This article examines how digital epidemiology and eHealth coalesce into a powerful health surveillance system that fundamentally changes present notions of body and health. In the age of Big Data and Quantified Self, the conceptual and practical distinctions between individual and population body, personal and public health, surveillance and health care are diminishing. Expanding on Armstrong’s concept of “surveillance medicine” to “quantified self medicine” and drawing on my own research on the symbolic power of statistical constructs in medical encounters, this (...) article explores the impact of digital health surveillance on people’s perceptions, actions and subjectivities. It discusses the epistemic confusions and paradoxes produced by a health care system that increasingly treats patients as risk profiles and prompts them to do the same, namely to perceive and manage themselves as a bundle of health and security risks. Since these risks are necessarily constructed in reference to epidemiological data that postulate a statistical gaze, they also construct or make-up disembodied “individuals on alert”. (shrink)

Since the end of the 20th century, patient autonomy does not only aim at protecting patients’ personal rights, but also to promote their active cooperation in the health system. In Germany, the legal development of patient autonomy goes hand in hand with the concerted establishment of patient counseling and training designed to produce „informed decision makers“. This article examines the practice of patient autonomy and its corresponding subject beyond the sphere of formal law. Therefore, it draws on (1) reports of (...) the German „Sachverständigenrates zur Begutachtung der Entwicklung des Gesundheitswesens“ and (2) a medical genetic counseling session. On the basis of an influential political-economic discourse on health policy and an advisory doctor-patient encounter it can be shown that the original goal of patient autonomy, namely the protection of personal freedom, tends to be perverted: Patient counseling and training increasingly requires that autonomy be exercised on the condition that it incorporate an expert-controlled rationality and exhibit the subject-position of an „informed decision maker“. (shrink)

In the article, the main lines of the research and educational cooperation of the linguists of the Bashkir State University and the St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Turnovo are considered. The prospects of these contacts are determined by capabilities of joint development of the long-term research programs in comparative linguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, which can be implement as collective monographs, Ph.D. theses, textbooks of the Russian and the Bulgarian languages, dictionaries (including the multilingual dictionaries). A program of (...) the double diplomas in the specialized training of undergraduates ‘Applied Slavic philology (translation study)‘ as a new form of the cooperation is also considered. (shrink)

This volume offers an English translation of John of St. Thomas's Cursus theologicus I, question I, disputation 2. In this particular text, the Dominican master raises questions concerning the scientific status and nature of theology. At issue, here, are a number of factors: namely, Christianity's continual coming to terms with the "Third Entry" of Aristotelian thought into Western Christian intellectual culture - specifically the Aristotelian notion of 'science' and sacra doctrina's satisfaction of those requirements - the Thomistic-commentary tradition, and the (...) larger backdrop of the Iberian Peninsula's flourishing "Second Scholasticism." In this latter context, John of St. Thomas applies the theological principles of Thomas Aquinas to the Scholastic disputes preoccupying Thomist, Franciscan, and Jesuit theologians, such as Cajetan, Bañez, Luis de Molina, Vazquez, Suárez - to name only a few - in a tour de force of theological thinking throughout the entire period of Scholasticism. In the process - and not insignificantly - the status quaestionis of theology's scientific character is clearly framed and answered according to John's satisfaction. Key to John of St. Thomas's resolution of the question is his understanding of the continuity of the power of human reason with the super-intelligibility of divine revelation spelled out in terms of what he calls "virtual revelation." This text presented in this volume is a quintessential example of the deep and abiding harmony that flourished between faith and reason as well as grace and nature within the golden era of Baroque Scholasticism. (shrink)

This paper is based on the concept of environmental political philosophy and from its perspective, it highlights the weaknesses and contradictions of contemporary, existing democracies. It aims to formulate an outline of the concept of environmental democracy, following the accounts of M. Bookchin, R. Morrison and H. Skolimowski, as well as international environmental law enshrined in United Nations documents and resolutions. It is based on the hypothesis that the preservation of a democratic political system in a situation of a collapsing (...) planetary system (the Anthropocene) requires improving the foundations of democratic theory with the insights of the Earth system sciences, particularly of political ecology and critical environmentalism. Through philosophical analysis, explanation and interpretation, this paper explores an environmental democracy that would, on the one hand, preserve the basic constitutional principles of current democratic constitutional regimes, and, on the other hand, reconcile them with the current state of understanding in the Earth sciences concerning the vulnerability of the planetary system. In a sense, J. Habermas’s understanding of human rights characterizes the concept of environmental democracy as a realistic utopia. The author concludes by drawing up the imperative of sustainability, which he sees as a guiding organizing principle of institutions and public policies for the climatic, demographic and economic regime of the Anthropocene. -------------------------- Received: 16/12/2022. Reviewed: 09/03/2023. Accepted: 30/03/2023. (shrink)

It is a reasonable assumption that universal properties of natural languages are not accidental. They occur either because they are underwritten by genetic code, because they assist in language processing or language learning, or due to some combination of the two. In this paper we investigate one such language universal: the suffixing preference across the world’s languages, whereby inflections tend to be added to the end of words. A corpus analysis of child‐directed speech in English found that suffixes were more (...) accurate at cuing the grammatical category of the root word than were prefixes. An artificial language experiment found that there was a learning advantage for suffixes over prefixes in terms of grammatical categorization within an artificial language. The results are consistent with an account of language universals that originate in general purpose learning mechanisms. (shrink)

Over the past 40 years, scholars and practitioners of public relations have often cast public relations workers in the role of the public relations-person-as-corporate-conscience. This work, however, maintains that this construct is so problematic that invoking it is of negligible use in addressing ethical issues that emerge during a crisis. In fact, a complex crisis, such as the Jahi McMath “brain death” case at Children’s Hospital Oakland, demonstrates the need to abandon the PRPaCC construct to better engage affected stakeholders, including (...) “outsiders” to the organization, who often determine whether an organization is facing a crisis. Through an examination of both the concept of the PRPaCC and the McMath crisis, this work makes the case for moving beyond the PRPaCC construct in favor of a more modest role for the public relations person: facilitating widespread ethical deliberation and discussion throughout an organization, potentially helping the organization alleviate concerns that contribute to crises. (shrink)

The concept of attractors is considered critical in the study of dynamical systems as they represent the set of states that a system gravitates toward. However, it is generally difficult to analyze attractors in complex systems due to multiple reasons including chaos, high-dimensionality, and stochasticity. This paper explores a novel approach to analyzing attractors in complex systems by utilizing networks to represent phase spaces. We accomplish this by discretizing phase space and defining node associations with attractors by finding sink strongly (...) connected components within these networks. Moreover, the network representation of phase space facilitates the use of well-established techniques of network analysis to study the phase space of a complex system. We show the latter by introducing a new node-based metric called attractivity which can be used in conjunction with the SSCC as they are highly correlated. We demonstrate the proposed method by applying it to several chaotic dynamical systems and a large-scale agent-based social simulation model. (shrink)

Guillaume St-Laurent | : Le projet philosophique central de Charles Taylor se présente comme une critique de l’« image épistémologique » (epistemological picture) de la raison, critique qui se déploie au nom d’une compréhension de la rationalité humaine plus sensible à sa finitude transcendantale et historique. L’objectif du présent essai consiste à présenter une brève analyse comparative de cette image épistémologique (ou post-cartésienne) ainsi que de la perspective herméneutique que lui oppose notre auteur. En ce sens, nous comparerons tour à (...) tour six aspects déterminants de ces deux conceptions : le caractère « apodictique », « médiationnel », « désengagé », « désignatif », « dépassionné » et « procédural » de la première et le caractère « ad hominem », « immergé », « situé », « expressif », « passionné » et « substantiel » de la seconde. Nous éclairerons en outre les enjeux complexes de cette critique par quelques remarques introductives et conclusives. | : Charles Taylor’s main philosophical project presents itself as a critique of the “epistemological picture” of rationality. This critique is put forward in the name of a new understanding of reason, more sensitive to its transcendental and historical finitude. We herein propose a short comparative analysis of this epistemological (or post-cartesian) picture and Taylor’s hermeneutical perspective. To this effect, we will compare six essential aspects of these two conceptions : the “apodictic”, “mediational”, “disengaged”, “designative”, “dispassionate”, and “procedural” character of the former, and the “ad hominem”, “immerged”, “situated”, “expressive”, “passionate”, and “substantial” character of the latter. We will also try to shed light on these complex issues by some introductive and conclusive remarks. (shrink)

En décrivant la vieillesse comme l’une des modalités d’équilibre possibles des qualités premières qui assurent une santé à l’individu, les auteurs du Corpus hippocratique évitent d’associer systématiquement le vieillissement et la dégénérescence. Cet aspect singulier du corpus comporte pour nous un intérêt éthique : il prémunit contre l’âgisme médical. Cet article aborde la question des différences physiologiques qui caractérisent chacun des âges de la vie en insistant sur le fait que cette conception favorise un traitement égalitaire des patients relativement à (...) l’âge. (shrink)

This paper suggests that lessons from the field of environmental ethics and sociological perspectives on knowledge are important tools for rethinking what type of ethical analysis is needed for building up further the field of development ethics and, more generally, for addressing some of the most fundamental ethical problems related to global poverty and development. The paper argues for a methodologically pragmatist approach to development ethics that focuses on the interplay between facts, values, concepts and practices. It views development ethics (...) as a hybrid between a public moral?political philosophy and a public conception of social science. Ethical analyses of poverty and development must lead to fundamental changes in the ways knowledge is produced and justified and must challenge the dominance of global institutions and orthodox economics as the single sources of expert knowledge for development. Two of the main tasks of ethical analysis is to provide tools for the formulation of alternative knowledge for development centred on the equal moral worth of all human beings, and to influence global policy making as well as multilateral institutions' goals and policies. The last section of the paper argues that Amartya Sen's version of the Capability Approach is already methodologically pragmatist and points to some convergence between Sen's work and John Dewey's. Further sociological and methodologically pragmatist analysis of the approach is needed to assess the ways in which it is influencing debates on human development and leading to policy changes, and the possible distortions it suffers when adopted by multilateral agencies and policy makers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the international conference on Ethics and Development at Michigan State University, East Landing (USA) 8?15 April 2005. The section on methodological pragmatism draws from an unpublished paper written with Andrew Light called ?A Pragmatist Methodology for Development Ethics,? presented at the American Philosophical Association (APA) meeting in New York, December 1999. I have updated, transformed and used some parts and insights developed with Light in a way he may not recognize. (shrink)

Interpretation of devotion based on wayang stories and the Bible.

Guillaume St-Laurent | : Dans ses récentes méditations philosophiques, Claude Romano soutient non seulement que la phénoménologie ne devrait plus être cartésienne, mais qu’elle ne peut plus l’être, car un doute universel serait lui-même foncièrement absurde du point de vue phénoménologique. L’objectif du présent essai est de contester qu’une telle réfutation phénoménologique du cartésianisme soit possible. En ce sens, nous soutiendrons que les arguments anti-sceptiques de Romano s’avèrent insuffisants parce que le doute hyperbolique est une possibilité de pensée qui, bien (...) que spéculative, demeure à la fois intelligible et plus radicale que toute description d’essence ou « réduction eidétique ». | : In his recent philosophical contributions, French phenomenologist Claude Romano maintained not only that phenomenology should not be Cartesian, but that it cannot be Cartesian because the very idea of a universal doubt would be utterly absurd from a phenomenological perspective. Our objective is to show that such a phenomenological refutation of Cartesianism is impossible. After reviewing the two main anti-skeptical arguments propounded by Romano, we will support a simple critical thesis : the hyperbolical doubt is an irreducible possibility of thought which, although “speculative,” remains nevertheless actual and more radical than any phenomenological description. (shrink)

De part en part traversé par le mythe, le Commentaire sur la République du Néoplatonicien Proclus accorde forcément une attention soutenue au symbole. Cet article se propose de mettre en lumière deux types de symbolisme que l’on trouve dans ce Commentaire. Le premier, «non imitatif», reconfigure significativement l’héritage des Formes intelligibles platoniciennes; le second, tiré des Oracles chaldaïques, consiste en une «intériorisation» du symbole. Les deux symbolismes se rejoignent en ce qu’ils impliquent une sympathie profonde entre toutes choses, et présupposent (...) la communication préalable des symboles tant dans la genèse que dans l’interprétation du mythe inspiré. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of love in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. I argue that an essential aspect of Cyrus’ knowledgeable rule is a specific understanding of eros and a corresponding strategy to cope with the power of love. Specifically, I contend that by exploiting a common Greek distinction between the beloved and the lover, he articulates the view that lovers are subjects or even slaves to their beloved who deceive themselves into thinking that their attraction and the ensuing behaviors are voluntary. (...) Accordingly, Cyrus attempts to avoid falling in love and to rule as a universally beloved leader. Reflecting on the implications of this solution, I finally suggest that Xenophon wishes to show the limits of Cyrus’ solution. (shrink)

The conservative, mainly Anglo-Saxon, critique of “social engineering” in Enlightenment thinking, which goes back to Edmund Burke and David Hume, among others, has recently resurfaced in the works of Michael Oakeshott, Roger Scruton, and Friedrich Hayek. This article focuses on their conservative critiques and more specifically on two common issues: the unintended negative consequences of political planning, and the institutions in civil society that act as a positive counterpart to this form of engineering.

Introduction and acknowledgments -- What is happening to us? and why? -- So much information is changing how we think -- Communication, entertainment, and over-stimulation -- Work : how it changes and how it changes us -- New behaviors and changes in manners -- Faster and faster time -- Families, women, and sex -- Making sense of contradictory social trends -- Conclusion.

ABSTRACT The expansion of health research to low and middle income countries has increased the likelihood of exploitation and undue influence in economically vulnerable populations. In behavioral research, “reasonable availability”, which was originally developed for biomedical research and advocates for the equitable provision of any product developed during the research process, cannot always prevent exploitation. In such cases and settings, the informed consent process may lack cross-cultural validity and therapeutic misconceptions may arise. This article advocates for a mutual learning framework (...) where international researchers can gain cultural competence while training and empowering local partners, increasing community ownership of health research. (shrink)