in Amsterdam in 2011/2012. Yet, however compelling our desire as organizers to go beyond the framework of contemporary events and the current interest, well-nigh obsession, with history, it is obviously an illusion to think that we can escape the past by means of a turn towards the future."--Page 8. (shrink)

De humanist Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was een van de meest invloedrijke filosofen van de Italiaanse renaissance. Zijn wijsbegeerte is van groot belang geweest voor kunstenaars als Botticelli en Michelangelo. Dit boek besteedt uitvoerige aandacht aan Ficino's invloed op artistiek gebied. Fundamentele studies van Chastel, Panofsky en Gombrich passeren daarbij de revue. Ook de rol van de familie De' Medici in Ficino's professionele en persoonlijke leven wordt uiteengezet. Zo ontstaat een veelzijdig en samenhangend beeld van het milieu van de Platonisten in (...) Florence. De filosofie van Plato en zijn navolgers maakte een ware wedergeboorte mee in het Italië van de vijftiende eeuw. De intellectuele omwenteling die Ficino in gang zette, zou zich niet alleen over het Italië van de Renaissance maar over heel Europa verspreiden. Dit boek is opgebouwd uit een algemeen deel, gevolgd door twee traktaten van Ficino: 'De extase van Paulus' en 'Wat is licht?'. Deze verhandelingen zijn als het ware de kroongetuigen bij het algemene deel. Dit boek is voor allen die zich interesseren voor het Italië van de Renaissance."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Ancient philosophical theories of soul are in many respects sensitive to ways of speaking and thinking about the soul psuchê] that are not specifically philosophical or theoretical. We therefore begin with what the word ‘soul’ meant to speakers of Classical Greek, and what it would have been natural to think about and associate with the soul. We then turn to various Presocratic thinkers, and to the philosophical theories that are our primary concern, those of Plato (first in the Phaedo, then (...) in the Republic), Aristotle (in the De Anima or On the Soul ), Epicurus, and the Stoics. These are by far the most carefully worked out theories of soul in ancient philosophy. Later theoretical developments — for instance, in the writings of Plotinus and other Platonists, as well as the Church Fathers — are best studied against the background of the classical theories, from which, in large part, they derive. (shrink)

Aristotle takes practical wisdom and arts or crafts to be forms of knowledge which, we argue, can usefully be thought of as ‘empiricist’. This empiricism has two key features: knowledge does not rest on grasping unobservable natures or essences; and knowledge does not rest on grasping logical relations that hold among propositions. Instead, knowledge rests on observation, memory, experience and everyday uses of reason. While Aristotle’s conception of theoretical knowledge does require grasping unobservable essences and logical relations that hold among (...) suitable propositions, his conception of practical and productive knowledge avoids such requirements and is consistent with empiricism. (shrink)

This paper explores the role and resolution of disagreements between physicians and their diagnostic AI-based decision support systems. With an ever-growing number of applications for these independently operating diagnostic tools, it becomes less and less clear what a physician ought to do in case their diagnosis is in faultless conflict with the results of the DSS. The consequences of such uncertainty can ultimately lead to effects detrimental to the intended purpose of such machines, e.g. by shifting the burden of proof (...) towards a physician. Thus, we require normative clarity for integrating these machines without affecting established, trusted, and relied upon workflows. In reconstructing different causes of conflicts between physicians and their AI-based tools—inspired by the approach of “meaningful human control” over autonomous systems and the challenges to resolve them—we will delineate normative conditions for “meaningful disagreements”. These incorporate the potential of DSS to take on more tasks and outline how the moral responsibility of a physician can be preserved in an increasingly automated clinical work environment. (shrink)

This festschrift collects a number of insightful essays by a group of accomplished Christian scholars, all of who have either worked with or studied under Hendrik Hart during his 35-year tenure as Senior Member in Systematic Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Canada.

The aim of this article is to elucidate the processes that characterize natural language interpretation. The basic hypothesis is that natural language interpretation can be characterized as an optimization problem. This innovative view on interpretation is shown to account for the crucial role of contextual information while avoiding certain well-known problems associated with compositionality. This will become particularly clear in the context of incomplete expressions. Our approach takes as a point of departure total freedom of interpretation in combination with the (...) parallel application of soft constraints on possible interpretations. These constraints can be contextual, intonational or syntactic in nature. The integration of pragmatic and syntactic/semantic information in a system of ranked constraints is proposed to correctly derive the optimal interpretations in cases of nominal anaphorization, determiner quantification and elliptical comparatives. (shrink)

The present volume produced in honour of the turcologist Petra Kappert concentrates on the subject of social upheavals. The papers range widely, historically from the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire up to the present day, geographically from Persia to the Caucasus and from there to Berlin today, and thematically the volume offers an impressive variety of subjects from history, philology, literature and cultural studies to the philosophy of law, sociology and politics.

We analyze investors’ perception and long-term effects of board gender diversity on firms’ stock market performance in an international setting. Our results, controlling for the endogenous nature of board compositions, indicate that female board representation neither improves nor reduces firms’ long-term stock performance. Hence, we argue that it is imperative to go beyond the conventional thinking in terms of the business case for gender diversity and broaden the perspective also to incorporate societal and ethical aspects in the strive to board (...) gender equality. Even more so, as our results show that it does not entail reduced shareholder value, which the literature on mandatory gender quotas commonly seems to suggest. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:I argue that there are, according to Aristotle, two importantly different kinds of goals or ends in the domain of human agency and that one of these two kinds has been frequently, though not universally, overlooked. Apart from psychological goals, goals that agents adopt as their purposes, there are also, I submit, goals that actions have by being the kinds of actions they are and, in some cases, by occurring in the circumstances in which they do. These latter goals belong (...) to suitable actions whether or not agents adopt them as purposes and whether or not agents are aware of them. There is evidence both in Aristotle's ethical writings and in his discussion of chance and luck in Physics II.4–6 that he recognizes goals of this latter kind. (shrink)

The central theme of this essay concerns the historical character of human nature and especially of human reason. This theme I will develop first of all by discussing briefly that aspect of the present-day philosophical debate, in which this theme takes pride of place. Thus, in the first section, I will try to show which predicament the participants of this debate face in the defense of their position. In the second section, I will discuss the main ideas of Herman Dooyeweerd’s (...) transcendental critique of theoretical thought. This critique, which Dooyeweerd himself considered to be a Christian critique on the whole tradition of philosophical thought, is closely tied up with the theme of this chapter. The problem of the historical character of human rationality — or in the words of Dooyeweerd, ‘the problem of historicism’ — formed for a large part the setting in which he developed his critique. Although I fully accord with the main thrust of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy and especially endorse that which motivated him in his transcendental critique, there are, nevertheless, elements in his conception which have dissatisfied me for a long time. His critique needs to be revised, in my opinion. In section three, I shall attempt such a revision, by taking as a starting point the idea of the ‘answering nature of humankind,’ an idea which I have worked out elsewhere. (shrink)

Pragma-dialectical approaches to legal argumentation seem to be rather different from traditional approaches appealing to standards of propositional logic. Pragma-dialectical analysis of arguments by analogy and e contrario seem to fall foul to the rigors of logical analysis, in which problems or even concepts of analogy and e contrario seem to disappear. The brunt of both types of special legal argumentation appears to be borne by often implicit general principles and an appeal to the system of the law as a (...) whole. Still, pragma-dialectics and logical analysis of legal argument are best seen as fruitfully supplementing each other in ongoing research of ever evolving legal argument. (shrink)

How does one make sense of a naked prophet who walked the streets of Jerusalem for no less than three years? This contribution interpreted the ambulatory naked prophet in Isaiah 20 as a sign-act by means of symbolic interactionism and performative interpretation according to which symbolic or sign-acts are multivalent entities. Isaiah 20 was interpreted as an embodied, multivalent text that invited ongoing appropriation among subsequent audiences while exploring the potential meaning(s) of the initial act within the parameters of text (...) and context. It is presupposed that human beings reinterpret symbolic acts in different subsequent contexts and that a symbolic act should never be reduced to one single (original!) meaning – this reinterpretation process is illustrated by the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 20. Furthermore, the question will be posed how one could interpret and appropriate a disruptive and ‘foolish’ prophetic and symbolic act of public exposure – Isaiah as an ‘agent provocateur’?Contribution: The performative critique of Isaiah 20 drew attention to the neglected multivalent character of the initial sign-act that enabled ongoing appropriations (‘Fortschreibung’) in new contexts of competing power relations. At first the sign-act was relevant for its pre-exilic audience, then for the post-exilic and even later for a Hellenistic audience by means of the Septuagint version. It also illustrated that text interpretation can be a catalyst that unsettles and disrupts power (within and beyond academic and believing communities), even when it is considered folly. (shrink)

The command of God seems to play hardly any role in Kant’s moral philosophy. Yet, in recent years, representatives of so-called Divine Command Metaethics have attempted to claim Kant for their thesis that morality depends on divine commands. Quite obviously, numerous passages from Kant’s writings can be cited against this view. At the same time, however, it is possible to find arguments which suggest that Kant grants divine commands a greater function in laying the foundations of ethics than is generally (...) assumed. The present paper examines the arguments which can be made for and against the hypothesis that Kant’s moral philosophy represents a variant of Divine Command Metaethics. The result shows that in Kant’s later work an attempt is made to reconcile the autonomy of moral subjects with the idea that morality has a religious basis in God’s command. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 80-95.

This contribution is a review article on the three most important books by F. Gerrit Immink in practical theology. His approach to this discipline is studying faith praxis of the Protestantse Kerk in Nederland which is a church in the Reformed tradition. In his first book he explained his approach to practical theology in a discussion with the action theory and hermeneutical-communucative approaches. His choice for the study of faith praxis opens the way for a more theological approach to him (...) in which communication between God and people is an important aspect. His second book forms the central part of this article. He uses the concept performance in the liturgy which is adopted from the theater world. In the performance by means of the execution of the liturgy by the congregation they all get involved in the message from the Bible of that Sunday, they are touched by it, it has an effect on them, and they get a new perspective on the problems of everyday life. This is possible through the work of the Holy Spirit. The epiclese prayers in the liturgy are prayers for the enlightening and work by the Spirit. He discusses singing, praying, preaching, baptism and Holy Communion in detail. The main idea is that the performance in the liturgy does something to you, it has an effect on you, something happens to you. To my mind there is no need to choose between the ritual approach and the approach he is putting on the table. The approaches can enrich each other. (shrink)

The reliability of clinical practice guidelines has been disputed because guideline panel members are often burdened with financial conflicts of interest. Current recommendations for COI regulation advise not only detailed declaration but also active management of conflicts. To continuously assess COI declaration and management in German guidelines we established the public database LeitlinienWatch. We analyzed all German guidelines at the highest methodological level that included recommendations for pharmacological therapy according to five criteria: declaration and assessment of COI, composition of the (...) guideline development group, independence of the coordinators and lead authors, imposed abstentions because of COI and public external review. Each criterion was assessed using predefined outcome categories. Most guidelines contained a detailed declaration of COI. However, none of the guidelines provided full transparency of COI assessment results. The guideline group was composed of a majority of participants with COI in 55% of the guidelines, no guideline was free of participants with COI. Only 9% of guidelines had coordinators and lead authors without any financial COI. Most guidelines did not provide a rule for abstentions for participants with COI. In 21% of guidelines there was a rule, but abstentions were either not practiced or not documented, whereas in 7% partial abstentions and in 2% complete abstentions were documented. Two thirds of the guideline drafts were not externally reviewed via a public website. COI are usually documented in detail in German guidelines of the highest methodological level. However, considerable improvement is needed regarding active management of COI, including recruitment of independent experts for guideline projects, abstention from voting for participants with COI and external review of the guideline draft. We assume that the publicly available ratings on GuidelineWatch will improve the handling of conflicts of interest in guideline development. (shrink)