In der Reihe werden herausragende monographische Untersuchungen und Sammelbände zu allen Aspekten der Philosophie Kants veröffentlicht, ebenso zum systematischen Verhältnis seiner Philosophie zu anderen philosophischen Ansätzen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Veröffentlicht werden Studien, die einen innovativen Charakter haben und ausdrückliche Desiderate der Forschung erfüllen. Die Publikationen repräsentieren damit den aktuellsten Stand der Forschung.

Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.

The target article presents a model for schizophrenia extending four levels of abstraction: molecules, cells, cognition, and syndrome. An important notion in the model is that of coordination, applicable to both the level of cells and of cognition. The molecular level provides an “implementation” of the coordination at the cellular level, which in turn underlies the coordination at the cognitive level, giving rise to the clinical symptoms.

The revised edition contains a new chapter which provides an elegant description of the semantics. The various classes of lambda calculus models are described in a uniform manner. Some didactical improvements have been made to this edition. An example of a simple model is given and then the general theory (of categorical models) is developed. Indications are given of those parts of the book which can be used to form a coherent course.

In Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity scholars reflect on politico-cultural, philosophical, and religious forms of critical conversation in the ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, Graeco-Roman, and early-Islamic world. They enquire into the boundaries between debate, polemics, and intolerance, and address their manifestations in both philosophy and religion. This cross-cultural and inclusive approach shows that debate and polemics are not so different as often assumed, since polemics may also indicate that ultimate values are at stake. Polemics can also have a positive (...) effect, stimulating further cultural development. Intolerance is more straightforwardly negative. Religious intolerance is often a justification for politics, but also elite rationalism can become totalitarian. The volume also highlights the importance of the fluency of minorities in the dominant discourses and of their ability to develop contrapuntal lines of thought within a common cultural discourse. Contributors are: Robbert van den Berg, Stefan Beyerle, George Boys-Stones, Reuven Firestone, Pieter B. Hartog, Paul Heck, Paulin Ismard, George van Kooten, Marjo C. Korpel, Dominik Markl, Steve Mason, Peter Franz Mittag, James C. Oleson, James Carleton Paget, Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, Jacques van Ruiten, Diego R. Sarrió Cucarella, Clare Wilde. (shrink)

Confronted with mounting pressure to ensure accountability vis-à-vis customers, citizens and beneficiaries, organizational leaders need to decide how to choose and implement so-called accountability standards. Yet while looking for an appropriate standard, they often base their decisions on cost-benefit calculations, thus neglecting other important spheres of influence pertaining to more broadly defined stakeholder interests. We argue in this paper that, as a part of the strategic decision for a certain standard, management needs to identify and act according to the needs (...) of all stakeholders. We contend that the creation of a dialogical understanding among affected stakeholders cannot be a mere outcome of applying certain accountability standards, but rather must be a necessary precondition for their use. This requires a stakeholder dialogue prior to making a choice. We outline such a discursive decision framework for accountability standards based on the Habermasian concept of communicative action and, in the final section, apply our conceptual framework to one of the most prominent accountability tools (AA 1000). (shrink)

No presente artigo nos propomos a analisar a importancia atribuida por Tocqueville às associações civis e políticas como meio de combater a tendência natural dos homens no Estado Democrático,ao isolamento e à indiferença pública, posto que essa tendência constitui-se como ameaça à liberdade e impede que a democracia reine no mundo político.

The central theme of this book is the question, Why do scientists pursue scientific investigation? Of course, Bert Theunissen begins by pointing out that the answers scientists offer will be socially acceptable answers. Even so, Theunissen asserts, the historian may infer from the answers what motivated the persons questioned. Moreover, insights may be gleaned concerning science, society, and the relations between the two in the period the scientists lived.In this book the author discusses the notions of the objective of science (...) endorsed, respectively, by Jan Hendrik van Swinden , Jan van der Hoeven , Pieter Harting , Gerrit Jan Moll , Franciscus C. Donders , Hugo de Vries , Martinus W. Beijerinck , and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz .From this list of names it appears that Theunissen has focused his study on the nineteenth century. That period is especially interesting with respect to the changing images of science, as the ideas of the main goal of the university altered completely during that period. At the beginning of the century providing an academic education was seen as the prime task. Research was not seen as part of the duties of a professor at all. Those that did any experimentation chose to do so for their own sake, not because it was an element of the curriculum. That had changed completely by the end of the century. By then scientific investigation was considered a regular—in fact the most important—task of the university. This change in focus went hand in hand with the establishment of a number of new laboratories for most Dutch universities.In the accounts of the above‐mentioned men the content and development of their ideas about the pursuit of science are examined. From this analysis the common element that emerges in their images of science is gain for society, as expressed in the title, which translates into English as something like “Profit and more profit.” In the view of these men the pursuit of science is profitable for society; it is not pursued just for its own sake, let alone for the pleasure of the pursuer. In the beginning of the century the well‐trained minds of an intellectual elite that had completed academic training was regarded as the prime benefit for society. By the end of the century the profit was understood to come from scientific investigation of nature: science was seen as an instrument to further human welfare.Initially, I found it surprising that each and every one of the leading persons confidently asserts that the pursuit of science is for the benefit of society at large. Yet, on closer inspection, that was not so surprising, as Theunissen has studied and quotes almost exclusively from published sources, from treatises written for fellow scholars, for administrators, and for the lay public. The author seems not to have studied correspondence or other private papers in which a man may have voiced less elevated purposes for the pursuit of science.One thing amazed me: in the whole of this work, covering over a hundred years of discussion and the ideas of some 300 Dutch scholars on the subject at hand, there is not one woman mentioned. Admittedly, by the time the present story finishes, in the early twentieth century, only a few women had been appointed to academic positions in Dutch universities, so there is presumably not much material to draw on. However, one argument in the debate raging in the last quarter of the nineteenth century about the admission of women to the universities was the view that women, like men, should have the benefit of a higher education so as to fully develop their minds.Most of the contents of this book have appeared in print already in the form of separate articles in various journals, some in English but mostly in the Dutch language. Presumably that explains why the author has chosen to publish his treatise in Dutch rather than English. Even though the author has stressed the national character of his exposé by discussing at length some controversies among Dutch historians of science on points he addresses, the issues considered in this book and the scope of the inquiry warrant international notice and discussion.This book has a pleasantly unpretentious layout and typography and is, moreover, very carefully produced: I have seen but one printing error—which I leave it to you to discover. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with topological set theory, and particularly with Skala's and Manakos' systems for which we give a topological characterization of the models. This enables us to answer natural questions about those theories, reviewing previous results and proving new ones. One of these shows that Skala's set theory is in a sense compatible with any ‘normal’ set theory, and another appears on the semantic side as a ‘Cantor theorem’ for the category of Alexandroff spaces.

According to the modal interpretation, the standard mathematical framework of quantum mechanics specifies the physical magnitudes of a system, which have definite values. Probabilities are assigned to the possible values that these magnitudes may adopt. The interpretation is thus concerned with physical properties rather than with measurement results: it is a realistic interpretation. One of the notable achievements of this interpretation is that it dissolves the notorious measurement problem. The papers collected here, together with the introduction and concluding critical appraisal, (...) explain the various forms of the modal interpretation, survey its achievements, and discuss those problems that have yet to be solved. Audience: Philosophers of science, theoretical physicists, and graduate students in these disciplines. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the emerging position in metaphysics that artifact functions characterize real kinds of artifacts. We analyze how it can circumvent an objection by David Wiggins (Sameness and substance renewed, 2001, 87) and then argue that this position, in comparison to expert judgments, amounts to an interesting fine-grained metaphysics: taking artifact functions as (part of the) essences of artifacts leads to distinctions between principles of activity of artifacts that experts in technology have not yet made. We show, (...) moreover, that our argument holds not only in the artifactual realm but also in biology: taking biological functions as (part of the) essences of organs leads to distinctions between principles of activity of organs that biological experts have not yet made. We run our argument on the basis of analyses of artifact and biological functions as developed in philosophy of technology and of biology, thus importing results obtained outside of metaphysics into the debate on ontological realism. In return, our argument shows that a position in metaphysics provides experts reason for trying to detect differences between principles of activities of artifacts and organs that have not been detected so far. (shrink)

The philosophy of artifacts is as marginal as it is one-sided. The majority of contributions to it are asides in works devoted to other subjects and focus on one characteristic feature: that artifacts are objects with functions. Indeed many artifacts, such as screwdrivers and toasters, come in functional kinds. Perhaps for this reason, philosophers elevated functions to the essences of artifacts or have developed general theories of function to describe artifacts along with their main subject: biological items. Most such theories (...) present one monolithic notion of function that applies to both. Dissident voices claim autonomy for artifact functions, or at least a small measure of conceptual independence, but it is seldom questioned that a theory of artifacts consists merely of a theory of artifact functions. (shrink)

In this paper we present an action-theoretic account of artefact using and designing and describe our ICE-theory of function ascriptions to technical artefacts. By means of this account and theory we analyse the thesis of the dual nature of technical artefacts according to which descriptions of technical artefacts draw on structural and intentional conceptualisations. We show that the ascription of technical functions to technical artefacts can connect the intentional and structural parts of descriptions of artefacts, but also separate these parts. (...) Our conclusion is that the concept of technical functions forms a ‘conceptual drawbridge’ between the intentional and structural natures of technical artefacts.Keywords: Intentional and structural descriptions; Technical artefacts; Function theory; Action theory; Use; Design. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the possibilities of combining two central intuitions about artefacts: that they are functional objects, and that they are non-natural objects. We do so in four steps. First we argue that, contrary to common opinion, functions cannot be the cornerstone of a characterisation of artefacts. Our argument suggests an alternative view, which characterises artefacts as objects embedded in what we call use plans. Second, we show that this plan-centred successor of the function-focused view is at odds (...) with the non-naturalness intuition. Third, we show that this intuition can be developed by defining artefacts as produced or human-made objects, but that the resulting definition might collapse into the plan-centred view, and has trouble distinguishing artefact types or kinds. Finally, we propose a division of labour between production and use plans: among objects in general, artefacts are distinguished as human-made objects; within the domain of artefacts, types or kinds are characterised by the use plans in which artefacts are embedded. (shrink)

For decades, the discussion on children’s competence to consent to medical issues has concentrated around normative concerns, with little progress in clinical practices. Decision-making competence is an important condition in the informed consent model. In pediatrics, clinicians need to strike a proper balance in order to both protect children’s interests when they are not fully able to do so themselves and to respect their autonomy when they are. Children’s competence to consent, however, is currently not assessed in a standardized way. (...) Moreover, the correlation between competence to give informed consent and age in children has never been systematically investigated, nor do we know which factors exactly contribute to children’s competence. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the emerging position in metaphysics that artifact functions characterize real kinds of artifacts. We analyze how it can circumvent an objection by David Wiggins (Sameness and substance renewed, 2001, 87) and then argue that this position, in comparison to expert judgments, amounts to an interesting fine-grained metaphysics: taking artifact functions as (part of the) essences of artifacts leads to distinctions between principles of activity of artifacts that experts in technology have not yet made. We show, (...) moreover, that our argument holds not only in the artifactual realm but also in biology: taking biological functions as (part of the) essences of organs leads to distinctions between principles of activity of organs that biological experts have not yet made. We run our argument on the basis of analyses of artifact and biological functions as developed in philosophy of technology and of biology, thus importing results obtained outside of metaphysics into the debate on ontological realism. In return, our argument shows that a position in metaphysics provides experts reason for trying to detect differences between principles of activities of artifacts and organs that have not been detected so far. (shrink)

The paper offers a normative analysis of the new Loss & Damage Fund supporting vulnerable countries grappling with climate change-related harms. This fund is primarily financed by affluent nations, often identified as historical polluters. However, the perspective of relational egalitarianism highlights persistent structural injustices in the background of the fund. Addressing them necessitates conceptualizing the fund not merely as an act of cooperative solidarity but as compensation for the consequences of historical and ongoing structural injustices. Properly conceived, the fund manages (...) adverse climate effects and simultaneously tackles their underlying root causes, including the unjust distribution of advantages and power. (shrink)

In several jurisdictions, sex offenders may be offered chemical castration as an alternative to further incarceration. In some, agreement to chemical castration may be made a formal condition of parole or release. In others, refusal to undergo chemical castration can increase the likelihood of further incarceration though no formal link is made between the two. Offering chemical castration as an alternative to further incarceration is often said to be partially coercive, thus rendering the offender’s consent invalid. The dominant response to (...) this objection has been to argue that any coercion present in such cases is compatible with valid consent. In this article, we take a different tack, arguing that, even if consent would not be valid, offering chemical castration will often be supported by the very considerations that underpin concerns about consent: considerations of autonomy. This is because offering chemical castration will often increase the offender’s autonomy, both at the time the offer is made and in the future. (shrink)

This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'. Drawing on that model, we make three claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to popular sovereignty; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a 'legitimation story': a non-moralised normative account of how to shore up belief in (...) legitimacy while steering clear of both raw domination and ideological distortions. (iii) The EU's current legitimation story draws on a tradition of popular sovereignty that sits badly with the supranational delegation and pooling of sovereign powers. We conclude by suggesting that the EU's legitimation deficit may be best addressed demoicratically, by recovering the value of popular sovereignty at the expense of a degree of state sovereignty. (shrink)

Tocqueville considers that authoritarian forms fo government can find support among citizen in “democratic times”. He argues that the erosin of social and political conditions is not the result of external oppressive action, but something that cuts across social and political relations. Maintaining formally, or in appearance, certais conditions of equality and freedom, wich are in line eith the interests of individuals, democracy itself can open space for the emergence of various forms of inequality and oppression. Based on the author, (...) we propose to discuss this phenomenon that tends to give rise to violating social and political forms emerging from within democracia itself. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the possibilities of combining two central intuitions about artefacts: that they are functional objects, and that they are non-natural objects. We do so in four steps. First we argue that, contrary to common opinion, functions cannot be the cornerstone of a characterisation of artefacts. Our argument suggests an alternative view, which characterises artefacts as objects embedded in what we call use plans. Second, we show that this plan-centred successor of the function-focused view is at odds (...) with the non-naturalness intuition. Third, we show that this intuition can be developed by defining artefacts as produced or human-made objects, but that the resulting definition might collapse into the plan-centred view, and has trouble distinguishing artefact types or kinds. Finally, we propose a division of labour between production and use plans: among objects in general, artefacts are distinguished as human-made objects; within the domain of artefacts, types or kinds are characterised by the use plans in which artefacts are embedded. (shrink)

O tema da igualdade foi tratado ao longo dos séculos das luzes em par com o tema da liberdade, contudo nesta parceria a igualdade é considerada _condição para_, e não algo _a ser buscado por si mesmo_, ao contrário da liberdade. Esse tratamento, que quase tornou a igualdade um mal necessário, exigiu uma série de restrições – ou tropeços - que introduziram nova série de desigualdades entre os membros do Estado. Os tropeços a serem discutidos aqui dizem respeito à diferença (...) entre a igualdade natural e inerente aos seres humanos e a igualdade civil construída social e politicamente, que transparecem no caminho percorrido pelo _Segundo Discurso _de Rousseau. Naquele _Discurso_, cada pessoa tinha por natureza as mesmas condições para viver independente do socorro do outro, mas desde que passaram a reunir-se e a singularidade de cada pessoa apareceu aos demais tiveram início as comparações e as preferências que as distinguiram umas das outras. Das distinções à desigualdade o caminho é curto, pois a estima pública supõe um juízo de valor acerca das habilidades que merecem ser honradas por todos e, em consequência, a diferenciação entre honrados e poderosos e aqueles que devem honrar e obedecer. A socialização parece, então, criar a desigualdade. Nosso propósito será, inicialmente, investigar o caminho da (des)igualdade entre a natureza e a sociedade com base no _Segundo Discurso_, para discutir, no âmbito do _Contrato Social_, as possibilidades de igualdade civil e sua relação com a liberdade. (shrink)

In this paper I evaluate the ICE-theory of function ascriptions to technical artefacts as proposed by Houkes and Vermaas, 2004a and Houkes and Vermaas, 2004b. This account adds non-structural concepts to functional description of artefacts, which are typically not employed by engineers when they ascribe functions to artefacts. The aim of this paper is to analyse to what extent the ICE-theory can reproduce the engineering view that artefacts have their functions in virtue of their physicochemical structure. It is shown that (...) this theory can reproduce this engineering view for components of artefacts but not for the artefacts themselves: engineers can ascribe functions to components on the basis of only the physicochemical structure of artefacts; but when engineers ascribe functions to artefacts as a whole, they have to consider explicitly the goals for which agents use artefacts and the actions that constitute this use.Keywords: Function theory; Technical artefacts; Components; Physics and chemistry; Engineering; Action theory. (shrink)

Para Tocqueville, a igualdade e a liberdade são ambas necessárias à existência de um estado democrático.No presente artigo,tentaremos provar que a realização da liberdade em um tal estado,no pensamento de Tockeville, está intrinsicamente ligada à virtude dos cidadãos.

Buscar nexos entre o pensamento de Rousseau e Tocqueville é facilitado porque o próprio Tocqueville afirma que Rousseau foi um dos autores que mais influenciou seu pensamento. Influência, contudo, não significa concordância; e, ser um dos que mais o influenciou não significa uma única influência; razões que tornam nossa tarefa de buscar compreender os nexos entre um e outro mais instigante. Nosso esforço, neste artigo, recairá sobre a compreensão da concepção de democracia em cada um dos autores e, neste sentido, (...) buscaremos evidenciar as características fundamentais que Rousseau, por um lado, e Tocqueville, por outro, atribuem à democracia. Em seguida, com base naquelas características apresentadas, investigaremos possíveis influências do pensamento rousseauísta sobre a concepção tocquevilleana, a fim de elucidar convergências e divergências entre os autores. (shrink)

Democracy can be regarded, following Alexis de Tocquevilles thoughts, from two complementary standpoints: the equality standpoint – where equality is understood as a social condition; and the liberty standpoint – understood as a political condition. However, he observes, democracy is not a priori what it should be, denunciating, in this way, the imbalance between equality and liberty, the greater the imbalance as poor are the public virtues. We intend to enroll in a debate involving ethics and politics, by considering vices (...) and virtues inherent to democracy, analyzing Tocqueville´s ideas. We start examining the causes of vice and the possibility of virtue, as Tocqueville sees them, in order to, next, attack the relationship of ethics and politics. (shrink)

Previous research showed that the repeated approaching of one stimulus and avoiding of another stimulus typically leads to more positive evaluations of the former stimuli. In the current study, we examined whether approach and avoidance training effects on evaluations of neutral stimuli can be modulated by introducing a regularity between the approach-avoidance actions and a positive or negative stimulus. In an AAT task, participants repeatedly approached one neutral non-word and avoided another neutral non-word. Half of the participants also approached a (...) negative fear-conditioned stimulus and avoided a conditioned safe stimulus. The other half of the participants avoided the CS+ and approached the CS−. Whereas participants in the avoid CS+ condition exhibited a typical AAT effect, participants in the approach CS+ condition exhibited a reversed AAT effect. These findings provide evidence for the malleability of the AAT effect when strongly valenced stimuli are approached or avoided. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of our findings. (shrink)

In the debate about actions in virtual environments two interdependent types of question have been pondered: What is a person doing who acts in a virtual environment? Second, can virtual actions be evaluated morally? These questions have been discussed using examples from morally dubious computer games, which seem to revel in atrocities. The examples were introduced using the terminology of “virtual murder” “virtual rape” and “virtual pedophilia”. The terminological choice had a lasting impact on the debate, on the way action (...) types are assigned and on how moral evaluation is supposed to be conducted. However, this terminology and its theoretical consequences, while sometimes resulting in correct results, lead to absurd results when applied across the board. It will be suggested that these absurd consequences can be avoided by a different answer to the question what people in virtual worlds are doing. Alleged virtual actions are first and foremost the creation and modification of data-structures and the resulting output in computer hardware. Such modifications of data structure and imagery can be performed with different intentions, purposes and styles, which will influence the type and moral evaluation of a user’s actions. This reinterpretation allows for a more complex analysis of the moral reasons for praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of actions in virtual environments. This analysis takes not just harm and effects on character into account but the peculiar ways in which speech acts can be morally wrong: e.g. agitatory, deceptive, bullshitting. (shrink)

This study investigates the interrelation of outer appearance and spatial configuration of modern Chinese court buildings with the party-state’s strategy of building regime legitimacy. The spatial element of this relation is explored in four different court buildings in Kunming, Chongqing, Shanghai and Xi’an. It is argued that court buildings contribute to the empowerment of individuals who appear as parties in trials. Courthouses also facilitate the courts’ function of exercising social control and the application of an instrumentalist approach to the principle (...) of public trials. Both the grounding of court buildings in the past and their compliance with international models of a modern independent judiciary are aspects of consolidating regime legitimacy. (shrink)

Via a historical reconstruction, this paper primarily demonstrates how the societal debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) gradually extended in terms of actors involved and concerns reflected. It is argued that the implementation of recombinant DNA technology out of the laboratory and into civil society entailed a “complex of concerns.” In this complex, distinctions between environmental, agricultural, socio-economic, and ethical issues proved to be blurred. This fueled the confusion between the wider debate on genetic modification and the risk assessment of (...) transgenic crops in the European Union. In this paper, the lasting skeptical and/or ambivalent attitude of Europeans towards agro-food biotechnology is interpreted as signaling an ongoing social request – and even a quest – for an evaluation of biotechnology with Sense and Sensibility. In this (re)quest, a broader-than-scientific dimension is sought for that allows addressing the GMO debate in a more “sensible” way, whilst making “sense” of the different stances taken in it. Here, the restyling of the European regulatory frame on transgenic agro-food products and of science communication models are discussed and taken to be indicative of the (re)quest to move from a merely scientific evaluation and risk-based policy towards a socially more robust evaluation that takes the “non-scientific” concerns at stake in the GMO debate seriously. (shrink)

In this paper we use our work in the philosophy of technology to formulate a pluralist view on artefact categories and categorisation principles, as studied in cognitive science. We argue, on the basis of classifications derived by philosophical reconstruction, that artefacts can be clustered in more than one way, and that each clustering may be taken as defining psychological artefact categories. We contrast this pluralism with essentialism and super-minimalism on artefact categories and we argue that pluralism is coherent with experimental (...) results regarding the context-dependence of artefact categorisation. (shrink)

Since sound and music are powerful forces and drivers of human behavior and physiology, we propose the use of sonification to activate healthy breathing patterns in participants to induce relaxation. Sonification is often used in the context of biofeedback as it can represent an informational, non-invasive and real-time stimulus to monitor, motivate or modify human behavior. The first goal of this study is the proposal and evaluation of a distance-based biofeedback system using a tempo- and phase-aligned sonification strategy to adapt (...) breathing patterns and induce states of relaxation. A second goal is the evaluation of several sonification stimuli on 18 participants that were recruited online and of which we analyzed psychometric and behavioral data using, respectively questionnaires and respiration rate and ratio. Sonification stimuli consisted of filtered noise mimicking a breathing sound, nature environmental sounds and a musical phrase. Preliminary results indicated the nature stimulus as most pleasant and as leading to the most prominent decrease of respiration rate. The noise sonification had the most beneficial effect on respiration ratio. While further research is needed to generalize these findings, this study and its methodological underpinnings suggest the potential of the proposed biofeedback system to perform ecologically valid experiments at participants' homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The body plays an important role in the book of Job - as do animals. According to psychoanalytical specifically object-relations theory, a subjective body image was partly constructed through the internalisation of external stimuli from significant others who mirrored the subject through their feedback or through their own bodies, which served as an ideal or critique to the subject. Amongst the external stimuli, animals constitute such significant others. Animals could therefore have impacted Job's subjective body image, particularly as their bodies (...) were described in detail by God as a response to Job's complaints and searching. CONTRIBUTION: Two theoretical and interrelated problems were acknowledged although they cannot be satisfactorily solved: the cultural aspect of the body image and the relationship to animals. (shrink)

Unterschiedlichste Anwendungsformen künstlicher Intelligenz bestimmen schon heute den Alltag vieler Menschen – von Einsatz von KI-Systeme in Finanzgeschäften über die Vergabe von Studienplätzen bis hin zur Steuerung von Pflegerobotern, Autos und Waffensystemen. Diese vielfältigen neuen Möglichkeiten und Visionen wecken einerseits Hoffnungen auf persönlichen und gesellschaftlichen Nutzen und Fortschritt; andererseits rufen sie aber auch Bedenken, Ängste und gelegentlich auch grundsätzliche Ablehnung hervor. Angesichts dieser Ambivalenz sind ethische Analysen gefordert, die ausloten, wie ein verantwortungsvoller Umgang mit KI gestaltet werden sollte. Der Band (...) greift viele dieser Probleme auf und unterzieht sie einer eingehenden philosophischen Analyse. Die Auseinandersetzung ist nach klassischen Teilbereichen der Philosophie gegliedert, aus deren Perspektive heraus jeweils spezielle Teilaspekte oder einzelne Anwendungsformen von KI beleuchtet werden. Das Themenspektrum reicht entsprechend von Fragen der Handlungstheorie und Philosophie des Geistes über wissenschaftstheoretische Problemstellungen bis hin zu ethischen Fragen die beispielsweise den Einsatz von KI in der Medizin und im Wirtschafts- und Arbeitsleben betreffen. In Auseinandersetzung mit aktuellen Debatten werden eigenständige Positionen entwickelt. (shrink)

Proclus was one of the last great philosophers of Antiquity. His legacy in the cultural history of the west can hardly be overestimated. This book is the most comprehensive guide to Proclus' life, thought and legacy that is currently available.

Non-invasive brain stimulation promises innovative experimental possibilities for psychology and neurosci- ence as well as new therapeutic and palliative measures in medicine. Because of its good risk–benefit ratio, non-invasiveness and reversibility as well as its low effort and cost it has good chances of becoming a wide- spread tool in science, medicine and even in lay use. While most issues in medical and research ethics such as informed consent, safety, and potential for misuse can be handled with manageable effort, the (...) real promise of brain stimulation does raise one prominent moral worry: it may lay the foundation of reliable, precise and stable manipulations of the mind. This article addresses this worry and concludes that it is not the possibility of manipulation, but the shift in our understanding of our mind which stands in need of careful consideration. (shrink)

The consumption of halal food may be seen as an expression of the Muslim identity. Within Islam, different interpretations of ‘halal’ exist and the pluralistic Muslim community requests diverse halal standards. Therefore, adaptive governance arrangements are needed in the halal food market. Globalization and industrialization have complicated the governance of halal food. A complex network of halal governors has developed from the local to the global level. In this paper, we analyze to what extent halal certification bodies in the Netherlands (...) address the needs of the Muslim community and how they are influenced by international halal governance. The Netherlands serves as a case study with its growing Muslim community and its central position in international trade. The data comes from literature review and eleven qualitative semi-structured interviews with the most prominent actors in the Dutch halal governance system. Our analysis shows that the halal governance system in the Netherlands is weakly institutionalized and hardly adaptive to the needs of a heterogeneous Muslim community. Improvements are needed concerning stakeholder engagement, transparency, accessibility, impartiality and efficiency. (shrink)

We argue that nano-technology in the form of invisible tags, sensors, and Radio Frequency Identity Chips (RFIDs) will give rise to privacy issues that are in two ways different from the traditional privacy issues of the last decades. One, they will not exclusively revolve around the idea of centralization of surveillance and concentration of power, as the metaphor of the Panopticon suggests, but will be about constant observation at decentralized levels. Two, privacy concerns may not exclusively be about constraining information (...) flows but also about designing of materials and nano-artifacts such as chips and tags. We begin by presenting a framework for structuring the current debates on privacy, and then present our arguments. (shrink)