본 연구는 칸트가 『순수이성비판』 초판에 짧게 개략만 하고 더 이상 연구를 진척시키지 않은 “직관에서의 각지의 종합(Synthesis der Apprehension in der Anschauung)”에 주목하며, ｢교수취임논문｣에서부터 전제한 ‘표상들의 관계조건’으로서의 시간 의미를 규명한다.BR 지금까지 직관에서의 각지 종합에 대한 국내 연구는 적은 수를 차지한다. 시간의 관점에서 해명한 논문도 드물 것으로 생각된다. 더욱이 1770년 논문에 대한 연구 역시 국내⋅외로 아직까지 소수이며, 그중 시간론을 독립적으로 다룬 논문은 찾기 어렵다. 이러한 점에서 본 연구는, 사유의 한 과정으로 구성되는 각지의 종합과 그에 함축된 시간의 의미를 취임논문과의 연계 속에 분석하는 한편, (...) 개념의 현시적 측면에서 논리적 개념어가 재현할 수 없는 시간의 내적 직관을 시 예시를 통해 구체적으로 고찰한다.BR 『순수이성비판』 초판 초월 감성론의 시간 편은 “선험적 개념들의 객관적 타당성”을 입증하는 데 주력한 반면, 취임논문은 공상을 포함한 상상과 경험 가능한 모든 표상내용을 시간 영역 안에 포함시켰다. 그런데 1770년 논문이 의미하는 대로 계기적 시간이 ‘표상들의 관계 조건’으로서 규정된다면, 시간의 범위는 무한정 폭넓어진다. 왜냐하면 1770년 논문의 시간론에는 표상내용이 무엇이 되었든, 어떻게 상이한 표상들의 틈 사이로 또 다른 표상이 잇따라 관계 맺을 수 있는지가 관건이기 때문이다. 따라서 본고는 취임논문의 시간론을 고찰함에 있어, 다양한 표상들에 대한 시간의 순수 관계 논리가 무엇인지를 정초함과 동시에, 각지의 종합 내용을 시간 관점에서 재구성하고 취임논문을 바탕으로 논구한다.BR 본 논문에서, 시적 반추를 통한 시간론 연구는 간학문적 철학연구이다. 이는 단순 논리적 이해를 넘어, 칸트가 포착한 직관의 통일성을 시의 직접적 직관 속에 재현하고 재경험하는 단초를 제공한다. 특히 박주택 시인의 ｢배경들｣은 칸트가 더 이상 파고들지 않은 생산적이며 점층적인 시간(successio) 개념을 ‘열려있는 계기적 시간의 지평’ 관점으로 확장하는 매개점이 되어준다. 또한 ‘근원적 표상으로서 시간’의 의미를 성찰하게 하는 고은의 ｢무제 456｣ 시편은, 한 개념에 함축된 다양한 의미를 개관하게 한다. 프로스트의 ｢가지 않은 길｣ 역시 우리로 하여금 선형적 시간에 대한 새로운 의미를 모색하게 하는 계기가 되어줄 것이다. (shrink)

본 논문은 칸트가 『순수이성비판』초판 A99~110에 간단히 기술만 하고 더 이상 파고들지 않은 ‘인식의 삼중적 종합(dreifache Synthese von Erkenntnis, KrV A99~110)’ 체계에 주목하며, 칸트가 비판서 이전부터 전제한 시간의 구성적 의미를 「교수취임논문」을 통해 규명한다. 그리고 시적 직관 속에 구체화된 시간의 반추를 통해서 시에 현시된 내적 시간 의미를 ‘직관에서의 각지의 종합(Synthesis der Apprehension in der Anschauung)’ 관점에서 재구성하고 재해석한다.BR 본론 앞부분에는 시간 개념의 출현과 관련하여 외재적 시간에 대한 문제제기를 한다. “변화라는 개념[도] 오직 경험에서만 얻을 수 있는 개념”이기 때문이다. 본론 두 번째 절은 내적으로 (...) 연결되는 표상들의 시간에 관해 고찰한다. 이 절에는 칸트가 말한 단일한 시간의 “내적이고도 실재적인 형식”을 정현종의 시적 직관 속에 재경험해 보는 시도를 한다. 끝으로 본고는 단일하면서도 임의적인 시간 의미를 고은(高銀)의 시 한편을 빌려와 풀어보고자 한다. 마지막 절에서는 고정되어 있지 않은 임의적 시간이 뜻하는 바에 관하여, 이를테면 시간의 끝없는 생성에 관하여 시적 상상력을 접목해본다.BR 칸트에 따르면, “세계 내 관찰가능한 모든 사건들, 모든 운동들, 모든 내적 변화들”(Diss. §14-6)과 매 순간 공간적이든, 비공간적이든 동시적으로 우리 앞에 펼쳐지는 수많은 것들은 시간의 문을 반드시 거친다. 시간은 “모든 감각에 앞서서 표상되는 직관의 형식이며, 동시에 모든 감각 가능한 것들에 나타나는 관계들의 조건들”(Diss. III, §14-3)로 파악된다. 다른 말로 하면, 시간은 어떤 대상의 현존을 통해서 내감에 촉발된 표상들에 나타나는 관계들의 조건이다.BR 칸트가 뜻하는 시간 관계의 조건에는 두 가지가 있다. 다양한 내용들을 직각적(intuitiv) 으로 포괄하는 동시적 관계조건(혹은 병렬 형식, co-ordinatio, Diss. I, §1)과 “우연적인 것 까지도 통틀어”(Diss. III, §15, Folgesatz) 상이한 내용들이 차례로 잇따르는 계기적 관계조건(순차적 형식, successio, Diss. I, §1)이다. 동시적이거나 잇따르는 시간의 형식 속에서 다양한 내용들은 서로 연결되고 정립됨으로써 일정 꼴을 띄고 개념에도 테두리가 생긴다. 그러므로 이런 의미에서 직관에서의 각지의 종합은 시간의 근원적 질서를 전제한다. 마치 우리가 정현종 시인과 고은 시인의 시를 통해서 그 안에 다양한 ‘시작’을 보고 ‘하나’의 시작에 대해 다시 생각해볼 수 있는 계기의 시간을 이어가는 것, 시간의 이러한 국면은 우리에게 언제 어디서나 새로운 인식의 바탕을 제공한다. (shrink)

Medical missionaries made a breakthrough in Korean history in healing and caring for many Hansen and tuberculosis patients. There was a missionary who had no less good influence than medical missionaries at this time. The person is missionary Sarah Barry, who inspired and developed one of the most influential student movements in South Korea. The aim of the present study is to examine life of Sarah Barry and her ministry, focusing upon her positive influences on Korean intellectuals. The relevance of (...) the study is conditioned by the fact that there is no professional academic research on her ministry except for one short paper, which discusses the importance of her role in formulating campus evangelism. In order to achieve the aim of the study, the method of analysis and synthesis of biographical and historical data was used. As a result of the study, Sarah Barry’s biography was researched and systematized. It gave ground to a conclusion that her role in South Korea’s gradual resurgence after the Civil War was seminal. (shrink)

The Movement of Showing investigates the idea, shared by Derrida, Hegel and Heidegger, that the value of their thought is not found in its results or conclusions, but in its "movement." All three describe the heart of their work in terms of a pathway, development, or movement rather than in terms of its propositions or conclusions. This seems to deprive their thought of a solid ground, and indeed deconstruction in particular is often criticized in this way. Johan de Jong argues (...) that this is a structural vulnerability that is both its weakness and the source of its value, tracing Derrida's indirect method from his early to later works, and considering his engagements with Hegel and Heidegger. His analysis locates an affinity among Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida in a shared distrust of externality and, against the grain of some Levinasian commentaries, argues that Derrida's indirectness results in an ethics of complicity. The Movement of Showing answers a central question that many polemics about continental philosophy and postmodernism revolve around concerning how, methodologically, one can philosophize responsibly. It shows the difference between critique and polemics, and why simply taking up a position for or against is insufficient in order to think responsibly. (shrink)

『소크라테스의 변명』의 소크라테스는 멜레토스의 두 기소 내용에 대해서 서로 다른 전략을 취한다. 첫 번째 불경죄라는 기소는 상대적으로 방어하기가 쉬웠다. 소크라테스는 멜레토스의 불경죄 기소 내용을 무신론에 대한 기소로 재정의한 후, 자신은 신적인 것을 믿으므로 무신론자가 아님을 입증함으로 방어를 한다. 그러나 두 번째 기소 내용인 젊은이들을 타락시키는 것은 방어하기가 어려웠다. 왜냐하면 소크라테스가 젊은이들과 대화를 통해서 보인 모습은 소피스트와 크게 달라 보이지 않았기 때문이다. 소크라테스는 재판정에서 자신이 소피스트들과 다르다는 것을 입증하기 위해서 자신의 행동의 동기와 의도의 차원에서 증명을 했어야 했다. 『소피스트』편의 소크라테스는 엘레아에서 온 (...) 손님과 테아이테토스의 대화를 들으면서 거짓 진술의 가능성을 통해 자신과 소피스트들과의 차이를 알 수 있었다. 이런 점에서 『소피스트』편의 드라마 설정은 『소크라테스의 변명』과 이어진다. 『소피스트』편의 소크라테스는 의도와 목적이라는 측면에서 소피스트와 자신을 구분해 냈고, 만약 충분한 시간이 있었다면 이 구분으로 유죄 판결을 받지 않았을지도 모른다. 소크라테스는 유죄 판결을 받고 사형을 당했지만, 저자인 플라톤은 『소피스트』편을 소크라테스의 재판에서 사용할 수도 있었을 반대 논변으로도 집필했다. (shrink)

Until recently, the notions of function and multiple realization were supposed to save the autonomy of psychological explanations. Furthermore, the concept of supervenience presumably allows both dependence of mind on brain and non-reducibility of mind to brain, reconciling materialism with an independent explanatory role for mental and functional concepts and explanations. Eliminativism is often seen as the main or only alternative to such autonomy. It gladly accepts abandoning or thoroughly reconstructing the psychological level, and considers reduction if successful as equivalent (...) with elimination. In comparison with the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of biology has developed more subtle and complex ideas about functions, laws, and reductive explanation than the stark dichotomy of autonomy or elimination. It has been argued that biology is a patchwork of local laws, each with different explanatory interests and more or less limited scope. This points to a pluralistic, domain-specific and multi-level view of explanations in biology. Explanatory pluralism has been proposed as an alternative to eliminativism on the one hand and methodological dualism on the other hand. It holds that theories at different levels of description, like psychology and neuroscience, can co-evolve, and mutually influence each other, without the higher-level theory being replaced by, or reduced to, the lower-level one. Such ideas seem to tally with the pluralistic character of biological explanation. In biological psychology, explanatory pluralism would lead us to expect many local and non-reductive interactions between biological, neurophysiological, psychological and evolutionary explanations of mind and behavior. This idea is illustrated by an example from behavioral genetics, where genetics, physiology and psychology constitute distinct but interrelated levels of explanation. Accounting for such a complex patchwork of related explanations seems to require a more sophisticated and precise way of looking at levels than the existing ideas on (reductive and non-reductive) explanation in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In light of the advancements in cognitive science and the evolutionary psychology of religion in the past two decades, scientists and philosophers have begun to reflect on the theological and atheological implications of naturalistic—and in particular, evolutionary—explanations of religious belief and behaviour. However, philosophical naiveté is often evinced by scientists and scientific naiveté by philosophers. The aim of this article is to draw from these recent contributions, point out some common pitfalls and important insights, and suggest a way forward. This (...) proposal avoids the genetic fallacy as well as misunderstandings of the cognitive mechanisms that give rise to religious belief. In the end, it may well be that the cognitive science of religion is atheologically and theologically ambiguous; traditional philosophers of religion on both sides of the debate still have work to do. (shrink)

Besides offering opportunities in both clinical and non-clinical domains, the application of novel neuroimaging technologies raises pressing dilemmas. ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI) aims to stimulate research and innovation activities that take ethical and social considerations into account from the outset. We previously identified that Dutch neuroscientists interpret “responsible innovation” as educating the public on neuroimaging technologies via the popular press. Their aim is to mitigate (neuro)hype, an aim shared with the wider emerging RRI community. Here, we present results of (...) a media-analysis undertaken to establish whether the body of articles in the Dutch popular press presents balanced conversations on neuroimaging research to the public. We found that reporting was mostly positive and framed in terms of (healthcare) progress. There was rarely a balance between technology opportunities and limitations, and even fewer articles addressed societal or ethical aspects of neuroimaging research. Furthermore, neuroimaging metaphors seem to favour oversimplification. Current reporting is therefore more likely to enable hype than to mitigate it. How can neuroscientists, given their self-ascribed social responsibility, address this conundrum? We make a case for a collective and shared responsibility among neuroscientists, journalists and other stakeholders, including funders, committed to responsible reporting on neuroimaging research. (shrink)

One of Heidegger’s enduring concerns was to develop an original meditation on the meaning of (the presence of) the present. Integral to this attempt is his critique of the understanding of the being of beings in terms of the objectivity of the object. In this paper, I trace Heidegger’s analyses of objectivity, through which Heidegger consistently establishes objectivity as non-primordial and derivative. In order to do this, however, Heidegger had to identify a specific, narrow (spatio-temporalized) conception of objectivity (in terms (...) of Gegenstehenlassen and Vorstellen) as the hallmark of modern philosophy. I show that it is unclear whether that conception is a justified result or rather an unjustified presupposition of his approach. I then suggest what meanings of objectivity might be lost after Heidegger, by pointing to several aspects of Hegel’s notion of objectivity that are incompatible with Heidegger’s account, to wit: the lack of ‘subject-object’-terminology in his definitions of objectivity; the special language of ‘forms of’ objectivity; Hegel’s critique of representation; his notion of Gegenstand as a content with a categorical form, and, finally, that Aristotle’s notion of hypokeimenon might provide a clue as to how Hegel’s notion of object can be understood. (shrink)

Alters the landscape of Lacanian film theory by revealing an "emancipatory drive" in transnational cinema.

The capacity of contemporary forensic genetics has rendered “race” into an interesting tool to produce clues about the identity of an unknown suspect. Whereas the conventional use of DNA profiling was primarily aimed at the individual suspect, more recently a shift of interest in forensic genetics has taken place, in which the population and the family to whom an unknown suspect allegedly belongs, has moved center stage. Making inferences about the phenotype or the family relations of this unknown suspect produces (...) suspect populations and families. We discuss the criminal investigation following the Marianne Vaatstra murder case in the Netherlands and the use of forensic technologies therein. It is in many ways an interesting case, but in this paper, we focus on how race surfaced in science and society. We show that race materializes neither in the technologies used nor in the bodies at stake. Rather, race emerges through a material semiotic relation that surfaces in the translation that occurs as humans and things move across sites. We argue that race is enacted, firstly, in the context of legislation as biology reduced to bodily characteristics; secondly, in the forensic analyses as patterns of absent presence; and, thirdly, in society as a process of phenotypic othering. (shrink)

Bacteria have developed an impressive ability to survive and propagate in highly diverse and changing environments by evolving phenotypic heterogeneity. Phenotypic heterogeneity ensures that a subpopulation is well prepared for environmental changes. The expression bet hedging is commonly (but often incorrectly) used by molecular biologists to describe any observed phenotypic heterogeneity. In evolutionary biology, however, bet hedging denotes a risk‐spreading strategy displayed by isogenic populations that evolved in unpredictably changing environments. Opposed to other survival strategies, bet hedging evolves because the (...) selection environment changes and favours different phenotypes at different times. Consequently, in bet hedging populations all phenotypes perform differently well at any time, depending on the selection pressures present. Moreover, bet hedging is the only strategy in which temporal variance of offspring numbers per individual is minimized. Our paper aims to provide a guide for the correct use of the term bet hedging in molecular biology. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship among ethical philosophy, thinking style, and managerial ethical decision-making. Based on the premise that business ethics is a function of culture and time, we attempt to explore two important questions as to whether the national differences in managerial ethical philosophies remain over time and whether the relationship between thinking style and ethical decision-making is consistent across different national contexts. We conducted a survey on Korean managers’ ethical decision-making and thinking style and made a cross-cultural, cross-temporal (...) comparison with the results presented by previous studies that surveyed Korean and US managers with the same questionnaire at different points in time. Our analysis revealed that Korean managers have become more reliant on rule utilitarianism for ethical decision-making over the last two decades, which is dominantly used by US managers, corroborating our convergence hypothesis built on social contracts theory. However, as opposed to previous research, we found that managers with a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style do not necessarily make more ethical decisions compared to those with a predominantly linear or nonlinear thinking style. This study contributes to international business ethics literature by presenting a theoretical framework that may explain the convergence of ethical philosophies employed by managers in different national contexts over time, and that the relationship between thinking style and managerial ethical decision-making may not be universal, but contingent on contextual factors. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology is put forward by its defenders as an extension of evolutionary biology, bringing psychology within the integrated causal chain of the hard sciences. It is extolled as a new paradigm for integrating psychology with the rest of science. We argue that such claims misrepresent the methods and explanations of evolutionary biology, and present a distorted view of the consequences that might be drawn from evolutionary biology for views of human nature. General theses about adaptation in biology are empty (...) schemata, not laws of nature allowing the subsumption of mind under biology. Functional thinking is an indispensable tool for psychology, mostly of value in abstractive unification and as a heuristic, but it gains little from association with evolutionary notions of selection. Thus, we argue, the cherished integrative causal model evaporates, and evolutionary phraseology serves no more than rhetorical purposes. Moreover, the universality of human nature and the evolutionary irrelevance of individual variation are presented as biological truths that psychologists should respect in their approach to mind. On closer inspection, this turns out to be rather dubious biology. Psychology might conceivably be better off as a continuation of biology by different means, but evolutionary psychology does not provide the conceptual integration leading to such a happy union. (shrink)

In this series of papers, I attempt to provide an answer to the question how the Babylonian scholars arrived at their mathematical theory of planetary motion. Paper I (de Jong in Arch Hist Exact Sci 73:1–37, 2019) was devoted to a study of system A theory of the outer planets. In this second paper, I will study system A theory of the planet Venus. All presently known ephemerides of Venus appear to have been written after 200 BC so that the (...) development of system A theory of Venus may have been a late development. On the other hand, there are several earlier texts in which the motion of Venus, going from one synodic phenomenon to the next one, is parametrized in quite some detail. At least six computational systems of Venus are known of which only two, systems A0 and A3, are genuine type-A systems. Both are based on the hypothesis that in exactly 1151 years Venus experiences 720 synodic phenomena of the same kind and that after this period of 1151 years Venus returns to exactly the same position in the sky. This period relation was probably derived from the observational fact that after 8 years Venus returns to a position in the zodiac that falls on average 2.5° short of its previous position. The study of the Babylonian planetary theory of Venus presented here will be primarily based on the system A3 theory of Venus because it is the most complete of the two systems. The parameters of the four step functions characterizing the system A3 model of the first and last appearances of Venus are known from previous studies of tablet BM 32599 (ACT 1050). Based on a database of synthetic observations of the first and last appearances (morning first, morning last, evening first and evening last) and the two stationary points (morning station and evening station) of Venus between 315 BC and 50 BC, I first discuss the observational material from the point of view of a Babylonian astronomer. This involves deriving synodic time intervals and synodic arcs from the observed dates and longitudes of Venus. Both vary with the position of Venus in the zodiac. This variation shows up most purely in the synodic arcs and synodic time intervals of Venus at its stations. The variation pattern of the synodic arcs and of the synodic time intervals at the first and last appearances of Venus differ considerably because they are strongly affected by atmospheric extinction and by the ecliptic latitude of Venus. A comparison of predictions of the first and last appearances of Venus computed according to system A3 with observations in the synthetic database shows that the models provide fairly accurate fits to the observations of evening last and morning first with typical standard deviations of about 2° but rather poor fits to the observations of morning last and evening first with typical standard deviations of about 7° and 4°. Quite surprisingly, it turns out that the morning first A3 model fits the observed longitudes of Venus at its stations almost perfectly, with standard deviations of about 1°. This suggests that observations of the stations of Venus must have been available to the Babylonian astronomer(s) who constructed the system A3 model of Venus and who computed the longitudes of Venus at its first and last appearances preserved in tablet BM 32599. This is quite puzzling because observations of the stations of Venus were definitely not part of the standard observing program of the Babylonian astronomers as we know it from the Astronomical Diaries. To resolve this problem, I propose that observations could have been made by some individual astronomer for his own use but that these observations never became part of the tradition of what was regularly observed and recorded in the Astronomical Diaries. It turns out that 25 years of observations of Venus (here illustrated for the years 203 BC to 178 BC) is sufficient for the construction of a system A model that perfectly fits the variation of the synodic arcs of Venus at its stations. By combining observed time intervals and known velocities of Venus, observations over this limited timespan can also be used to construct longitudes of Venus at its first and last appearances from previous known positions of Venus based on Normal Stars passages or from known positions at its stations. This is the only way in which positions of Venus at its first and last appearances can be determined because at its first and last appearances the sky is too bright for Normal Stars to be visible. I propose that the Babylonian system A3 models of Venus were based on longitudes constructed in this way. I finally suggest that the tablet, of which BM 32599 is the remainder, was filled line by line starting with a set of initial values in the bottom left-hand corner of the tablet and that the choice of these initial values was based on an observation of Venus at its evening station when it was exceptionally close to the Normal Star η Piscium in February 179 BC. Based on this choice of initial conditions, the tablet covers the years 403 BC to 170 BC and it may have been composed around 170 BC. It was probably computed with the purpose of creating a raster of longitudes with mazes of about 2.5° that could be used to predict future positions of Venus at its first or last appearance once a position at a previous first or last appearance was available. (shrink)

Among the many forms of research misconduct, publishing fraudulent data is considered to be serious where the confidence and validity of the research is detrimentally undermined. In this study, the trend of 303 retracted publications from 44 authors (with more than three retracted publications each) was analysed. The results showed that only 6.60% of the retracted publications were single-authored and the discovery of fraudulent publications had reduced from 52.24 months (those published before the year 2000) to 33.23 months (those published (...) on the year 2000 and onwards). It appears that with the widely accessible public databases like PubMed, fraudulent publications can be detected more easily. The different approaches adopted by authors who had previous publications retracted are also discussed herein. (shrink)

The growing emphasis on the importance of publishing scientific findings in the academic world has led to increasing prevalence of potentially significant publications in which scientific and ethical rigour may be questioned. This has not only hindered research progress, but also eroded public trust in all scientific advances. In view of the increasing concern and the complexity of research misconduct, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) was established in 1997 to manage cases with ethical implications. In order to review the (...) outcomes of cases investigated by COPE, a total of 408 cases that had been managed by COPE were successfully extracted and analysed with respect to 7 distinct criteria. The results obtained indicate that the number of ethical implications per case has not changed significantly (p > 0.01) since the year COPE was instigated. Interestingly, the number of ethical cases, and to some extent, research misconduct, is not diminishing. Therefore, journal editors and publishers need to work closely together with COPE to inculcate adoption of appropriate research ethics and values in younger researchers while discouraging others from lowering standards. It is hoped that with a more concerted effort from the academic community and better public awareness, there will be fewer incidences of ethically and scientifically challenged publications. The ultimate aim being to enhance the quality of published works with concomittant public trust in the results. (shrink)

The demand for organ transplants, both globally and in South Korea, substantially exceeds the supply, a situation that might have been aggravated by the enactment of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act (LSTDA) in February 2018. This legislation may influence emergency medical procedures and the availability of organs from brain-dead donors. This study aimed to assess LSTDA’s impact, introduced in February 2018, on organ donation status in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients in a metropolitan city and identified related factors. We conducted (...) a retrospective analysis of a regional cardiac arrest registry. This study included patients aged 16 or older with cardiac arrest and a cerebral performance category (CPC) score of 5 from January 2015 to December 2022. The exclusion criteria were CPC scores of 1–4, patients under 16 years, and patients declared dead or transferred from emergency departments. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyse factors affecting organ donation. Of the 751 patients included in this study, 47 were organ donors, with a median age of 47 years. Before the LSTDA, there were 30 organ donations, which declined to 17 after its implementation. In the organ donation group, the causes of cardiac arrest included medical (34%), hanging (46.8%), and trauma (19.2%). The adjusted odds ratio for organ donation before the LSTDA implementation was 6.12 (95% CI 3.09–12.12), with non-medical aetiology as associated factors. The enactment of the LSTDA in 2018 in South Korea may be linked to reduced organ donations among patients with OHCA, underscoring the need to re-evaluate the medical and legal aspects of organ donation, especially considering end-of-life care decisions. (shrink)

Countries, companies and farming communities are increasingly involved in issues of sharing and protecting plant genetic resources, knowledge and technologies. Intellectual Property Rights and Access and Benefit-Sharing policies currently regulate the transfer and usage of much of this genetic material, information and related production, which is employed in multiple research projects involving public research institutes. Strikingly, not much is known about how these institutes deal with the transfer and usage regulations. And what, furthermore, are their responsibilities while serving a civil (...) society in which there is such a range of diverging interests in and opinions about such regulations? In order to shed more light on these questions, two public research institutes will here be studied, the International Potato Centre in Peru and Wageningen University & Research Centre in the Netherlands. These institutes are both heavily involved in research into genetic resources, knowledge and technologies related to the potato, and work together with a wide spectrum of stakeholders that have a direct interest in the sharing and/or protection of these resources. The two institutes are continuously weighing up the various stakeholder interests in their attempts to strike a balance between policies geared towards sharing and those aimed at protection. It will be argued that public research institutes must dare to share, and that they need to develop new ways of sharing and protecting in order to adhere to their mission and best serve the public interest. (shrink)

This article deals with the problem of different distributions of the Spanish pronouns le and lo ‘him, her, polite you’ that may be observed in different realms of the Spanish speaking world. In this paper, as a starting point, the more established and traditional case theory will be compared with the Control System Hypothesis in a particular corpus of a non-standard, Peninsular variant of Spanish. The hypothesis that will then be tested is that the use of the pronouns under focus (...) in this particular variant, as well as in all variants, is based on one and the same semantic substance, but that speakers may apply this substance for different communicative needs, resulting in different distributions of the forms in different language samples of the respective speakers. These differences, then, are not representative of different meanings, but may be representing cultural differences of the respective speech group. The case in focus is middle-class Spanish of the 60s as represented in a novel by Miguel Delibes, and particularly how men and women are addressed. This corpus was chosen because of its particular, non-standard distribution of the pronouns in question, being therefore of particular interest to test the hypothesis. (shrink)

This essay has two purposes. One is to present a detailed analysis of a historical example to defend the validity of the idea of universal rationality. Although diverse arguments have been offered...

Nicht nur die Rezeptivität unseres menschlichen Erkenntnisvermögens, sondern auch seine Spontaneität, womit es von sich aus reine Vorstellungen a priori hervorbringt, machen gerade darin seine Grenze offenkundig, weil es nur seinen subjektiven Vorstellungen gemäss etwas erkennen kann und muss. Ein solches allein, was unseren apriorischen Vorstellungen gemäss uns erscheint, können wir als einen Gegenstand erkennen. Diese apriorischen Vorstellungen konstituieren also die Gegenständlichkeit von etwas als einem so-und-so erkannten Gegenstand. Ein von uns so-und-so erkannter Gegenstand ist aber nur eine Erscheinung von (...) etwas, was an sich uns unbekannt ist, was jedoch gerade in seiner Erscheinung sein Dasein bekundet. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 22 This paper investigates the limits and meaning of historical inquiry in light of inferential contextualism that holds as its central tenet that the epistemic status of a proposition depends on the context of the subject. Historical inquiry, the discussion will show, is an epistemic practice that operates under the reliabilist presupposition that beliefs formed through the processes, whose pragmatic utility has been already proven in problem solving situations, may be taken to be rationally justified.As for (...) the limits of historical inquiry, it will be pointed out that the practice is unable to achieve independent criteria for determining if the belief it produces correctly reflects the thing in reality it purports to be about and thus correspondence between the former and the latter cannot be established. Furthermore, beliefs formed by historical inquiry cannot be rendered verifiable even through a future-oriented pragmatic theory of truth because it inquires into what happened in the past, not what is to happen in the future.Despite the fact that we cannot tell the truth about the past in any certain and direct way, it is, the paper will conclude, still epistemically meaningful to distinguish justified from unjustified beliefs in history because historical inquiry is so closely connected with everyday epistemic practice through sharing pragmatically sustained processes that the former cannot be discarded without giving up the principles of the latter. There lies the meaning of historical inquiry. (shrink)

What happens to representative democracy when populism comes to power? How does populism in power transform or disfigure the procedures and institutions of representative democracy? These are the c...

In the mid-1980s, Dario Donatelli participated in a laboratory study of the effects of around 800 h of practice on digit-span and increased his digit-span from 8 to 104 digits. This study assessed changes in the structure of his memory skill after around 30 years of essentially no practice on the digit-span task. On the first day of testing, his estimated span was only 10 digits, but over the following 3 days of testing it increased to 19 digits. Further analyses (...) of his recall performance and verbal reports identified which mechanisms of the original memory skill he could retrieve or reacquire over the 3 days of practice. We discuss theoretical implications for the retention of skilled memory performance, the effects of age-related changes in memory on it, and for the future study of the effects of disuse on exceptional performance and complex skill. (shrink)

This paper investigates the ethics of deconstruction by considering it as a form of “resultless” thinking in the sense Hannah Arendt gave to that term: as the destabilization rather than the production of rules, norms, and criteria. In section II, I distinguish deconstruction’s specific resultlessness from Arendtian “self-destruction,” skeptical suspension, and Socratic irony, for whom resultlessness issues from the symmetrical cancelling out of equal counter-arguments. To the foremost objection to the resultlessness of thinking (the Arendtian “danger” that thinking is unable (...) to respond to the urgent demand for results), deconstruction opposes a reconceptualization of the very notions of “urgency” and “danger.” But such reconceptualization still does not amount to a justification for a deconstructive ethics: I argue in section III that deconstruction always performatively relates to a threefold danger that constitutes its “anxiety.” At the core of this anxiety is the resistance to reassurance and “good conscience.” I conclude, in section IV, by asking whether the ethics of deconstruction can perhaps be qualified – if not through its results or principles – as a “fundamental attunement” [Grundstimmung], by comparing deconstruction’s anxiety to Kierkegaard’s resistance to righteousness and good conscience, in the latter’s revaluation of wonder as the fundamental attunement of philosophy. (shrink)

In psychological contract research, the side of the supervisor is strongly underexposed. However, supervisors are responsible for maintaining relationships with both their subordinates and senior management and are likely to be influenced by events unfolding in these relationships. In this study, we state that supervisor well-being may be affected by subordinates who fail to meet their obligations. This study adds to psychological contract research by developing an understanding of how and when subordinate psychological contract breach (PCB) is associated with supervisor (...) emotional exhaustion. Through a weekly diary survey among 56 Dutch supervisors, we test hypotheses about the relationships between subordinate PCB and the emotional exhaustion of the supervisor, the mediating role of perceptions of performance pressure by the supervisor in this relationship, and the moderating role of i-deals between the supervisor and senior management. Multilevel analyses support the first two hypotheses, but contradictory to our expectations show that the positive association between subordinate PCB and the emotional exhaustion of the supervisor is strengthened when the supervisor has high levels of i-deals with senior management. We discuss the findings in relation to their contribution to psychological contract theory. (shrink)