Should high‐income countries engage in solar geoengineering research and possible deployment? On the assumption that the speed of the energy transition will be insufficient to abate catastrophic climate impacts, research into solar geoengineering begins to look like a technically and socially feasible route to mitigate such impacts. But on the assumption that a rapid and relatively just energy transition is still within the realm of political possibility, research into solar geoengineering looks more like an ideological tool designed to divert time (...) and resources from less risky climate solutions. At the heart of debates over solar geoengineering, then, is disagreement over what political actors can be expected to do in the future. In this article, I argue that both objectors to and proponents of solar geoengineering research often make background assumptions regarding expected future actions that are either (a) inaccurate or (b) inconsistent. I propose an account of expected future actions that avoids these problems and sketch what the debate over solar geoengineering looks like with these assumptions in place. (shrink)

Metaphors abound in descriptions of the COVID-19 pandemic: it is described, among other things, as a war, a flood, and a marathon. However, not all metaphors may resonate equally well with members...

Medical imaging has provided insight into the living body that were not possible beforehand. With these methods a revolution in medical diagnosis and biomedical research has begun. Problematic aspects on the other hand are arising from the highly constructive properties of image production, which use complicated physical and physiological effects. Images are established via highly complicated combinations of technology and contingently chosen mathematical and algorithmic solutions. In addition, image construction follows properties of the human visual and cognitive system to allow (...) for the discrimination of the desired categories. It is no wonder that the visualizations referring to the body also show effects which have no physiological correlation within the body. Still such images are often used as if they were one-to-one correlates of the body. This has impacts, e.g. for their use as standardizing instances, resulting in new definitions of the normed healthy body, sickness or pathologies, maleness and femaleness and in determinisms as opposed to the brain's plasticity and variability, both in time and space, inter- as well as intra-individually. (shrink)

How do we switch between “playing along” and treating robots as technical agents? We propose interaction breakdowns to help solve this “social artifact puzzle”: Breaks cause changes from fluid interaction to explicit reasoning and interaction with the raw artifact. These changes are closely linked to understanding the technical architecture and could be used to design better human–robot interaction (HRI).

ArgumentIn 1877, a young mathematician named Joseph Boussinesq presented amémoireto theAcadémiedes sciences which demonstrated that some differential equations may have more than one solution. Boussinesq linked this fact to indeterminism and to a possible solution to the free will versus determinism debate. Boussinesq's main interest was to reconcile his philosophical and religious views with science by showing that matter and motion do not suffice to explain all there is in the world. His argument received mixed criticism that addressed both his (...) philosophical views and the scientific content of his work, pointing to the physical “realisticness” of multiple solutions. While Boussinesq proved to be able to face the philosophical criticism, the scientific objections became a serious problem, thus slowly moving the focus of the debate from the philosophical plane to the scientific one. This change of perspective implied a wide discussion on topics such as instability, the sensitivity to initial conditions, and the conservation of energy. The Boussinesq debate is an example of a philosophically motivated debate that transforms into a scientific one, an example of the influence of philosophy on the development of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to reconsider MacIntyre’s notion of an educated public. In particular, I aim to do so in light of his recent elucidation of the role of philosophical education in rejecting, or at least challenging, predominant and shared cultural assumptions. I begin by outlining MacIntyre’s original case for an educated public as found in The Idea of an Educated Public. I then briefly consider and respond to three prominent criticisms of MacIntyre’s original explication of the notion. In (...) responding to these criticisms, it will be made clear that subtle shifts in MacIntyre’s subsequent treatments of the notion reduces the dependency of such a public’s existence on the university. I conclude by arguing that the development in MacIntyre’s articulation of the necessary conditions for an educated public when considered in conjunction with his recent defence of the conditions for an ‘adequate philosophical education’ provides his philosophy of education with the conceptual resources needed to break free of a final difficulty which MacIntyre himself has articulated. Specifically, I contend that the four stages of an adequate philosophical education MacIntyre outlines are such that they need not be restricted to implementation in formal educational institutions such as the university. (shrink)

Die Kategorie des Menschseins wird aufgrund wechselnder Wissensbestände und Orientierungskrisen immer wieder neu bestimmt. Das Ästhetische ist damit eng verbunden. 'Aisthesis' ist erstens eine Form der sinnlichen und empfindenden Wahrnehmung, ein vorrationaler 'way of worldmaking' (Nelson Goodman), der den Bezug des Menschen zu sich und seiner Welt moduliert. Ästhetische Vorstellungen grundieren zweitens aber auch die Idee des Humanen und die Normen menschlicher Handlungs-weisen. Und drittens sind ästhetische Erkenntnis- und Ausdrucksformen Teil eines 'selbstgesponnenen Bedeutungsgewebes' (Clifford Geertz) der Kultur, das die Grenzen (...) und das 'Andere' des Menschen bestimmt. Der interdisziplinäre Sammelband vereint aus verschiedenen Fächern und Forschungsperspektiven heraus Einblicke in die Wechselwirkungen zwischen anthropologischen Fragestellungen und ästhetischen Formationen. Mit Beiträgen von Horst Bredekamp, Steffen Martus, Martin Seel, Christoph Wulf, Elisabeth Timm u.a. (shrink)

State governments provide preprinted advance directive forms to the general public. However, many adults in the United States (US) lack the skills necessary to read and comprehend health care-related materials. In this study, we sought to determine the readability of state government-sponsored advance directive forms.

Die philosophische Rede von der Schuld umgreift ein breites Bedeutungsspektrum, von der Existenz- und Religionsphilosophie bis zur Ästhetik. Hegel bestimmt den Begriff der Schuld jedoch vornehmlich im Zusammenhang seiner Lehre von der Handlung als einem konstitutiven Bestandteil seiner Moralitätskonzeption. Zentraler Gegenstand dieser Untersuchung sind deshalb Hegels Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts; sie bezieht jedoch auch handlungstheoretische Aspekte der Phänomenologie des Geistes, der Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte sowie der Wissenschaft der Logik ein. Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem von Hegel begründeten (...) und mit seiner Schuld- und Strafkonzeption untrennbar verwobenen Begriff der Handlung erfolgt jedoch nicht im rein philosophiehistorischen Interesse, sondern sie erweist Hegels Handlungskonzeption mit Blick auf aktuelle Diskussionen innerhalb der Rechtswissenschaft als bedeutenden historisch-systematischen Bezugspunkt sowie als mitunter notwendiges Korrektiv."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Here moral problems created by the use of constructive imaging technologies within the life sciences are discussed. It specifically deals with the creation of dichotomies, such as gender, race and other differences, created and manifested through the contingent use of scientific and computational models and methods, channelling the production process of scientific results and images. Gender in technology studies has been concerned with destabilizing essentialist and dichotomous co-constructions of gender and technology. In the technological construction process gendered social constructions of (...) stereotypes and inequalities both of the technological models and of the presumptions in life sciences become structural properties of the artefacts, again flowing back into the seemingly objective results and knowledge of the life sciences. Here we will deal with the construction of gender differences via biomedical imaging and the creation of norms in atlases. Additionally, the de-contextualized images, showing idiosyncratic selections and reducing complexity are used to popularize gendered assumptions about biological facts. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the (re-)conceptualisation of responsible innovation by proposing an evolutionary economic approach that focuses on the role of consumers in the innovation process. After a discussion of the philosophical foundations and ethical implications of this approach, which bears an explanatory potential that has not been adequately considered in previous discussions of responsible innovation, we present a first step towards capturing the important but often neglected role of consumers in innovation processes (including responsible innovation): We propose an agent-based (...) model that incorporates a multidimensional space of characteristics in which new products or services are represented by more than the mere aspect of price and quality. Instead, innovations are denoted by a large set of characteristics, including also negative or harmful ones. The model is used to illustrate that consumers’ heterogeneity and bounded rationality – even if considered in a simple manner – indeed play a crucial role in the creation and diffusion of responsible innovation which can and should be used for further work in this field and for possible extensions of the model. (shrink)