Cardiovascular diseases present the leading cause of death worldwide. Over the last decade, their preventio has become not only a central medical and public health issue but also a matter of political concern as well as a major market for pharma, nutrition, and exercise. A preventive assemblage has formed that integrates diverse kinds of knowledges, technologies, and actors, from molecular biology to social work, to foster a specific healthy lifestyle. In this article, the authors analyze this preventive assemblage as a (...) heterogeneous engineer, that is, as an attempt to order complex everyday life into an architecture of modernism. This article draws on research conducted as part of the interdisciplinary research cluster ‘‘preventive self’’ bringing together analyses from social anthropology, history, linguistics, sociology of knowledge, and medicine. The authors report here primarily from ethnographic investigations into biomedical research, primary care, and educational practices in kindergartens. The authors conclude that the preventive assemblage largely fails to install any kind of singular order. Instead, it is translated into existing orderings producing heterogeneity of a different nuance. (shrink)

Discharges against medical advice (AMA) make up a significant number of hospital discharges in the United States, and often involve vulnerable patients who struggle to obtain adequate medical care. Unfortunately, much of the AMA discharge process focuses on absolving the medical center of liability for what happens to these patients once they leave the acute setting. Comparatively little attention is paid to the ethical obligations of the medical team once an informed decision to leave the acute care setting AMA has (...) been made. Via a case narrative, we offer an ethical framework that we believe can help guide an ethically defensible AMA discharge process. By emphasizing our duty to provide the best care possible under the circumstances, we contend, our ethical obligations to promote the patient's best interests can still be met despite their decision to leave the acute setting against medical advice. (shrink)

Cognitive science is experiencing a pragmatic turn away from the traditional representation-centered framework toward a view that focuses on understanding cognition as "enactive." This enactive view holds that cognition does not produce models of the world but rather subserves action as it is grounded in sensorimotor skills. In this volume, experts from cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, robotics, and philosophy of mind assess the foundations and implications of a novel action-oriented view of cognition. Their contributions and supporting experimental evidence show that (...) an enactive approach to cognitive science enables strong conceptual advances, and the chapters explore key concepts for this new model of cognition. The contributors discuss the implications of an enactive approach for cognitive development; action-oriented models of cognitive processing; action-oriented understandings of consciousness and experience; and the accompanying paradigm shifts in the fields of philosophy, brain science, robotics, and psychology. ContributorsMoshe Bar, Lawrence W. Barsalov, Olaf Blanke, Jeannette Bohg, Martin V. Butz, Peter F. Dominey, Andreas K. Engel, Judith M. Ford, Karl J. Friston, Chris D. Frith, Shaun Gallagher, Antonia Hamilton, Tobias Heed, Cecilia Heyes, Elisabeth Hill, Matej Hoffmann, Jakob Hohwy, Bernhard Hommel, Atsushi Iriki, Pierre Jacob, Henrik Jörntell, Jürgen Jost, James Kilner, Günther Knoblich, Peter König, Danica Kragic, Miriam Kyselo, Alexander Maye, Marek McGann, Richard Menary, Thomas Metzinger, Ezequiel Morsella, Saskia Nagel, Kevin J. O'Regan, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Giovanni Pezzulo, Tony J. Prescott, Wolfgang Prinz, Friedemann Pulvermüller, Robert Rupert, Marti Sanchez-Fibla, Andrew Schwartz, Anil K. Seth, Vicky Southgate, Antonella Tramacere, John K. Tsotsos, Paul F. M. J. Verschure, Gabriella Vigliocco, Gottfried Vosgerau. (shrink)

Luck egalitarians need to address the question of cost-responsibility: If an individual is responsible for being worse off than others, then what benefits, if any, is that individual uniquely cost-responsible for? By applying luck egalitarianism to justice in health I discuss different answers to this question inspired by two different interpretations of luck egalitarianism, namely ‘standard luck egalitarianism’ and ‘all luck egalitarianism’, respectively. Even though I argue that the latter is more plausible than the former, I ultimately suggest and defend (...) a third interpretation of luck egalitarianism, which I label ‘universal luck egalitarianism’. Finally, I adjust my findings to a (all things considered) more plausible currency, namely welfare. (shrink)

How do people excluded from political life achieve political agency? Through a series of historical events that have been mostly overlooked by political theorists, Martin Breaugh identifies fleeting yet decisive instances of emancipation in which people took it upon themselves to become political subjects. Emerging during the Roman plebs's first secession in 494 BCE, the _plebeian experience_ consists of an underground or unexplored configuration of political strategies to obtain political freedom. The people reject domination through political praxis and concerted (...) action, therefore establishing an alternative form of power. Breaugh's study concludes in the nineteenth century and integrates ideas from sociology, philosophy, history, and political science. Organized around diverse case studies, his work undertakes exercises in political theory to show how concepts provide a different understanding of the meaning of historical events and our political present. _The Plebeian Experience_ describes a recurring phenomenon that clarifies struggles for emancipation throughout history, expanding research into the political agency of the many and shedding light on the richness of radical democratic struggles from ancient Rome to Occupy Wall Street and beyond. (shrink)

The paper defends the permissibility of paying inducements to research subjects against objections not covered in an earlier paper in Bioethics. The objections are that inducements would cause inequity, crowd out research, and undesirably commercialize the researcher‐subject relationship. The paper shows how these objections presuppose implausible factual and/or normative claims. The final position reached is a qualified defence of freedom of contract which not only supports the permissibility of inducements but also offers guidance to ethics committees in dealing with practical (...) problems that might arise if inducements are offered. (shrink)

In their self-understanding, expert committees solely draw on scientific knowledge to provide policy advice. However, we try to show, first, on the basis of material related to the German Radiation Protection Commission that much of their work consists in active model building. Second, expert advice is judged by criteria that diverge from standards used for judging epistemic research. In particular, the commitment to generality or universality is replaced by the criterion of specificity, and the value of precision gives way to (...) epistemic robustness. Third, non-epistemic considerations are included in the reasoning—albeit hesitantly. Manageability and social robustness, understood as compatibility with widespread value attitudes in society, affect the content of the recommendations. (shrink)

Today, human pluripotent stem cell technologies find widespread application across biomedical research, as models for early human development, as platforms for functional human genomics, as tools for the study of disease, drug screening and toxicology, and as a renewable source of cellular therapeutics for a range of intractable diseases. The foundations of this human pluripotent stem cell revolution rest on advances in a wide range of disciplines, including cancer biology, assisted reproduction, cell culture and organoid technology, somatic cell nuclear transfer, (...) primate embryology, single‐cell biology, and gene editing. This review surveys the slow emergence of the study of human pluripotency and the exponential growth of the field during the past several decades. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship education is increasingly becoming a focal strategy for promoting entrepreneurship, particularly to foster entrepreneurial intentions and startups. However, learning and support are equally important after startup for novice entrepreneurs to gain a good level of confidence to manage their business and achieve the desired outcomes. Using a sample of 189 young self-employed individuals in Uganda, this study examines the differential impact of mentoring and self-efficacy on the achievement of intangible outcomes of entrepreneurship including satisfaction of need for autonomy, work (...) satisfaction and the intention to stay in self-employment. We found self-efficacy to mediate the effects of mentoring on these intangible outcomes. In addition, the results showed substantial gender differences. Whereas women’s satisfaction of the need for autonomy and intention to stay in self-employment were strongly associated with the direct effects of mentoring, their male counterparts seemed to benefit more if mentoring resulted in increased self-efficacy. Overall, our findings suggest that whereas mentoring improves the competence of small business owners and consequently achievement of superior outcomes, mentoring should also focus on boosting self-efficacy which in turn is essential for the application of the entrepreneurial competencies. (shrink)

It is well known that the American director Terrence Malick studied philosophy under Stanley Cavell and translated the work of Martin Heidegger. He eventually traded Harvard and Oxford for Hollywood, though. This essay traces Malick's evolution from budding academic philosopher to cinematic innovator. It suggests that Malick's cinematic career should be viewed as both a rejection of academic philosophy and a celebration of the examined life.

In these essays, written between 1909 and 1954 and first published as a collection in 1957, the eminent philosopher relates the "I-Thou" dialogue to such varied fields as religion, social thought, philosophy, myth, drama, literature, and art. Buber thus responds to the crises and challenges of the 20th century and enables the reader to follow his lifelong struggles toward "authentic existence.".

Discussion of sexuality in African cultures has a long history, but since the 1990s ethical reflections on homosexuality on the continent have often degenerated into furors and provoked a spate of anti-gay legislation in several countries. Refutations of homophobic dispositions encounter as barrier a pervasive belief in African cultures, that childbearing for community replenishment is a cherished moral duty. Several philosophers consider these to be exaggerated inhibitions that unjustifiably impede social acceptance of homosexuality, and have proposed as a solution what (...) they consider to be self-justifying political-moral principles, that terminate in value-pluralistic ideas such as the acceptance of the equality of sexual orientations and vindication of the right to the freedom to choose and satisfy sexual desire. I question the adequacy of such self-justificatory normative principles and consider the solutions they proffer as depreciating the moral point of the African pro-natalist position. Consequently, I develop a moral argument grounded in the ontology of Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarian theory of personhood as the most persuasive justification for homosexuality. (shrink)

G. H. Mead developed an alternative "metaphysics" of selfhood and agency that underlies, but is seldom made explicit in discussions of, his social developmental psychology. This is an alternative metaphysics that rejects any pregiven, fixed foundations for being and knowing. It assumes the emergence of social psychological phenomena such as mind, self, and deliberative agency through the activity of human actors and interactors within their biophysical and sociocultural world. Of central importance to the emergence of self-consciousness and deliberative forms of (...) human agency is the ability of developing individuals to take the perspectives of others within their own conduct. However, precisely what is involved in this process, and whether or not it assumes the preexistence of exactly those forms of selfhood and agency, the emergence of which it seeks to explain, have been much disputed. In this essay, recent reinterpretations of Mead's "metaphysics" are used to argue that his overall theoretical program contains resources necessary to overcome charges of ontological and epistemological circularity. In particular, once his interactionism, perspectivism, emergentism, and compatibilism are explicated, it is possible to see that Mead's "taking the perspective of the other" is not primarily a process of internalization that requires a preexisting "internalizer," but a process of participation with others within conventionalized sequences of interactivity. This participatory process enables the development of prereflective forms of perspective taking and self-other differentiation that serve as necessary conditions for the further emergence of more reflective forms of perspective taking, self-consciousness, and deliberative agency. Compatibilist interpretations of deliberative agency, thus understood, also are discussed. (shrink)

According to the Kripke-Putnam orthodoxy, a term like 'water' refers to samples of the same substance as the items on the basis of which the term was introduced. However, observations due to Needham and Leslie cast doubt on the idea that there is a uniquely privileged notion of substance relevant to the determination of reference, in which case it would seem at best indeterminate what the word `water' refers to. In response to this problem, Gómez-Torrente has argued that there is (...) a privileged notion of substance that plays a role in the determination of reference, namely, the ordinary notion of substance. This paper argues that Gómez-Torrente's proposal is not successful. Contrary to what Gómez-Torrente supposes, there is no uniquely privileged ordinary notion of substance; rather, there are many notions of substance compatible with the meaning of 'substance' none of which seems privileged over the rest. (shrink)

We criticize speculations to the effect that quantum mechanics is fundamentally about information. We do this by pointing out how unfounded such speculations in fact are. Our analysis focuses on the dubious claims of this kind recently made by Anton Zeilinger.

The purpose of this article is to develop a framework for the origin of foresight. Following a review of arguments for foresight as genetically inherited versus environmentally acquired, the understanding of foresight is expanded through a behaviorist perspective and through an evolutionary perspective. The framework established makes it possible to deploy evolutionary logic to explain foresight as well as to enhance our understanding of foresight, both on individual (e.g., managerial) and aggregated (e.g., organizational) levels.

This paper discusses Austin’s goldfinch example from “Other Minds,” which plays a central role in Kaplan’s Austin’s Way with Skepticism. The paper aims to clarify the obscure distinction Austin makes in connection with this example, between cases in which we know and can prove and cases in which we know but can’t prove. By discussing a couple of remarks that Austin makes in passing, a view is extracted from his text that stands in conflict with Kaplan’s reading at a fundamental (...) point. The view proposed emphasizes the role of law-like generics in our practice of knowledge attribution, and brings out the disjunctivist elements in Austin’s conception. It is argued that the response to skepticism that Kaplan ascribes to Austin is not fully satisfactory, since it fails to tell us what makes some challenges to our knowledge claims appropriate and others outrageous. The alternative view proposed in this paper can handle this problem without postulating the sort of general external criterion that Kaplan’s Austin rightly rejects. (shrink)

There is a long-standing debate in the philosophy of action and the philosophy of science over folk psychological explanations of human action: do the (perhaps implicit) generalizations that underwrite such explanations purport to state contingent, empirically established connections between beliefs, desires, and actions, or do such generalizations serve rather to define, at least in part, what it is to have a belief or desire, or perform an action? This question has proven important because of certain traditional assumptions made about the (...) role of law-statements in scientific explanations. According to this tradition, law-statements take the form of generalizations, and the laws we find in well-established sciences are contingent and empirical; as such, if the kinds of generalizations at work in folk psychological explanations of human action act like definitions, or state conceptual connections, then such generalizations could not play the kind of explanatory role we find in mature sciences. This paper argues that the aforementioned way of framing the debate reflects a still powerful but impoverished conception of the role laws play in scientific explanations, a conception that, moreover, cannot be reconciled with a good deal of actual scientific practice. When we update the philosophy of science, we find the concerns that are raised for folk psychological explanations largely evaporate or are found not to be specific to such explanations. (shrink)

Die Philosophie Karl Leonhard Reinholds (1757-1823) findet heute vermehrt Beachtung. Während dieser Denker lange Zeit als Popularisator Kants, als Vorläufer Fichtes oder als tatsachenphilosophischer Antipode Schellings und Hegels wahrgenommen wurde und gemeinhin im Ruf eines unsteten und unselbständigen Geistes stand, ist seit einigen Jahrzehnten eine Gegentendenz feststellbar: Reinholds Denkentfaltung wird zunehmend in ihrem gesamten Umfang sowie als eigenwilliger und innovativer Ansatz innerhalb der postkantischen Systemphilosophie zur Kenntnis genommen. Mehr und mehr wird anerkannt, dass Reinhold entscheidende Anstöße zur Entstehung des deutschen (...) Idealismus gegeben und diese Strömung zugleich auf der Grundlage von Einsichten, die in die Richtung der Phänomenologie und Sprachphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts weisen, kritisiert hat. Die in diesem Band vereinigten Beiträge gehen auf die I. Internationale Reinhold-Tagung zurück, die vom 14. bis 18. März 1998 in Bad Homburg stattgefunden hat. Sie geben systematische Fragestellungen und entwicklungsgeschichtliche Kontexte aus Reinholds kantischer Phase der Elementarphilosophie, aus der Periode seiner Zusammenarbeit mit Fichte und Jacobi sowie aus seiner sprachphilosophisch orientierten Spätzeit wieder. Alles in allem spiegeln sie das gegenwärtige Bedürfnis, Reinhold zu entdecken, sein Denken und Schaffen in seinen Wandlungen und in seiner thematischen Breite aufzuarbeiten und nachzuvollziehen. Zudem sind sie repräsentativ für die aktuell bestehenden vielfältigen Zugänge zu diesem produktiven Philosophen. (shrink)

Berulang kali saya ditanya oleh sesama umat Katolik apakah buku bacaan Misa Katolik juga dipakai oleh gereja Protestan, sebab mereka mengalami bahwa dalam ibadat hari minggu gereja Kristen lain dipakai bacaan Alkitab yang sama. Memang belum banyak diketahui perkem-bangan luar biasa yang selama setengah abad terakhir terjadi berkaitan dengan lectionarium atau leksionari ibadat hari Minggu dalam seluruh umat Kristen. Karena itu publikasi thesis Pendeta Y.B. Mulyono (S2 di STT Proklamasi) tentang Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) sangat di-butuhkan, dan membantu juga diri (...) saya.... Thesis M. yang diterbitkan dengan rapi oleh Grafika KreasIndo (Sinode GKI) menjadi bacaan penting bagi setiap pengkhotbah, entah pendeta atau imam, dan hendaknya mendapat tempat dalam pendidikan hermeneutika dan homiletika para calon imam dan pendeta. (Martin Harun, Guru Besar Ilmu Teologi Emeritus, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

Funding policies for science are usually directed at supporting technological innovations. The im-pact and success of such policies depend crucially on how science and technology are connected to each other. I propose an “interactive view” of the relationship between basic science and technol-ogy development which comprises the following four claims: First, technological change derives from science but only in part. The local models used in accounting for technologically relevant phenomena contain theoretical and non-theoretical elements alike. Second, existing technologies and rules (...) of experience constitute another major repository of technological inventions. Third, technology dynamics is only weakly coupled to progress in basic science but it is closely related to science. There is a dependence of technological change on a more fundamental understanding, to be sure, but it is of an indirect and long-term character. Fourth, progress in basic research is some-times the effect of technological change. Technological change sometimes brings about increased theoretical understanding. (shrink)

Worldwide, antibiotic use is increasing, but many infections against which antibiotics are applied are not even caused by bacteria. Over‐the‐counter and internet sales preclude physician oversight. Regional differences, between and within countries highlight many potential factors influencing antibiotic use. Taking a systems perspective that considers pharmaceutical commodity chains, we examine antibiotic overuse from the vantage point of both sides of the therapeutic relationship. We examine patterns and expectations of practitioners and patients, institutional policies and pressures, the business strategies of pharmaceutical (...) companies and distributors, and cultural drivers of variation. Solutions to improve antibiotic stewardship include practitioners taking greater responsibility for their antibiotic prescribing, increasing the role of caregivers as diagnosticians rather than medicine providers, improving their communication to patients about antibiotic treatment consequences, lessening the economic influences on prescribing, and identifying antibiotic alternatives. (shrink)