Experimental vaccines are being developed for the treatment of ‘unhealthy lifestyles’ and associated chronic illnesses. Policymakers and other stakeholders will have to deal with the ethical issues that this innovation path raises: are there morally justified reasons to integrate these innovative biotechnologies in future health policies? Should public money be invested in further research? Focusing on the case of an experimental nicotine vaccine, this article explores the ethical aspects of ‘lifestyle vaccines’ for public health. Based on findings from a qualitative (...) study into a vaccine for smoking cessation, the article articulates possible value conflicts related to nicotine vaccination as an intervention in tobacco control. The ‘vaccinization’ of lifestyle disease piggybacks on the achievements of classic vaccines. Contrary to expectations of simplicity and success, quitting smoking with a vaccine requires a complex supportive network. Social justice and public trust may become important ethical challenges when deciding whether to use further public funds for research or whether to implement these innovative vaccines in the future. (shrink)

Few people, if any, still argue that science in all its aspects is a value-free endeavor. At the very least, values affect decisions about the choice of research problems to investigate and the uses to which the results of research are applied. But what about the actual doing of science? -/- As Science, Values, and Objectivity reveals, the connections and interactions between values and science are quite complex. The essays in this volume identify the crucial values that play a role (...) in science, distinguish some of the criteria that can be used for value identification, and elaborate the conditions for warranting certain values as necessary or central to the very activity of scientific research. -/- Recently, social constructivists have taken the presence of values within the scientific model to question the basis of objectivity. However, the contributors to <I>Science, Values, and Objectivity</I> recognize that such acknowledgment of the role of values does not negate the fact that objects exist in the world. Objects have the power to constrain our actions and thoughts, though the norms for these thoughts lie in the public, social world. -/- Values may be decried or defended, praised or blamed, but in a world that strives for a modicum of reason, values, too, must be reasoned. Critical assessment of the values that play a role in scientific research is as much a part of doing good science as interpreting data. (shrink)

In recent decades, English has become the uncontestable lingua franca of philosophy of science and of most other areas of philosophy and of the humanities. To have a lingua franca produces enormous benefits for the entire scientific community. The price for those benefits, however, is paid almost exclusively by non-native speakers of English. Section 1 identifies three asymmetries that individual NoNES researchers encounter: ‘publication asymmetry’, ‘resources asymmetry’, and ‘team asymmetry’. Section 2 deals with ‘globalized parochialism asymmetry’: thanks to English being (...) a lingua franca, a special perspective, mostly US and British, is being globalized and is replacing European topics and approaches. This has serious consequences for history of philosophy as well as for philosophical theory: thinkers of the past tend to be dealt with on the global level at best only if and insofar they are translated into English. Similarly, the theoretical agenda of globalized philosophy of scien... (shrink)

The short answer to this question is a firm and unambiguous “yes and no”. The long answer will take the whole talk. Indeed, it could easily take an entire book. It is therefore unavoidable to take recourse here and there to simplifying shortcuts and polemical exaggerations, in order to get the message clear.

Nabataean history is significantly overlooked in the works of ancient historians. Josephus is an exception to this, as he includes several important events from Nabataean history in De Bello Judaico and Antiquitates Judaicae. However, his retelling of these events differs between the two works. In this paper, I argue that Josephus became more “pro-Roman” over time and eventually overshadowed an accurate portrayal of Nabataean history in his later narrative. He undermined moments of tension between Rome and Nabataea in order to (...) showcase Roman power in the Near East, even beyond reality. In support of this argument, I analyze the Nabataean sections of Josephus’ works, as each passage has overlapping details, but significantly different emphasis, characterization, and perspective through variations in terminology, imagery, and tone. Though problematic, Josephus has preserved a unique look into Roman-Nabataean relations in the two centuries prior to the incorporation of Nabataea into the Empire. (shrink)

Leading biologists and philosophers of biology discuss the basic theories and concepts of biology and their connections with ethics, economics, and psychology, providing a remarkably unified report on the “state of the art” in the philosophy of biology.

I give a revision (“reload”) of an earlier paper on logico-empiricism’s philosophy of biology by checking its central theses against the background of the international conferences of Prague (1934), Paris (1935), and Copenhagen (1936), so important for the development of logical empiricism and its spread in the western world. My theses are that logical empiricism did not contribute in the same way to the development of philosophy of biology, as it did e.g. to the development of philosophy of mathematics or (...) physics. The reasons for this failure were: (1) logical empiricists were unexperienced in biological science. (2) They concentrated on an unproductive ('ideological') framework (anti-vitalism, reduction) that they took to be philosophy of biology. (3) This prevented them from dealing with actual problems of biological science. Between the various sections of the paper, I insert “intermezzos” that present several conference participants in a wider historical context (Great War, persecution, language). (shrink)

This is an introduction to the English translation of Hogo Dingler's (1881-1954) grounsbreaking paper "Methodik statt Erkenntnistheorie und Wissenschaftslehre". Dingler is the founder of operationalism in physics and relatively little know in the Anglophone world.

Emerging as a hot topic in the mid-twentieth century, causality is one of the most frequently discussed issues in contemporary philosophy. Thinking about Causes brings together top philosophers from the United States and Europe to focus on causality as a major force in philosophical and scientific thought.

Jonas' philosophical biology is an attempt to overcome the dualism, i.e., the alienation between man and world, which characterizes both Gnostic thinking and the Heiddegerian exis­tentialist approach that Jonas had applied in its interpretation. This dualism leads both approaches to despise or, at least, to neglect nature.Jonas' philosophical biology is intended to provide an insight into the phe­nomenon of life that is more than a mere reflection of scientific episte­mology. Rather, it regards itself as a cognitively significant approach towards the (...) living in its own right. At the same time, philosophical biology is not intended as an alternative to the scientific enterprise, but instead as a desirable and even necessary complement of it. In develop­ing philosophical biology, Jonas additionally aims at securing a place for man in the order of the living that is more than just locating him somewhere in the order of primates. (shrink)

This volume honors and examines the founders of the philosophy of logical empiricism. Historical and interpretive essays clarify the scientific philosophies of Carnap, Reichenbach, Hempel, Kant, and others, while exploring the main topics of logical empiricist philosophy of science.

This article shows that those texts, attributed to Ernst Mach, that reject relativity theory are posthumous forgeries.

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 1 Seiten: 229-244.

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 2 Seiten: 295-331.

We note two important problems in the Theory of Event Coding. First, because the representational format of features and events is unspecified, the theory is difficult to test. Second, the theory lacks a mechanism for the integration of features into an event code when the features are shared by different events. Possible ways of solving these problems are suggested.

The article is a response to Dana Robert’s keynote address “One Christ – Many witnesses: Visions of Mission and Unity, Edinburgh and Beyond” at the Celebration Symposium of the Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series, 4 September 2015 in Oxford. The author wonders whether Dana Robert has sufficiently taken into account the awareness in the World Council of Churches of the diversity in and among Christian traditions. He highlights the more dynamic understanding of unity, which does not find expression in new structures (...) but in a commitment to travel together in a pilgrimage of justice and peace. (shrink)

After the First World War the large number of war invalids posed a medical as well as a socio-political problem. This needed to be addressed, at least to some extent, through healthcare providers and reintegration into the labour market. Due to the demilitarization of Germany, this task was taken on by the civil administration, which was dissolved during the time of National Socialism. In 1950, the Federal Republic of Germany enacted the Federal War Victims Relief Act, which created a privileged (...) group of civil and military war invalids, whereas other disabled people and victims of national socialist persecution were initially excluded. This article examines the continuities and discontinuities of the institutions following the First World War. A particular focus lies on the groups of doctors which structured this field. How did doctors become experts and what was their expertise? (shrink)

Das Thema dieser Überlegungen ist die deutsche Philosophie und sind deutsche Philoso­phen im Nationalsozialismus. (Für unsere politisch korrekten Ohrenspitzer(innen): es war keine Frau dabei.)1 Vorweg sei gesagt, verbrecherische Schurken finden wir unter ihnen nicht, anders als bei z. B. Juristen und Medizinern. ,,Auschwitz" wurde nicht von Philoso­phen betrieben. Die Praxisferne der Philosophie hat manchmal eben auch Vorteile. Teil I beschäftigt sich mit Philosophie und Philosophen im „Dritten Reich" im allgemei­nen. Teil II stellt eine Fallstudie (Oskar Becker) vor, während der dritte (...) Teil ansatzweise eine noch skizzenhafte und vielleicht kontroverse Antwort auf die Frage versucht, welche philosophischen Umstände es begünstigt haben, daß Philosophen zu Naziphilosophen wurden, und welche dies vielleicht eher verhindert haben. (shrink)

Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach was born 18 February 1838 in the Moravian village of Chrlice (near Brno), at that time part of the Austrian Monarchy, now the Czech Republic, and died 19 February 1916 in Vaterstetten (near Munich). He enjoyed a very successful career as an experimental physicist (the unit for the velocity of sound has been named after him). His importance for the philosophy of science derives mainly from his “historico‐critical” writings (Mach 1872, 1883, 1896b, 1921). Mach studied (...) mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna (1855–60, doctorate in physics 1860, his “Habilitation” (i.e., qualification to become a university professor) 1861) and his subsequent work was in the physiology of the senses. In 1864 he became professor first of mathematics and then (1866) of physics at Graz University; from 1867 to 1895 he was professor of experimental physics at Prague University; and in 1895 he took a chair in “Philosophy, especially the History and Theory of the Inductive Sciences” at Vienna University. In 1898 a stroke ended Mach's university teaching, but he was able to continue scientific work to a certain degree. (shrink)

Michael Ende’s bestseller/The Neverending Story/is set in a magical world called “Fantastica”. In Fantastica, there are heroes and villains, just as in the world of universities and academies. There is even an entity, or better: a non-entity of shaky existence, das Nichts, the Nothingness – loved by some philosophers like Martin Heidegger. In Fantastica Nothingness is able to create trouble and destruction. The same is true in the land of academic history and philosophy of science – let us call it (...) “HOPOSia”. In HOPOSia, particularly in its Anglophone provinces, Nothingness of knowledge and information has succeeded in building up strong opinions about the topic “Mach and Relativity”, and has created confusion and disinformation. However, you may slightly relax; our story in HOPOSia is less cruel so far and more peaceful than what happens in Fantastica. Sometimes it has even entertaining aspects. There are similarities, though: If there had not been lies and manipulation of believes, our story would have ended years ago. It went on instead and will possibly do so forever. (shrink)

This open access book examines the many contributions of Paul Lorenzen, an outstanding philosopher from the latter half of the 20th century. It features papers focused on integrating Lorenzen's original approach into the history of logic and mathematics. The papers also explore how practitioners can implement Lorenzen’s systematical ideas in today’s debates on proof-theoretic semantics, databank management, and stochastics. Coverage details key contributions of Lorenzen to constructive mathematics, Lorenzen’s work on lattice-groups and divisibility theory, and modern set theory and Lorenzen’s (...) critique of actual infinity. The contributors also look at the main problem of Grundlagenforschung and Lorenzen’s consistency proof and Hilbert’s larger program. In addition, the papers offer a constructive examination of a Russell-style Ramified Type Theory and a way out of the circularity puzzle within the operative justification of logic and mathematics. Paul Lorenzen's name is associated with the Erlangen School of Methodical Constructivism, of which the approach in linguistic philosophy and philosophy of science determined philosophical discussions especially in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. This volume features 10 papers from a meeting that took place at the University of Konstanz. (shrink)

This paper discusses ethical problems of genetic engineering.

Flow is a gratifying state of deep involvement and absorption that individuals report when facing a challenging activity and they perceive adequate abilities to cope with it. The flow concept was introduced by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975, and interest in flow research is growing. However, to our best knowledge, no scoping review exists that takes a systematic look at studies on flow which were published between the years 2000 and 2016. Overall, 252 studies have been included in this review. Our review (...) provides a framework to cluster flow research, gives a systematic overview about existing studies and their findings, and provides an overview about implications for future research. The provided framework consists of three levels of flow research. In the first “Individual” level are the categories for personality, motivation, physiology, emotion, cognition, and behavior. The second “Contextual” level contains the categories for contextual and interindividual factors and the third “Cultural” level contains cultural factors that relate to flow. Using our framework, we systematically present the findings for each category. While flow research has made progress in understanding flow, in the future, more experimental and longitudinal studies are needed to gain deeper insights into the causal structure of flow and its antecedents and consequences. (shrink)

n this article the author develops a critique of reductionism in biological sciences from three different points of view. The first is related to the problem of reduction in the context of scientific theories. More specifically, reduction deals with a special form of intertheoretic relationship between molecular biology and the rest of biology. The second meaning of reductionism has to do with the significance of its genetic outfit for the ontogeny of an organism, i.e. its development from zygote to its (...) final or adult structure and function. Third, closely related to this more biological topic are questions about the anthropological consequences of the application of reductionistic methodologies for the explanation and evaluation of human behaviour. (shrink)

This paper deals with the fate of religious intuitions in enlightenment contexts.

This article gives an overview of Mesmer's theory.

The paper shows how logical empiricism aims at a modernization of philosophy.

Somewhat traumatized by the Galileo Affair the Church until recently showed low profile in the conflicts with science, evolutionary theory included. The talk presents a categorization of possible relationships between science and religion by distinguishing between "Galilean conflicts", which are about mutually exclusive statements about matters of fact, and Freudian conflicts where an empirical science tries to explain away religion as a phenomenon in its own right. In the light of this distinction I deal with the reactions of the Church (...) since 1859, particularly with the ambiguous position of the present Pope. (shrink)

The act of interpretation occurs in nearly every area of the arts and sciences. That ubiquity serves as the inspiration for the fourteen essays of this volume, covering many of the domains in which interpretive practices are found. Individual topics include: the general nature of interpretation and its forms; comparing and contrasting interpretation and hermeneutics; culture as interpretation seen through Hegel’s aesthetics; interpreting philosophical texts; methodologies for interpreting human action; interpretation in medical practice focusing on manifestations as indicators of disease; (...) the brain and its interpretative, structured, learning and storage processes; interpreting hybrid wines and cognitive preconceptions of novel objects; and the importance of sensory perception as means of interpreting in the case of dry German Rieslings. In an interesting turn, Nicholas Rescher writes on the interpretation of philosophical texts. Then Catherine Wilson and Andreas Blank explicate and critique Rescher’s theories through analysis of the mill passage from Leibniz’s _Monadology._. (shrink)

This is a comment on Giora Hon's paper on scientific error.

The authors reject a computationally powerful unconscious. Instead, they suggest that simple unconscious processes give rise to complex conscious representations. We discuss evidence showing contrastive effects of conscious and unconscious processes, suggesting a distinction between these types of processes. In our view, conscious processes often serve to correct or control negative consequences of relatively simple unconscious processes.

Following the philosophical work of Jürgen Mittelstrass, the papers presented in this volume justify this thesis and differentiate it in both its historical and its systematic dimension (including its practical philosophical implications).

This study of the Sicilian Questions of the philosopher and mystic Ibn Sabٴ īn of Murcia interprets the structure and sources of the text as a reflection of intellectual life in the late Almohad Arab West.

In the paper we are analyzing the Polish ART market. It can be noticed that the lack of legal regulation has resulted in many discrepancies among the policies adopted by various ART agencies. The social acceptance of ART procedures available mostly in private clinics led to growing commercialization of the Polish ART market. Additionally, the language of gift and altruistic rhetoric that are overwhelmingly employed by ART agencies reveals hypocrisy of the Polish ART market.

This paper discusses parents’ rights and duties regarding their offspring from a certain classical liberal perspective. Approaching this issue from this perspective is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, classical liberalism’s alleged inability to explain the rights of very young human beings is a serious objection against such theories. Second, if we are able to show that a version of classical liberalism not only avoids this objection but actually implies very strong parental obligations to support offspring, the case for extensive (...) parental obligations in general is indeed very strong. If we accept that parents produce offspring in the same sense that they can produce inanimate objects, but are able to show that such production does not create parental ownership in offspring, we should accept that parents have extensive duties to support their offspring in virtue of being their offspring’s producers. Moreover, these duties are negative duties, which parents must perform in order to avoid actively harming their offspring. (shrink)