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166CSG Next : Self-Evaluation ReportCSG. 2010.The Centre for Society and Genomics (CSG) was established in 2004, funded by NGI (the Netherlands Genomics Initiative). Funding was continued in 2008. This report summarises the basic outcomes of almost a decade of interactive societal research, in close collaboration with the other centres of the NGI network. There are two reasons for presenting these results. First of all, at the end of this year, the CSG Next programme (2008-2013), encompassing more than 50 research projects conducted at 10 D…Read more
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267Is Dandelion Rubber More Natural? Naturalness, Biotechnology and the Transition Towards a Bio-Based SocietyJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 28 (2): 313-334. 2015.In the unfolding debate on the prospects, challenges and viability of the imminent transition towards a ‘Bio-Based Society’ or ‘Bio-based Economy’—i.e. the replacement of fossil fuels by biomass as a basic resource for the production of energy, materials and food, ‘big’ concepts tend to play an important role, such as, for instance, ‘sustainability’, ‘global justice’ and ‘naturalness’. The latter concept is, perhaps, the most challenging and intriguing one. In public debates concerning biotechno…Read more
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460The donor organ as an ‘object a’: a Lacanian perspective on organ donation and transplantation medicineMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 17 (4): 559-571. 2014.Bioethical discourse on organ donation covers a wide range of topics, from informed consent procedures and scarcity issues up to ‘transplant tourism’ and ‘organ trade’. This paper presents a ‘depth ethics’ approach, notably focussing on the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities concerning the status of the human body. These will be addressed from a psychoanalytical angle. First, I will outline Lacan’s view on embodiment as such. Subsequently, I will argue that, for organ recipients, the donor orga…Read more
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243From Decline of the West to Dawn of DayJanus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts 18 (1): 55-66. 2020.This paper subjects Dan Brown’s most recent novel Origin to a philosophical reading. Origin is regarded as a literary window into contemporary technoscience, inviting us to explore its transformative momentum and disruptive impact, focusing on the cultural significance of artificial intelligence and computer science: on the way in which established world-views are challenged by the incessant wave of scientific discoveries made possible by super-computation. While initially focusing on the tensio…Read more
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250The Synthetic Cell as a Techno-scientific MandalaInternational Journal of Jungian Studies 10. 2018.This paper analyses the technoscientific objective of building a synthetic cell from a Jungian perspective. After decades of fragmentation and specialisation, the synthetic cell symbolises a turn towards restored wholeness, both at the object pole and at the subject pole. From a Jungian perspective, it is no coincidence that visual representations of synthetic cells often reflect an archetypal, mandala-like structure. As a symbol of restored unity, the synthetic cell mandala compensates for tech…Read more
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400From playfulness and self-centredness via grand expectations to normalisation: a psychoanalytical rereading of the history of molecular genetics (review)Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 16 (4): 775-788. 2013.In this paper, I will reread the history of molecular genetics from a psychoanalytical angle, analysing it as a case history. Building on the developmental theories of Freud and his followers, I will distinguish four stages, namely: (1) oedipal childhood, notably the epoch of model building (1943–1953); (2) the latency period, with a focus on the development of basic skills (1953–1989); (3) adolescence, exemplified by the Human Genome Project, with its fierce conflicts, great expectations and gr…Read more
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207Reflection as a Deliberative and Distributed Practice: Assessing Neuro-Enhancement Technologies via Mutual Learning ExercisesNanoEthics 11 (2): 127-138. 2017.In 1968, Jürgen Habermas claimed that, in an advanced technological society, the emancipatory force of knowledge can only be regained by actively recovering the ‘forgotten experience of reflection’. In this article, we argue that, in the contemporary situation, critical reflection requires a deliberative ambiance, a process of mutual learning, a consciously organised process of deliberative and distributed reflection. And this especially applies, we argue, to critical reflection concerning a spe…Read more
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275Genomics and the Ark: An Ecocentric Perspective on Human HistoryPerspectives in Biology and Medicine 54 (2): 217-231. 2011.In 1990 the Human Genome Project (HGP) was launched as an important historical marker, a pivotal contribution to the time-old quest for human self-knowledge. However, when in 2001 two major publications heralded its completion, it seemed difficult to make out how the desire for self-knowledge had really been furthered by this endeavor (IHGSC 2001; Venter et al. 2001). In various ways mankind seems to stand out from other organisms as a unique type of living entity, developing a critical perspect…Read more
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535Woyzeck and the birth of the human research subjectBioethica Forum 6 (3): 97-104. 2013.In various writings Michel Foucault has shown how, in the beginning of the 19th century, in settings such as army barracks, psychiatric hospitals and penitentiary institutions, the modern human sciences were ‹born› as an ensemble of disciplines (medical biology, psychiatry, psychology, criminology, and the like) From the beginning, the nature-nurture de- bate has been one of its key disputes. Are human individuals malleable by environmental factors (such as psychiatric treatments or disciplinary…Read more
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375Elementaire verbeelding. Over het werk van Gaston Bachelard en Jan Hendrik van den Bergde Uil Van Minerva 18. 2002.
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167De spreekbevoegdheid van ethici - Ethici spreken over actuele maatschappelijke vraagstukken. Op grond waarvan?Filosofie En Praktijk 19 (4): 184-201. 1998.
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140Performing the FutureScience & Education 25 (7-8): 869-895. 2016.Drama is a relatively unexplored tool in academic science education. This paper addresses in what way the use of drama may allow science students to deepen their understanding of recent developments in the emerging and controversial field of neuro-enhancement, by means of a case study approach. First, we emphasise the congruency between drama and science, notably the dramatic dimension of experimental research. Subsequently, we draw on educational literature to elaborate the potential of using d…Read more
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305From ‘Hard’ Neuro-Tools to ‘Soft’ Neuro-Toys? Refocussing the Neuro-Enhancement DebateNeuroethics 10 (3): 337-348. 2016.Since the 1990’s, the debate concerning the ethical, legal and societal aspects of ‘neuro-enhancement’ has evolved into a massive discourse, both in the public realm and in the academic arena. This ethical debate, however, tends to repeat the same sets of arguments over and over again. Normative disagreements between transhumanists and bioconservatives on invasive or radical brain stimulators, and uncertainties regarding the use and effectivity of nootropic pharmaceuticals dominate the field. Bu…Read more
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146Micro Michael Crichton (review)Genomics, Society and Policy 8 (2): 1-3. 2012.Although he died in 2008, prolific science novelist Michael Crichton – acting as a ‘ghost-writer’, so to speak – continues to add new titles to his oeuvre. Notwithstanding the death of the author, his novel-producing machinery refuses to come to a full stop, - although in this case Richard Preston (a science novelist in his own right, author of, among others, The Hot Zone, on viral infections) was recruited to finish the book. MICRO – a title that almost reads like the acronym of the author’s na…Read more
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139What Is Nature?Teaching Philosophy 37 (3): 379-398. 2014.There are basically two ways of teaching philosophy to science stu- dents. One option is to start from philosophy (from Plato and Aristotle up to, say, Popper and Kuhn) and present student audiences with the ideas and conjectures of these “great thinkers,” these “authoritative voices,” concerning scientific inquiry: the top-down approach. Another option is to trawl the archives of science (of present and past) search- ing for philosophical quandaries, moral collisions and paradigm shifts, for in…Read more
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7Ethical consensus and the truth of laughter: the structure of moral transformationsKok Pharos Pub. House. 1996.We participate in moral debate, instead of taking morality for granted, because of discontent with the moral discourse in vogue. We feel that something is distorted or concealed. One way to expose deficiencies in established discourse is critical argument, but under certain specific historical circumstances, the apparent self-evidence of established moral discourse has gained such a sway, has acquired such an ability to conceal its basic vulnerability, that its validity seems beyond contestation…Read more
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200Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for Research Performing Organisations: The Bonn PRINTEGER StatementScience and Engineering Ethics 24 (4): 1023-1034. 2018.This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providin…Read more
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597From the Nadir of Negativity towards the Cusp of ReconciliationTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (2/3): 175-198. 2017.This contribution addresses the anthropocenic challenge from a dialectical perspective, combining a diagnostics of the present with a prognostic of the emerging future. It builds on the oeuvres of two prominent dialectical thinkers, namely Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Hegel himself was a pre-anthropocenic thinker who did not yet thematise the anthropocenic challenge as such, but whose work allows us to emphasise the unprecedented newness of the current crisis. I …Read more
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2Book review: Francis Collins – The language of God (review)Genomics, Society and Policy 2 (3): 1-6. 2006.Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project (HGP), needs no further introduction I suppose. For more than a decade (from 1993 onwards) he has headed the HGP as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). One of the highlights in his career was the moment when, on June 26 2000, together with President Clinton and Craig Venter, he announced that the deciphering of the human genome was rapidly approaching its completion. On …Read more
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215Boundaries, barriers and bridges. Philosopical fieldwork in Derewan, East Kalimantan, IndonesiaHttps://Www.Academia.Edu/304352/Boundaries_barriers_and_bridges._Philosophical_fieldwork_in_Derawan_Indonesia_. 2004.
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453The oblique perspective: philosophical diagnostics of contemporary life sciences researchLife Sciences, Society and Policy 13 (1): 1-20. 2017.This paper indicates how continental philosophy may contribute to a diagnostics of contemporary life sciences research, as part of a “diagnostics of the present”. First, I describe various options for an oblique reading of emerging scientific discourse, bent on uncovering the basic “philosophemes” of science. Subsequently, I outline a number of radical transformations occurring both at the object-pole and at the subject-pole of the current knowledge relationship, namely the technification of the…Read more
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87All you need is healthIn Michael Parker (ed.), Ethics and Community in the Health Care Professions, Routledge. pp. 30. 1999.
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Radboud UniversityProfessor