Information is a recognized fundamental notion across the sciences and humanities, which is crucial to understanding physical computation, communication, and human cognition. The Philosophy of Information brings together the most important perspectives on information. It includes major technical approaches, while also setting out the historical backgrounds of information as well as its contemporary role in many academic fields. Also, special unifying topics are high-lighted that play across many fields, while we also aim at identifying relevant themes for philosophical reflection. There (...) is no established area yet of Philosophy of Information, and this Handbook can help shape one, making sure it is well grounded in scientific expertise. As a side benefit, a book like this can facilitate contacts and collaboration among diverse academic milieus sharing a common interest in information. . First overview of the formal and technical issues involved in the philosophy of information . Integrated presentation of major mathematical approaches to information, form computer science, information theory, and logic . Interdisciplinary themes across the traditional boundaries of natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. (shrink)

In this review, we provide an overview of the dynamic changes within the microbiota and its metabolites that are implicated in establishing and maintaining gastrointestinal homeostasis during various stages of microbial colonization. The gradual conversion of the gut microbiota toward a mutualistic microbial community involves replacement of pioneer gut colonizers with bacterial taxa that are characteristic for the adult gut. An important microbial signature of homeostasis in the adult gut is the prevalence and activity of a diverse spectrum of bacterial (...) species that produce beneficial metabolites through metabolic interactions between microbial groups. Deciphering these microbial signatures and their metabolites that govern short and long‐term equilibrium, as well as imbalances in host‐microbial relationships, may provide novel diagnostic tools and/or therapeutic targets for specific disorders associated with intestinal dysbiosis and loss of homeostasis. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the development of the concept of a ‘law’ (of nature) in the work of the Dutch natural philosopher and experimenter Petrus van Musschenbroek (1692–1761). Since Van Musschenbroek is commonly described as one of the first ‘Newtonians’ on the Continent in the secondary literature, we focus more specifically on its relation to Newton’s views on this issue. Although he was certainly indebted to Newton for his thinking on laws (of nature), Van Musschenbroek’s views can be seen (...) to diverge from Newton’s on crucial points. We show, moreover, how his thinking on laws of nature was shaped by both international and local factors. We start with a brief discussion of Newton’s concept of ‘laws of nature’ in order to set the stage for Van Musschenbroek’s. We then document the development of Van Musschenbroek’s views on laws of nature in chronological order. We demonstrate how his thinking on laws of nature was tied to institutional, theological and scientific factors. We conclude by pointing to the broader significance of this case study for our understanding of the development of the concept ‘law of nature’ during the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Compared with other biblical books that are named after its main protagonist, Job mentions many (at least 72) body parts. Yet hair is explicitly referred to only once, even when it plays a relatively significant role in other books in the Hebrew Bible. This virtual absence of hair in the book can at first glance be explained by the shaving of Job's 'head' as early as 1:20, using a different verb, •••, from the one in Leviticus 13:33 and 14:8.9, •–•, (...) where the context is that of —’—’–’—, wrongly translated as 'leprosy', but probably referring to the same skin problem from which Job is suffering. This connection to the skin is important, because the two body parts seem to be almost mutually exclusive, as also suggested by 1:21 immediately after the aforementioned shaving, where Job considers himself to be essentially –’—’– [naked]. This means that hair has, amongst other functions, also a clothing-like role in the book of Job. Three questions will hence be explored: how 'absence' is to be psychoanalytically interpreted and more specifically, what consequences all of this has on the virtual absence of hair in the Book of Job and, finally, what relevance this absence has for the South African context. CONTRIBUTION: Applying a psychoanalytical perspective to both the body and to absence, the biblical text is contextualised on a broader horizon than what the purely historical-critical approach can render. The additional African context widens the relevance of the ancient book even further. (shrink)

This article represents the genre of auto-ethnographic, autobiographical research. It consists of questions which evoke narrative responses because the questions register a life story in itself. Pieter G.R. de Villiers is the interpellator and Andries G. van Aarde the respondent. They are long-standing friends and both professors of New Testament studies. De Villiers is presently the editor at LitNet Academic (Religious Studies), and Van Aarde is the editor of HTS Theological Studies. Since 1990, De Villiers has been Executive Director (...) of the Centre for Christian Spirituality and Ethics and has been a Research Fellow and Professor Extraordinarius in Biblical Spirituality at the Department of Old and New Testament Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State (since 2001).Contribution: The article reflects a conversation between Andries G. van Aarde and Pieter G.R. de Villiers. It contributes to an understanding of contemporary South African church history, including the protest by academics in Afrikaans ecclesial circles against apartheid and gender injustice. (shrink)

This article deals with cultural theory in the version of Thompson, Ellis and Wildavsky. Cultural theory is important for research in the area of political and policy science because this theory has the pretension of pinning down endogenous preference formation. Using Durkheim's dimensions, ‘social integration’ and ‘regulation of the actions of individuals’, cultural theory distinguishes five ways of life or cultures, namely individualism, hierarchy, egalitarianism, fatalism and autonomy. The statement that there are only five ways of life is, however, the (...) result of a selective interpretation of the dimension, ‘regulation of the actions of individuals’. A broad perspective on this dimension — including the ‘horizontal’ aspects of human relations — will lead to the conclusion that there is a sixth culture existent that has been neglected by current cultural theory. This sixth culture is essentially ‘mutualism-driven’. In this mutualist way of life, people hold highly specialized positions and are closely associated. The production of goods and services within this culture is based on cooperation and mutual adjustment. Power is widely spread, but not because equal rights and duties are considered a good thing. Knowledge and skills are primary in mutualist settings, and power follows knowledge and skills. (shrink)

(1996). Korte Notities Over Het Godsbegrip Bij Grieken En Romeinen En De Vergoddelijking Van Jezus in Het Nieuwe Testament. Bijdragen: Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 149-157.

In this article, we provide a detailed discussion of Hasok Chang’s analysis of the Chemical Revolution. Our focus lies on his use of the framework of systems of practice and his claim that the abandonment of the phlogiston theory was irrational. We argue that his framework runs into problems when applied to the chemical revolution because of its static view on the aims of the historical actors and we suggest using Nicholas Jardine’s concept of the reality of questions instead as (...) a more flexible historiographical tool. We show how Chang’s claim regarding the irrational aspects of the chemical revolution follows from his strictly individualistic epistemology, leading him to see institutional and social aspects that impact the determination of aims as external to scientific rationality. We argue that a viable pragmatist and pluralist philosophy of science needs to embrace ‘academic politics’ as an explicit part of its view of rationality. (shrink)

A central concept in Dutch health law is the care of a good caregiver. We find this standard in various statutes and in legal doctrine. This concept is, however, vague and open and must be made more concrete in professional practice, in moral theory, and in law. In this article, we explore the implications of this complex standard and analyze what moral philosophy and jurisprudence can contribute to its clarification and implementation in professional practice and law. We start with some (...) reflections on how practitioners see this norm and try to live up to it. (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)

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.

Just as the text is layered by redactional processes and its effects by reception processes, so different meanings of the statue of a human body in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream can be psychoanalytically ‘excavated’. Following a typical psychoanalytical dream interpretation, the possibility has therefore been explored of the body referring to the king as an individual before it was reinterpreted as a societal, collective body, the latter serving as a defence against the anxiety which the former would cause. Re-experiencing these common, human, (...) unconscious anxieties and processing them could facilitate psychological healing and health, especially in the postmodern, pluralistic and eco-threatened context, which the dream seems to adumbrate. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Edward Wilmot Blyden and Alexander Crummell James Africanus Beale Horton John Mensah Sarbah and Joseph Casely Hayford.

‘Ik ben toch niet God?’ Dit artikel legt de analyse van Paul Scholten over de werkwijze van een jurist naast de werkwijze en werkomstandigheden van een medewerker asiel van de Nederlandse Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst. De auteur concludeert dat het werken in de Algemene Asielprocedure beperkingen aan de medewerker oplegt die maken dat zorgvuldig en onpartijdig werken en het toepassen van de menselijke maat in het gedrang komen. Het werken onder tijdsdruk en met een complex juridisch regelstelsel dragen hieraan bij. Hierdoor (...) ontstaat het risico van robotisering van het beslisproces. Scholten reikt praktische en belangrijke handvatten aan om dit risico tegen te gaan. (shrink)

As the market and civil society sectors reflect different core logics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that partner with companies need strategies to cope with these differences. This paper seeks to provide insight into the coping strategies of environmental NGOs that partner with corporations. We present an assessment framework to analyse the strategies of the Environmental Defense Fund and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature Netherlands as case studies. The analysis demonstrates that the strategic options for a partnering NGO are guided and (...) constrained by the choices the NGO makes with regard to its action strategy towards companies. Although individual NGOs manage to cope adequately with the challenges that the partnership trend poses to their organisations, we argue that the partnering trend also creates challenges for the NGO field as a whole. (shrink)

Not only trauma, mourning and disease, but also disability has been recognised in the Book of Job in which the body plays an exceptional role. The protagonist is suffering physically, psychically and spiritually. Although the word, חלה [be sick, ill], never occurs in the book, his body is portrayed negatively being afflicted by some unknown illness, which would probably exclude him from the community described in Leviticus 13–14. While חָרֵשׁ [be silent] occurs several times in the book, it never has (...) the alternative meaning of deaf. Yet, his explicit empathy and sacrificial charity לַעִוֵּר [for the blind] and לַפִּסֵּחַ [for the lame] in 29:15 resonate with his own plight and undermine the possible discriminatory restrictions of like disabled in Leviticus 21:18. In this way, the Book of Job has a transgressive and yet liberating subtext, subverting the idealised body of his status quo. This subtle and veiled critique by the protagonist and therefore the book can be interpreted from a psychoanalytic perspective on physical disability and illness, where the symptoms and alleged imperfections of the body quietly cry out against social and cultural injustice of which they are the projections and mirrors when the context has silenced a concern for the body because of a lack of compassion as it is in the situation of Job. Contribution: The intersection and cross-fertilisation of Biblical Studies, Disability Studies and psychoanalytic theory as interdisciplinary approach widens the horizons and deepens the insight of all three research fields, hopefully for the benefit of those who suffer from their bodies, their psyches and their societies. (shrink)

This study is about the mouth and its parts in the book of Job on the one hand, and on psychic introjection on the other, even when these two aspects do not completely overlap. The dominance of the mouth and orality in this biblical book speaks for its symbolic and psychic implications, including dependency and depression, but also symbolisation and empathy, where psychic digestion is resymbolising what has been desymbolised by trauma. The hypothesis is therefore that the mouth plays a (...) crucial role in the process of mourning in the Book of Job. Contribution: Interdisciplinary research into biblical texts from the perspective of psychoanalytic literary criticism adds to the broader horizons within which these texts can be analysed and interpreted. Within this frame, the focus on the mouth continues and promotes the Bodies Studies movement, which has been blossoming for over 40 years. (shrink)

PurposeThe aim of the research described was to identify reasons for differences between discourses on electronic voting in the UK and The Netherlands, from a qualitative point of view.Design/methodology/approachFrom both countries, eight e‐voting experts were interviewed on their expectations, risk estimations, cooperation and learning experiences. The design was based on the theory of strategic niche management. A qualitative analysis of the data was performed to refine the main variables and identify connections.FindingsThe results show that differences in these variables can partly (...) explain the variations in the embedding of e‐voting in the two countries, from a qualitative point of view. Key differences include the goals of introducing e‐voting, concerns in relation to verifiability and authenticity, the role of the Electoral Commissions and a focus on learning versus a focus on phased introduction.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study was limited to two countries. More empirical data can reveal other relevant subvariables, and contribute to a framework that can improve our understanding of the challenges of electronic voting.Originality/valueThis study shows the context‐dependent character of discussions on information security. It can be informative for actors involved in e‐voting in the UK and The Netherlands, and other countries using or considering electronic voting. (shrink)

In the past decades, computers have become more and more involved in society by the rise of ubiquitous systems, increasing the number of interactions between humans and IT systems. At the same time, the technology itself is getting more complex, enabling devices to act in a way that previously only humans could, based on developments in the fields of both robotics and artificial intelligence. This results in a situation in which many autonomous, intelligent and context-aware systems are involved in decisions (...) that affect their environment. These relations between people, machines, and decisions can take many different forms, but thus far, a systematic account of machine-assisted moral decisions is lacking. This paper investigates the concept of machine-assisted moral decisions from the perspective of technological mediation. It is argued that modern machines do not only have morality in the sense of mediating the actions of humans, but that, by making their own decisions within their relations with humans, mediate morality itself. A classification is proposed to differentiate between four different types of moral relations. The moral aspects within the decisions these systems make are combined into three dimensions that describe the distinct characteristics of different types of moral mediation by machines. Based on this classification, specific guidelines for moral behavior can be provided for these systems. (shrink)

One of the older questions in the debate about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is whether it is worthwhile for organizations to pay attention to societal demands. This debate was emotionally, normatively, and ideologically loaded. Up to the present, this question has been an important trigger for empirical research in CSR. However, the answer to the question has apparently not been found yet, at least that is what many researchers state. This apparent ambivalence in CSR consequences invites a literature study that (...) can clarify the debate and allow for the drawing of conclusions. The results of the literature study performed here reveal that there is indeed clear empirical evidence for a positive correlation between corporate social and financial performance. Voices that state the opposite refer to outdated material. Since the beginnings of the CSR debate, societies have changed. We can therefore clearly state that, for the present Western society, "Good Ethics is Good Business.". (shrink)

Plants belonging to the genus Salsola (Family: Chenopodiaceae) are common in the arid and semiarid regions of our planet with no less than 69 different Salsola species found in Namibia and the Republic of South Africa. This genus is used as a traditional medicine and aqueous extracts of Salsola have been used by Bushmen women as an oral contraceptive. Ingestion of the Namibian shrub Salsola tuberculatiformis Botsch. by pregnant Karakul sheep leads to prolonged gestation and fetal post‐maturity and, as a (...) result, the pelts of the new‐born karakul lambs are worthless. This initiated an investigation into the active agents in the plant, using the terminal enzyme in adrenal corticosteroidogenesis, cytochrome P450‐dependent 11β‐hydroxylase (P450c11), as a bioassay. Although the active fraction, S2, was extremely labile, partial structure determination suggested the presence of synephrine and a highly reactive aziridine. Therefore a more stable analogue, 2‐(4‐acetoxyphenyl)2‐chloro‐N‐methylethylammonium‐chloride (compound A), was synthesised, which, like the active plant extracts, inhibited adrenal steroidogenesis and acted as a contraceptive. In addition, compound A was stabilised by interaction with steroid‐binding globulins in plasma thus enhancing biological activity in vivo. These findings provided explanations for the complex biological effects of the shrub as well as a new insight into the mode of action of chemically labile plant products in vivo. BioEssays 25:612–619, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This research examines whether religious conceptions of guilt in Protestant and Roman Catholic groups account for constructive or non-constructive guilt-reactions and for different guilt-frequency. Participants in three groups filled in the Leuven Guilt and Shame Scale, the Leuven Emotion Scale and the Post Critical Belief Scale. Protestants were expected to experience more non-constructive guilt than Catholics, who were expected to experience more constructive guilt. Both were expected to have a higher frequency of guilt experience than the control group. Differences between (...) the groups were found: Catholics show more constructive guilt reactions than the other groups. Differences in non-constructive guilt reactions were not found. The Protestant and Catholic group experienced guilt more frequently than the control group. (shrink)