The classical model of informed consent presupposes a competent patient capable of making an autonomous decision on the basis of adequate information. In clinical practice, decisional incapacity, prognostic uncertainty, and time pressure frequently undermine these conditions, making surrogate decision-making both unavoidable and ethically fraught. This paper examines a structural vulnerability within the substituted judgment standard that has received comparatively limited attention in the philosophical literature: the possibility that surrogate authority may be exercised by proxies whose motives are shaped by financial (...) or personal self-interest. Through conceptual analysis and a paradigmatic clinical case from interventional radiology, the paper argues that substituted judgment may become structurally unstable when the motivational integrity of the surrogate cannot be presumed, and that the procedure designed to preserve patient autonomy risks in such conditions becoming a mechanism for its simulation. The paper develops three criteria for reconstructing autonomy under uncertainty: critical evaluation of surrogate testimony, a graduated rather than binary understanding of residual decisional capacity, and an advocacy-oriented conception of the physician’s role. The broader argument is that autonomy under conditions of incapacity should not be treated as a pre-existing fact to be recovered but as a normative task requiring active institutional reconstruction — one that calls for calibrated safeguards rather than either default trust or default suspicion. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence in clinical medicine is widely presented as a democratising advance, bringing the interpretive capacity of leading institutions to those that lack it. This paper argues that, under prevailing market governance, AI does not democratise but compounds: it operates as a self-amplifying mechanism that converts each increment of institutional advantage into the means of acquiring the next. The distinctive injustice this produces is not a snapshot maldistribution of a beneficial resource but a dynamic one — a ratchet. Standard distributive (...) principles capture it only awkwardly. A Rawlsian analysis, and Daniels’s extension of fair equality of opportunity to health care, can condemn any given unequal distribution, but they are framed to assess states of affairs rather than the self-reinforcing processes that generate them. Iris Marion Young’s account of structural injustice is the more adequate lens, for the compounding mechanism has just the features her account describes: large-scale group disadvantage produced by the aggregation of individually reasonable actions, under accepted institutions, with no culpable author. The medical-AI case also sharpens her account, displaying a feature it does not emphasise — that the engine of the injustice is the distribution of a genuine good, so that the structure deepens disadvantage faster precisely as the technology improves. A second channel, in which tools are less reliable for under-represented populations because training data accumulate where infrastructure already concentrates, is shown to be the same mechanism operating on quality rather than access. Normative implications follow for the dynamics of diffusion, and professional obligation is grounded in Young’s social-connection model of responsibility. (shrink)

Many firms, especially transnational corporations, find it increasingly difficult to predict and handle conflicts with external interest groups. In addition to a set of established stakeholders, they face a complex arena of newly emerging “stakeseekers” who also claim to have a stake in the corporation's decision making. Corporations seek to establish relationships with such groups to anticipate and prevent conflicts that could otherwise wreak havoc on their reputation. Through stakeholder engagement, stakeseekers may be turned into stakeholders. It has been argued (...) that in the process, critics are simply co-opted. However, corporate objectives are not necessarily monolithic. Conceived as a political coalition of various interests, the structure of the corporation often reflects societal divisions. Parts of the corporation can thus serve as sounding boards for external claims. Referring to the case of Royal Dutch/shell in particular, this article shows how a political coalition perspective on the corporation may help to understand and analyze the politics of stakeholder influence. (shrink)

The volume collects classics of Marxist historiography of science, including a new translation of Boris Hessen's “The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's ...

A common understanding of quantum mechanics (QM) among students and practical users is often plagued by a number of “myths”, that is, widely accepted claims on which there is not really a general consensus among experts in foundations of QM. These myths include wave-particle duality, time-energy uncertainty relation, fundamental randomness, the absence of measurement-independent reality, locality of QM, nonlocality of QM, the existence of well-defined relativistic QM, the claims that quantum field theory (QFT) solves the problems of relativistic QM or (...) that QFT is a theory of particles, as well as myths on black-hole entropy. The fact is that the existence of various theoretical and interpretational ambiguities underlying these myths does not yet allow us to accept them as proven facts. I review the main arguments and counterarguments lying behind these myths and conclude that QM is still a not-yet-completely-understood theory open to further fundamental research. (shrink)

Spontaneous intrusive recollections follow traumatic events in clinical and non-clinical populations. To determine whether any relationship exists between SIRs and enhanced memory for emotional events, participants viewed emotional or neutral films, had their memory for the films tested two days later, and estimated the number of SIRs they experienced for each film. SIR frequency related positively to memory strength, an effect more pronounced in the emotional condition. These findings represent the first demonstration of a relationship between SIRs occurring after an (...) emotional experience and subsequent memory strength for that experience. The results are consistent with the possibility that emotional arousal leads both to elevated SIR frequency and better memory, and that the covert rehearsal associated with SIRs enhances memory for emotional relative to neutral stimuli. Additional evidence of menstrual cycle influences on SIR incidence in female participants appears to merit consideration in future work. (shrink)

Seed activism critiques the various ways in which capitalist accumulation through modern agricultural development separates farmers from the seed. Debates centre on legal activism contesting privatisation and seed registration based on exclusionary criteria and various examples of practical work to strengthen farmer seed systems organised around ideas of seed sovereignty and seed commons. The article provides an illustrative example of practical seed activism of the farmer-led network MASIPAG in the Philippines that has been contesting the government’s Green Revolution-oriented commercial seed (...) sector development. Examining critiques in the literature and MASIPAG’s practical work, we propose a distinction between four trajectories of accumulation that separate farmers from the seed and four corresponding fronts at which practical seed activism mobilises: genetic properties of modern varieties, commodified farming and labour, seed and variety legislation, and the contemporary regime of modern plant breeding. Our analysis of the empirical case illustrates the particular dynamics associated with the different trajectories of accumulation, the seed activist responses, and how they intersect in local level seed networks. We argue that MASIPAG’s practical work is an illustrative example of critical engagement with the very capitalist dynamics that its work critiques. Rather than developing an alternative that wholly withdraws, its practical efforts provide lessons about redrawing the boundaries of seed systems and reveals the possibilities for seed systems writ large to be transformed. (shrink)

Boris Kment takes a new approach to the study of modality that emphasises the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. He argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in counterfactual reasoning, which allows us to investigate explanatory connections. Contrary to accepted views, explanation is more fundamental than modality.

In the fearful ape hypothesis, Grossmann argues that heightened fearfulness increases human-unique cooperation. We suggest that this conclusion, however, may be premature. In particular, we question Grossmann's singling out of fear as the affective trait that enhances cooperative care. Additionally, we problematize the extent to which heightened fearfulness in humans, and its association with human-unique cooperation, are supported empirically.

Although Lermontov is traditionally viewed as Russia's “second greatest poet,” the bard of Russia's beauty and the critic of Russia's “superfluous men,” the philosophical content of his poetry and prose remains relatively unexamined. The article considers Lermontov's themes of the rebellious angel, freedom, and fate, and argues that although these themes were a product of his time, they are still relevant today.

The aim of this paper is to clarify specific aspects of the impact of the brain-machine interface on our understanding of subjectivity. The brain-machine interface is presented as a phase of cyborgization of humans. Some projects in the field of brain-machine interface are aimed at enabling consensual telepathy - communication without symbolic mediation. Consensual telepathy refers to one of potential ways of transmission of information within singularity. Therefore, consensual telepathy is an important aspect of singularity. Singularity or human-machine symbiosis shows (...) some similarities with child-mother unity. Therefore, the psychodynamic perspective might be considered useful in thinking about human-machine symbiosis. Knowledge from developmental psychodynamic psychology combined with insights by Slavoj Zizek and Jean Baudrillard provides an additional perspective looking at human-machine symbiosis. The paper claims that if consensual telepathy becomes another way of communication, it will have the potential to annihilate subjectivity making it schizophrenic. At the same time, we look at the possibility of an escape from our inner world through the prism of addictions. (shrink)

At the core of this article is an interview to Boris Uspenskij, in which the well-known protagonist of the Tartu-Moscow School (currently Head of the Laboratory of Linguistics and Semiotics at the National Research University ``Higher School of Economics'' in Moscow) develops on semiotics and the sense and aims of semiotic research, communication and its central role in human consciousness, semiotic theory and methodology, in general and specifically referring to his personal approach. The interview is introduced by a brief (...) essay, in which, by presenting and outlining the main thesis of Ego Loquens (one of the most recent works by Uspenskij, which so far has not appeared in English) and its articulations, Uspenskij's reflections on the semiotics of communication emerge. (shrink)

Spontaneous intrusive recollections are known to follow emotional events in clinical and non-clinical populations. Previous work in our lab has found that women report more SIRs than men after exposure to emotional films, and that this effect is driven entirely by women in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. To replicate and extend this finding, participants viewed emotional films, provided saliva samples for sex hormone concentration analysis, and estimated SIR frequency following film viewing. Women in the luteal phase reported (...) significantly more SIRs than did women in the follicular phase, and SIR frequency significantly correlated with salivary progesterone levels. The results are consistent with an emerging pattern in the literature suggesting that menstrual cycle position of female participants can potently influence findings in numerous cognitive domains. The potential implications of these results for disorders characterized by intrusions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, are also discussed. (shrink)

U radu se artikulisu i razvijaju ontoloske postavke i posledice Rusoovih razmatranja o slobodi, koje su u njegovim spisima cesto ostajale u drugom planu. Posebno se naznacuje jedan ontoloski bitan aspekt Rusoove radikalnosti, u kojem je raskidanje veza s prirodom, takozvani izlazak iz prirodnog stanja i sklapanje drustvenog ugovora, neodvojivo od njegovog razumevanja slobode, jednakosti i politicke delatnosti. Pokazuje se kako totalna alijenacija dovodi do radikalnog raskida s prirodom, a nenuzno iskrsavanje opste volje i uspostavljanje slobode kao samozakonodavstva tumaci se (...) kao dogadjaj politike, ciji uslov i zakon jeste opsta jednakost. (shrink)

Measurements of the dimensionality of chaotic attractors obtained on behavioral data represent the task complexity and also could be hypothesized to reflect the number of synchronized neural groups involved in the generation of the data. The changes in dimensionality for different experimental conditions suggest that limited processing capacity, task complexity, demand, and synchrony in neural firing might be closely related.

After Husserl?s transcendental turn and the discovery of the correlation between consciousness and the world the concept of the noema becomes one of the constant leitmotifs of Husserl?s philosophy. My paper will be devoted to the clarification of this concept and its implications for Husserl?s theory of sense. The leading question will be: How can the noema play the role of both the sense and the objective correlate of the intentional act? I will start with presenting the problematic of sense (...) in Husserl?s phenomenology from the Logical Investigations to the Ideas I. The central part of my paper will be devoted to the influential debate regarding the interpretation of the noema. Finally, I intend to point out the most important ways in which the notion of the noema becomes enriched in later Husserl?s philosophy, as well as the difference between linguisitic and non-linguistic sense, based on the Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. I hope to show that Husserl?s phenomenological theory of sense offers a valuable alternative to the exclusively language-oriented theories of sense. (shrink)

Polazeci od jedne Fukoove opaske o vaznosti Kantovog razumevanja prosvetiteljstva za modernu filozofiju uopste, u ovom tekstu pokusavamo da sledimo trag veze izmedju pitanja o aktuelnosti, prosvetiteljstva i moderne kod Kanta. Ideje slobode i subjektivnosti uocavamo kao nezaobilazne za razumevanje kantovskog prosvetiteljskog projekta i njegove aktuelnosti. U tekstu pokusavamo da pokazemo kako se kod Kanta nailazi na specificno moderno shvatanje aktuelnosti koje ima dalekosezne ontoloske posledice, narocito u pogledu kategorije mogucnosti. Na osnovu sprovedenih analiza dolazimo do teze da se odgovor (...) na pitanje o aktuelnosti prosvetiteljstva ispostavlja kao ulog u borbi za ostvarenje nemoguceg. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the experiences of women who found refuge in Serbia during the war in the former Yugoslavia. I look at the women's experiences of both leaving home and coping with everyday life in refuge. The exploration of refugee women's experiences is mainly based on analyses of their own stories, which I collected while researching women and war. In spite of all the hardship of their lives, refugee women who fled to Serbia have been treated by Western (...) media, the public and aid organizations as ‘UNPEOPLE’ or as non-existent. Making their experiences visible as women, refugees and citizens is the main purpose of this article. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show, contra the right-libertarian critique of social justice, that there are good reasons for defending policies of social justice within a free society. In the first part of the paper, we will present two influential right-libertarian critiques of social justice, found in Friedrich Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia. Based on their approach, policies of social justice are seen as an unjustified infringement on freedoms of individual members (...) of a society. In response to this critique, we will introduce the distinction between formal and factual freedom and argue that the formal principle of freedom defended by Hayek and Nozick does not suffice for the protection of factual freedom of members of a society, because it does not recognise (1) the moral obligation to help those who, without their fault, lack factual freedom to a significant degree, and (2) the legal obligation of the state to protect civic dignity of all members of a society. In the second part of the paper, we offer an interpretation of Kant's argument on taxation, according to which civic dignity presupposes factual freedom, in order to argue that Kant's justification of taxation offers good reasons for claiming that the state has the legal obligation to protect factual freedom via the policies of social justice. (shrink)

La nature des relations que l'Homme entretien avec l'Animal obéit à une loi inexorable : nul ne saurait aborder le monde des animaux sans y projeter son propre univers mental, soucieux par-là, de marquer strictement la frontière entre humanité et animalité. Comment représenter le monde dans lequel vivent les animaux, quand il nous est très largement inconnu? Pour en rendre compte, nous l'avons cerné en multipliant les approches et en mettant à profit toutes les compétences. Le vétérinaire, le mathématicien, le (...) neurobiologiste, le psychanalyste, l'éthologue, l'historien, l'archéologue, l'anthropologue, le philosophe et le psychiatre apportent chacun leur contribution à l'édifice. Le choix des auteurs et l'organisation des textes répondent à cette volonté d'interdisciplinarité, soit par des contributions originales qui donnent le dernier état du savoir, soit par des extraits empruntés à de multiples sources d'Aristote à Zola, de Darwin à Lévi-Strauss, de Freud à Jean-Paul II, de Genet à Yourcenar... (shrink)