This article attempts a re-configuration of silence, suicidal identity deconstruction and the politics of anti-racism. I will explore the potential of dismantling whiteness by way of a silence that involves the refusal to claim whiteness, a whiteness that, in effect, denies humanity to ‘others’. Such silences are insubordinate, as they challenge the hegemony of a racialized polity, attempting to resist its privileges, as well as its destructive and restrictive consequences.

BackgroundResearch using data from medical care promises to advance medical science and improve healthcare. Academia is not the only sector that expects such research to be of great benefit. The research-based health industry is also interested in so-called ‘real-world’ health data to develop new drugs, medical technologies or data-based health applications. While access to medical data is handled very differently in different countries, and some empirical data suggest people are uncomfortable with the idea of companies accessing health information, this paper (...) aims to advance the ethical debate about secondary use of medical data generated in the public healthcare sector by for-profit companies for medical research (ReuseForPro).MethodsWe first clarify some basic concepts and our ethical-normative approach, then discuss and ethically evaluate potential claims and interests of relevant stakeholders: patients as data subjects in the public healthcare system, for-profit companies, the public, and physicians and their healthcare institutions. Finally, we address the tensions between legitimate claims of different stakeholders in order to suggest conditions that might ensure ethically sound ReuseForPro.ResultsWe conclude that there are good reasons to grant for-profit companies access to medical data if they meet certain conditions: among others they need to respect patients’ informational rights and their actions need to be compatible with the public’s interest in health benefit from ReuseForPro. (shrink)

Examines how the animal/human divide has influenced power dynamics. The division of life into animal and human is one of the fundamental schisms found within political societies. Ironically, given the immense influence of the animal/human divide, especially upon power dynamics, the discipline in charge of theorizing and studying power—political science and theory—has had little to say about the animal/human. This book seeks to amend this vast oversight. Acknowledging the complexity of the changing differences between animals and humans, the contributors explore (...) such topics as Marx, Freud, the animal, and civilization; dog breeding, racism, and democracy; the meaningful silences of animals; how sovereignty reconfigures the animal/human; and the paradoxical struggles against being dehumanized among immigrant workers in a slaughterhouse. Political Theory and the Animal/Human Relationship is necessary reading for anyone who wants to understand how power has been influenced by the animal/human divide, and what we can do about it. (shrink)

Direct brain intervention based mental capacity restoration techniques-for instance, psycho-active drugs-are sometimes used in criminal cases to promote the aims of justice. For instance, they might be used to restore a person's competence to stand trial in order to assess the degree of their responsibility for what they did, or to restore their competence for punishment so that we can hold them responsible for it. Some also suggest that such interventions might be used for therapy or reform in criminal legal (...) contexts-i.e. to make non-responsible and irresponsible people more responsible. However, I argue that such interventions may at least sometimes fail to promote these responsibility-related legal aims. This is because responsibility hinges on other factors than just what mental capacities a person has-in particular, it also hinges on such things as authenticity, personal identity, and mental capacity ownership-and some ways of restoring mental capacity may adversely affect these other factors. Put one way, my claim is that what might suffice for the restoration of competence need not necessarily suffice for the restoration of responsibility, or, put another way, that although responsibility indeed tracks mental capacity it may not always track restored mental capacities. (shrink)

In this article, we draw upon the notion that employees’ work characteristics are an important pathway through which leaders influence employee well-being and propose a theoretical framework that integrates perspectives on leadership, occupational stress, and job design. Based on this integrative approach, we developed the health- and development-promoting leadership behavior questionnaire (HDLBQ) for assessing job demands emanating from and job resources provided through the leader. Validation of the measure in German, French, and English using an overall sample of 2,934 employees (...) demonstrated adequate psychometric properties. An examination of the factorial structure revealed three higher-order factors: demanding, development-oriented, and support-oriented leadership. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis indicated structural equivalence across the three language versions of the HDLBQ. Correlations with employee well-being were moderate, and the HDLBQ explained unique variance in employee well-being beyond that explained by transformational leadership. Suggestions for applications of the HDLBQ and approaches to enhance employee well-being at the workplace are discussed. (shrink)

Kit Fine’s logic of essence and his reduction of modality crucially rely on a principle called the ‘monotonicity of essence’. This principle says that for all pluralities, xx and yy, if some xx belong to some yy, then if it is essential to xx that p, it is also essential to yy that p. I argue that on the constitutive notion of essence, this principle is false. In particular, I show that this principle is false because it says that some (...) propositions are essential to yy even though those propositions are only about some of its members. I then consider modifications to the principle appealing to consequential essence and argue that such a modification is inconsistent with a central. (shrink)

An important task in mathematical sciences is to make quantitative predictions, which is often done via the solution of differential equations. In this paper, we investigate why, to perform this task, scientists sometimes choose to use numerical methods instead of analytical solutions. Via several examples, we argue that the choice for numerical methods can be explained by the fact that, while making quantitative predictions seems at first glance to be facilitated by analytical solutions, this is actually often much easier with (...) numerical methods. Thus we challenge the widely presumed superiority of analytical solutions over numerical methods. (shrink)

The transference theory reduces causation to the transmission of physical conserved quantities, like energy or momenta. Although this theory aims at applying to all felds of physics, we claim that it fails to account for a quantum electrodynamic effect, viz. the Aharonov-Bohm effect. After having argued that the Aharonov-Bohm effect is a genuine counter-example for the transference theory, we offer a new physicalist approach of causation, ontic and modal, in which this effect is embedded.

In this chapter, we propose an ecological hermeneutic phenomenology to study both the ontic and ontological structures of new and emerging technologies. In section 2, we first consult the traditional concept of phenomenology to find an entry point for our methodological considerations. It will become clear that Heidegger provides a progressive concept of hermeneutic phenomenology, although we are critical of his essentialism and linguistic focus in which there seems to be no room for the phenomenological consideration of ontic phenomena. The (...) discussion of Heidegger results in a methodological concept of an empirically informed ecological hermeneutic phenomenology that enables us to research how new and emerging technologies impact the World in which we live and act. Subsequently, we critically reflect on the epoché of phenomenology and show that a methodological concept of ecological hermeneutic phenomenology engages in an ecological transduction from technology as thematic artefact to technology as co-thematic ontological structure in which each and every artefact is grounded. (shrink)

Uffink and Valente claim that there is no time-asymmetric ingredient that, added to the Hamiltonian equations of motion, allows to obtain the Boltzmann equation within the Lanford’s derivation. This paper is a discussion and a reply to that analysis. More specifically, I focus on two mathematical tools used in this derivation, viz. the Boltzmann–Grad limit and the incoming configurations. Although none of them are time-asymmetric ingredients, by themselves, I claim that the use of incoming configurations, as taken within the B–G (...) limit, is such a time-asymmetric ingredient. Accordingly, this leads to reconsider a kind of Stoßzahlansatz within Lanford’s derivation. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a discrete solution for the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. I argue that Achilles overtakes the tortoise after a finite number of steps of Zeno’s argument if time is represented as discrete. I then answer two objections that could be made against this solution. First, I argue that the discrete solution is not an ad hoc solution. It is embedded in a discrete formulation of classical mechanics. Second, I show that the discrete solution cannot (...) be falsified experimentally. (shrink)

Philosophical compatibilism reconciles moral responsibility with determinism, and some neurolaw scholars think that it can also reconcile legal views about responsibility with scientific findings about the neurophysiological basis of human action. Although I too am a compatibilist, this paper argues that philosophical compatibilism cannot be transplanted “as-is” from philosophy into law. Rather, before compatibilism can be re-deployed, it must first be modified to take account of differences between legal and moral responsibility, and between a scientific and a deterministic world view, (...) and to address a range of conceptual, normative, empirical and doctrinal problems that orbit its capacitarian core. (shrink)

This is a discussion of the reaction to the recent research article publication in the journal Protein & Cell by a group of scientists at Sun Yat-sen University using the CRISPR/Cas9 technique on editing non-viable human zygotes. Many commentators condemned the Chinese scientists for overstepping ethical boundaries long accepted in Western countries and accused China of having lax regulations on genomic research in general. We argue that not only did this research follow strict ethical standards and fully comply with current (...) regulations, but China also has a well-developed regulatory framework governing such research comparable to many developed countries. We see the reactions among Western commentators as a misunderstanding of the current situation and an expression of a lack of willingness to acknowledge China as an equal partner in the international debate about proper limits to the development of new biotechnologies. (shrink)

Je propose d’analyser une pratique de la recherche en mathématiques constructives, celle qui consiste à reformuler constructivement les théories physiques. Je discute plus précisément trois aspects de cette pratique. Je montre d’abord que celle-ci a la particularité d’être motivée par des considérations philosophiques et comment la physique est utilisée pour arbitrer un débat de philosophie des mathématiques entre constructivisme et classicisme. Ensuite, j’identifie la méthodologie de la recherche en mathématiques que cette pratique implique et montre qu’il s’agit, selon une terminologie (...) empruntée à Poincaré, d’une méthodologie de « logiciens ». Enfin, je montre que dans cette pratique, les théories physiques ont un rôle heuristique sur le développement des mathématiques constructives. Elles permettent avec succès de stimuler la recherche d’énoncés constructifs et d’orienter la recherche en mathématiques constructives vers de nouveaux domaines. (shrink)

Explores the generic foundations of political theory in the twentieth century. It sorts and analyses the overarching perceptions of the political theory, at a broad level of generality, during the bulk of the century. The five positions outlined are normative political theory, institutional theory, historical political theory, empirical political theory, and ideological theory.

It is generally assumed that sustainable development and economic growth are compatible objectives. Because this assumption has been left unspecified, the debate on sustainability and growth has remained vague and confusing. Attempts at specification not only involve clarification of the interrelation of the two concepts, but also, we argue, require a philosophical approach in which the concepts of sustainability and economic growth are analyzed in the context of our frame of reference. We suggest that if the notion of sustainability is (...) to be taken seriously, the conflicting conceptual and normative orientations between the two concepts require the reconsideration of our frame of reference. (shrink)

General theories are reductionist explications of apparently independent facts. Here, in reviewing the literature, I develop a GT to simplify the cluttered landscape of cancer therapy targets by revealing they cluster parsimoniously according to only a few underlying principles. The first principle is that targets can be only exploited by either or both of two fundamentally different approaches: causality-inhibition, and ‘acausal’ recognition of some marker or signature. Nonetheless, each approach must achieve both of two separate goals, efficacy and selectivity ; (...) if the mechanisms are known, this provides a definition of rational treatment. The second principle is target fragmentation, whereby the target may perform up to three categoric functions, potentially mediated by physically different target molecules, even on different cell types, or circulating freely. This GT remains incomplete until the minimal requirements for cure, or alternatively, proof that cure is impossible, become predictable. A reductionist General Theory of Cancer Targets is presented, proposing that all good targets are based either on causality-inhibition, or recognition; essential tasks emerge differently in each case. Sophisticated hybrids may provide additional benefit. General theory analysis, including target fragmentation concepts, provides deeper insights into therapeutic mechanisms. (shrink)

Solidarité est un maître-mot des discours éthiques et politiques contemporains. Sa relative banalisation ne devrait pourtant pas faire oublier l'intense travail de pensée, pluridisciplinaire, qui sous-tend son élaboration, en particulier au sein du solidarisme. On s'intéressera ici tout particulièrement à l'apport du protestantisme aux idées de coopération, d'équité, de service public et de don. Des idées qui témoignent de la force d'un projet éthique souvent inspiré de Kant mais aussi de la liberté critique des solidaristes, qui n'ont pas hésité à (...) réinterpréter le Kantisme dans le cadre d'une anthropologie soucieuse de pratiques concrètes. Solidarity is a keyword of contemporary ethical and political views. Although it has become a relatively commonplace term, one should not forget the hard work of underlying multidisciplinary thinking behind its elaboration, especially in Solidarism. This paper deals particularly with the contribution of Protestantism to the ideas of cooperation, equity, public service, and donation. These ideas witness to the power of an ethical project that is often inspired by Kant, but also by the critical freedom of the Solidarists, who did not hesitate to reinterpret Kantianism in the setting of an anthropology preoccupied with concrete practices. (shrink)

Réunies en collectif de recherche et d'écriture, cinq femmes psychanalystes se penchent sur la question très actuelle de l'affirmation de la femme, portée par la figure inconsciente de l'Animus. Elles revendiquent une remise en cause des théories de CG Jung sur l'Animus, et des points de vue passéistes qui irriguent la littérature traitant de ce sujet à la suite du "maître". Elles témoignent ici en toute liberté de leurs expériences psychiques et de leur relation avec cette âme masculine inconsciente. Plusieurs (...) sujets sont abordés : la femme et sa créativité, le corps de la femme, l'épreuve du manque de père, l'expression de la femme et celle de la mère, la femme et la violence, la femme entre archaïsme et modernité. Un livre dont la forme fait une large part aux illustrations et au graphisme pour offrir un ensemble accessible même aux non-spécialistes. (shrink)

It is acknowledged that the study of metaphor is a key inflection in Ricœur’s heremeneutics. It is perhaps less well known that this study is concomittant with one of parables, which represents an equally noteworthy inflection in Ricœur’s contribution to Biblical hermeneutics. Some, however, use this concommitance to argue that the transfer of some theological presuppositions (as to the nature of language and the Truth) is facilitated by this and then do not hesitate to claim that the pages devoted to (...) tha analogia entis , in The Rule of Metaphor , are proof of the presence of dubious theological interests in the development of his theory of metaphor. To counter this devastating critique, this article draws from some analyses by Umberto Eco, which imply that the relation between analogia entis and metaphor are not epistemologically scandalous as well as Alain, who sketched out an interpretation of parables which is very close to Ricœur’s. (shrink)

Vivons-nous dans un monde " désenchanté " ? Constater l'emprise de la rationalité instrumentale, voire procédurale, ne devrait pas nous faire oublier que modernité et processus de rationalisation ne se sont imposés, au travers de changements lexicaux notables, qu'après avoir remplacé par d'autres les plus anciennes représentations relatives à la condition humaine. D'hier à aujourd'hui, l'imaginaire n'est donc pas moindre. En revanche, nos capacités d'imaginer se sont dangereusement amenuisées, en même temps que l'imagination est devenue suspecte, sinon coupable, de nous (...) détourner de l'action responsable. Do we live in a " disenchanted " world ? Once we note the ascendancy of instrumental and even procedural rationality, we should not forget that modernity and the process of rationalisation have prevailed only after having replaced the oldest representations of the human condition, and moreover through important lexical changes. This implies that the imaginary has not decreased overnight. On the other hand, our capacities of imagination have diminished dangerously, whereas in the same time imagination is suspected or even accused of turning us away from responsible action. (shrink)

This is a report on the 3-day workshop “The Neuroscience of Responsibility” that was held in the Philosophy Department at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands during February 11th–13th, 2010. The workshop had 25 participants from The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, UK, USA, Canada and Australia, with expertise in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry and law. Its aim was to identify current trends in neurolaw research related specifically to the topic of responsibility, and to foster international collaborative research on this topic. (...) The workshop agenda was constructed by the participants at the start of each day by surveying the topics of greatest interest and relevance to participants. In what follows, we summarize (1) the questions which participants identified as most important for future research in this field, (2) the most prominent themes that emerged from the discussions, and (3) the two main international collaborative research project plans that came out of this meeting. (shrink)