This paper’s focus is about some questions concerning the ontology of the angel and the theory of knowledge. About ontology, the main problems discussed by Albert are the metaphysical composition (despite its immateriality) of the angel, the nature of angel’s individuality and the angel’s relationship with the separate intelligences. On this last point Albert, unlike Thomas, argues that angels and intelligences are distinct entities and that the identification between them would be a denial of angel’s ministerial function. In order to (...) accomplish this function, angels must know not only God’s essence, the first object of their contemplation, but also particular things and events of human lives. This is one of the reasons why Albert considers the mind of the angel through a close comparison with the characteristics of the divine mind on the one hand, and with the human mind on the other. The angel, unlike man, is an immaterial entity, devoid of sense organs: in the terms of Aristotelian gnoseology valid for man, it is not clear how angel can know particular things. In order to resolve this difficulty, Albert hints at a cognitive mechanism per applicationem of the innate form of the thing. The angelic mind therefore appears to Albert as characterized, unlike God, by only habitual knowledge of things, which becomes in actu only after a “contact” with the things themselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 46, no. 2. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 489 Anna Romina Guevarra and Maya Arcilla The Source of Actual Terror: The Philippine Macho-Fascist Duterte  What is JUSTICE with the violence you’ve waged  What is FREEDOM? Our people are encaged  What is JUSTICE with the violence you’ve waged?  What is FREEDOM? Our people are encaged  We have nothing to lose—nothing but (...) our chains  We have nothing to lose—nothing but our chains  Ang tao, ang bayan—ngayon ay lumalaban  Ngayon ay lumalaban—ang tao ang bayan 1  We will, we will oust you!  We will, we will oust you! —Lyrics of a chant at a Chicago protest rally, July 8, 20202 On July 8, 2020, in front of the Philippine Consulate of Chicago, a group of activists representing multiple transnational organizations committed to the pursuit of democracy, participated in a Global Day of Action against an Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) passed in the Philippines five days earlier. This particular rally was led by fierce student and community organizers and workers who loudly proclaimed their opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte’s misogynistic and fascist measures. The epigraph 1. The people, the nation—today they fight / Today they fight—the people, the nation. 2. Song written by Charmaine Balisalisa. 490 Anna Romina Guevarra and Maya Arcilla above captures the lyrics of one young activist’s chant directed at Duterte and choreographed to the tune of Queen’s “We will Rock You.” People followed her steps and gestures rhythmically and in unison, accompanying her chant with sounds from a gangsa (gong), bells, a skateboard tapping the ground, and an empty bucket. There have been multiple protests denouncing Duterte since he assumed power in 2016, but on this particular day, the sense of outrage and urgency was especially palpable in the face of this new law aimed at suppressing dissent. This legislation marked a high point in Duterte’s efforts to exert authoritarian control, and it is significant that opposition to his regime has taken on a specifically feminist character. The Philippines Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 (Republic Act No. 11479), signed into law on July 3, 2020, amends the Philippines Human Security Act of 2007 by expanding the government’s power and scope for defining what constitutes “terrorism.” It consolidates power through the creation of an Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) appointed by the President and empowered to act without oversight from the judiciary or legislature. The ATC can order mass arrests without warrants and detain individuals without due process for the mere suspicion of being involved in “terrorist” activities. This Law violates the Philippine Constitution’s Bill of Rights by eliminating free speech, violating the people’s right to privacy, and criminalizing individuals on suspicion of wrongdoing. As the law stipulates, anyone involved in “creating an atmosphere and spreading a message of fear” and “provoking or influencing by intimidation the government or any of its international organizations” will be construed as inciting terrorism. Indeed, this law will continue to erode democratic governance in the country, with some labeling it a “stealth declaration of martial law.”3 As US Congressional Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) noted at the press conference she convened on July 15 to publicly call for the Anti-Terrorism Law’s repeal, “this law represents a new weapon in the administration’s campaign to suppress dissent and will worsen attacks on ordinary people.” 3. Jodesz Gavilan, “‘Stealth Declaration of Martial Law’: Rights Groups Slam Duterte, Anti-Terror Law,” Rappler, July 3, 2020, https://rappler.com/nation /human-rights-groups-statements-duterte-signing-anti-terror-law. Anna Romina Guevarra and Maya Arcilla 491 “A Timeline of Terror”: From “Pride is a Protest” and #JusticeForFabelPineda to #HandsOffGabriela4 A number of prominent feminists and queer rights activists have been targeted under President Duterte in the lead up to the passing of the ATL. On June 26, twenty LGBTQ activists representing Bahaghari, an LGBTQ+ rights organization in the Philippines, were arrested at a Pride rally. These protestors, referred to as the “Pride 20,” were speaking out against the ATL and were immediately arrested.5 A few days later, fifteen-year-old Fabel Pineda from San Juan Ilocos Sur was gunned... (shrink)

Companies seeking to effectively manage the ethical dimensions of their business have created formal and informal practices, including those with the labels “ethics and compliance” and “corporate social responsibility” (CSR). However, there is little research describing how practitioners who create and implement these practices understand their meaning and relationship. Leveraging a communities of practice theoretical perspective, this qualitative study proposes that these practices can be studied as artifacts of managerial learning. Thematic analysis of interviews with senior managers suggests that practices (...) have diverse meaning, with only informal relationships between them in most cases. Theoretically, this research offers a new lens through which to view compliance and CSR practices as socially negotiated, contextual, and dynamic. Practically, it suggests that there may be new opportunities for learning if managers create practices through an intentional exploration of shared meaning. (shrink)

How do people respond to others' accidental behaviors? Reward and punishment for accidents might be depend on the actor's intentions, or instead on the unintended outcomes she brings about. Yet, existing paradigms in experimental economics do not include the possibility of accidental monetary allocations. We explore the balance of outcomes and intentions in a two-player economic game where monetary allocations are made with a "trembling hand": that is, intentions and outcomes are sometimes mismatched. Player 1 allocates $10 between herself and (...) Player 2 by rolling one of three dice. One die has a high probability of a selfish outcome, another has a high probability of a fair outcome, and the third has a high probability of a generous outcome. Based on Player 1's choice of die, Player 2 can infer her intentions. However, any of the three die can yield any of the three possible outcomes. Player 2 is given the opportunity to respond to Player 1's allocation by adding to or subtracting from Player 1's payoff. We find that Player 2's responses are influenced substantially by the accidental outcome of Player 1's roll of the die. Comparison to control conditions suggests that in contexts where the allocation is at least partially under the control of Player 1, Player 2 will punish Player 1 accountable for unintentional negative outcomes. In addition, Player 2's responses are influenced by Player 1's intention. However, Player 2 tends to modulate his responses substantially more for selfish intentions than for generous intentions. This novel economic game provides new insight into the psychological mechanisms underlying social preferences for fairness and retribution. (shrink)

Dieser Band lotet vor dem Hintergrund einer krisenhaften Gegenwart das Verhältnis von Verletzbarkeit und Institutionen aus. Im Fokus stehen dabei die Fragen, wie Dimensionen der Verletzbarkeit durch Anrufungen und soziale, politische, kulturelle Praktiken (doing vulnerability) institutionell hergestellt und perpetuiert werden, in welchen Bedeutungszusammenhängen sie verankert und verstetigt sind und wie Anrufungen der Verletzbarkeit schließlich auch provoziert und subvertiert werden können. Institutionen werden dabei nicht als homogene Gebilde, sondern als Bündelung von Kräften verstanden, die es immer wieder neu zu entwerfen, zu (...) imaginieren, zu erstreiten und zu verteidigen gilt. (shrink)

How can we explain the structure of perceptual experience? What is it that we perceive? How is it that we perceive objects and not disjoint arrays of properties? By which sense or senses do we perceive objects? This book investigates Aristotle's views on these and related questions.

Fifteen philosophers offer new essays exploring the metaphysics of relations from antiquity to the present day. They address topics as diverse as ancient and medieval reasons for scepticism about polyadic properties; recent attempts to reduce causal and spatiotemporal relations; recent work on the directionality of relational properties; powers ontologies and their associated problems; whether the most promising interpretations of quantum mechanics posit a fundamentally relational world; and whether the very idea of such a world is coherent. From those who question (...) whether there are relational properties at all, to those who hold they are a fundamental part of reality, The Metaphysics of Relations covers a broad spectrum of positions on the nature and ontological status of relations, from antiquity to the present day. (shrink)

The primary goal of this paper is to provide substantial motivation for exploring an Acquaintance account of phenomenal consciousness, on which what fundamentally explains phenomenal consciousness is the relation of acquaintance. Its secondary goal is to take a few steps towards such an account. Roughly, my argument proceeds as follows. Motivated by prioritizing naturalization, the debate about the nature of phenomenal consciousness has been almost monopolized by representational theories. Among them, Self-Representationalism is by far the most antecedently promising. However, on (...) thorough inspection, Self-Representationalism turns out not explanatorily or theoretically better than the Acquaintance account. Indeed, the latter seems to be superior in at least some important respects. Therefore, at the very least, there are good reasons to take the Acquaintance account into serious consideration as an alternative to representational theories. The positive contribution of this paper is a sketch of an account of consciousness on which phenomenal consciousness is explained partly in representationalist terms, but where a crucial role is played by the relation of acquaintance. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the MotivAir program—a phone-based intervention based on Motivational Interviewing principles and techniques—in enhancing adherence to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure therapy among patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome.MethodsA multicenter randomized controlled trial design with random allocation at the level of the individual will be conducted to compare the impact of the experimental program with a control group receiving usual care only in improving selected clinical and psychological parameters in the patients. A minimum sample (...) of 80 participants will be recruited in each center according to the inclusion criteria. After the initial screening, participants will be randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the control condition. The program will last 180 days and will be delivered by a trained nurse. The impact of the MotivAir program on selected primary and secondary outcomes will be measured at baseline, and after 1-, 3-, and 6-month from CPAP initiation.DiscussionParticipants are expected to show an increased level of adherence to CPAP and to acquire the skills and self-confidence necessary to deal with the psychological consequences of their chronic condition. (shrink)

Background: Ethics and dignity in prehospital emergency care are important due to vulnerability and suffering. Patients can lose control of their body and encounter unfamiliar faces in an emergency situation. Objective: To describe what specialist ambulance nurse students experienced as preserved and humiliated dignity in prehospital emergency care. Research design: The study had a qualitative approach. Method: Data were collected by Flanagan’s critical incident technique. The participants were 26 specialist ambulance nurse students who described two critical incidents of preserved and (...) humiliated dignity, from prehospital emergency care. Data consist of 52 critical incidents and were analyzed with interpretive content analysis. Ethical considerations: The study followed the ethical principles in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Findings: The result showed how human dignity in prehospital emergency care can be preserved by the ambulance nurse being there for the patient. The ambulance nurses meet the patient in the patient’s world and make professional decisions. The ambulance nurse respects the patient’s will and protects the patient’s body from the gaze of others. Humiliated dignity was described through the ambulance nurse abandoning the patient and by healthcare professionals failing, disrespecting, and ignoring the patient. Discussion: It is a unique situation when a nurse meets a patient face to face in a critical life or death moment. The discussion describes courage and the ethical vision to see another human. Conclusion: Dignity was preserved when the ambulance nurse showed respect and protected the patient in prehospital emergency care. The ambulance nurse students’ ethical obligation results in the courage to see when a patient’s dignity is in jeopardy of being humiliated. Humiliated dignity occurs when patients are ignored and left unprotected. This ethical dilemma affects the ambulance nurse students badly due to the fact that the morals and attitudes of ambulance nurses are reflected in their actions toward the patient. (shrink)

BackgroundAn increasing number of studies utilize intracranial electrophysiology in human subjects to advance basic neuroscience knowledge. However, the use of neurosurgical patients as human research subjects raises important ethical considerations, particularly regarding informed consent and undue influence, as well as subjects’ motivations for participation. Yet a thorough empirical examination of these issues in a participant population has been lacking. The present study therefore aimed to empirically investigate ethical concerns regarding informed consent and voluntariness in Parkinson’s disease patients undergoing deep brain (...) stimulator (DBS) placement who participated in an intraoperative neuroscience study.MethodsTwo semi-structured 30-minute interviews were conducted preoperatively and postoperatively via telephone. Interviews assessed participants’ motivations for participation in the parent intraoperative study, recall of information presented during the informed consent process, and participants’ postoperative reflections on the research study.ResultsTwenty-two participants (mean age = 60.9) completed preoperative interviews at a mean of 7.8 days following informed consent and a mean of 5.2 days prior to DBS surgery. Twenty participants completed postoperative interviews at a mean of 5 weeks following surgery. All participants cited altruism or advancing medical science as “very important” or “important” in their decision to participate in the study. Only 22.7% (n = 5) correctly recalled one of the two risks of the study. Correct recall of other aspects of the informed consent was poor (36.4% for study purpose; 50.0% for study protocol; 36.4% for study benefits). All correctly understood that the study would not confer a direct therapeutic benefit to them.ConclusionEven though research coordinators were properly trained and the informed consent was administered according to protocol, participants demonstrated poor retention of study information. While intraoperative studies that aim to advance neuroscience knowledge represent a unique opportunity to gain fundamental scientific knowledge, improved standards for the informed consent process can help facilitate their ethical implementation. (shrink)

The paper develops a philosophical account of emotions experienced and communicated on the internet, and, in particular, in the context of social media use. A growing body of research across disciplines has investigated the distinctive features of emotions in the digital age, and a key question in this regard concerns whether online emotions are the same kind of phenomena as those undergone offline. In this paper, I contribute to addressing this question by suggesting that the structure and characteristic features of (...) internet-mediated emotions can be accounted for within the perspective of Peter Goldie’s narrative theory of emotion. To do so, I first offer a reconstruction of Goldie’s conception of emotions as complex, dynamic, episodic and structured phenomena. I then move to show how the experience of emotions on social media like Facebook displays the characteristics which are at the core of Goldie’s account, proceeding to suggest that this enables us to better understand some of the features of emotions undergone on the internet. More specifically, I argue that the intensity, persistence and contagiousness of some online emotions can be better understood if we adopt Goldie’s framework. (shrink)

Survey - or research conducted with the help of questionnaires - is one of the most important methods in sociology. That is why I shall present the problems concerning of surveys and questionnaires on the example of sociology. But one has to remember that the remarks made in this chapter also refer to questionnaires in other disciplines in which one examines human beings and communities.

In this chapter, I sketch the aspects of erotetic which, on the one hand, are not presented in previous chapters, and, on the other hand, are important with respect to some practical applications of erotetics which are presented in the third part of the book. I start from describing the modifications of a typical erotetic situation and indicating some kinds of questions put in untypical situations. Furthermore, I shall concentrate on the situational concepts of an answer. The last part of (...) the chapter is devoted to the concept of the lie in questions and answers. (shrink)

Biotechnology's promises has been widely recognized as a major enterprise accelerating the commodification of the biological. After the 9/11 events and the subsequent anthrax letters, biotechnologies have additionally been described as contributing to the construction of biosecurity risks. This paper proposes to investigate the collaboration between the FBI and the DIYbio network as a case study illustrating the productive entanglement of biological risks and promises. To do so, the paper explores the social construction of risks and promises associated with the (...) vision of distributed biotechnologies as enacted in this collaboration. We argue that the FBI needs to police the DIYbio network in order to disseminate a specific notion of bioterrorist risk, while, in a counter-intuitive manner, the DIYbio network benefits from being policed by the FBI as it helps them disseminate their socio-technological vision. If the entanglement of technoscientific risks and promises is a well established finding of the STS literature, our case study suggests that such entanglement now additionally comprises the sphere of biosecurity and the promises of a distributed biotechnology available to everyone. (shrink)

The cinema of Martin Scorsese has been analysed in connection with a wide range of themes and issues. In this paper, through a film-philosophical analysis, we aim to demonstrate how his filmography produces storyworlds pervaded by a tension similar to the one Søren Kierkegaard expressed in his existentialist writings. Indeed, one of the tenets of film-philosophy is that audio-visual media generate, in an affective and experiential manner, complex moral and ethical systems and existential viewpoints with which viewers interact in a (...) direct and creative way. Empathising with the self-sacrifice of the unlikely martyr played by Jake LaMotta or feeling the collapsing certainties of a missionary in seventeenth-century Japan are thus occasions to encounter particular conceptual personae. These characters embody specific iterations of Kierkegaardian knights of faith: existentialist figures whose doom takes in ambiguous film ecologies where the desire for wholesomeness constantly clashes with mortality and finitude. (shrink)

The nature of the self is an important point at which philosophy and literature intersect. Text, Body and Indeterminacy acknowledges this connection by forging a link between the philosophical concept of the self and the category of the literary character. The philosophical horizon of Text, Body and Indeterminacy is delineated by the neo-pragmatist debate on selfhood. The book entwines the ideas of Richard Rorty and Richard Shusterman by stressing similarity in their aestheticizing of ethics and by showing the difference in (...) their understanding of the self as textual or bodily. The characters created by Pater and Wilde are freshly assessed within this dual philosophical perspective. Their doppelgngers are seen as the forerunners of postmodernist concepts: the cerebral fl[neur is reflected in Rortys model ironist, and the sensuous aesthete returns through Shustermans notion of the somatic self. Text, Body and Indeterminacy establishes how Pater renders his protagonists through discursive patternstropes of Decadence, philosophical theorems, and mythsonly to subvert these vocabularies and to emphasize the reality of the body, the extra-textual dimension of the self. It also shows how Wildes sensuous personae, both bodily and indeterminate, transcend the vocabularies available to the Wildean fl[neurs. Through its interpretations, Text Body and Indeterminacy uniquely combines literary portraits by Pater and Wilde, highlights interlocking themes and, in every reading, points to the ethical gains of tilting the idea of selfhood into the somatic realm. (shrink)

The paper presents different criteria of meaning formulated on the ground of contemporary empiricism, and shows their shortcomings. None of them respects all intuitions that empiricists have connected with the notion of meaning. The main thesis is that these intuitions can never be respected conjointly, for some of them exclude others. Consequently it is showed that the perfect empirical criterion of meaning does not exist.

In this paper, we present a design tool, the positioning cards that we have developed, validated, and used in different projects. These cards are built to allow CI4CG and Participatory Design researchers to discuss the political alignment of design projects, in iterative processes of design involving people in the definition of the technological features to be implemented. The background of the cards is the conceptualization of contemporary participatory design as public design, engaging with societally relevant phenomena outside the traditional environment (...) of the workplace. To engage with such an extended dimension of participatory design, we frame our contribution in the contemporary form of capitalism, stressing how contemporary capitalism dispossess the wealth created by social production. In this context, we argue, CI4CG designers need to engage deeply with the theoretical implications of their work. To support this effort, we built the cards combining a political perspective oriented toward nourishing the common—the ensemble of the material and symbolic elements tieing together human beings—with the “affect turn” in the social sciences—therefore including affective dimensions like joy, sadness, and desire in the design of CI4CG technologies. In the final part of the article we discuss how we have used the cards in four different projects. (shrink)

This paper examines Kirzner's contribution to the study of the equilibrating tendency in economics. By analyzing his interpretation of Jevons’ law of indifference, we participate in the debate on Kirzner association with neoclassicals when discussing the equilibrating tendency. A reconstruction of Kirzner’s use of Jevons’ law is conducted, considering his argumentative strategy when presenting the Austrian economics ideas to other professionals in the field. We conclude that Kirzner drew close to neoclassical economics to emphasize the relevance and uniqueness of Austrian (...) economics. By doing so, we highlight the main differences between the two currents of economic thought. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)

Background Concepts of health have been widely discussed in the philosophy and ethics of medicine. Parallel to these theoretical debates, numerous empirical research projects have focused on subjective concepts of health and shown their significance for individuals and society at various levels. Only a few studies have so far investigated the concepts of health of non-professionals and professionals involved in long-term home care and discussed these empirical perspectives regarding moral responsibilities. Objectives To identify the subjective concepts of the health of (...) non-professionals (care recipients, informal caregivers) and professionals (registered nurses) involved in long-term home care and to discuss them against the background of existing normative guidelines addressing non-professionals and professionals’ responsibilities and rights concerning health. Research design A qualitative design was chosen to explore subjective concepts of health. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews; content analysis was applied according to Mayring. Participants and research context Twenty-eight interviews were conducted with non-professionals and professionals in long-term home care arrangements in Northern Germany. Ethical considerations Ethics approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board at the University Medicine Greifswald (BB123/16). Findings Non-professionals and professionals consider health as a capability that enables them to participate in social activities and live their own lives according to their preferences. The former regard health particularly as a feeling and an attitude, the latter as the absence of disease with a focus on mental and emotional well-being. Both groups highlight the unsurpassable value of health and the personal responsibility for it. Discussion Normative guidelines applicable to practice in long-term home care discuss responsibilities and rights unevenly and raise several problems regarding non-professionals and professionals’ subjective concepts of health. Conclusion Individuals’ concepts of health are relevant for the subsequent interpretation of rights and responsibilities and should, thus, be reflected upon to address health-related needs effectively. (shrink)

This monograph examines the origins of modern and modernist moral confusion and the deterioration of the Judeo-Christian values and contemporary boundaries between Right and Wrong. It traces the ethical shift to the ideas of Hobbes and Bentham, the peculiar universe of Schopenhauer and Dostoevsky, the new religion of Tolstoy and the destroyed God of Nietzsche, ending with the psychoanalytical commandments of Freud and the mire of sexual identity of Foucault and Paglia.