In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, the integration of product-evaluating certificates and reports into advertisements triggered repeated condemnations of “advertisement- Gutachten”, and scientists and science administrators introduced various restrictions to prevent the appearance of such documents. At the same time, the provision of Gutachten to private individuals and firms seemed crucial to the success of many private and public laboratories. Some chemical and other professionals, moreover, argued that the authoring and use of Reklamegutachten could represent a “scientific” and, therefore, (...) ethical practice. By examining the contested history of the advertisement- Gutachten, this article reveals how a previously tolerated knowledge service lost its legitimacy in a particular place and period of time, and highlights the challenges of eliminating this practice or restoring its legitimacy afterward. The article also explores how professional scientists’ approaches to maintaining a reputation for integrity in the face of commercial and competitive pressures related to the better-known efforts of professionals in other fields, particularly the medical. I emphasize that, in determining whether a Gutachten qualified as scientific, the nature and transparency of the underlying research process was only one of the criteria that were considered, and often not the most significant yardstick. At the same time, however, ideas about the personal and professional/institutional integrity of providers of Gutachten were inextricably connected with assessments of the honesty and objectivity of their research. (shrink)

Perfect adaptation in a dynamical system is the phenomenon that one or more variables have an initial transient response to a persistent change in an external stimulus but revert to their original value as the system converges to equilibrium. With the help of the causal ordering algorithm, one can construct graphical representations of dynamical systems that represent the causal relations between the variables and the conditional independences in the equilibrium distribution. We apply these tools to formulate sufficient graphical conditions for (...) identifying perfect adaptation from a set of first-order differential equations. Furthermore, we give sufficient conditions to test for the presence of perfect adaptation in experimental equilibrium data. We apply this method to a simple model for a protein signalling pathway and test its predictions in both simulations and using real-world protein expression data. We demonstrate that perfect adaptation can lead to misleading orientation of edges in the output of causal discovery algorithms. (shrink)

Cette tentative de rapprochement entre l'auteur de la célèbre formule "Dieu est mort" et le soufisme, la gnose et l'hermétisme, trois courants mineurs issus des grandes religions monothéistes, préoccupés par la notion de connaissance, ...

This volume explores the relevance of decline within the republican tradition. The essays in this volume focus on the Dutch Republic during the revolutionary era, as well as early modern Spain and Venice, the German Enlightenment, and the Weimar Republic.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 313-333 [Access article in PDF] Vestige of the Third Force: Willem Bilderdijk, Poet, Anti-Skeptic, Millenarian Joris van Eijnatten One of the unfortunate consequences of Babel is that only the Dutch read Dutch poetry. 1 Although English-speaking historians may have heard of the seventeenth-century poet Joost van den Vondel, who generally qualifies as the greatest literary artist of the Netherlands, virtually (...) no one outside Holland knows Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831), poet, jurist, and man of learning. Robert Southey, having met the poet at his home in Leiden in 1825, lamented several years later the fact that Bilderdijk's fame had not traversed national boundaries: "And who is Bilderdyk?" methinks thou sayest: A ready question; yet which, trust me, Allan, Would not be asked, had not the curse that came From Babel, clipt the wings of Poetry. 2When Southey sojourned in the Netherlands, Bilderdijk had already established his reputation as one of the few unconventional figures in Dutch history, comparable, in this sense, to Coornhert and Spinoza. The most outstanding poet of his age, he dominated nineteenth-century Dutch literature through his versatility, rhetorical prowess and sheer output. He is reputed to have written 300,000 lines of verse, not counting his unpublished poems. He practiced virtually all literary genres, from Pindaric odes and erotic rhyme to didactic poetry. Versed in the classics, he wrote numerous translations of, among many others, Homer, Sophocles, Anacreon, Callimachus, Horace, and Ovid. Bilderdijk was a prolific [End Page 313] writer of essays on subjects ranging from moral philosophy, epistemology, and natural law to aesthetics, architecture, and botany. He translated theological and devotional works, including Thomas Chalmers's Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, Chrysostome's sermons, and books on freemasonry and pneumatology. Besides contributing to perspective drawing, he wrote the first geological study in Dutch. His History of the Fatherland appeared posthumously in thirteen volumes. He himself regarded his linguistic studies and literary essays as his main achievement. Bilderdijk filled thousands of pages with his idiosyncratic views on the gender of nouns, the alphabet, grammar, spelling, medieval manuscripts, tragedy, and drama in general.Not surprisingly, Bilderdijk's varied interests and comprehensive mind have led to different interpretations of his thought. Most are one of two kinds. Writers subscribing to the first interpretation regard him as a somewhat strange but devout apologist for Calvinist orthodoxy. They stress the fact that Bilderdijk was the only intellectual who, in the midst of the soul-destroying rationalism propounded by a complacent liberal establishment, dared to cry out against Revolution and Enlightenment, thus revivifying the religious heart of the nation. 3 Those who follow the second interpretation emphasize the Romantic nature of his thought. This group tends to look upon Bilderdijk as the only true Dutch Romantic, a Wordsworth and Coleridge combined, a metaphysical if rather erratic genius who outgrew the intellectual marshlands of his native country. Writers in this tradition stress his definition of poetry as a spontaneous overflow of feeling, his linguistic achievements, his preoccupation with geology, and his visionary view of Dutch history. 4 One major interpreter, commenting on Bilderdijk's "real position as a philosopher," has stated that "to me there can be no doubt that Bilderdijk should be placed among the post-Kantian idealists like Fichte and Schelling (cf., again, Coleridge!)." 5Such statements are largely products of wishful thinking. Bilderdijk was not a devout Calvinist. He hardly ever went to church, his theology exhibits suspiciously heterodox leanings, and his professed adherence to the doctrine of predestination had less to do with a profound knowledge of the articles of Dort than mystical resignation. Similarly, the depiction of Bilderdijk as a post-Kantian idealist is sympathetic but lacks any evidence. Some literary historians have [End Page 314] tried to salvage the "Romantic" nature of his poetry, but the result is not particularly convincing. 6"And who is Bilderdijk," to echo Southey, if he was neither a Calvinist nor a Romantic? How should one interpret his thought? What should one do... (shrink)

This paper presents Hegel’s criticism of two central ideas of Pyrrhonism: the importance of stating only how things appear and Pyrrhonism as a way of life. After providing a sketch of the main features of Pyrrhonism, the paper lays out and critically evaluates Hegel’s largely unexamined argument against Pyrrhonism in his early 1802 essay on skepticism. Hegel claims that the Pyrrhonist’s appeal to appearance renders Pyrrhonism philosophically vacuous: insofar as Pyrrhonism merely describes the subjective contents of the Pyrrhonist’s mind, it (...) has no philosophical import. Sextus would not accept Hegel’s criticism because the appeal to appearance could express the provisional rather than purely subjective character of Pyrrhonism. The paper proceeds by examining Hegel’s argument in the Phenomenology that skepticism is contradictory on account of conjoining suspension of judgment with acquiescing in appearances as the guide to life. Sextus would reject Hegel’s criticism by insisting on the distinction between judgment and appearance. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence (AI) deployment is growing exponentially, questions have been raised whether the developed AI ethics discourse is apt to address the currently pressing questions in the field. Building on critical theory, this article aims to expand the scope of AI ethics by arguing that in addition to ethical principles and design, the organizational dimension (i.e. the background assumptions and values influencing design processes) plays a pivotal role in the operationalization of ethics in AI development and deployment contexts. Through (...) the prism of critical theory, and the notions of underdetermination and technical code as developed by Feenberg in particular, the organizational dimension is related to two general challenges in operationalizing ethical principles in AI: (a) the challenge of ethical principles placing conflicting demands on an AI design that cannot be satisfied simultaneously, for which the term ‘inter-principle tension’ is coined, and (b) the challenge of translating an ethical principle to a technological form, constraint or demand, for which the term ‘intra-principle tension’ is coined. Rather than discussing principles, methods or metrics, the notion of technical code precipitates a discussion on the subsequent questions of value decisions, governance and procedural checks and balances. It is held that including and interrogating the organizational context in AI ethics approaches allows for a more in depth understanding of the current challenges concerning the formalization and implementation of ethical principles as well as of the ways in which these challenges could be met. (shrink)

People narrating the experience of dysregulated anger after a brain injury call upon metaphor in patterned ways to help them make sense of their situation. Here, I analyze the use of the metaphor of the doubled self in a personal narrative of brain injury, and I situate this metaphor in its cultural history by analyzing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Incredible Hulk as landmark moments in its development. A pattern of thought reflecting Seneca’s philosophy on the incompatibility of (...) anger with rational selfhood emerges. I discuss implications for the way we care for people struggling with post-brain-injury anger. (shrink)

In this review of empirical studies we aimed to assess the influence of religion and world view on nurses' attitudes towards euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. We searched PubMed for articles published before August 2008 using combinations of search terms. Most identified studies showed a clear relationship between religion or world view and nurses' attitudes towards euthanasia or physician assisted suicide. Differences in attitude were found to be influenced by religious or ideological affiliation, observance of religious practices, religious doctrines, and (...) personal importance attributed to religion or world view. Nevertheless, a coherent comparative interpretation of the results of the identified studies was difficult. We concluded that no study has so far exhaustively investigated the relationship between religion or world view and nurses' attitudes towards euthanasia or physician assisted suicide and that further research is required. (shrink)

Machine ethics is the field that strives to develop ‘artificial moral agents’ (AMAs), artificial systems that can autonomously make moral decisions. Some authors have questioned the feasibility of machine ethics, by questioning whether artificial systems can possess moral competence, or the capacity to reach morally right decisions in various situations. This paper explores this question by drawing on the work of several moral philosophers (McDowell, Wiggins, Hampshire, and Nussbaum) who have characterised moral competence in a manner inspired by Aristotle. Although (...) disparate in many ways, these philosophers all emphasise what may be called ‘moral sensitivity’ as a precondition for moral competence. Moral sensitivity is the uncodified, practical skill to recognise, in a range of situations, which features of the situations are morally relevant, and how they are relevant. This paper argues that the main types of AMAs currently proposed are incapable of full moral sensitivity. First, top-down AMAs that proceed from fixed rule-sets are too rigid to respond appropriately to the wide range of qualitatively unique factors that moral sensitivity gives access to. Second, bottom-up AMAs that learn moral behaviour from examples are at risk of generalising from these examples in undesirable ways, as they lack embedding in what Wittgenstein calls a ‘form of life’, which allows humans to appropriately learn from moral examples. The paper concludes that AMAs are unlikely to possess full moral competence, but closes by suggesting that they may still be feasible in restricted domains of public morality, where moral sensitivity plays a smaller role. (shrink)

El artículo estudia la presencia de los cuadrados mágicos matemáticos en al-Andalus. Después de un repaso introductorio a la historia de dichos cuadrados mágicos, al problema de su origen y a su desarrollo en el oriente islámico, se examinan los métodos de construcción de los cuadrados talismánicos que aparecen en dos manuscritos del tratado de Azarquiel, el único sobre este tema conocido en al-Andalus, así como su recepción en Europa.

This article is the continuation of a reflection on the role wonder plays in the elaboration of experience in a work related situation. As a classic notion in philosophy, wonder reveals itself as an operating tool to analyze adult›s learning situations. The study of a case coming from our research on occupational doctors› diagnosis activities during the medical visits of a company›s employees, will show that ‹›repeating wonder›› represents a contribution to the understanding of continuous reconstruction of health professionals› experience (...) in a work situation. This contribution is in a wider sense the opportunity to better define the relations between wonder and learning with and by activity. (shrink)

Nuestro propósito es dar a conocer la importancia y el influjo de la cultura y el pensamiento oriental y Japón en la obra de Lacan, para cuya tarea hemos tomado el eje del viaje que realizó al archipiélago en la primavera de A partir de esta coordenada de tiempo hemos retrocedido hasta la presencia del país oriental en la obra de Sigmund Freud y hemos referido la mención del mikado y de los ainus en Tótem y tabú. En cuanto al (...) budismo, centro del interés de Lacan en este primer viaje a las islas, Freud se mostró cauto, reticente, incluso hostil. Lacan, en cambio, se entusiasma por oriente y se interesa por el budismo, en especial por el zen. Hemos seleccionado los comentarios que hizo a su regreso de Japón. En los mismos, el psicoanalista francés pone el dedo en la llaga y nos habla del escamoteo que sufre la sexualidad femenina en el budismo, lo que le sirve de aviso para orientar la práctica del psicoanálisis. My aim in this paper is to make known the importance and influence of Eastern culture and thought and of Japan on Lacan’s works. I have taken as a starting point the trip he made to this country during the spring of 1963. After this I have gone backwards to consider the presence of Japan in Sigmund Freud’s works, calling attention to his mention of the Mikado and the Ainu in Totem and Taboo. Towards Buddhism, which was the focus of Lacan’s interest in this first trip to the archipelago, Freud was cautious, reticent and even hostile. Lacan, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about Orient and interested in Buddhism, especially in Zen. I have made a selection of the comments he made on his return from Japan, in which he pointed out weaknesses and commented on how feminine sexuality is eschewed in Buddhism, which he took note of in order to direct his practice in psychoanalysis accordingly. (shrink)

Introduction: Decisions to withdraw or withhold curative or life-sustaining treatment can have a huge impact on the symptoms which the palliative-care team has to control. Palliative-care patients and their relatives may also turn to palliative-care physicians and nurses for advice regarding these treatments. We wanted to assess Indian palliative-care nurses and physicians’ attitudes towards withholding and withdrawal of curative or life-sustaining treatment. Method: From May to September 2008, we interviewed 14 physicians and 13 nurses working in different palliative-care programmes in (...) New Delhi, using a semi-structured questionnaire. For the interviews and analysis of the data we followed Grounded-Theory methodology. Results: Withholding a curative or life-sustaining treatment which may prolong a terminal cancer patient’s life with a few weeks but also has severe side-effects was generally considered acceptable by the interviewees. The majority of the interviewees agreed that life-sustaining treatments can be withdrawn in a patient who is in an irreversible coma. The palliative-care physicians and nurses were of the opinion that a patient has the right to refuse life-saving curative treatment. While reflecting upon the ethical acceptability of withholding or withdrawal of curative or life-sustaining treatment, the physicians and nurses were concerned about the whole patient and other people who may be affected by the decision. They were convinced they can play an important advisory role in the decision-making process. Conclusion: While deciding about the ethical issues, the physicians and nurses do not restrict their considerations to the physical aspects of the disease, but also reflect upon the complex wider consequences of the treatment decisions. (shrink)

Body expression and dance are activities that contribute to the integral well-being of people. In an educational context, the process of evaluating our students implies variations in their moods. This study tackles the states of mind that students perceive before and after the evaluation of a practice in the subject ofBody expression and dance, developed through choreographies, that were, previously rehearsed, and later presented to the rest of the class in a specific session. Our main interest was the obtention of (...) information on the states of mind of the students prior to the evaluation of their choreographies, and again once they had been performed. The study design consisted of two phases: two different choreographies separated by an interval of 2 months. The students were asked about their moods before and after performing their choreographies, which were evaluated. The participants, 167 in total, 35 women and 132 men, aged 18 to 22 years old, filled out a POMS questionnaire, before and after the evaluation of each occasion. Differences were found in the stress-anxiety, vigor-activity, fatigue-immobility scales and the total mood score. In all of them, except for the fatigue-immobility scale, we found a decrease in scores after the performance, compared to scores before. For the Stress-Anxiety factor, lower values were observed in the post-tests in comparison to the pre-tests, and also lower values in the pre- and post-test scores regarding the second choreography. We conclude that the practical evaluation of the subject through choreography modifies the mood states of the students, favoring their well-being after its execution, which is why evaluation through practice is considered a positive element in the educational process. (shrink)

1024x768 Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE O presente estudo tem como objetivo discutir sobre o diálogo necessário entre comunidade e escola para o projeto da Educação Integral. Parte-se inicialmente da noção da jornada ampliada e a proposta da formação do sujeito, nas suas dimensões afetivas, social, política e cultural. Formação esta que transcende a sala de aula e ocupa o território, os saberes comunitários e as diversas instâncias sociais. E nas entrelinhas reflete-se de fato que ambas, (...) comunidade e escola, estão preparadas para este desafio.  . (shrink)

International Accountability Standards have proliferated in the last 20 years, with the UN Global Compact as the most widely accepted principle-based standard catalyzing voluntary participation by firms. This study aims to improve understanding about the factors that determine companies’ progress in adopting principle-based standards. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we examine the direct and combined influences of different organizational resources on standard implementation as perceived by 213 Spanish GC signatories. Our results reveal that the level of firm-specific (...) resources has a positive effect on the extent of GC principles implementation and that innovative capability and length of GC participation strengthen this effect. Contrary to our expectations, we find that the internationalization of firms does not have an effect on GC principles implementation. We discuss the implications of these findings for scholars and practicing managers. (shrink)

Connectedness is a significant element of sociality that occurs not only ideally and ‘leiblich’, but also consists of a material dimension. This is established through the materiality of the human body and points beyond it at the same time. The material aspect of connectedness is not simply social but has a social meaning nonetheless: Materiality has an impact on society and on the quality of human coexistence with the environment. To be able to describe this aspect, we use approaches of (...) feminist (neo-)materialisms. First, a neo-materialist perspective on subjectivity is developed, which, in addition to the immaterial aspects of the social, is also able to grasp the dependence of the development of human bodies on their environment. Connectedness as a material-discursive phenomenon adds a neo-materialist dimension to the established ‘phenomenological’ interpretation of the resonance concept that integrates interactions of repulsion or alienation by understanding feelings of alienation, rejection, or the silencing of the world-relationship as well as a resonant world-relationship always also as agentic cuts of the LeibKörper. (shrink)

Despite the emphasis on dialogue and argumentation in educational settings, still not much is known about how best we can support learners in their interthinking, reasoning, and metadialogic understanding. The goal of this classroom intervention study is to explore the degree of students’ dialogicity and its possible increase during a learning programme implementing dialogic and argument-based teaching goals and principles. In particular, we focus on how students from 5 to 15 years old engage with each other's ideas, and whether/how this (...) engagement is influenced by lesson and classroom setting factors. The participants were 4208 students distributed in preprimary, primary, and secondary classrooms of five countries (UK, Portugal, Germany, Spain, and Cyprus). Findings suggest that there is a consistent increase with age for some high-dialogicity moves, and students behave more dialogically in whole-class discussions rather than small-group activities. (shrink)