Numerous studies have shown almost uniformly positive opinions among patients and physicians regarding theconceptof advance directives (either a healthcare proxy or living will). Several of these studies have also shown that the actual use of advance directives is significantly lower than this enthusiasm would suggest, but they have not explained the apparent discordance. Nor have researchers explained why members of minority groups are much less likely to complete advance directives than are white patients. In this study, we used a focus (...) group methodology to examine the ways in which diverse populations of patients view the medical, philosophical, and practical issues surrounding advance directives. We were motivated by the significantly lower prevalence of advance directives among African-American and Hispanic patients at one urban teaching hospital (18% for Caucasians, 4% for African-Americans, and 2% for Hispanics). Our premise was that African-American and Hispanic populations, who have had higher rates of morbidity and mortality across numerous disease categories, and historically have had limited access to care and opportunities to discuss health concerns, may be more suspicious about the right of autonomy that an advance directive is designed to ensure. (shrink)

This innovative book proposes a unique and original perspective on the nature of the mind and how phenomenal consciousness may arise in a physical world. From simple sentient organisms to complex self-reflective systems, Faye argues for a naturalistic-evolutionary approach to philosophy of mind and consciousness. Drawing on substantial literature in evolutionary biology and cognitive science, this book offers a promising alternative to the major theories of the mind-body problem: the quality of our experiences should not, as some philosophers have (...) claimed, be associated with subjectivity that is not open for scientific explanation, nor should it be associated with intrinsic properties of the brain. Instead, Faye argues that mental properties are extrinsic properties of the brain caused by the organism’s interaction with its environment. Taking on the explanatory gap, and rejecting the ontological pluralism of present naturalist theories of the mind, Faye thus proposes a unified view of reality in which it is possible to explain qualitative mental presentations as part of the physical world. (shrink)

The paper discusses the regularity account of causation but finds it insufficient as a complete account of our notion of causality. The attractiveness of the regularity account is its attempt to understand causation in terms of empirically accessible features of the world. However, this account does not match our intuition that singular causality is prior in normal epistemic situations and that there is more to causation than mere succession. Apart from succession and regularity, the concept of causality also contains a (...) modal feature which allows us to engage in counterfactual discourses about singular causal events and to claim that a particular cause is both sufficient and necessary for its effect in the circumstances. However, we may directly observe singular causes, but the modal element is not something we can possibly observe. Rather, this element is something we add to our perception of succession. Thus, the paper suggests that the modal feature of causality is a mental construction which was originally formed by our knowledge of certain structural features of similar events in other situations. It stems not from what we actually observe but from what we have observed or may observe under different but relevant circumstances. So the concept of causation has partly an empirical content and partly a constructed one. (shrink)

The year 2001, the first of our twenty-first century, marks a turning point in the publication of the work of Martin Heidegger. That year, the very first courses he taught during the Third Reich were published. Under the seemingly noble title Being and Truth (Sein und Wahrheit), the double volume 36/37 of the complete works (Gesamtausgabe) grouped the 1933 summer course, The Fundamental Question of Philosophy (Der Grundfrage der Philosophie), and the 1933/34 winter semester course, On the Essence of Truth (...) (Vom Wesen der Wahrheit). Why was this a turning point? For one thing, these are among the most explicitly National Socialist and Hitlerian courses he taught. In them, we discover that Heidegger does not limit .. (shrink)

I argue that meaning is a result of our biological evolution, and that language evolved from primates’ ability to grasp conceptually the most important features of their environment. I hold that natural selection and adaptation ensure that primates both sense and conceptualize their world similarly, and that they therefore think similarly, whenever they receive the same sense impressions. This cognitive similarity enabled our predecessors to learn and develop a language because of the regular association of a particular sound and a (...) particular image. The evolutionary pressure on our predecessors to develop a language was the advantage that such a language had for cooperation and survival. Finally, I argue that the old, but in wider circles frowned-upon theory of meaning, the expressive theory of language, provides the best explanation of the relationship between thought, meaning, and words, because it operates with words and not sentences as the basic semantic unit. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to throw light on Kierkegaard’s neglected distinction between love and its works, and by doing so to resolve the ambivalence in his position with regard to preferential love in Works of Love. In this text Kierkegaard seems to fail to reconcile his insistence on neighbourly love’s demand for equality and self-denial, with his wish to affirm the centrality of preferential love to human existence. My claim is that neighbourly love and preferential love are two (...) distinct works of love that share the double structure of faith. This paradoxical structure, presented and discussed by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling, allows the two loves to be realized together, without requiring any compromise regarding their respective demands. (shrink)

Logical positivism had an important impact on the Danish intellectual climate before World War Two. During the thirties close relations were established between members of the Vienna Circle and philosophers and scientists in Copenhagen. This influence not only affected Danish philosophy and science; it also impinged on the cultural avant-garde and via them on the public debate concerning social and political reforms. Hand in hand with the positivistic ideas you find functionalism emerging as a new heretical language in art, architecture, (...) and design. Not surprisingly, you may say, since the logical positivists’ wishes of stripping philosophy of metaphysics is spiritually similar to the functionalists’ desire to get rid of symbols and ornaments. One event more than anything confirmed the connection between the Vienna Circle, Denmark, and the rest of the Nordic countries. For a short while Copenhagen became the centre for the Circle’s activities when in 1936 the 2nd Inter national Congress for the Unity of Science was held there between June 21 and 26. A photograph, taken during the conference, shows many of the participants sitting in the hall of Carlsberg’s honorary mansion where Niels Bohr was living at the time. Among the audience you find Otto Neurath , Carl Gustav Hempel and Karl Popper , but also some of the more prominent Danish scientists and scholars whose world views were congenial with the logical positivists. (shrink)

The duty to love one's neighbor as oneself is at the core of Kierkegaard's Works of Love . In this book, Kierkegaard unfolds the meaning of neighborly love and claims that it is the only valid form of true love. He contrasts between neighborly love and preferential love (which includes romantic love and friendship) and criticizes the latter for being nothing but a form of selfishness. However, in some contexts, Kierkegaard seems to acknowledge the significance of preferential love relationships, and (...) does not disallow them. Therefore, his understanding of preferential love appears to be confused and inconsistent. My essay discusses the tension in Kierkegaard's position regarding preferential love, and by presenting recent readings of Works of Love , it asks whether this tension is resolvable and offers a suggestion for a possible solution. (shrink)

In his major work on love, Works of Love, Kierkegaard clearly and robustly affirms the moral superiority of neighbourly love, and approves preferential love on one condition: that it serve as an instance of neighbourly love. But can an essentially preferential love be an instance of the essentially non-preferential neighbourly love? John Lippitt seems to think it can. In his paper “Kierkegaard and the problem of special relationships: Ferreira, Krishek, and the ‘God filter”’ he defends Kierkegaard’s position in Works of (...) Love against my criticism (as presented in my book Kierkegaard on Faith and Love); specifically, against my claim that in using Kierkegaard’s view of neighbourly love as a framework for understanding preferential love, one fails to account for the latter’s distinctive character. Lippitt claims that I misinterpret Kierkegaard’s position and, using what he calls ‘the God filter’, he attempts to show how adhering to Kierkegaard’s view of neighbourly love allows one to sustain the distinctiveness (and value) of preferential love. In what follows I will defend my interpretation of Kierkegaard’s position and explain why I take the view he presents in Works of Love to be problematic. Furthermore, in my aforementioned book I offer a Kierkegaardian model of love that does precisely what Lippitt seeks his ‘God filter’ model to do: namely, preserve the distinctiveness of preferential love while allowing its possible coexistence with neighbourly love. Thus, against the background of Lippitt’s criticism I will demonstrate this model again, in hope of clarifying the advantages this view offers. (shrink)

Kierkegaard's well‐known analysis of the self, in the first part of his work The Sickness unto Death (1849), presents, even if only in passing, the somewhat enigmatic notion of “divine name.” In this article I offer an interpretation of Kierkegaard's analysis and suggest that the notion of a divine name be understood as expressing the conception of human beings as possessing (what I call) “individual essence.” I further demonstrate that it is this quality that makes a human being a self, (...) namely, the individual that he or she is. In addition to defending the exegetical and substantial plausibility of this conception, I show how it opens the way to affirming the feasibility of universal love. (shrink)

The present article discusses scientific research in relation to the norms of representative democracy, arguing that politicians are committed to base their policy on scientific evidence. It is argued that people have both natural interests and social interests and that our natural interests, which we have acquired through natural selection and adaptation, are best taken care of by a representative democracy in which science proliferates. The article also argues why politicians and the public should trust science as the best means (...) to fulfil our natural interests. (shrink)

Jusqu'à quel point Descartes emprunte-t-il à Suarez les notions de « dieu trompeur » et de « mauvais génie » ? En fait, bien qu'elles aient leur source dans la scolastique en général (et pas seulement chez Suarez), l'originalité de Descartes est de les avoir utilisées dans le cadre d'une recherche du fondement de la science. L'auteur de cet article y discute les opinions d'Emanuela Scribano. The question at stake is to know up to what point Descartes borrows the concepts (...) of a deceitful God and an evil genius from Suarez. In fact, though the latter concepts may find their origins in scolastics as such (and not only in Suarez), Descartes' originality rests in having used them within the framework of a research of the foundations of science. The author of the present paper hebery studies and discusses Emanuela Scribano's opinions. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 63 Heft: 5 Seiten: 877-899.

Leibniz et Mallarmé se suivent à cent pages de distance dans La Lisibilité du monde de Hans Blumenberg : ils se rejoignent dans « le Hasard jetant » de Leibniz et le « jet au hasard » du coup de Dés chez Mallarmé.

Bien que les traités de Charles de Bovelles de 1511, qui comprennent le Livre du sage, ne mentionnent pas la métaphysique dans leur titre, ses écrits antérieurs de l’année 1504 portent explicitement sur des questions métaphysiques. En outre, nous pouvons observer une continuité évidente entre ces premières pensées et les écrits ultérieurs du volume de 1511. Dans cette perspective, nous publions ici pour la première fois la traduction française, avec l’original latin, du chapitre 7 de l’ Introduction métaphysique, et du (...) chapitre 5 de l’ Opuscule des notions communes qui regardent la métaphysique. (shrink)

Edition du ms. K 861 découvert à la Bibliothèque humaniste de Sélestat, dans lequel Beatus Rhenanus, étudiant alsacien de Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples et de Charles de Bovelles de 1503 à 1505, rapporte un propos de ce dernier, réunit un ensemble de citations de Nicolas de Cues, et transcrit un opuscule inédit de 62 propositions Sapiens est qui se fecit hominem, que l’on peut attribuer à Bovelles.

Com a publicação do curso de 1933 – 1934 que conclama a “exterminação total” do inimigo interior, o ano de 2001 marca uma inflexão na recepção da obra de Heidegger e exige o exame crítico do uso de termos-chave de sua doutrina, tais como o ser, concebido por ele como “termo codificado” , a história, a técnica e o extermínio ou aniquilamento . Trata-se igualmente de recolocar numa perspectiva crítica o projeto mesmo da “obra completa”.

This paper attempts to show that scientific explanation relies not only on theoretical representation but also on scientific understanding. It introduces a distinction between ‘embodied' and ‘reflective' understanding and argues that both forms of understanding have an important role to play in the constitution of any scientific practise. Other significant features of a scientific practice are the act of explanation and interpretation. Thus, the paper claims that scientists' ability to produce scientific explanations and interpretations rests on both representational and non-representational (...) knowledge. (shrink)