Eco-communities are a potential model for the socio-technological transition to a post-carbon society. The debate over their economic sustainability has, however, been limited. This article aims to enhance the discussion by offering a conceptualization of the economic micro-system created in eco-communities. It uses the economic terms households and firms to discuss two ways in which the community economy is positioned and then goes on to explore the principles behind the non-market (non-monetary) activities of households and the not-only-for-profit activities of firms (...) as the basis of the eco-community economy. It concludes by pointing out that both can operate in parallel, with eco-communities producing non-market capital that can be used to develop not-only-for-profit activities which support the economic sustainability of the projects. (shrink)

The paper deals with selected philosophical and methodological problems concerning the building of the quantum theory of gravitation, which is expected to unify general relativity and the quantum field theory into a single consistent and comprehensive theory. It outlines the basic ontological characteristics of such a theory, its structure and the limitations set upon it by the general relativity and the quantum field theory. Models of such a theory are described as well.

What I call the active mind approach revolves around the claim that what is “on” a person’s mind is in an important sense brought on and held on to through the agent’s self-conscious rational activ...

A serious difficulty for theories of consciousness is to go beyond mere correlation between physical processes and experience. Currently, neural workspace and sensorimotor contingency theories are two of the most promising approaches to make any headway here. This paper explores the relation between these two sets of theories. Workspace theories build on large-scale activity within the brain. Sensorimotor theories include external processes in their explanations, stressing the sensorimotor contingencies that arise from our interaction with the environment. Despite the basic differences, (...) we argue that workspace- and sensorimotor theories are complementary rather than competitive. By combining these theories, a number of problems that hamper them individually may be overcome and their strengths combined: Workspace theories have more to offer for explaining how there can be consciousness in the first place, while sensorimotor theories are strong in making sense of the specific phenomenal character of experiences. (shrink)

Hilbert's axiomatization program of physical theories met an interesting challenge when it confronted the rise of quantum mechanics in the mid-twenties. The novelty of the mathematical apparatus of the then newly born theory was to be matched only by its substantial lack of any definite physical interpretation. The early attempts at axiomatization, which are described here, reflect all the difficulty of the task faced by Jordan, Hilbert, von Neumann and others. The role of von Neumann is examined in considerable detail (...) as he can be viewed here as the most outstanding of Hilbert's heirs. Von Neumann, especially in his work devoted to the proof of the impossibility of hidden variables, not only continued Hilbert's program but pushed it to its very limits, blending axiomatic rigor and interpretative commitment. (shrink)

Software systems play an ever more important role in our lives and software engineers and their companies find themselves in a position where they are held responsible for ethical issues that may arise. In this paper, we try to disentangle ethical considerations that can be performed at the level of the software engineer from those that belong in the wider domain of business ethics. The handling of ethical problems that fall into the responsibility of the engineer has traditionally been addressed (...) by the publication of Codes of Ethics and Conduct. We argue that these Codes are barely able to provide normative orientation in software development. The main contribution of this paper is, thus, to analyze the normative features of Codes of Ethics in software engineering and to explicate how their value-based approach might prevent their usefulness from a normative perspective. Codes of Conduct cannot replace ethical deliberation because they do not and cannot offer guidance because of their underdetermined nature. This lack of orientation, we argue, triggers reactive behavior such as “cherry-picking,” “risk of indifference,” “ex-post orientation,” and the “desire to rely on gut feeling.” In the light of this, we propose to implement ethical deliberation within software development teams as a way out. (shrink)

Existing accounts of hypothetico-deductive confirmation are able to circumvent the classical objections, but the confirmation of conjunctions of hypotheses brings them into trouble. Therefore this paper develops a new, falsificationist account of qualitative confirmation by means of Ken Gemes ' theory of content parts. The new approach combines the hypothetico-deductive view with falsificationist and instance confirmation principles. It is considerably simpler than the previous suggestions and gives a better treatment of conjunctive hypotheses while solving the tacking problems equally well.

Notes on the life of Adolf Lindenbaum, a complete bibliography of his published works, and selected references to his unpublished results.

Extensionalist theories of the specious present suggest that every perceptual experience is extended in time for a short while, such that they are co-extensive in time with the time experienced in them. Thus, there can be no experience of time, unless the experience itself is extended in time. Accordingly, there must be something that unites the temporal parts of a perceptual experience into temporally extended wholes. I call this the “glue-problem for extensionalism”. In this paper I suggest three desiderata that (...) an extensionalist theory should meet in order to solve the glue-problem. I also distinguish between different versions of extensionalism, and argue that none of them can solve the glue-problem without violating at least one desideratum. (shrink)

身のまわりの卑近な事柄を根本から考え直してみたい。そんな欲求が人々の心をとらえている。看護する自分に、哲学はそのための力を与えてくれるだろうか。知識・科学・心・モラルといった主題にそって看護の主要な問 題をとりあげ、哲学ならではの思索の道筋を示す。「考える看護」の面白さが実感できる「ナースのための哲学入門」。.

Wprowadzenie -- Roman ingarden -- Antoni kępiński -- Karol wojtyła -- Władysław stróżewski -- Józef tischner.

In this encyclopedia entry I canvass the current interpretations of John Locke's concept of Real Essence and the role it plays in his philosophy.

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

The main thesis of this monograph, and its novelty, is the attempt to read Newman's work not only as a defence of the author's life, but as a defence of individual life in general. This reading is done against the background of his profound personalism based on two foundations: truth and responsibility.

In this paper, I mainly pursue the following two goals: on the one hand, I want to show how a central Fregean insight is tried to be captured within a two-dimensional strategy. On the other hand, I want to show that, in the light of Saul Kripke’s arguments against descriptivism, this strategy is faced with a fundamental problem. I proceed in four steps: in a first step, I bring together the passages that contain a central Fregean insight as a source (...) of inspiration for a two-dimensional reconstruction and that suggest a descriptivist reading of Frege’s view. In a second step, I shortly present Kripke’s threefold argumentation against two versions of descriptivism, which is also the basis for Kripke’s view that proper names are rigid designators. In a third step, I explain the basic idea of a Frege-inspired two-dimensional strategy which is used to reconcile theories of definite descriptions with theories of rigid designation and which is sometimes characterized as ‘neo-descriptivism’. Since the two-dimensional strategy is dependent on rigidified definite descriptions, I argue, in a fourth step, that, in the light of Kripke’s epistemological and semantic arguments, the two-dimensional strategy is problematic and untenable – though it is, nevertheless, motivated by Kripke’s modal argument. (shrink)

Digitization of a health record changes its accessibility. An electronic health record (EHR) can be accessed by multiple authorized users. Health information from EHRs contributes to learning healthcare systems’ development. The objective of this systematic review is to answer a question: What are ethical issues concerning research using EHRs in the literature? We searched Medline Ovid, Embase and Scopus for publications concerning ethical issues of research use of EHRs. We employed the constant comparative method to retrieve common ethical themes. We (...) descriptively summarized empirical studies. The study reveals the breadth, depth, and complexity of ethical problems associated with research use of EHRs. The central ethical question that emerges from the review is how to manage access to EHRs. Managing accessibility consists of interconnected and overlapping issues: streamlining research access to EHRs, minimizing risk, engaging and educating patients, as well as ensuring trustworthy governance of EHR data. Most of the ethical problems concerning EHR-based research arise from rapid cultural change. The framing of concepts of privacy, as well as individual and public dimensions of beneficence, are changing. We are currently living in the middle of this transition period. Human emotions and mental habits, as well as laws, are lagging behind technological developments. In the medical tradition, individual patient’s health has always been in the center. Transformation of healthcare care, its digitalization, seems to have some impacts on our perspective of health care ethics, research ethics and public health ethics. (shrink)

This is a defence of some kind of reality of relativistic effects, against the thesis that they are mere kinematic appearances or deceptions.

Ethical problems are related to computer data bases, containing data on individuals and groups of persons, as well as to computer knowledge bases, containing general rules and elements of expert systems.In the present essay the following conclusions are made regarding computer data bases: privacy, security, and confidentiality of medical computer data bases should be ensured. This duty should rest with physicians in hospitals. The principle of informed consent should be applied to gathering information which is to be stored and processed (...) by computers. Information stored in computer data bases should not be used for purposes for which the subjects (patients as well as personnel) have not given their consent. In order to decrease the possibility of misuses of medical data bases containing information on individuals, these registers should not be linked to other central data bases. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of anthropological arguments in contemporary ethics as exemplified in the current debate about biotechnological human enhancement interventions. Anthropological arguments refer to a normative conception of what it means to be a human being and are highly contested in contemporary moral philosophy. Most often they are promoted to constrain the ethically acceptable use of enhancement technologies. I argue that anthropological arguments can play a fundamental and important role in assessing the moral qualities of enhancement interventions, but (...) only if their normative justification and their specific content are properly determined. I offer an account how to do so, based on the contractualist and pragmatist ideal that all those who are affected by a decision of normative relevance should be included in what I call a “quasi-democratic deliberative process”. However, given that they stand in need of wide agreement, anthropological arguments resulting from such a process will be be rather minimal in content. In the exemplary debate about human enhancements they hence turn out to be widely – though not fully – permissive and unable to justify a restrictive stance towards enhancement interventions. (shrink)

An inquiry into the bioethical or ethical component of post-humanism can be through the question of sex. Following from Manoj’s idea of a cyborg as having a “sexless” possibility, this paper presents other arguments that advance the possibility of asexuality in the posthuman. First, I begin with a discussion of Žižek’s point concerning the cessation or voiding of sexual difference. Second, I will continue such an argument through the selfreplicating possibilities of cloning and full cyberspace immersion, the later as prototyped (...) by Pokémon. And finally, there seems to be an inevitable thread that begs to link the concept of the posthuman to Nietzsche; so I will explore some of the arguments that include or exclude Nietzschean ethics in this prospect. (shrink)

In V. N. Huynh (ed.): Interval / Probabilistic Uncertainty and Non-Classical Logics, Advances in Soft Computing Series, Springer 2008, pp. 268-279. This paper proposes a common framework for various probabilistic logics. It consists of a set of uncertain premises with probabilities attached to them. This raises the question of the strength of a conclusion, but without imposing a particular semantics, no general solution is possible. The paper discusses several possible semantics by looking at it from the perspective of probabilistic argumentation.

One of the vexed questions in the philosophy of wonder and indeed education is how to ensure that the next generation harbours a sense of wonder. Wonder is important, we think, because it encour- ages inquiry and keeps us as Albert Einstein would argue from ‘being as good as dead’ or ‘snuffed-out candles’ (Einstein 1949, 5). But how is an educator to install, bring to life, or otherwise encourage a sense of wonder in his or her stu- dents? Biologist Rachel (...) Carson suggests that exploring nature and specifically undertaking walks along the rocky coast of Maine would keep alive a person’s inborn sense of wonder (Carson 1984). Philosopher Jesse Prinz thinks that exposure to art will encourage wonderment because artworks, as he puts it, are “inventions for feeding the appetite that wonder excites in us” (Prinz 2013). Weird fiction (a subgenre of speculative fiction) – and in particular the work of one of its greatest exponents, the early-20th-century American author How- ard Phillips Lovecraft – is likewise a catalyst for wonder. The reason behind this is that Lovecraft’s ‘wonder-stories’ are densely packed with wonder per design; and in support of this claim I shall in what is to come 1) provide a brief introduction to Lovecraft and weird fiction; 2) present a working definition of wonder; and 3) clarify what is meant by something being ‘densely packed with wonder’ via bringing to the fore evidence of Lovecraft’s literary wonder- mongery. The paper ends with some reflections on the notion of ‘dark wonder’, why this peculiar label might be suitable for the kind of wonder we find in Lovecraft’s work, and why exposure to ‘dark wonder’ can be edifying, and in that sense educational. (shrink)