S'inscrivant dans une perspective d'analyse interactionnelle des discours argumentatifs, l'étude comparée des forums interner comme dispositifs de discussion argumentative et du courrier des lecteurs d'un quotidien se développe selon trois axes: la dimension dialogale, la mise en scène de soi et les procédés argumentatifs. Elle montre que ces deux dispositifs constituent des espaces d'expression politique citoyenne, mais que seul le forum peut permettre une discussion argumentative horizontale entre citoyens.As part of an interactional perspective of discourse analysis argumentative, comparative study of (...) forums as intern devices argumentative discussion and letters to the editor of a newspaper develops along three axes: the dialogical dimension, the staging of self and argumentative processes. It shows that these two devices are spaces of citizen political expression, but only the forum can provide a horizontal argumentative discussion among citizens. (shrink)

Nietzsche is to Hegel what a bird breaking its shell is to a bird contentedly absorbing the substance within. Georges Bataille, 1938.

Background: Brain-dead humans retain many of the physiologic functions of living humans, but they are legally dead and cannot be physically harmed by participation in research. Stakeholder opinions...

The thorny problem, which we are confronted with in translating the term of “Sein”(Being) from western Philosophy into Chinese, highlights the ambiguity, paradoxy and vagueness of the issue of Sein from a specific viewpoint. Although there is no exact equivalent in Chinese for the word of “Sein”, we use several different words to express the meanings consisted in the issue of “Sein”. By comparison we may find that what is discussed by Zhuang Zi using the terms of “Shi” and “Fei” (...) are just in a considerable degree the same issue discussed by Heidegger using the terms of “Sein” and “Dasein”. However, they gave different opinions to the issue, which show their divergence in their philosophic thinking. (shrink)

This article contains an account of Asphodel's early work on goddesses and related topics, and its influence on men as well as women. I show how my own spiritual awareness and my understanding of the Goddess has developed through discussions with her. I also indicate why I have a strong interest in and liking for feminist theology despite not being a theologian.

Summary Structured interviews were carried out with 176 secondary school teachers to elicit their views/opinions about their initial professional training and their later practical experience, with particular reference to classroom behaviour management. The results showed that the vast majority of teachers believe classroom management skills to be of major importance to them professionally. Nearly three?quarters of them were dissatisfied with the preparation in this area of professional skills provided by their initial training courses. Many thought that their colleagues spent (...) too much time on matters of order and control and 38% thought that they, themselves, did also. Generally, they showed an interest in attending training courses in classroom behaviour management. Many felt that such training could reduce stress among teachers and might help to reduce troublesome behaviour among their pupils. Nearly all of them thought that it would be of benefit to their younger colleagues who were just beginning their careers. (shrink)

David Hume is the most influential precursor of modern empiri cism. By modern empiricism, I intend a belief that all cognitive conflicts can be resolved, in principle, by either appeal to matters offact, via scientific procedure, or by appeal to some sets of natural or conventional standards, whether linguistic, mathematical, aes thetic or political. This belief itself is a consequent of an old appre hension that all synthetic knowledge is based on experience, and that the rest can be reduced to (...) a set of self-evident truths. In this broad sense, Modern Empiricism encompasses classes, such as Logi cal Empiricism, Logical Atomism and Philosophical Analysis, and unique individuals such as Russell and Moore. It excludes, thereby, the present day continental philosophies, such as Thomism, Exist entialism, and Dialectical Materialism. Modern empiricists, to be sure, are influenced by many other phi losophers. Locke, Berkeley, and Mill, among the classical empiri cists, and Leibniz and Kant, among the rationalists (the former especially on the logico-mathematical side) in one way or other are responsible for the appearance of empiricism in its new form. But none of them were as influential as Hume. This, by itself is not news. Weinberg, in his well-known book, An Examination of Logical Positivism, observes that: Many, if not all, of the principal doctrines of contemporary positivism derive from Hume. (shrink)

Examines the history of speculative thought by focusing on such dominant personalities as Plato, Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

In 2012, two major professional societies representing Europe and the United States released influential statements that would propel a commercial market for social egg freezing, in which women bank their oocytes for later use in order to avoid compromised fertility that comes with age. While the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology condoned SEF based on reproductive autonomy and justice, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine discouraged SEF based on insufficient data and concerns about false hope. In this article, (...) we map the contexts and discursive moves by which the biomedicalization of SEF proceeded since 2012. We compare professional bioethical arguments that made the case to approve SEF in Europe with news and popular media discourse that formed and shaped the commercial marketization of SEF in the United States despite the recommendation of the ASRM. While a statist pronatalist perspective informed the former, a distinctly private labor market recruitment strategy utilizing a Lean In efficiency model of feminism buttressed the latter. (shrink)

From a phenomenological perspective of game-space and horizon, this paper tries to make a deconstructive reading of Hegel's "two galleries", namely, "the gallery of opinions" and "the gallery of knowledge", which are mentioned in the introduction of Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy. The reading shows that the Game-space or the ab-gruendiger Grund of the Hegelian concept of philosophical history lies in an originally differencing space that is keeping in absence, which is called by Edmund Husserl and Jacques (...) Derrida "the gallery of Dresden". (shrink)

The paper explores selected factors influencing the process of radicalisation leading to the use of political violence and terror by the Muslim minorities living in the European Union member states. Internal and external catalysts conditioning this process and methods of their analysis have been presented. The second section examines various counter-radicalisation and de-radicalisation efforts of the EU. The authors analysed the multidimensional European Union policy in the area of counteracting radicalisation for empowering the population and member states in preventing the (...) radicalisation and recruitment to terrorism and emphasising the role of social partners and local authorities. Also, the promotion of good practices for combating radicalisation, developed under the auspices of the multidisciplinary Radicalisation Awareness Network is presented. (shrink)

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Will Durant chronicles the lives and ideas of key philosophers throughout history in this informative yet eminently readable text. Beginning with Socrates and Plato and concluding with Friedrich Nietzsche, Durant builds a history of philosophy by showing how each thinker's ideas informed and influenced the next generation.

The current practice for UK Research Ethics Committees is to invite researchers to attend meetings at which their applications are to be considered and the National Research Ethics Service strongly recommends researchers to attend. There are no available data, however, to substantiate the value of researchers' attendance and particularly on the extent to which their attendance may influence the initial decision of the committee. This study attempts to address whether it is in the researchers' interest to commit substantial time and (...) resource to attend a REC meeting through using the REC decision on the research proposal as the main outcome measure. (shrink)

In the context of 'Do-not-resuscitate' (DNR) decisions, there is a lack of information in the UK on the opinions of patients and prospective patients. Written anonymous responses to questionnaires issued to 322 out-patient subjects showed that 97 per cent would opt for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in their current state of health. In the hypothetical circumstance of having advanced senile dementia only 10 per cent would definitely want CPR, with 75 per cent preferring not to have CPR. There were no (...) significant correlations between the responses and sex or age. Of 270 patients asked verbally if they found the questions disturbing, none said they did. These findings show that the great majority of patients would not wish CPR if severely senile, and that patients are not disturbed by questions relating to their choice for or against CPR. This should encourage further investigations of patients' opinions on CPR in a broader range of conditions, and greater use of DNR orders. (shrink)

(2004). From an Exercise in Professional Etiquette to Society's Wish List? Review of American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 69-70. doi: 10.1162/152651604323097907.

IN AT LEAST SIX PLACES AQUINAS WRITES: “Concord is a union of wills, not of opinions.” This dictum is problematic because one would think that without some union of opinions, union of wills can not obtain. This article seeks to clarify the meaning of this dictum and to show that it does not imply that shared opinions are unnecessary for concord.

Having an agreed-upon definition of character education would be useful for both researchers and practitioners in the field. However, even experts in character education disagree on how they would define it. We attempted to achieve greater conceptual clarity on this issue through a prototype analysis in which the features perceived as most central to character education were identified. In Study 1 (N = 77), we asked character education experts to enumerate features of character education. Based on these lists, we identified (...) 30 features. In Study 2 (N = 101), experts assessed which features were central to character education through a categorization task. In Study 3 (N = 166), we assessed the extent of centrality using scalar items. We conclude by offering practical advice for the development of future character education studies and programs rooted in what is deemed central to such programs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article reports the result of a survey about causal beliefs, normative conceptions and moral evaluations of addicts and addiction in the general population. Specifically, we focused on four issues: To what extent are the normative conceptions of addiction current in the philosophical and scientific literature reflected in laypersons' conception of addiction? How do laypersons rate addicts on perceived responsibility? Which factors influence laypersons' responsibility attributions in the context of addiction? What feelings and attitudes (anger/sympathy/help-giving intentions) do laypersons have (...) toward addicts? We found that, although laypersons seem to assume a weakness view of addiction, their patterns of responsibility attributions vary depending on type of drugs combined with perceived severity of outcome, where the latter even overrides the attributional effects of the actor's perceived control over events. Some explanations of the data are suggested, and various consequences with respect to help-giving behavior, are discussed. (shrink)

: The present work analyses Content Moderation, focusing on ethical concerns and cognitive effects. Starting from a general description and history of the moderation process, it stresses some ethical problems: quality of moderation, transparency, and the working conditions of human moderators. Using some of Facebook leaked slides offering examples of moderation, we define some controversial rules and principles for Commercial Content Moderation. These examples highlight a general lack of coherency and transparency, which has the potential to affect users’ cognitive attitudes, (...) their perception of reality, and their freedom of speech. Such effects are studied in comparison to other well-known online cognitive phenomena and in relation to the most recent dedicated legislation in EU countries. The current Content Moderation scheme leaves users at risk of specific cognitive distortions, highlighting the urgent need for greater transparency throughout the moderation process and better working conditions for moderators. Keywords: Content Moderation; Freedom of Speech; Epistemic Bubble; Technology Ethics Commercial Content Moderation: un oscuro labirinto per la libertà d’espressione e le opinioni degli utenti Riassunto: Il presente lavoro offre un’analisi approfondita della moderazione di contenuti, concentrandosi sulle problematiche etiche e sugli effetti cognitivi. A partire da una introduzione ai concetti chiave e alla storia della moderazione di contenuti online, si concentra su alcuni problemi etici primari: la qualità della moderazione, la sua trasparenza e le condizioni di lavoro dei lavoratori. Utilizzando dei documenti formativi interni di Facebook, pubblicati da un quotidiano e dagli esempi in essi contenuti, definiremo le controverse regole e i principi della Commercial Content Moderation. Ne emerge una generale mancanza di coerenza organizzativa e di trasparenza nel processo, che mostra potenziali effetti dannosi sulle attitudini degli utenti, sulla loro percezione della realtà e la loro libertà di parola. Tali effetti saranno studiati in confronto con i più conosciuti effetti cognitivi del mondo dei social ed in relazione alle più recenti disposizioni di leggi europee in merito. Gli schemi attualmente in uso producono degli specifici effetti di distorsione cognitiva e conseguentemente mostrano l’importanza di una maggiore attenzione alla trasparenza del processo e alle condizioni di lavoro dei moderatori. Parole chiave: Moderazione di contenuti; Libertà di parola; Bolla epistemica; Etica della tecnologia. (shrink)

Several critics have reopened the continuing debate regarding the credibility of the auditing profession in part because of auditors' reluctance to issue warning signals to investors. At the root of auditors' lack of independence issues are conflicts of interest resulting from the structural features of auditor-client relationship. The Throughput Model is advanced to illustrate how ethical issues may be influenced by conflicts of interest. In the first stage, the TP provides an isolation of auditors' ethical positions from six ethical different (...) perspectives. In the second stage, previous TP theory is built upon by arguing a simultaneous analysis of how conflicts of interests may induce auditors' behavior. We conclude that in the current low litigation risk environment, auditors' ethical behavior is clearly ' unbalanced' favoring the reluctance to issue warning signals. Finally, we offer a discussion of potential solutions to improve ethical issues. (shrink)

The way we refer to third parties in talk is one means through which relationships between speaker, recipients and referents are made relevant. A range of referring expressions is available and any number of expressions might correctly refer to a referent. One guide to selection is the preference for achieving recognition and the default practice is, where possible, to use a name. This conversation analytic article describes a practice that does not fit the default pattern. In this practice, speakers select (...) a broad social category when a recognitional form could have been used. Despite the designed selection of a categorical form, the referent remains recognitional. For example, in one extract, a mother in conversation with her teenage daughter refers to a collective made up of her former husband and his girlfriend as ‘these people’. The daughter has no difficulty working out who ‘these people’ are and recognizes it as a reference to her father and stepmother. I show that this designedly categorical formulation often contributes to hostile action by distancing the referent from parties to the interaction – making the referent unnameable and not connected to the speaker and recipient. The role of demonstrative pronouns – this, that, these – are discussed in relation to constructing social distance between speakers, recipients and referents. (shrink)