Adolescent pregnancy results from the complex interaction between various internal and external vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities persist after the infant's birth when the adolescent becomes a parent. Adolescent parents are unfairly stereotyped as unmotivated and incompetent. Some legislations prohibit adolescents from giving consent on the grounds of incompetency. Despite being different, “competency” is frequently used interchangeably with “capacity”; thus, incompetent individuals are often mistaken to lack capacity. Consequently, legally incompetent adolescents who became parents are frequently disregarded during their infant's decision-making process. (...) This article discusses the distinction between the competence and capacity of adolescent parents, the various vulnerabilities that contribute to an adolescent's incompetency, and advocates respect for the adolescent's capacity in making decisions for her infant. We propose a workflow for obtaining informed consent for infants born to adolescents ethically guided by the respect for individuals principle while staying within the country's legal framework. (shrink)

This study explores the potential of contemporary large language models (LLMs) to achieve Gilles Deleuze’s goal of integrating art into daily life. Deleuze’s philosophy, with its focus on creative repetition, finds a parallel in LLMs, which replicate and innovate artistic styles by transforming text prompts into various artistic expressions. Although LLMs can very effectively blend and mimic these styles, they remain mere tools – as suggested by the metaphor of a stochastic parrot; the true creative force remains the human artist. (...) Currently, these models are experimental, and their artistic outputs, while impressive, are still viewed as pastiches rather than genuine art. Nonetheless, we can expect advances that may soon enable artists to use LLMs to create genuine artworks. (shrink)

Twentieth-century political philosopher Eric Voegelin is best known as a severe critic of modernity. Much of his work argues that modernity is a Gnostic revolt against the fundamental structure of reality. For Voegelin, “Gnosticism” is the belief that human beings can transform the nature of reality through secret knowledge and social action, and he considered it the crux of the crisis of modernity. As Voegelin struggled with this crisis throughout his career, he never wavered in his judgment that philosophers of (...) the modern continental tradition were complicit in the Gnostic revolt of modernity. But while Voegelin’s analysis of those philosophers is at times scathing, his work also bears marks of their influence, and Voegelin has much more in common with the theorists of the modern continental tradition than is usually recognized. _Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition: Explorations in Modern Political Thought _evaluates this political philosopher—one of the most original and influential thinkers of our time—by examining his relationship to the modern continental tradition in philosophy, from Kant to Derrida. In a compelling introduction, editors Lee Trepanier and Steven F. McGuire present a review of the trajectories of Voegelin’s thought and outline what often is portrayed as his derisive critique of modernity. Soon, however, they begin to unravel the similarities between Voegelin’s thought and the work of other thinkers in the continental tradition. The subsequent chapters explore these possible connections by examining Voegelin’s intellectual relationship to individual thinkers, including Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The essays in this volume go beyond Voegelin’s own reading of the modern philosophers to offer a reevaluation of his relationship to those thinkers. In _Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition_, Voegelin’s attempt to grapple with the crisis of modernity becomes clearer, and his contribution to the modern continental tradition is illuminated. The book features the work of both established and emerging Voegelin scholars, and the essays were chosen to present thoughtful and balanced assessments of both Voegelin’s thought and the ideas of the other thinkers considered. As the first volume to examine the relationship—and surprising commonalities—between Voegelin’s philosophy and the continental tradition as a whole, this text will be of interest not only to Voegelin disciples but to philosophers engaged by continental modernism and all disciplines of political philosophy. (shrink)

For over 100 years, the field of contemporary public health has existed to improve the health of communities and populations. As public health practitioners conduct their work – be it focused on preventing transmission of infectious diseases, or prevention of injury, or prevention of and cures for chronic conditions – ethical dimensions arise. Borrowing heavily from the ethical tools developed for research ethics and bioethics, the nascent field of public health ethics soon began to feel the limits of the (...) clinical model and began creating different frameworks to guide its ethical challenges. Several public health ethics frameworks have been introduced since the late 1990s, ranging from extensions of principle-based models to human rights and social justice perspectives to those based on political philosophy. None has coalesced as the framework of choice in the discipline of public health. This paper examines several of the most-known frameworks of public health ethics for their common theoretical underpinnings and values, and suggests next steps toward the formulation of a single framework. (shrink)

This article has the purpose of examining the commentation that Sung-ho Yi Ik and Da-san Jung Yak-yong developed of Sa-chil Debate (사칠논쟁) Which was a philosophical debate in Chosun Dynasty. Sa-chil Debate began from Toe-gye Yi Whang and Ko-bong Gi Dae-sung and soon as a result of Yul-gok Yi Yi and Woo-gae Sung Hon repeating the debate, It appeared as a kind of philosophical theme. After that, Yul-gok and Toe-gye's students formed a kind of school. They also made the (...) debate extended and the theory more sophisticated by criticizing a counterpart's argument on base of ideologizing their teacher's theory. About 200 years after Toe-gye died, Sung-ho Yi Ik was born and after about 250 years, Da-san Jung Yak-yong was born. Both they experienced a western naturalscience and a catholic theory as Silhak Scholars (실학자). Therefore their this kind of interpretation about Sung-li Debate must be offering a deeply interesting investigation to us. In conclusion, Sung-ho advocated Toe-gye's theory at all, adding more explanation to it and Da-san evaluated all of Toe-gye's and Yul-gok's theory to be right because their theories have a unique logicality of making a sense. Sung-ho stood on a Shilhak view point gave up a organic cosmology ofSung-li theory which has a continuity to cosmology and moral theory, arguing Sa-chil-Li bal-Yil-lo Theory (四七理發一路說) by understanding Sa-chil Debate based on only moral perspective. Even though Da-san also said Yang-si Theory (兩是論) that both their theories are all right, he argued that Toe-gye's theory is much more important in the aspect of moral practice owing to his religious opinion by a catholic affect. By the way, Sung-ho supplemented and explained Toe-gye's theory, but he had not a sufficient logic and was not objective because of his leaning into advocating Toe-gye's theory much further. Da-san had an advantage of evaluating both Toe-gye's and Yul-gok's theory to be all right, but came to argue an insufficient philosophy on account of its simplicity. (shrink)

Marx holds that mankind has developed from nature and in mutual interaction with nature: nature is not an “other” but is man’s body. Capitalism is a necessary stage in mankind’s historical development of the mastery of nature, but it regards nature as an “other” to be exploited. Thus, a further historical development is necessary: the overcoming of the dichotomy between man as subject and nature as object.Capitalism bases its concept of wealth on unnecessary production rather than on socially useful production (...) and on the maximization of true leisure and free and creative activity for all. It creates excess pollution and depletes nonrenewable resources as a result of this wasteful, exploitative, unnecessary production. A Marxian solution to environmental problems involves the replacement of capitalism with a rational humane, environmentally unalienated social order. Unfortunately, the actual practice of Marxism has not generally been in accord with its own theory. Such rational, humane social orders have not yet been instituted, but they must be soon. We must take one aspect of Marx’s ideas to its logical conclusion: Marxist practice has been, at best, homocentric, but now it must overcome that limitation and truly see nature as our “body.” Marxism must become ecologically aware; mankind must become the steward of its “body”: the ecosystem upon which it depends and which now depends upon it for its health (homeostasis). (shrink)

The advent of AI has ushered into public consciousness the question whether the moment of technological singularity—when computational intelligence will surpass humanity’s—is soon upon us. But even...

From the time of the earliest self-conscious emergence of modern painting around 1905, there have not been widely accepted criteria by which to judge the artistic significance and value of the abstract and nonobjective styles that displaced the traditions of representational art. This circumstance has made the education of artists problematic. For the arts of literature and music, modernism was a relatively short-lived phase of innovation and experimentation that was played out in works that defied easy appreciation. The attention of (...) readers was soon exhausted by literary works such as James Joyce’s Ulysses, as was the attention of listeners exhausted by Arnold Schoenberg’s serialism. Authors returned to writing... (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

1. Introduction. The germ of the clock paradox was contained in Einstein's fundamental paper on the special theory of relativity, where he declares that the retardation of a moving clock “still holds good if the clock moves from A to B in any polygonal line, and also when the points A and B coincide.” This remark soon gave rise to a criticism which was to play a prominent role in the discussions of the consistency of the theory of relativity. (...) It was charged that this theory allows the paradoxical conclusion that at the instant of the return of a moving clock U1 to its point of departure A, the time shown by Ul is both earlier and later than the corresponding reading of a clock U2 which has remained stationary at A during U1's journey. Critics based this contention on the following assumptions, for which they claimed the sanction of relativity: The relative motion of U1 and U2 is such that the kinematic process seen by an observer on one of these clocks is of the same character as that seen by an observer on the other, and this symmetry allows each of these two clocks to be used as a reference frame from which to describe the motion of the other, and there is reciprocity between these two reference frames such that in each of them, the moving clock must be slow upon returning to the stationary one. (shrink)

These are carefully placed in the context of Chinese society, demonstrating how Confucius responded to the conflicts and pressures of his time and offered ...

In this paper I will discuss three areas in which advances in human reproductive technology could occur, their uses and abuses, and their effects on society. First is the potential to drastically increase the success rate and availability of in vitro fertilization and embryo freezing. Second is the ability to perform biopsies on embryos prior to the onset of pregnancy. Finally, I will consider the adding or altering of genes in embryos, commonly referred to as genetic engineering.As new reproductive technologies (...) pass from experimental models into the potential for medical utilization, I believe that it will be important for lawmakers everywhere to avoid the impulse to outlaw procedures that a society believes to be unnatural at a first glance. Rather, I would hope that they can respond thoughtfully with legislation that serves two purposes — to protect the rights of couples to overcome infertility or to reduce the risk of genetic disease in their children-to-be, and more importantly, to protect children-to-be from the abuses that could result from some of the practices that I will discuss. (shrink)

Zhi 李贄, also named ( hao 號) Zhuowu 卓吾 (1527–1602), and argues that he articulates a coherent and compelling vision of a good life focused on the expression of genuine feelings distinctive to each individual. Through a study of literary texts and terms of art he refers to in his critical essay “On the Child-like Heart-mind” ( Tongxin Shuo 童心說), as well as the metaphors and images he fleshes out throughout his writings, I characterize Li’s ethical vision and show that (...) it is rooted in a particular loose and accommodating conception of human nature and centered on the simple and intuitive act of daily maintaining the birthright of our “child-like heart-mind.”. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to analyze the current characteristics of organizational culture and climate in Kazakhstani higher educational institutions during the COVID-19 crisis. Materials for the study were collected from interviews and online discussions published on the website of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. In addition, results from the social monitoring systems of the university’s educational activities as well as an official survey have been used. The study offers details of how Kazakhstani universities dealt with the crisis by presenting (...) KazNU case study. The paper presents the responsible actions developed at the university as well as the problems faced by students and teachers. One important lesson to be learnt is that educational organization needs to be more comprehensive, caring for appropriate technical equipment, helping develop skills for staff and students, and include vulnerable groups of the population. (shrink)

Aggleton & Brown rightly point out the shortcomings of the medial temporal lobe hypothesis as an approach to anterograde amnesia. Their broader perspective is a necessary corrective, and one hopes it will be taken very seriously. Although they correctly note the dangers of conflating recognition and recall, they themselves make a similar mistake in discussing familiarity; we suggest an alternative approach. We also discuss implications of their view for an analysis of retrograde amnesia. The notion that there are two routes (...) by which the hippocampus can reactivate neuronal ensembles in the neocortex could help us understand some currently puzzling facts about the dynamics of memory consolidation. (shrink)

Diffusion models are widely-used and successful accounts of the time course of two-choice decision making. Most diffusion models assume constant boundaries, which are the threshold levels of evidence that must be sampled from a stimulus to reach a decision. We summarize theoretical results from statistics that relate distributions of decisions and response times to diffusion models with time-varying boundaries. We then develop a computational method for finding time-varying boundaries from empirical data, and apply our new method to two problems. The (...) first problem involves finding the time-varying boundaries that make diffusion models equivalent to the alternative sequential sampling class of accumulator models. The second problem involves finding the time-varying boundaries, at the individual level, that best fit empirical data for perceptual stimuli that provide equal evidence for both decision alternatives. We discuss the theoretical and modeling implications of using time-varying boundaries in diffusion models, as well as the limitations and potential of our approach to their inference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Peculiarly Favored Condition of GeneticsJames J. Lee, PhD (bio) and Damien Morris, MSc (bio)Turkheimer and Greer (2024) (henceforth “T&G”) make some fair points about problems in the scientific profession, including the regrettable tendency to promise practical applications of research that then never materialize. However, T&G’s sustained critique of a body of work associated with one particular researcher to make these general points struck us as uncharitable. More pressingly, (...) we feel that the far-reaching conclusions that T&G attempt to draw from the results they review from the Spit for Science (S4S) cohort are unjustified and risk misleading readers that psychiatric and behavioral genetics is in a parlous state.T&G state that S4S “produced a clear answer to the question it was designed to address,” namely, that its results “unambiguously contradict the hypothesis that alcohol-related behaviors have a meaningful genetic basis.” But S4S cannot possibly have provided affirmative evidence for the null hypothesis, because as a single cohort it lacked the statistical power to do so. Elsewhere T&G acknowledge that the sample size of S4S does not suffice for many purposes; they cannot have it both ways. When GCTA has been applied to samples of greater size, it has unambiguously supported the hypothesis that alcohol-related behaviors have a meaningful genetic basis. The UK Biobank yielded estimates exceeding 0.10 for the contribution of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with minor allele frequency of greater than 0.05 to the heritability of drinks per week, estimates more than ten times their standard errors (Liu et al., 2019).This heritability contributed by common variants is sometimes called “SNP heritability,” and T&G disparage it for the alleged “disadvantage of being substantially smaller” than “twin and family heritabilities.” Nowhere do T&G consider what the precise numbers actually mean—an approach that can be hazardous to your scientific health, as the late John Loehlin might have said. Let us, then, consider these numbers. Under a model of pure neutrality, SNP and pedigree narrow-sense heritabilities should be fairly close, essentially as a result of factors p(1 − p) canceling in the multiplication of the numbers of SNPs to be found at a given allele frequency by the average heritability contributed per SNP (Hill, 2010). If SNP and pedigree heritabilities are not close, then natural selection must have been acting on [End Page 441] the trait, preventing new mutations of large effect from becoming common and thereby concentrating heritability at allele frequencies lower than those typically studied in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). This deduction has been abundantly confirmed: the tendency of GWAS SNPs to reside in evolutionarily conserved regions (Finucane et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2019), the younger age of GWAS SNPs when compared to control SNPs of comparable frequencies (Gazal et al., 2017), the discovery of several rare variants with larger effects than those observed in typical GWAS (Barton et al., 2021; Chen et al., 2023; Marouli et al., 2017), the directly measured deleterious fitness effects of mutations in evolutionarily constrained genes (Gardner et al., 2022), and the substantial additional genetic variance accumulated when rare variants are included in GCTA-type studies, sometimes enough to close the gap between SNP and pedigree heritabilities (Evans et al., 2018; Jang et al., 2022; Pathan et al., 2024; Wainschtein et al., 2022).The genetic architecture of a typical quantitative trait consists of many sites across the genome that can mutate to affect it, numbering potentially in the millions (Agarwala et al., 2013; Zeng et al., 2021), of which those that are common SNPs have very small effects as a result of selection. This is the message, but T&G seem to find fault with the messenger, painting “tiny” effect sizes as an embarrassment to the field of behavioral genetics as a whole. We prefer to view the finding of high polygenicity as a revelation about nature, rather than as a debating point. What is this finding telling us? If one takes the action of stabilizing selection as the initial assumption (Uyeda et al., 2011), then the extreme polygenicity revealed by GWAS becomes part of the answer to the question regarding how traits can... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Coeditors’ IntroductionRetro III: As We RestartAlyson Cole and Kyoo Leethe covid-19 pandemic drags on, and, as the world is now trying to recover from it by learning to at least live with it better, philoSOPHIA has arrived at the third and final issue of RETRO. The fact that this series ended up being framed by the turbulent temporality of the current pandemic is something that some future editors of (...) philoSOPHIA, too, might find worth remembering.For now, we return to the now-point, as expected. To that end, here we have assembled articles on historical, individual, and gendered stigmas and wounds and traumas, among others, focusing also on their relationships to existential time, namely, present moments that persist.We turn first to the pressing issue presented by “Shackling Pregnant Women: US Prisons, Anti-Blackness, and the Unfinished Project of American Abolition”: Brady Heiner offers a lucid “interpretation of the social meaning of shackling imprisoned pregnant women and its persistence despite widespread normative consensus in favor of its abolition,” a joltingly specific, haunting reminder of how deeply the legacy of slavery is embedded in the US criminal legal system and the ways in which American abolition remains an “unfinished project.”Finally, RETRO III marks an ending and a restart of another kind. As of this issue—or, rather, this volume—philoSOPHIA is transitioning from a biannual to an annual publication schedule. In recent years, the journal has transformed in various ways. In 2018, we adopted a new transContinental approach and, with it, a new subtitle. We have expanded to include different [End Page v] genres, media, and voices, always aiming to reflect on our current moment and rethink persistent feminist philosophical questions from divergent angles. Publishing one volume per year is, we are certain, the best way to sustain this breadth of inquiry and continue deepening our alliances with critical race, disability, literary, media, and queer studies, among other fields. As we restart, readers can expect us to keep pushing boundaries, as we always have, while maintaining the same high quality and standards. This is essentially a change in the journal’s format, not in its substance.Wound/stigma as process also emerged as a key notion in Retro III partly because of our preliminary editorial conversation with Annette-Carina van der Zaag about three years ago, who, in response to our call for proposals on “retro” themes, had proposed an idea of guest editing an issue. Although that plan unfortunately did not materialize as we dealt with various pandemic challenges still faced by so many of us on a daily basis, Annette did write a spirited article while encouraging some other colleagues to explore related ideas, for which we remain grateful. In this piece, “Touching Wounds: On the Fugitivity of Stigma,” which explores stigma’s queer-responsive “transformational energy,” van der Zaag articulates ways of “inhabiting” wounds on three registers—material, affective, and fugitive—as an open-ended, future-embracing pathway beyond identity-bound ontology. Ghalya Saadawi, in turn, in her engagingly autobiographical essay “Critical Incision: Hypochondria, Autotheory, and the Health-Illness Dialectic,” autotheoretically draws out “critical” energy from this critical “illness” of hers, hypochondria, to the effect of destabilizing the temporally linearized and medically coordinated discursive ideals of health and being/living well.Survival, at the end of the day, often requires some literal transcending. A case in point has been movingly portrayed and theorized by Na-Young Lee, a sociologist and justice activist who, in “Multiple Encounters and Reconstructed Identities,” revisits questions of historical trauma and collective stigma. Here, she introduces and reflects on her oral history interviews with Korean “Halmoni Activist-Survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery as Postcolonial Subjects,” with whom she herself continues to fight in solidarity. Focusing on the stories of two foundational figures, “Yun Chung-ok, a leading scholar and activist who, having managed to escape the fate of many other peers, first spoke out about Japanese military sexual slavery, and Kim Bok-dong, a survivor and human rights activist,” Lee shows how “overcoming trauma and reaching out to others continues to drive the redress movement” and how “through mutually constructed identities, activist-survivors broke away from... (shrink)

Mistakes during criminal investigations are costly, leading to wrongful convictions, so it is helpful to employ rigorous analytic methods to help mitigate errors and biases. This paper introduces a new method to help make sense of a set of information, allowing thought processes to be externalised in a systematic and transparent manner. While this method is presented in a criminal investigation context, it can be applied to any situation where analysis of several hypotheses and evidence is required. Open source software (...) was created and used to test the method empirically. A simulated criminal investigation was carried out by seventy-five trainee investigators, the results showed better conclusions were reached when using the method. (shrink)

This study investigated the role of dispositional mindful attention in immediate reactivity to, and subsequent recovery from, laboratory-induced negative emotion. One hundred and fourteen undergraduates viewed blocks of negative pictures followed by neutral pictures. Participants’ emotional responses to negative pictures and subsequent neutral pictures were assessed via self-reported ratings. Participants’ emotional response to negative pictures was used to index level of emotional reactivity to unpleasant stimuli; emotional response to neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures was used to index (...) level of emotional recovery from pre-induced negative emotion. Results indicated that mindful attention was not associated with the emotional response to negative pictures, but it was associated with reduced negative emotion in response to the neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures, suggesting better recovery as opposed to reduced reactivity. This effect was especially pronounced in later experimental blocks when the accumulation of negative stimuli produced greater negative emotion from which participants had to recover. The current study extends previous findings on the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and reduced negative emotion by demonstrating that mindful attention may facilitate better recovery from negative emotion, possibly through more effective disengagement from previous stimuli. (shrink)

This study argues that it is more important to enlighten human mind than to develop key competencies in terms of human development. For this, the current study addresses the limitations of OECD's functional approach to competency development, by exploring the conceptual framework of key competencies identified by OECD researchers. Then, it explores the structure of human mind, drawn from the perspective of the Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) which is one of the important East Asian philosophical traditions that has studied (...) the theme of human being or mind. When based on the analysis of the structure of human mind which uses the perspective of the Doctrine of the Mean, this study found that key competencies that a human being should have are basically produced through the operation of human mind. Also, human mind in the Doctrine of the Mean is 'transformed being' from ego-centered to virtue centered. The findings of this study provide some useful implications for the human development. First, given the nature of the human mind and the important role it plays in human life, the primary focus of education should be placed on enlightening the mind of human beings. Second, this study suggests that school education and extra-curricular activities should not only provide knowledge and techniques that are needed in a modern society, but also make an effort to enlighten human mind. (shrink)