Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is a key element of the system of philosophy which Kant introduced with his Critique of Pure Reason, and a work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought. It represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion that would be grounded in moral reason and would meet the needs of ethical life. It includes sharply critical and boldly constructive discussions on topics (...) not often treated by philosophers, including such traditional theological concepts as original sin and the salvation or 'justification' of a sinner, and the idea of the proper role of a church. This volume presents it and three short essays that illuminate it in new translations by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni, with an introduction by Robert Merrihew Adams that locates it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

How can we better understand and treat those suffering from schizophrenia and manic-depressive illnesses? This important new book takes us into the world of those suffering from such disorders. Using self descriptions, its emphasis is not on how mental health professionals view sufferers, but on how the patients themselves experience their disorder. A new volume in the International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry series, this book will be of great interest to all those working with sufferers from such disorders - (...) helping them to better understand their mental lives, and providing important insights into how best to treat them. (shrink)

This is the first book to provide a coherent overview over the ethical implications of AI-related technologies in medicine. It explores how these technologies transform practices, relationships, and environments in the clinical field. It provides an introduction into ethical issues such as data security and privacy protection, bias and algorithmic fairness, trust and transparency, challenges to the doctor-patient relationship, and new perspectives for informed consent. The book focuses on the transformative impact that technology is having on medicine, and discusses several (...) strategies for dealing with the resulting challenges. It also introduces innovative methods of ethics research for addressing existing desiderata and future challenges. This book is written to inform health care professionals, policy-makers, and researchers in medicine, health sciences, nursing science, social sciences, and ethics, but may also function as a primary textbook for graduate as well as undergraduate university courses. (shrink)

Relativists make room for the possibility of “faultless disagreement” by positing the existence of subjective propositions, i.e. propositions true from some points of view and not others. We discuss whether the adoption of this position with respect to a certain domain of discourse is compatible with a realist attitude towards the matters arising in that domain. At first glance, the combination of relativism and realism leads to an unattractive metaphysical picture on which reality comprises incoherent facts. We will sketch the (...) contours of a realist-relativist position called “subjectivism”, which avoids this result by giving up the assumption that the points of view of different subjects are all metaphysically “on a par”. (shrink)

Many philosophers have been attracted to the idea of using the logical form of a true sentence as a guide to the metaphysical grounds of the fact stated by that sentence. This paper looks at a particular instance of that idea: the widely accepted principle that disjunctions are grounded in their true disjuncts. I will argue that an unrestricted version of this principle has several problematic consequences and that it’s not obvious how the principle might be restricted in order to (...) avoid them. My suggestion is that, instead of trying to restrict the principle, we should distinguish between metaphysical and conceptual grounds and take the principle to apply exclusively to the latter. This suggestion, if correct, carries over to other prominent attempts at using logical form as a guide to ground. (shrink)

Solving the meta-problem of consciousness requires, among other things, explaining why we are so reluctant to endorse various forms of illusionism about the phenomenal. I will try to tackle this task in two steps. The first consists in clarifying how the concept of consciousness precludes the possibility of any distinction between 'appearance' and 'reality'. The second consists in spelling out our reasons for recognizing the existence of something that satisfies that concept.

The problem of self-knowledge has been thoroughly discussed in the context of traditional epistemology. In parallel to the traditional approach to epistemology, Radically Embodied Cognitive Science (RECS) has emerged in the last 30 years as a genuine contender in its field. According to RECS, the unity of analysis of cognitive processes is the dynamics between brain, body and environment. In this paper, I advance a RECS approach to self-knowledge, which immediately suggests that knowing oneself is a matter of knowing what (...) one’s body can do. I then turn to resistance training, particularly weightlifting, and argue that it offers a paradigmatic case of self-knowledge in RECS’s terms. More precisely, resistance training allows the trainee to achieve knowledge of themselves in a fundamentally practical manner—and doing so is transformative of the kind of actions they are capable of. (shrink)

Rational beliefs and actions are typically evaluated against certain benchmarks, e.g., those of classical logic or probability theory. Rationality therefore is traditionally taken to involve some sort of reasoning, which in turn implies contentful cognition. Radically Enactive views of Cognition, on the other hand, claim that not all cognition is contentful. In order to show that rationality does not need to lie outside of REC’s scope of radicalizing cognition, I develop a Radically Enactive notion of Rationality, according to which rationality (...) is embodied, situated and contentless. For RER, an organism acts rationally insofar as it sustains a proficient interaction with its environment, which in turn requires the coordination of cognitive abilities in accordance with environmental constraints. Rationality is thus distinguished from reasoning, for reasoning is understood as a capacity to coordinate representational cognitive abilities. (shrink)

Two problems related to the biological identity of living beings are faced: the who-problem (which are the biological properties making that living being unique and different from the others?); the persistence-problem (what does it take for a living being to persist from a time to another?). They are discussed inside a molecular biology framework, which shows how epigenetics can be a good ground to provide plausible answers. That is, we propose an empirical solution to the who-problem and to the persistence-problem (...) on the basis of the new perspectives opened by a molecular understanding of epigenetic processes. In particular, concerning the former, we argue that any living being is the result of the epigenetic processes that have regulated the expression of its genome; concerning the latter, we defend the idea that the criterion for the persistence of its identity is to be indicated in the continuity of those epigenetic processes. We also counteract possible objections, in particular (1) whether our approach has something to say at a metaphysical level; (2) how it could account for the passage from the two phenotypes of the parental gametes to the single phenotype of the zygote; (3) how it could account for the identity of derivatives of one living being that continue to live disjoined from that original living being; (4) how it could account for higher mental functions. (shrink)

Definition of the problem Biomedical research based on big data offers immense benefits. Large multisite research that integrates large amounts of personal health data, especially genomic and genetic data, might contribute to a more personalized medicine. This type of research requires the transfer and storage of highly sensitive data, which raises the question of how to protect data subjects against data harm, such as privacy breach, disempowerment, disenfranchisement, and exploitation. As a result, there is a trade-off between reaping the benefits (...) of big-data-based biomedical research and protecting data subjects’ right to informational privacy. Arguments Blockchain technologies are often discussed as a technical fix for the abovementioned trade-off due to their specific features, namely data provenance, decentralization, immutability, and access and governance system. However, implementing blockchain technologies in biomedical research also raises questions regarding consent, legal frameworks, and workflow integration. Hence, accompanying measures, which I call enablers, are necessary to unleash the potential of blockchain technologies. These enablers are innovative models of consent, data ownership models, and regulatory models. Conclusion Blockchain technologies as a technical fix alone is insufficient to resolve the aforementioned trade-off. Combining this technical fix with the enablers outlined above might be the best way to perform biomedical research based on big data and at the same time protect the informational privacy of data subjects. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophical investigation of the merits and faults of a theorem by Lanford , Lanford , Lanford for the problem of the approach towards equilibrium in statistical mechanics. Lanford’s result shows that, under precise initial conditions, the Boltzmann equation can be rigorously derived from the Hamiltonian equations of motion for a hard spheres gas in the Boltzmann-Grad limit, thereby proving the existence of a unique solution of the Boltzmann equation, at least for a very short amount of (...) time. We argue that, by establishing a statistical H-theorem, it offers a prospect to complete Boltzmann’s combinatorial argument, without running against the objections which plug other typicality-based approaches. However, we submit that, while recovering the irreversible approach towards equilibrium for positive times, it fails to predict a monotonic increase of entropy for negative times, and hence it yields the wrong retrodictions about the past evolution of a gas. (shrink)

Telemedicine is a complex field including various applications and target groups. Especially telehealthcare is seen by many as a means to revolutionize medicine. It gives patients the opportunity to take charge of their own health by using self-tracking devices and allows health professionals to treat patients from a distance. To some, this means an empowerment of patient autonomy as well as an improvement in the quality of care. Others state the dangers of depersonalization of medicine and the pathologization of daily (...) life. This paper examines the ethical implications of telehealthcare, focusing on patient autonomy and quality of care by analyzing metareviews, randomized controlled trials and narrative ethical analyses on the topic. As a result, we conclude that the technically enhanced encounter between patients and health professionals may mean an empowerment of patient autonomy when it goes along with a personal relationship based on trust, assistance and support. When it comes to the quality of care, telehealthcare may lead to an improvement as long it is adopted to the patient’s individual needs. (shrink)

This paper discusses a claim by Clifton and Halvorson (2001) that, contrary to non-relativistic quantum mechanics, local operations can never destroy entanglement in relativistic quantum field theory. The impossibility of achieving local disentanglement would raise a threat for the mutual independence between microscopic subsystems. Here, we observe that Clifton and Halvorson no-go result rests on an unnecessarily strong notion of local operations, which we label absolutely local operations, and we argue that a weaker notion, namely that of relatively local operations, (...) is sufficient to guarantee that acting on one subsystem does not have non-local effects on another spacelike separated subsystem. We then show that one can achieve local disentanglement in relativistic quantum field theory by means of relatively local operations. In fact, we prove that, under the split property, there exists a class of disentangling relatively local operations. (shrink)

In March 2019, the German Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (G‑BA; Federal Joint Committee) presented the result of the method assessment process on non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT). The aim of this method assessment process was to decide whether NIPT should become a publicly funded procedure of routine prenatal care. The G‑BA decided in favor of NIPT, making the implementation of NIPT very likely, provided that other healthcare and political institutions also agree. This development could be interpreted as empowering from the perspective of reproductive (...) autonomy, since NIPT allows pregnant women to obtain valuable information on the health of the fetus in a fast and easy manner and without the risks of invasive methods. However, the routinization of NIPT also implies ethical challenges. Will the routinization lead to a normalization of prenatal quality control? Will it lead to an expansion to women outside the high-risk group? What would be the ethical implications of such a development? How should physicians, geneticists, and patients deal with the increased amount of obtainable information? What are the implications for choice and decision-making in the prenatal care context? In this paper, we analyze the ethical aspects of the routinization of NIPT, focusing on information and the counseling process, the burden of choice, and the threats to reproductive autonomy by societal interests linked to NIPT. (shrink)

Cartesians and Lichtenbergians have diverging views of the deliverances of introspection. According to the Cartesians, a rational subject, competent with the relevant concepts, can come to know that he or she thinks – hence, that he or she exists – on the sole basis of his or her introspective awareness of his or her conscious thinking. According to the Lichtenbergians, this is not possible. This paper offers a defence of the Lichtenbergian position using Peacocke and Campbell's recent exchange on Descartes'scogitoas (...) a framework for discussion. A thought-experiment will be presented involving two communities with radically different conceptions of the metaphysics of the self. The purpose of the thought-experiment is to suggest that a substantive metaphysical thesis, whose truth cannot be a priori known, is presupposed by any justified transition from one's introspective awareness of a certain mental activity to the self-ascription of that activity. (shrink)

Thomas Reid presented a two-dimensional geometry of the visual field in his Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764). The axioms of this geometry are different from those of Euclidean plane geometry. The ‘geometry of visibles’ is the same as the geometry of the surface of the sphere, described without reference to points and lines outside the surface itself. In a recent article, James Van Cleve has argued that Reid can secure a non-Euclidean geometry of visibles only at the cost of (...) abandoning his direct realist theory of perception, and reintroducing sense-data. The question will be reexamined by considering two aspects of Reid’s theory of vision: the claim that we do not directly perceive distance by sight and Reid’s characterization of visible figure as a partial notion of an external object. (shrink)

Challenging the image of physics as dry and dusty, The Beautiful Invisible shows that this highly abstract science is in fact teeming with beautiful concepts, ...

In this paper, the ontological, terminological, epistemological, and ethical aspects of omission are considered in a coherent and balanced framework, based on the idea that there are omissions which are actions and omissions which are non-actions. In particular, we suggest that the approach to causation which best deals with omission is Mackie's INUS conditional proposal. We argue that omissions are determined partly by the ontological conditional structure of reality, and partly by the interests, beliefs, and values of observers. The final (...) upshot is that moral judgments involved in cases of omissions cannot be grounded on, but are the ground for judgments about what INUS conditions count as omissions. (shrink)

El transhumanismo como filosofía e ideología tecnologicista tiene cada vez más adeptos y se coloca en los ámbitos académicos como una posición positiva, posible y deseable. Su implementación aparece solapada en una vida cotidiana que depende, como nunca antes, de los avances tecnológicos. La posición que manejaremos es que esta ideología, que sobredimensiona el papel de la tecnología en la sociedad, tiene una visión limitada respecto con los conflictos éticos, económicos y sociales que dimanan de sus presupuestos. El problema no (...) es negar la tecnología sino qué rol juega en la construcción de la sociedad. El transhumanismo puede estar vendiendo un falso sueño de libertad, donde la uniformidad, la ausencia de crítica, la discriminación y la separación radical entre pobres y ricos definan ese mundo paradisíaco que propone. (shrink)

With the arrival of new methods of genome editing, especially CRISPR/cas 9, new perspectives on germline interventions have arisen. Supporters of germ line genome editing claim that the procedure could be used as a means of disease prevention. As a possible life-saving therapy, it provides benefits that outweigh its risks. Opponents of GGE claim that the medical and societal risks, especially the use of GGE for genetic enhancement, are too high. In our paper, we analyze the risks and benefits of (...) GGE. We show that the medical risk on an individual level might be reduced by further research in the near future so that they may be outweighed by the benefits. We also show that the societal risks of the procedure, i.e. genetic enhancement, are manageable by establishing a regulative framework before the GGE is implemented. Since the effects of modifying genes for the genepool of a given population are extremely difficult to model, the medical risks on the population level might be too high. (shrink)

In this article I point out that rather than two, as is commonly thought, or indeed one, which is an old idea recently revived by some scholars, Aquinas in fact presents three main senses of being: (A1) being as actus essendi or esse or ‘present actuality’; (A2) being as (real) form or essence; (B) being as the reply to the an sit? (is there…?) question or anitas or ‘there is’ sense. Regarding the relations among these three senses of being I (...) show that: (i) the same logical treatment holds for the form (B) and (A2), since both can and need to be re-written in the form: something is so-and-so (whereas the same process cannot be applied to the A1 sense of being); (ii) the relation between the A1 and A2 senses of being is not a mere relation between distinct elements, but rather a relation among different stages of a single process, namely that between first and second actuality; (iii) the relation between the A (1 and 2) and B senses of being seems to be one of grounding, since the ‘there is’ sense seems to Aquinas to be grounded on the present actuality sense of being as an effect to its cause. (shrink)

Definition of the problemThe options of reproductive medicine are expanding. In some cases, it is unclear whether there is a medical indication for applying procedures of assisted reproduction or whether this application is wish-fulfilling. The distinction between medical indication and wish fulfilment depends on the concept of indication. Thus, the concept of indication has a special status in reproductive medicine. The distinction between medical indication and wish-fulfilling treatment is mostly based on implicit or explicit normative judgements, rather than on mere (...) clinical facts. The use of “indicated” suggests a purely empirical-clinical judgment, whereas the normative judgements behind the concept are concealed. The aim of this paper is to analyze the normative implications of indication in reproductive medicine. Therefore, the concept of indication and its special status within reproductive medicine is scrutinized.ArgumentsThe analysis shows that the normative implications of indication are tied to a sociocultural script of parenthood, which manifests in the regulations of reimbursement. This script encompasses societal views, norms, and role models, and can be described as “good parenting”. The script of good parenting acts as a regulatory instance that determines the access to procedures of assisted reproduction. It is based on traditional heteronormative concepts of marriage and family, and reserves reproduction exclusively for heterosexual, married couples.ConclusionThe sociocultural script of good parenting in reproductive medicine implies a contradiction: Assisted reproduction technologies provide the opportunity of reproduction for individuals outside the heteronormative frame, yet they are legitimized and limited by this exact frame. (shrink)

In his writings about hypergeometric functions Gauss succeeded in moving beyond the restricted domain of eighteenth-century functions by changing several basic notions of analysis. He rejected formal methodology and the traditional notions of functions, complex numbers, infinite numbers, integration, and the sum of a series. Indeed, he thought that analysis derived from a few, intuitively given notions by means of other well-defined concepts which were reducible to intuitive ones. Gauss considered functions to be relations between continuous variable quantities while he (...) regarded integration and summation as appropriate operations with limits. He also regarded infinite and infinitesimal numbers as a façon de parler and used inequalities in order to prove the existence of certain limits. He took complex numbers to have the same legitimacy as real quantities. However, Gauss’s continuum was linked to a revised form of the eighteenth-century notion of continuous quantity: it was not reducible to a set of numbers but was immediately given. (shrink)

Definition of the problem Medical ethics is increasingly faced with issues that result from power asymmetries and epistemic injustice. However, medical ethics lacks the epistemic lenses for analyzing these social context factors of clinical practice. A theoretical and conceptual reconfiguration is necessary in order to be able to address these issues. Arguments This paper discusses the foundations of critical medical ethics, which takes perspectives and epistemic categories from critical theories. This includes the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School as well (...) as those approaches from social sciences and cultural studies that reflect on power asymmetries. By drawing on these theories, the epistemic spectrum of medical ethics could be broadened in order to better include real power relations into normative analyses. The paper starts by outlining the contribution of social sciences to empirical medical ethics. This shows that an empirical approach as such cannot bridge the epistemic gap. In a further step, epistemic lenses and concepts from critical theories are discussed, such as Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, feminist approaches, postcolonial approaches, queer theory, gender studies, and science and technology studies (STS). The conclusion sums up the foundations of critical medical ethics and discusses its limitations. Conclusion Critical medical ethics possesses the epistemic categories and broader social perspective needed to address issues in medicine that result from power asymmetries and epistemic injustice in society. (shrink)

An International Fichte Congress was held at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat in Jena, September 26 to October 1, 1994, under the auspices of the Internationale Johann-Gottlieb-Fichte-Gesellschaft, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Wissenschaftslehre. Participants came from all corners of Eastern and Western Europe, Canada, Japan, and the United States. Well over one hundred papers were read on all aspects of Fichte’s philosophy and Fichte’s heritage. Among the participants from North America some were well known faces from the HSA, such as (...) Daniel Breazeale, George di Giovanni, Tom Rockmore, Jere Surber, and Michael Vater. They all made presentations. An excursion to Weimar proved an enjoyable diversion from the otherwise strict discipline of Fichtean science. (shrink)

Detrás del velo del derecho positivo. Sobre Il diritto contro se stesso. Saggio sul positivismo giuridico e la sua crisi, por Massimo La Torre En su última obra –Il diritto contro se stesso. Saggio sul positivismo giuridico e la sua crisi-– Massimo La Torre sostiene una tesis muy precisa: si no queremos que el derecho sea sólo violencia organizada, es oportuno distanciarse del positivismo jurídico. El riesgo, sin embargo, es que el antipositivismo acabe “tirando el bebé con el agua de (...) la bañera”. El derecho moderno, de hecho, toma forma en la dialéctica entre la moral y el poder, entre lo que se decide y quién decide, en términos habermasianos: entre la “legitimidad” y la “positividad”. No es en absoluto seguro que esta dialéctica pueda conciliarse practicando únicamente el positivismo jurídico, sobre todo si esto aplasta la “legitimidad” sobre la “positividad”. Pero incluso un antipositivismo que se incline demasiado por la moral, por lo que se decide, en definitiva por la “legitimidad" solamente, acabaría cayendo en un error exactamente igual y opuesto al del positivismo. (shrink)

Insegnare la filosofia nelle scuole: e ancora utile? E quanto spazio va concesso alla materia? Il mondo accademico italiano si pose il problema agli inizi del XX secolo, e da piu parti fu proposta la cancellazione della materia dai programmi ministeriali. Giovanni Gentile, filosofo e pedagogista, non poteva restare inerme e in questo scritto giovanile si cimenta in una vibrante difesa della filosofia e della sua importanza per la formazione degli studenti.".

In this commentary, I focus on Jones' suggestion of a close connection between the domain of space and that of kinship. I expand on that suggestion by introducing the concept of frame of reference and show how it can possibly participate to the generation of kinship systems.