Der Einladung von Bernard Tschumi folgend kommt es in den Jahren 1985 bis 1987 zu einer engen Zusammenarbeit zwischen Jacques Derrida und Peter Eisenman für ein Teilareal des Parc de la Villette in Paris. Wenige Jahre später gilt Derrida als meistzitierter Philosoph in der Architektur. Dieser hohen Präsenz im allgemeinen Diskurs steht die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung bislang nach. Der vorliegende Band zum Philosophischen Entwerfen setzt sich zum Ziel, die Bedeutung der Architektur in Derridas Schriften systematisch aufzuarbeiten. Ausgangspunkt hierfür bildet die eingehende (...) Lektüre der Gesamtheit dieser Schriften. Darauf aufbauend wird nachgezeichnet, inwieweit Derrida sich der Architektur annähert, sich mit dieser auseinandersetzt und davon ausgehend Möglichkeiten eines Weiterdenkens aufzeigt. Fordert Derrida gegenüber Eisenman bisweilen eine Rückbesinnung auf ein grundlegendes Denken ein, wie er es beispielhaft bei Vitruv aufgreift, wendet er seinen Blick zugleich voraus und formuliert den Anspruch, nicht mehr allein konzeptuell, sondern im Stein zu denken: ohne Nostalgie, der lebendigste Gedächtnisakt! (shrink)

This book offers an Arabic edition, English translation, study and glossaries of ʿUbaidallāh Ibn Buḫtīšūʿ’s important work on apparent death; an appendix moreover provides the Arabic and Hebrew recensions of ʿUbaidallāh’s lost Greek _Vorlage_.

This volume contains the proceedings of the conference "Casimir Force, Casimir Operators and the Riemann Hypothesis – Mathematics for Innovation in Industry and Science" held in November 2009 in Fukuoka. The conference focused on the following topics: Casimir operators in harmonic analysis and representation theory Number theory, in particular zeta functions and cryptography Casimir force in physics and its relation with nano-science Mathematical biology Importance of mathematics for innovation in industry.

This chapter appeared in: G. J. van Nes et al. (eds.), Relational Anthropology for Contemporary Economics. Dordrecht: Springer, 121-132. -/- Abstract: This chapter is a comment on the contribution of Rebecca Klein in this volume, preceded by a conceptual analysis of the argument that is developed in the Homo Amans position paper. The main question that is raised is twofold and concerns the relation between science and worldview on the one hand, and between science and economic life on the other. (...) With respect to the science – worldview relationship, it is doubted that science can play the role the authors of the Homo Amans project expect it can have. What they have in mind is that science helps in validating and legitimizing a biblically informed concept of love. This author disagrees, to a large extent. Science can indeed orient itself on ideas and intuitions that are based on one’s worldview. But it cannot prove the truth of these intuitions and ideas. To think so, is to commit a naturalistic fallacy. With respect to the relationship between science and economic life, the author is also not convinced that science and philosophy as academic disciplines will by themselves be able (and should be expected to be able) to transform deeply ingrained, institutionally anchored economic practices. New theories, concepts, and paradigms are a precondition for change, but they do not bring about change by themselves. What is needed is a change in the practices themselves, a change that is both personal and comprehensive. What is needed is a clear, succinct, and encompassing view on the intrinsic normativity of economic interactions between relevant stakeholders in what we call ‘the’ economy. This is a huge undertaking, that requires painstaking ‘phenomenological’ analyses of a wide variety of economic practices. The chapter agrees with most of Klein’s observations and concerns with respect to the position paper. These observations and concerns gain even more depth and relief given the conceptual distinctions that are made in the chapter. (shrink)

The approach to AIDS as a disease and a threat for social discrimination is used as an example to illustrate a conceptual thesis. This thesis is a claim that concerns what we call a medical issue or not, what is medicalised or needs to be demedicalised. In the friction between medicalisation and demedicalisation as discursive strategies the latter approach can only be effected through the employment of discourses or discursive strategies other than medicine, such as those of the law and (...) of economics. These discourses each realise different values, promote a different subject, and have a different concept of man. The concept of discourse is briefly outlined against concepts such as the linear growth concept of science and the growth model of science as changes in paradigm. The issue of testing for AIDS shows a conflict between the medical and the legal discourse and illustrates the title of our contribution: the human body as field of conflict between discourses. (shrink)

The development and management of the Covid-19 outbreak in the Netherlands is described. The “intelligent lockdown” was aimed at minimizing new infections and limiting the number of deaths, while keeping the economy running as much as possible. Changes in consumer behavior, exit strategy, and lessons learned are considered.

Moshe ben Maimon, or Moses Maimonides, remains one of the most celebrated rabbis in this history of Judaism; his numerous writings include philosophical and medical treatises in Arabic, two of history's most important works on Jewish law, and, most notably, efforts to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with biblical teaching. The _Complete Medical Works_, edited by Gerrit Bos of the Martin-Buber-Institut fur Judaistik at the University of Cologne, collects the entirety of Maimonides's medical writings. Notwithstanding its title, _On Asthma_ is in (...) fact a complete regimen of health, designed for the needs of a high-ranking patient whose identity is not stated. In true Galenic fashion, Maimonides stresses that a healthy lifestyle and diet are the most important preventative measures against chronic illness such as asthma. Good and bad foods are described in detail, and many recipes for beneficial dishes and drugs are included, with Maimonides adapting Galenic regimens to the needs of his Muslim patient. (shrink)

Enactive approaches to emotion are rare and to anxiety and anxiety disorder even more. This article aims to show how an enactive paradigm might be helpful in solving some problems in the clinical and scientific understanding of anxiety and anxiety disorder. I begin by pointing at a number of relevant clinical features of anxiety and anxiety disorder and by sketching how and why anxiety theories have difficulties with doing justice to these features. I specifically focus on two themes: a) how (...) to conceptualize anxiety as the expression of a dynamical interaction with the environment instead of as just a reaction to the environment (or to... (shrink)

In this paper, I raise an objection to Philip Goff’s “Revelation Thesis” as articulated in his Consciousness and Fundamental Reality. In Sect. 1 I present the Revelation Thesis in the context of Goff’s broader defence of pan-psychism. In Sect. 2 I argue that the Revelation Thesis entails the identity of indiscriminable phenomenal properties. In Sect. 3 I argue that the identity of indiscriminable phenomenal properties is false. The upshot is that the Revelation Thesis is false.

No detailed description available for "The Politics of Anthropology".

Moral sensitivity and moral reasoning are essential competencies biomedical researchers have to develop to make ethical decisions in their daily practices. Previous research has shown that these competencies can be developed through ethics education. However, it is unclear which underlying mechanisms best support the development of these competencies. In this article we argue that the development of moral sensitivity and moral reasoning can be fostered through teaching strategies that tap into students’ moral imagination. We describe how moral imagination can stimulate (...) the development of these competencies through three different merits of moral imagination. Moral imagination can help students to 1) transfer and apply abstract moral concepts to concrete situations and contexts, 2) explore the perspective of others, 3) explore and foresee the moral consequences of different decisions and actions. We explain these three merits of moral imagination in the context of biomedical research and present a theoretical model for how these merits can be used to stimulate the development of moral sensitivity and moral reasoning. Furthermore, we describe multiple teaching strategies for biomedical curricula that tap into the three merits of moral imagination. These teaching strategies can inspire teachers to design ethics education that activates students’ moral imagination for the development of moral sensitivity and moral reasoning. (shrink)

Retinoids play a critical role in patterning, segmentation, and neurogenesis of the posterior hindbrain and it has been proposed that they act as a posteriorising signal during hindbrain development. Until now, direct evidence that endogenous retinoid signalling acts through a gradient to specify cell fates along the anteroposterior axis has been missing. Two recent studies tested the requirement for retinoid signalling in the developing hindbrain through systematic application of a pan-retinoic acid receptor antagonist.(1,2) They demonstrate a stage-dependent requirement for increasing (...) retinoid signalling activity along the hindbrain that proceeds from anterior to posterior. Together these findings challenge the concept of a stable gradient of retinoic acid across the hindbrain and warrant a re-interpretation of the phenotypes obtained by genetic and nutritional disruption of retinoid signalling in the amniote embryo. BioEssays 23:981–986, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In his book A secular age, Charles Taylor rejects the view that modernity must lead to a steady decline of religion and argues that although the conditions of belief changed, causing a destabilization and recomposition of religious forms, our modern world still can and should be open to the transcendent. I attempt to give a general overview of A secular age by describing shifts in worldview with respect to nature, self, society and God. Finally, I discuss how Taylor’s message relates (...) to that of Reformational thinking. Taylor’s description of motivations to regard the world as closed to the transcendent corresponds well with the Reformational analysis of the humanistic ground motives of freedom and nature. Taylor, however, seems to consider our current worldview as a neutral basis and religion as an optional add-on. (shrink)

The debate on the ethical permissibility of euthanasia in medicine has a corollary in the ethical application of drugs. The overall moral limits of medical treatment apply evenly to the moral acceptability of the pharmacological aspect of the act of euthanasia. The pharmacological aspect of the act is of ethical importance not only for the person requesting an active ending of his or her life, but also for the grieving family. Keywords: effectivity, ideal euthanaticum, patient's/family's interest, pharmacology of euthanasia, routes (...) of application CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

On April 10, 2001, after extensive committee deliberations, the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament passed a bill that was introduced in August 1999 legalizing physician-assisted death. The bill is officially called It was passed by a majority vote in the Second Chamber of Parliament and was supported by the majority parties constituting the present coalition government (i.e., liberals and socialists). Opposition to the law came mainly from a minority of Christian parties. In this report we explore the meaning of (...) this bill and describe some of its problematic and paradoxical items. (shrink)

The title of this article is ambiguous in the sense that it may direct the attention to either theism as a system of beliefs of persons who are referring to particular facts that serve as external grounds for the foundation of theist beliefs or to theism as a system of beliefs of persons who are convinced of theism’s truth on grounds that are intrinsic to their belief . Traces of both conceptions of theism can be found in Alvin Plantinga’s thesis (...) of the ‘proper basicality’ of religious belief, for instance in the distinction between evidence of the ‘on the basis of …’- type and evidence of the ‘inclination’- type. However, these two types of evidence do only lead to doxastic experience. In order to be warranted with respect to a particular knowledge claim, beliefs must be produced by noetic capacities that function properly, i.e. according to their design plan and in contexts that are appropriate to these capacities. This externalist epistemology exerts its greatest power in the criticism of the ‘evidentialist objection to belief in God’. However, it raises a number of objections with respect to its positive account of theism. When every community of thinkers creates its own relevant set of examples in order to establish criteria of proper basicality, does this not lead to skepticism? And, can doxastic experience not be honoured as a proper response to being called by divine discourse and, correspondingly, be seen as the relational foundation of theist belief? (shrink)

The concepts of adaptation and fitness have such an appeal that they have been used in other scientific domains, including the social sciences. One particular aspect of this theory transfer concerns the so-called fitness landscape models. At first sight, fitness landscapes visualize how an agent, of any kind, relates to its environment, how its position is conditional because of the mutual interaction with other agents, and the potential routes towards improved fitness. The allure of fitness landscapes is first and foremost (...) that it represents a complex story about adaptation and fitness in one coherent image. Different accounts of fitness landscapes in different domains in the social sciences suggest that the properties and functions of fitness landscapes are attributed rather freely. These differences are testimony of the model’s versatility. At the same time, one will notice that the different approaches can also create ambiguity about the exact meaning and role of fitness landscapes in the social sciences. This article presents an extensive literature survey of the diverging interpretations and uses of fitness landscapes in the social sciences and discusses the implications in terms of how these models inform scientific inquiry. (shrink)

In this note a recently developed quantum oscillating finite space cosmological model is described. The principle novelty of the model is that there is a quantum blurring of the classical singularity between cycles, instead of a singularity free bounce. Recently, Quentin Smith (1988) has argued that present theoretical and observational evidence justifies the belief that the past history of the universe is finite. The relevance of this cosmological model to Smith's arguments is discussed.

The open practice of euthanasia in The Netherlands stood alone in the world until the government of the Northern Territories in Australia accepted the possibility of physician-assisted suicide. Even though the active ending of lives in The Netherlands is still a crime by law, the current practice allows it and acquits physicians if certain conditions have been met. Of the many facets of euthanasia, the teaching of this practice represents a further logical step. In this contribution, we intend to describe (...) the comprehensive teaching program of euthanasia of the Free University of Amsterdam's Postgraduate Family Medicine Program. Here students receive university-based training for 1 day a week in a cohort of 12 and on the job training for 4 days with individual family physicians for 2 consecutive years. We especially intend to portray the integration of euthanasia into the wider teaching of the process of counseling and aid of the dying. (shrink)

Maimonides, one of the most celebrated rabbis in the history of Judaism, was a prolific author of influential Arabic philosophical and medical treatises and two of the most important works on Jewish law. _Medical Aphorisms_ is the best known and most comprehensive of his works, and Gerrit Bos offers here a masterful English translation with detailed annotations. _Medical Aphorisms_ consists of approximately 1500 maxims compiled by Maimonides from the treatises of Galen, the renowned ancient Greek physician. Maimonides arranges the (...) aphorisms into twenty-five treatises, organizing them by traditional medieval subspecialties such as gynecology, hygiene, and diet. He also includes a section examining unusual cases from Galen and offers a critical analysis of Galen’s theories. The first of six volumes, _Medical Aphorisms_ provides tantalizing insights into the work of Galen, as it draws on treatises of Galen that no longer exist and shines a light into the world of medieval and ancient medicine. It will be a rich and valuable resource for students and scholars working in the history of medicine, Jewish studies, and medieval Arabic culture. (shrink)

This article reviews ECJ case law on the conceptualization and legal circumscription of the doctrine of consistent interpretation, reflecting its fundamental importance as a mode of giving effect to Community law before national authorities. Legal uncertainty, an inherent characteristic of the technique, should be reduced, it is argued, by improving the reasoning of the ECJ's judgments. In particular, a highly critical discussion of the Arcaro judgment concludes that its precedent value is very limited. A parallelism in approach to both consistent (...) interpretation and direct effect is suggested. Partly, this has already been achieved insofar as the issue of expiry of the transposition period of directives is concerned. In addition, the article suggests a reform of the case law on consistent interpretation in actions by the State versus individuals and offers explanations for the seemingly inconsistent nature of the cases producing a horizontal impact of directives despite the lack of horizontal direct effect properly so‐called (incidental effects). In considering whether the doctrine gives rise to unacceptable legal uncertainty, a comparison with the interpretive obligation under the UK Human Rights Act 1998 is made, which produces similar results. (shrink)

This edition of Zeraḥyah's Hebrew translation of _De Anima_, Aristotle's monograph on the soul, is of major importance for the history of transmission of Aristotle's text in the Middle Ages. Zeraḥyah's translation is based on the same lost Arabic translation as Averroes' long commentary, and the solution which it provides for the question of the authorship of this lost Arabic translation thus also holds good for Averroes' text.

1. Cornelius Valerius en Sebastianus Foxius Morzillus als bronnen van Coornhert.

RésuméL'ouvrage galéniqueSur les Éléments selon Hippocrateest une importante source d'information concernant les théories physiques de l'antiquité tardive. Les diverses doctrines atomistes discutées par Galien ainsi que les arguments employés par lui pour les réfuter ont été étudiés de près par les premiersMutakallimūn.Les abrégés de cet ouvrage, qui semblent avoir été écrits plusieurs siècles après Galien, et dont certains remontent aux débuts de la culture islamique, présentent un intérêt particulier. Dans cet article, nous donnons une édition, une traduction et une étude (...) d'un abrégé inconnu jusqu'ici, conservé dans un unique manuscrit, qui l'attribue à Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Comme les autres abrégés, il s'agit en fait d'une doxographie de théories physiques qui ne reproduit pas toujours précisément ce que Galien a dit, mais qui reflète le discours de l'époque où elle a été rédigée. (shrink)

This book focuses on two important, interlinked themes in psychiatry, i.e., the relation between self (or: person), context and psychopathology; and the intrinsic value-ladenness of psychiatry as a practice. -/- Written against the background of scientistic tendencies in today’s psychiatry, it is argued in Part I that psychiatry needs a clinical conception of psychopathology alongside more traditional scientific conceptions; that this clinical conception of psychopathology must be based on a fundamental rethinking of the interaction between illness manifestations, contextual influences and (...) the patient as person, such that psychopathology is conceived as the product of this interaction rather than as the outward manifestation of a broken mechanism within the patient. -/- In Part II, it is shown that self- and context-related factors have a large impact on who one is as a professional. I argue that an analysis is needed of the normative aspects of the relations that sustain and frame professional role-fulfilment. This analysis culminates into a so-called normative practice model (NPM) which distinguishes between qualifying, conditioning and foundational principles (or: rules, norms). The normative practice model helps to locate and resist scientistic defenses of the legitimacy of psychiatry and to replace them by a positive account that provides clinicians (and scientists) the conceptual tools they need to justify what they do in broader contexts. The main thrust of the argument is to show that psychiatry needs a value-sensitive account of its legitimacy, in which other normative dimensions are recognized than those that sustain the expert role. Psychiatrists should in other words not defend the legitimacy of their profession by referring to the expert role solely but provide a broader account in which justice is done to the broader social, legal, and economic contexts of professional activity. The analysis of this inherent normativity begins within clinical practice, it extends to the concept of disease as well as to wider domains of psychiatric care and the sociology of professions, and, finally, amounts into an analysis of the value-ladenness of interactions between healthcare institutions, the government, professional organizations and patient groups. (shrink)

Understanding a sentence and integrating it into the discourse depends upon the identification of its focus, which, in spoken German, is marked by accentuation. In the case of written language, which lacks explicit cues to accent, readers have to draw on other kinds of information to determine the focus. We study the joint or interactive effects of two kinds of information that have no direct representation in print but have each been shown to be influential in the reader’s text comprehension: (...) i. the (low-level) rhythmic-prosodic structure that is based on the distribution of lexically stressed syllables, and ii. the (high-level) discourse context that is grounded in the memory of previous linguistic content. Systematically manipulating these factors, we examine the way readers resolve a syntactic ambiguity involving the scopally ambiguous focus operator auch (engl. `too') in both oral (Experiment 1) and silent reading (Experiment 2). The results of both experiments attest that discourse context and local linguistic rhythm conspire to guide the syntactic and, concomitantly, the focus-structural analysis of ambiguous sentences. We argue that reading comprehension requires the (implicit) assignment of accents according to the focus structure and that, by establishing a prominence profile, the implicit prosodic rhythm directly affects accent assignment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 347-352 [Access article in PDF] Idem, Ipse, and Loss of the Self Gerrit Glas The case histories of Dr. Wells and the comments on them require first of all more conceptual clarity. In this article I will first introduce, with Paul Ricoeur, a distinction between idem identity and ipse identity. Then, I will discuss the merits and pitfalls of applying narrative theory (...) to pathologies of the self. Behind the discussion on the breakdown of narrative unity, deep questions loom, most notably about conceivability and meaning of the notion of breakdown of self-relatedness as such; and about the moral basis for clinical action given the lack of a self to treat. These questions amount to the acknowledgment of a normative component in the concept of self and personhood, which can not be accounted for by idem identity solely. Individual and Structural Identity Let us begin with identity. When I identify a tree, at least two aspects, are implied in the act of identification. The first aspect concerns the recognition of the tree as member of a certain class (or family) of living things. In the tree we recognize certain features, or aspects, that are typical for this particular class (or family) of trees. This recognition is based on similarity or sameness. The second aspect in the act of identification consists of the recognition of the tree as this individual tree. We are dealing here with a basic, rather mysterious capacity: the capacity to distinguish one individual entity from the other; or: the capacity to know individuals.Both aspects, the recognition of similarity and of individuality, are interwoven in everyday acts of identification. So, we discern the specific features of a particular tree against the background of an overall (or general) image of trees. At the same time we recognize these general features given our capacity to distinguish one tree from the other. There are, accordingly, two sides in the concept of identity: structural identity and individual identity. Individual identity refers to the uniqueness of a thing and structural identity to the properties a thing shares with others things.This distinction can be applied to human beings, but only in a certain way and to a certain extent. So, John is a human being, and as a human being he has both distinctive and general features. However with regard to John himself, that is, the particular person I aim at when I speak about John, the picture is slightly different. Individuality and similarity (universality) refer here to one and the same person. The uniqueness of John is now commonly referred to as numerical identity. There is only one singular John. Even if there were a John with the same birth date, fingerprint and DNA profile, this would be another John, John 2 so to say. This uniqueness is sometimes articulated in terms of the position John 1 and John 2 occupy in the space-time continuum. Because John 1 and John 2 cannot occupy the same spatiotemporal position, [End Page 347] they must be separate, two distinct entities. This is of course a limited view on uniqueness of persons; so, we will have to say more about this in a moment.The structural (or general) characteristics of John, the John-ness of John so to say, is commonly called qualitative identity. Qualitative identity consists of the sum of all those enduring properties which could serve as criterion to distinguish John from other persons in the world. Qualitative identity, however, does not completely coincide with structural identity, mentioned earlier. This is obvious from the fact that the John-ness of John refers to those structural (enduring, general) properties for which only this particular John qualifies, whereas the human being-ness of John refers to the properties John shares with all other human beings. So, in those cases in which the structural dimension of identity refers to only one entity, for instance in the case of the John-ness of John, the emphasis is not on intersubject similarity but on intrasubject similarity. This intrasubject similarity refers to continuity in time and to... (shrink)

Musing in Florence in June of 1858, Nathaniel Hawthorne said of himself, "I am sensible that a process is going on--and has been, ever since I came to Italy--that puts me in a state to see pictures with less toil, and more pleasure, and makes me more fastidious, yet more sensible of beauty where I saw none before." This is a book devoted to the reflective analysis of the enterprise in which many of us, like Hawthorne, find ourselves engaged: the (...) cultivation of our taste. Charles Wegener writes for and from the standpoint of thoughtful amateurs, those who, loving the beautiful and the sublime, wish to become more fully the sort of person to whom these goods reliably disclose themselves. Here traditional aesthetic analysis is redirected to a search for the norms that tell us how we use our intelligence, our imagination, and our senses in becoming "more fastidious, yet more sensible," exploring such concepts as disinterestedness, catholicity, communicability, austerity, objectivity, and authority. Finally, Wegener discusses questions about the relation of our aesthetic lives to other activities, norms, and human goods, arguing that taste, far from being a mere grace or luxury, is a necessary expression of that freedom which is at once the fruit and the condition of all culture. "This book should be required reading for anyone concerned with aesthetic education, for this is exactly what it is about, and I have come across no more searching investigation of the topic."--Hugo Meynell, Journal of Aesthetic Education "Using the analysis of aesthetic experience found in Kant's Critique of Judgment as a point of departure, Wegener has written a remarkably intelligent book which presents meaningful encounter with art as the "discipline of taste and feeling. The book reads not simply as an exposition but as a conversation in which the author thoughtfully and meticulously explores with the reader those norms that structure and define aesthetic experience. . . . The book occupies an important place in contemporary aesthetic discussion."--M. Feder-Marcus, Choice. (shrink)

Over the last years, self-management has become a central value in the practice of mental health care. Patients are positioned as expertclients who are actively involved in the management of their disease. Some of the ideas that are implied in the concept of self-management may raise important and intriguing questions. For instance, in the context of psychiatry impaired agency and altered self-experience are often part of the psychopathological process itself. The capacity to manage oneself may be impeded by the very (...) problem that needs to be managed. Therefore, how should self-management be conceived in... (shrink)

The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox and the correlated states it introduced comprise one of the central interpretive problems of quantum mechanics. Because of the apparent nonlocal character of this paradox, it should be given a relativistic treatment. The purpose of this paper is to provide such a treatment.

This article analyzes the changes in The Handmaid’s Tale’s moral and political outlook as it tracks different forms of complexity in the novel, the film, and the TV series. While the sense of female empowerment increases with each adaptation of this tale of forced sexual servitude in fictional theocratic state of Gilead, the essay argues that Hulu’s TV series develops an intriguing interaction between the interiority of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel and the exteriority emphasized in Volker Schlöndorff’s 1990 film. In (...) so doing, the TV series Escher-twists across related binaries between activity/passivity and personal/political actions as well. By expanding, displacing, and creatively intersecting storylines which the novel cut short, the series weaves an intricate perspectival web that invites the viewer to participate in its mind games. (shrink)

The article investigates the concept of self-illness ambiguity (SIA), which was recently re-introduced in the philosophy of psychiatry literature. SIA refers to situations in which patients are uncertain about whether features (symptoms, signs) of their illness should be attributed to their illness or to their ‘selves’. Identification of these features belongs to a more encompassing process of self- definition and -interpretation. The paper introduces a distinction between the notions of self-relatedness, self-referentiality (or: implicit self-signification), self-awareness and self-interpretation. Each of these (...) notions offers a different perspective on SIA, but these perspectives do not exclude one another. A further distinction will be developed between primary, secondary and tertiary forms of self-referentiality. The practical and conceptual relevance of these distinctions will be illustrated with case vignettes. Throughout the paper our findings will placed in the context of other philosophical work on the self, especially in the field of narrative theory (Ricoeur), phenomenology (Ratcliffe) and philosophy of mind. The article closes with a brief discussion about the appropriateness of the term ambiguity and the potential of SIA as concept in the context of clinical psychiatry. Directions for future work will be indicated. (shrink)