En este articulo se examina la tradicional caracterización de la filosofía de la ciencia como una disciplina normativa. Se discuten varias concepciones de esta disciplina, cada una de las cuales ofrece una respuesta diferente a la pregunta de si es posible, y cómo, una filosofía de la ciencia genuinamente normativa. De entre esas concepciones, se opta por una forma de naturalismo que se diferencia de otras en la exigeneia de que la normatividad de la filosofía de la ciencia inc!uya la (...) discusión de los objetivos y valores, epistémicos o no, de la ciencia. La necesidad de esta inc!usión se ilustra, finalmente, con el ejemplo de la aetividad conocida como “cicncia reguladora”.This article examines the traditional characterization of the philosophy of science as a normative discipline. Several understandings of this discipline are discussed; each of them offering a different answer to the question whether, and how, a genuinely normative philosophy of science might be possible. Among these views, I choose one variety of naturalism that differs from others in its commitment with the discussion of science’s aims and values, either epistemic or non-epistemic. Finally, the need for this inclusion is illustrated with the example of the so-called “regulatory science”. (shrink)

Diseases causing inherited retinal degeneration in humans, such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular dystrophy, are genetically heterogeneous and clinically diverse. More than 40 genes causing retinal degeneration have been mapped to specific chromosomal sites; of these, at least 10 have been cloned and characterized. Mutations in two proteins, rhodopsin and peripherin/RDS, account for approximately 35% of all cases of autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa and a lesser fraction of other retinal conditions. This target article reviews the genes and mutations causing retinal (...) degeneration and proposes mechanisms whereby specific mutations lead to particular clinical consequences, that is, the relationship between genotype and phenotype. Retinitis pigmentosa and macular dystrophy are genetically heterogeneous diseases that cause retinal degeneration in humans and often result in severe visual impairment or blindness. Although many of the genes causing these diseases have not been identified, three photoreceptor-specific proteins have been implicated: rhodopsin, peripherin/RDS, and the P-subunit of rod phosphodiesterase. Mutations in the genes for these three proteins can cause either dominant retinitis pigmentosa, recessive retinitis pigmentosa, dominant congenital stationary night blindness, or dominant macular degeneration. Why this multiplicity of clinical phenotypes? Our target article summarizes the genetic and biochemical background to this question and proposes a number of possible explanations. Discussion focuses mainly on 73 distinct disease-causing mutations of rhodopsin. We feel that rhodopsin and other photoreceptor proteins can serve as model systems for unraveling the connection between genotype and phenotype, not only for inherited retinal diseases but for other degenerative disorders as well. (shrink)

Recent findings emphasize the complexity, both genetic and functional, of the manifold genes and mutations causing inherited retinal degeneration in humans. Knowledge of the genetic bases of these diseases can contribute to design of rational therapy, as well as elucidating the function of each gene product in normal visual processes.

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to identify factors motivating women to take part in endometriosis research and to determine if these factors differ for women participating in clinical versus basic science studies. METHODS: A consecutive series of 24 women volunteering for participation in endometriosis‐related research were asked to indicate, in their own words, why they chose to volunteer. In addition, the women were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, sixteen potentially motivating factors. The (...) information was gathered in the form of an anonymous self‐administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Strong motivating factors (mean score >8) included potential benefit to other women's health, improvement to one's own condition, and participation in scientific advancement. Weak motivating factors (mean score <3) included financial compensation, making one's doctor happy, and use of ‘natural’ products. No difference was detected between clinical and basic science study participants. CONCLUSION: This study is the first study to specifically investigate the factors that motivate women to take part in endometriosis research. Understanding why women choose to take part in such research is important to the integrity of the informed consent process. The factors most strongly motivating women to participate in endometriosis research related to improving personal or public health; the weakest, to financial compensation and pleasing the doctor. (shrink)

El problema y debate sobre la disyunción de la filosofía y la clínica psicoanalítica es un fenómeno que ha traído diversas discusiones desde ambas aristas teóricas. En el presente documento se abordan algunas de las contribuciones más recientes al debate filosófico en implicancia con las modificaciones de la clínica psicoanalítica actual. Nuestro objetivo fue mediante un análisis documental con miramiento teóricocrítico contribuir al esclarecimiento de las herramientas fundamentales que la filosofía entrega a la modificación de la teoría y práctica psicoanalítica. (...) Para tal efecto, hemos trazado un recorrido histórico general a las modificaciones y argumentos que a lo largo de la historia del psicoanálisis hanido emergiendo. Finalmente, exponemos algunos de los debates y tesis pendientes de continuar explorando, en miras de la mixtura de los saberes y en beneficio de las reflexiones y análisis enfocados en la condición humana, cuestiones que tanto la filosofía como el psicoanálisis tienen como ejes centrales. (shrink)

While there is significant consensus that undergraduate medical education should include bioethics training, there is widespread debate about how to teach bioethics to medical students. Educators disagree about course methods and approaches, the topics that should be covered, and the effectiveness and metrics for UME ethics training. One issue that has received scant attention is the timing of bioethics education during medical training. The existing literature suggests that most medical ethics education occurs in the pre-clinical years. Follow-up studies indicate that (...) medical students in their clinical rotations have little recall or ability to apply ethics concepts that were learned in their pre-clinical training. Trainees also report a desire for medical ethics to be taught in the context of practical application, which would suggest that the timing of pre-clinical ethics education is flawed. However, moving bioethics training to the clinical years should not be assumed to be the solution to the problems of recall and theory application. We argue that the effectiveness of timing bioethics education will depend on when medical students witness or experience particular categories of ethical dilemmas during their training. Our overarching hypothesis is that ethics education will be most effective when the bioethics training on a particular topic correlates to experiential exposure to that ethical issue. The purpose of our current study was to describe medical students exposure to particular categories of ethical conflicts, dilemmas, or issues. Our results may help bioethics educators better strategize about the most effective timing of medical ethics training in UME. (shrink)

Este artículo desarrolla un panorama histórico de las evaluaciones de logro académico, estandarizadas y a gran escala, aplicadas en la educación mexicana. Mediante una investigación documental, se analizan los inicios, expansión, consolidación y situación actual de este tipo de pruebas. Se concluye destacando la relevancia de contar con evaluaciones confiables del logro académico, que contribuyan al desarrollo educativo nacional.

This study examined health professionals’ (HPs) experience, beliefs and attitudes towards brain death (BD) and two types of donation after circulatory death (DCD)—controlled and uncontrolled DCD. Five hundred and eighty-seven HPs likely to be involved in the process of organ procurement were interviewed in 14 hospitals with transplant programs in France, Spain and the US. Three potential donation scenarios—BD, uncontrolled DCD and controlled DCD—were presented to study subjects during individual face-to-face interviews. Our study has two main findings: (1) In the (...) context of organ procurement, HPs believe that BD is a more reliable standard for determining death than circulatory death, and (2) While the vast majority of HPs consider it morally acceptable to retrieve organs from brain-dead donors, retrieving organs from DCD patients is much more controversial. We offer the following possible explanations. DCD introduces new conditions that deviate from standard medical practice, allow procurement of organs when donors’ loss of circulatory function could be reversed, and raises questions about “death” as a unified concept. Our results suggest that, for many HPs, these concerns seem related in part to the fact that a rigorous brain examination is neither clinically performed nor legally required in DCD. Their discomfort could also come from a belief that irreversible loss of circulatory function has not been adequately demonstrated. If DCD protocols are to achieve their full potential for increasing organ supply, the sources of HPs’ discomfort must be further identified and addressed. (shrink)

Sacrificial dilemmas such as the trolley problem play an important role in experimental philosophy (x-phi). But it is increasingly argued that, since we are not likely to encounter runaway trolleys in our daily life, the usefulness of such thought experiments for understanding moral judgments in more ecologically valid contexts may be limited. However, similar sacrificial dilemmas are experienced in real life by animal research decision makers. As part of their job, they must make decisions about the suffering, and often the (...) death, of many non-human animals. For this reason, a context-specific investigation of so-called “3R dilemmas” (i.e., dilemmas where there is a conflict between the principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement of the use of animals in research) is essential to improve the situation of both non-human animals and human stakeholders. An approach well suited for such investigation is experimental philosophical bioethics (“bioxphi”), which draws on methods similar to x-phi to probe more realistic, practical scenarios with an eye to informing normative debates and ethical policy. In this article, we argue for a need to investigate 3R dilemmas among professional decision-makers using the tools of bioxphi. In a first step, we define 3R dilemmas and discuss previous investigations of professionals’ attitudes in such cases. In a second step, we show how bioxphi is a promising method to investigate the whys and hows of professional decision-making in 3R dilemmas. In a last step, we provide a bioxphi template for 3R dilemmas, give recommendations on its use, explore the normative relevance of data collected by such means, and discuss important limitations. (shrink)

Insults elicit intense emotion. This study tests the hypothesis that one's social image, which is especially salient in honour cultures, influences the way in which one reacts to an insult. Seventy-seven honour-oriented and 72 non-honour oriented participants answered questions about a recent insult episode. Participants experienced both anger and shame in reaction to the insult. However, these emotions resulted in different behaviours. Anger led to verbal attack (i.e., criticising, insulting in return) among all participants. This relationship was explained by participants’ (...) motivation to punish the wrongdoer. Shame, on the other hand, was moderated by honour. Shame led to verbal disapproval of the wrongdoers behaviour, but only among the honour-oriented participants. This relationship was explained by these participants’ motivation to protect their social image. By contrast, shame led to withdrawal among non-honour-oriented participants. (shrink)

We investigated the role of honour concerns in mediating the effect of nationality and gender on the reported intensity of anger and shame in reaction to insult vignettes. Spain, an honour culture, and The Netherlands, where honour is of less central significance, were selected for comparison. A total of 260 (125 Dutch, 135 Spanish) persons participated in the research. Participants completed a measure of honour concerns and answered questions about emotional reactions of anger and shame to vignettes depicting insults in (...) which type of threat was manipulated. It was found that Spanish participants responded especially intensely to insults that threaten family honour, and that this effect of nationality on emotional reactions to threats to family honour was mediated by individual differences in concern for family honour. (shrink)

I provide a new way of thinking of questions using an expanded space of FDE worlds. This allows both for non-exclusive and non-exhaustive answers to questions concerning one’s gender identity. Further, and most crucially for the purposes of this paper, it allows for a new, more general definition of question-inclusion that makes it possible to identify a new form of hermeneutical injustice. This form of injustice, I argue, affects trans people by keeping them in a prolonged state of gender questioning (...) and confusion in which they only grasp the part of the question Am I a member of gender G? that corresponds to the question Do I want to be a member of gender G?. (shrink)

The manner in which a person views the universe originates from her/his culture. If someone were asked of the predominant element found in every culture that has for centuries given people their perspective of the universe, certainly, the answer would be, Religion! The responsibility of generating and preserving the elements of one’s perspective of the universe has rested with religious institutions such as Methodist, Protestant, or Roman Catholic churches or spiritual leaders such as the Buddha. Whether the element is developed (...) through the teaching of the Holy Bible, Catechism, Vedas, or Koran, people in the universe, including the Garífuna-speaking people of Central America, have always felt the need to .. (shrink)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra presents an original study of the place and role of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's philosophy. The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles rules out numerically distinct but perfectly similar things; Leibniz derived it from more basic principles and used it to establish important philosophical theses. Rodriguez-Pereyra aims to establish what Leibniz meant by the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles, what his arguments for and from it were, and to assess those arguments and Leibniz's claims (...) about the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles. He argues that Leibniz had a very strong version of the principle, according to which no possibilia are intrinsically perfectly similar, where this excludes things that differ in magnitude alone. The book discusses Leibniz's arguments for the Identity of Indiscernibles in the Meditation on the Principle of the Individual, the Discourse on Metaphysics, Notationes Generales, Primary Truths, the letter to Casati of 1689, the correspondence with Clarke, as well as the use of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's arguments against the Cartesian conception of the material world, atoms, absolute space and time, the Lockean conception of the mind as a tabula rasa, and freedom of indifference. Rodriguez-Pereyra argues that the Identity of Indiscernibles was a central but inessential principle of Leibniz's philosophy. (shrink)

Descartes maintained substance dualism, the thesis that no substance has both mental and material properties. His main argument for this thesis, the so-called separability argument from the Sixth Meditation (AT VII: 78) has long puzzled readers. In this paper I argue that Descartes’ independence conception of substance (which Descartes presents in article 51 of the Principles) is crucial for the success of the separability argument and that Descartes used this conception of substance to defend his argument for substance dualism from (...) an important objection. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell argued that any attempt to get rid of universals in favor of resemblances fails. He argued that no resemblance theory could avoid postulating a universal of resemblance without falling prey to a vicious infinite regress. He added that admitting such a universal of resemblance made it pointless to avoid other universals. In this paper I defend resemblance nominalism from both of Russell's points by arguing that (a) resemblance nominalism can avoid the postulation of a universal of resemblance without (...) falling into a vicious infinite regress, and (b) even if resemblance nominalism had to admit a universal of resemblance, this would not make it pointless to avoid postulating other universals. (shrink)

Many of the actual bioethical discussions start from the assumption that we have absolute dominance/disposition over our body. Based on the thesis of autonomy, control over one's own life and the freedom to do anything, at least with one's body, the goodness or legitimacy of acts such as suicide and euthanasia are often justified. Considering the last statements, this paper seeks to approach the question of the nature of the disposition –main attribute of dominion or property– over the body. It (...) will be argued on the basis of Thomas Aquinas' theory and Immanuel Kant's exposition, often wrongly considered, in my opinion, as rival doctrines. The whole writing will be oriented to review the relations of the modern principle of autonomy with the problem of the morality of suicide. (shrink)

By nihilism I shall understand the thesis that it is metaphysically possible that there are no concrete objects. I think there is a version of an argu- ment, the subtraction argument, which proves nihilism nicely (see Baldwin 1996 and Rodriguez-Pereyra 1997). But E. J. Lowe, who is no nihilist, has a very interesting argument purporting to show that concrete objects exist necessarily (Lowe 1996, 1998). In this paper I shall defend nihilism from Lowe’s argument.

Jamin Asay’s A Theory of Truthmaking is one of the most important books on truthmaking, full of important ideas from beginning to end. One of the most interesting parts of the book is Asay's attack on the explanation-first truthmaking. Explanation-first truthmaking is the explanatory project of explaining why truths are true. This is in contrast with ontology-first truthmaking, the project defended by Asay, and which is the project of answering the fundamental ontological question “What is there?”. Asay thinks explanation-first truthmaking (...) should be abandoned because it is problematic and it offers no benefits over those of ontology-first truthmaking. In this brief paper, I argue that he has not established the problematicity of explanation-first truthmaking, and that explanation-first truthmaking offers benefits over ontology-first truthmaking. (shrink)

Abstract:Cristina Crichton speaks with Ramón Rodríguez about ethics in Heidegger (Studies) and Heidegger's influence on his own work.

Different types of consent are used to obtain human biospecimens for future research. This variation has resulted in confusion regarding what research is permitted, inadvertent constraints on future research, and research proceeding without consent. The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center's Department of Bioethics held a workshop to consider the ethical acceptability of addressing these concerns by using broad consent for future research on stored biospecimens. Multiple bioethics scholars, who have written on these issues, discussed the reasons for consent, the (...) range of consent strategies, and gaps in our understanding, and concluded with a proposal for broad initial consent coupled with oversight and, when feasible, ongoing provision of information to donors. This article describes areas of agreement and areas that need more research and dialogue. Given recent proposed changes to the Common Rule, and new guidance regarding storing and sharing data and samples, this is an important and tim.. (shrink)

how does one inquire into the truth of first principles? Where does one begin when deciding where to begin? Aristotle recognizes a series of difficulties when it comes to understanding the starting points of a scientific or philosophical system, and contemporary scholars have encountered their own difficulties in understanding his response. I will argue that Aristotle was aware of a Platonic solution that can help us uncover his own attitude toward the problem.Aristotle's central problem with first principles arises from the (...) fact that they cannot be demonstrated in the same way as other propositions. Since demonstrations proceed from prior and better-known principles, if the principles themselves were in need of... (shrink)

At a crucial juncture in Plato’s Sophist, when the interlocutors have reached their deepest confusion about being and not-being, the Eleatic Visitor proclaims that there is yet hope. Insofar as they clarify one, he maintains, they will equally clarify the other. But what justifies the Visitor’s seemingly oracular prediction? A new interpretation explains how the Visitor’s hope is in fact warranted by the peculiar aporia they find themselves in. The passage describes a broader pattern of ‘exploring both sides’ that lends (...) insight into Plato’s aporetic method. (shrink)

ObjectivePeer victimization is a substantial early life stressor linked to psychiatric symptoms and poor academic performance. However, the sex-specific cognitive or behavioral outcomes of bullying have not been well-described in preadolescent children.MethodsUsing the baseline dataset of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study 2.0.1 data repository, we evaluated associations between parent-reported bullying victimization, suicidality, and non-suicidal self-injury, as well as internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems, cognition, and academic performance.ResultsOf the 11,015 9-10-year-old children included in the analyses, 15.3% experienced bullying victimization, as (...) reported by the primary caregiver. Of these, boys were more likely to be bullied than girls. Children who were bullied were more likely to display NSSI or passive suicidality and active suicidality. Bullied children also had lower cognitive scores, greater behavioral problems, and poorer grades. Across all participants, boys had poorer grades and greater behavioral problems than girls; however, bullied boys had greater behavioral problems than girls in several areas. Compared to their non-bullied peers, bullied children with greater non-suicidal self-injury or suicidality also had greater behavioral problems and poorer grades.ConclusionThese findings highlight the sex-specific effects of bullying, and the negative associations of bullying victimization with cognitive performance, behavioral problems, and academic performance. Future longitudinal studies will identify the natural history and neural correlates of these deficits during adolescence. (shrink)

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

In this article, we present for the first time Schelling’s early critique of absolute idealism within his middle metaphysics (1804–1820), which has great relevance and influence on the subsequent course of German philosophy, and, more broadly considered, on later systematic thinking about the categories of unity and duality. We aim to show how Schelling defends a form of metaphysical duality, from 1804 onwards, without relapsing into a stronger Kantian dualism. In this sense, our author rejects both the dualism between nature (...) and spirit, necessity and freedom, as well as the monist-immanent metaphysical stance later associated with Hegelian panlogism. Against Hegel, Schelling increasingly vindicates the reality of the finite and degrades the infinite to mere ideality in a movement that resembles later existentialism. Furthermore, we defend Schelling against the accusation of irrationalism that sections of Hegelianism formulated against him and present the concept of infinity without the notion of totality, which he thinks of, much like Fichte, in the light of the concept of an ‘infinite task’. Schelling’s later criticisms of Hegel are shown to be influenced by his early idealist critique of the period at hand. (shrink)

Resemblance Nominalism is the view that denies universals and tropes and claims that what makes F-things F is their resemblances. A famous argument against Resemblance Nominalism is Russell's regress of resemblances, according to which the resemblance nominalist falls into a vicious infinite regress. Aristocratic Resemblance Nominalism, as opposed to Egalitarian Resemblance Nominalism, is the version of Resemblance Nominalism that claims that what makes F-things F is that they resemble the F-paradigms. In this paper I attempt to show that a recently (...) advocated strategy to stop Russell's regress by using paradigms does not succeed. (shrink)

The introduction of the notion of family resemblance represented a major shift in Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the meaning of words, moving away from a belief that words were well defined, to a view that words denoted less well defined categories of meaning. This paper presents the use of the notion of family resemblance in the area of machine learning as an example of the benefits that can accrue from adopting the kind of paradigm shift taken by Wittgenstein. The paper presents (...) a model capable of learning exemplars using the principle of family resemblance and adopting Bayesian networks for a representation of exemplars. An empirical evaluation is presented on three data sets and shows promising results that suggest that previous assumptions about the way we categories need reopening. (shrink)

In the present paper, I try to defend a coherent interpretation of Goodman�s relativism by responding to the main objections of the critics. I also discuss the significance of his pluralism by relating it to the notion of construction. This will show the relevance of Goodman�s philosophy for the present days.