D. D. Martin

In this study Paul Natorpʼs writing Religion within the Limits of Humanity is interpreted as a treatment of the problem of religion in modernity, which takes up and transforms the impulses of Kant and Schleiermacher. Five aspects of this problem, which were already present in Schleiermacher’s Speeches on religion, are once again a subject of further processing in the medium of the Neo-Kantian discourse in Marburg encluding encounters with Hermann Cohen and Wilhelm Herrmann. One of the answers found here points ahead to Hans Blumenbergʼs St. Matthew Passion. The latterʼs late work at the end of the 20th century can be read within the horizon of these earlier discourses at its beginning as a variation of a musico-dramatic treatment of existential and religious fundamental questions in a general culture affected to change.

Providing a rich combination of theoretical resources, methodological approaches and empirical investigation, each of the chapters takes a distinct aspect of touch within a particular spatial context, exploring this through a mixture of sustained empirical work, critical theories of embodiment, philosophical and psychoanalytic approaches to gendered touch and touching, or the relationship between visual and non-visual culture, to articulate something of the variety and variability of touching experiences. The volume has a strong thematic identity and therefore represents the formative collection concerning the multiple senses of touch within social science scholarship at this time..

This article explores the concept of wild boars as beasts of the Anthropocene by examining their physicality and the policies focused on controlling their populations. Considering the labeling and perception of the species as a beast, the study investigates the sociopolitical implications of such categorization. Specifically, it examines how wild boars have been described and portrayed as intimidating, dangerous, and threatening within Uruguay’s hunting and conservation communities. By analyzing the processes that frame the lives of wild boars and render them legitimate targets of eradication, this article sheds light on the semiotics and naming of wild boars’ changing corporeality throughout history. It reveals how the hunting community motivates their practices by portraying themselves as guardians of biodiversity and agricultural production rather than mere leisure hunters. I argue that the notion of beastliness is instrumental in wildlife management strategies employed for wild boars.

Ever so often in the UK, there is a flurry of activity around the information requirements of donor-conceived individuals. In April 2013, it was the launch of a report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics that brought the issue back to public consciousness.1Since 1991, information about treatment with donor gametes or embryos has been collected by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Since then, over 35 000 donor-conceived individuals have been born through treatment in licensed clinics. Medical information and information about donors’ appearance are collected by clinics, and donors are encouraged to put together a ‘pen portrait’ giving information about themselves for any resulting children. One focus of the new report is on improving the quality and quantity of information available about donors.Traditionally, gamete and embryo donations were practised on an anonymous basis, so that those born as a result of such donation may receive only non-identifying information about the donor when they reach the age of 18. This changed in 2005 when donor anonymity was removed so that anyone donating after that time could be identified to individuals born as a result of the treatment. Those who have donated in the past are also able to reregister as identifiable donors. Much concern was expressed at the time that this would exacerbate the shortage of donors although the Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports that, 8 years on, those clinics that actively recruit donors appear to be successful in finding sufficient donors. The report recommends that the option of anonymous donation should not be reintroduced.A big issue of debate in the UK has been, and continues to be, whether parents should tell their …

The scope of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) could expand in the future to include detailed analysis of the fetal genome. This will allow for the testing for virtually any trait with a genetic contribution, including “non-medical” traits. Here we discuss the potential use of NIPT for these traits. We outline a scenario which highlights possible inconsistencies with ethical decision-making. We then discuss the case against permitting these uses. The objections include practical problems; increasing inequities; increasing the burden of choice; negative impacts on the child, family, and society; and issues with implementation. We then outline the case for permitting the use of NIPT for these traits. These include arguments for reproductive liberty and autonomy; questioning the labeling of traits as “non-medical”; and the principle of procreative beneficence. This summary of the case for and against can serve as a basis for the development of a consistent and coherent ethical framework.

Non-invasive prenatal testing is at the forefront of prenatal screening. Current uses for NIPT include fetal sex determination and screening for chromosomal disorders such as trisomy 21. However, NIPT may be expanded to many different future applications. There are a potential host of ethical concerns around the expanding use of NIPT, as examined by the recent Nuffield Council report on the topic. It is important to examine what NIPT might be used for before these possibilities become consumer reality. There is limited research exploring views of women on possible future uses of NIPT, particularly those of women who have undergone NIPT. In this study, we examined the views of women who undertook NIPT previously on the acceptability of and interest levels in using NIPT for a number of current and possible future applications. These included several medical conditions encompassing psychiatric, neurodevelopmental and adult-onset conditions as well as non-medical traits such as intelligence. One thousand women were invited to participate and 235 eligible surveys were received. Women generally reported an interest in using NIPT for medical conditions that severely impacted quality of life and with an onset earlier in life and stressed the importance of the accuracy of the test. Concerns were raised about the use of NIPT for non-medical traits. Respondents indicated that termination of pregnancy was not their only reason for testing, particularly in the case of sex. These results can further inform the ethical debate around the increasing integration of NIPT into healthcare systems.

Background: Increasing use of genetic technologies in clinical and research settings increases the potential for misattributed paternity to be identified. Yet existing guidance from the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the Institute of Medicine (among others) offers contradictory advice. Genetic health professionals are thus likely to vary in their practice when misattributed paternity is identified, and empirical investigation into the disclosure of misattributed paternity is scarce. Given the relevance of this ethical dilemma and its significance to users of genetic services, this study aimed to investigate the attitudes of lay people with regard to the disclosure of misattributed paternity. Methods: An online questionnaire was hosted and advertised through Amazon's Mechanical Turk to 200 United States residents aged 18 years or older. Respondents were asked to rate (via a Likert scale) the ethical permissibility of possible actions a clinician may carry out when misattributed paternity is identified. Data analysis consisted of preliminary descriptive analysis, chi-squared analysis, and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Results: There was no clear majority support for many of the options surveyed across different contexts, with only six out of ten scenarios displaying some general consensus. Men were more likely to support scenarios where the father is informed of paternity. Importantly, participants' views varied according to whether the desires of the father were previously expressed, suggesting that perceptions of the permissibility of a clinician's action will depend on the interests of all parties affected. Conclusions: This sample of the general public showed attitudes that were, at least to some degree, at variance with some professional guidelines. We give arguments for why at least some of these attitudes might be justified. We argue that case-specific judgments should be made and outline some of the relevant ethical considerations. While general guidelines ought to be considered, context-specific moral judgments cannot be avoided.

Ich behaupte, dass Hegel in seinen Werken zwei unterschiedliche hermeneutische Ansätze anwendet, nämlich den assimilativen und den rekonstruktiven Ansatz. Ich charakterisiere sie, und erkläre, warum Hegel beide verwendet, sowie ich auf ihre Voraussetzungen eingehe. Im Zuge dieser Überlegungen gehe ich auf den angeblichen Widerspruch zwischen Hegels Reflexionen zur Interpretation und ihrer Anwendung ein. Konträr zu einem Teil der Literatur, argumentiere ich, dass Hegels hermeneutische Praxis nicht von seinem theoretischen Interpretationsansatz abweicht. Dann konzentriere ich mich auf die Frage, ob und inwieweit diese beiden Ansätze intellektuell demütige Praktiken sind. Ich behaupte, dass nur der rekonstruktive Ansatz in der Phänomenologie intellektuell demütig ist, im Gegensatz zum assimilativen Ansatz in Hegels Vorlesungen.

Česká společnost je společností práce. V tomto paradigmatu je současný rozvoj moderních technologií považován pouze za důvod pro přeskupení pracovní síly. Trh si se situací poradí a vytvoří nová pracovní místa. Druhou připouštěnou alternativou je pro technologicky nezaměstnané lidi chudoba. Nutnost volby mezi prací a chudobou je ve skutečnosti falešným dilematem. Nabízí se i jiné řešení – post-pracovní společnost. Hlavní argument pro přechod k post-pracovní společnosti vychází ze svobody. Domnívám se, že technologie nemusejí být považovány za hrozbu zaměstnanosti, ale za osvoboditele pracujících. Člověk není v práci svobodný a cestou k překonání této situace je opuštění práce v nejvyšší možné míře. Přechod k post-pracovní společnosti má rovněž praktické a ekonomické výhody.

In this paper, I examine Brandom’s notion of a de re reading of a tradition and question its legitimacy under certain circumstances. Specifically, I argue that within the language game of giving and asking for reasons, commitments should be ascribed to the utterer within reasonable limits, with the utterer only responsible for intentional or negligent breaches of duty. Even if we were to include an ideal speaker who knows all facts available at the time of her utterance, she cannot be held accountable for ignorance of things that do not yet exist. Therefore, I further argue that the time of the utterance must be taken into consideration when ascribing commitments and keeping score in the game of giving and asking for reasons. This temporal aspect is suppressed by Brandom’s notion of de re reading for pragmatic reasons, as he seeks to tell an inferentialist story of the philosophical tradition. Nevertheless, I argue that legitimacy poses a problem even for this approach because Brandom formulates his account in terms of rules, responsibility and sanctions. I offer a critical perspective on Brandom’s de re reading and the broader implications of his inferentialist framework.

Truth is the degree of accuracy when representing reality. We postulate three cognitive stages: the psychon, produced by perception; the construct, produced by intellection; and the speech act, produced by communication. Truth lies in the second; only constructs are alethic. Truth is a quality which takes place in degrees. Certainty is the unreachable perfect tip of this gradation, so it is an ideal concept. A thesis is deemed true if its alethical degree is acceptably efficacious, otherwise the thesis is deemed false. Put in other words, we deem true any thesis not having enough fails to deem it false.

In this co-authored text, the Dissonant Co-Labouring Key Group examines the difficulties, gaps, political slippages and entanglements of collaboration in its encounter with artistic and educational institutions. Engaging autofiction as a scholarly mode with different models of co-authorship, the Key Group move through critical engagements with working conditions, temporalities of labour and its instrumentalisation within and beyond universities and cultural ecologies. Dialoguing with a plurality of voices and registers, the text invokes adjacent and overlapping temporalities of working together, attends to different modalities of critical thought and collapses the distinction between the fictive and the real.

Cet article s’efforce de relever la place originale, parfois discrète, parfois non reconnue par l’auteur lui-même, qui est dévolue à l’expérience clinique psychiatrique par Paul Ricœur dans sa conférence « La souffrance n’est pas la douleur ». En effet, celle-ci semble de prime abord nettement séparer discours médical et discours philosophique phénoménologique, qui auraient deux objets et méthodes bien distincts. Pour autant, en bien des points, pour certains décisifs, Ricœur est amené à puiser dans l’expérience clinique pour alimenter sa phénoménologie de la souffrance. Il nous semble ainsi esquisser la nécessité d’une authentique philosophie clinique, attentive in fine à la place essentielle de la douleur dans toute souffrance.

In this paper, we explore psychosis and schizophrenia as prototype disturbances, where mentalizing failures are widely seen. We attempt to describe how the process of rekindling mentalizing within attachment relationships (here, the patient-therapist relationship) can have a protective effect not just on the onset of the disturbance, but also when psychosis is already actively installed. We start by discussing mentalizing in training, practice and supervision. We also try to understand it contextually, as a relational concept, within the history of psychological therapies.