Post-mortem reproduction is a complex and contested matter attracting attention from a diverse group of scholars and resulting in various responses from a range of countries. Vietnam has been reluctant to deal directly with this matter and has, accordingly, permitted post-mortem reproduction implicitly. First, by analysing Vietnam’s post-mortem reproduction cases, this paper reflects on the manner in which Vietnamese authorities have handled each case in the context of the contemporary legal framework, and it reveals (...) the moral questions arising therefrom. The article then offers an account of Vietnamese social norms as an explanation for the tendency to conduct post-mortem reproduction. In arguing that a deeper and more thorough examination of the moral and ethical reasoning is required, the paper advocates in favour of supportive post-mortem reproduction regulation. In doing so, the paper seeks to reconcile the Vietnamese legal framework and post-mortem reproduction experiences of other countries. The article concludes that Vietnam and countries sharing the similar cultural traits should permit post-mortem reproduction explicitly. This would require full engagement with the ethical and legal issues arising, and careful promulgation of regulations and guidelines based on comparative experiences of a range of countries in handling this matter. (shrink)

Faithful persons tend to relate to their religious beliefs as truth claims, particularly inasmuch as their beliefs have soteriological implications for those of different religions. For Christians the particular claims which matter most in this regard are those made by Jesus of Nazareth and his claims are primarily relational in nature. I propose a model in which we understand divine grace from Jesus as being mediated through relational knowledge of him on a compassionately exclusivist basis, including post-mortem. Supporting (...) this model, I draw from Eleonore Stump’s hypothesis in her 2018 Atonement that the crucifixion of Jesus opens the divine psyche to all human psyches sufficiently for salvific mutual indwelling to occur, and from Gavin D’Costa’s conception of the descensus Christi ad inferos as the mechanism for grace’s accessibility post-mortem presented in his 2009 Christianity and World Religions. This model seeks to address ongoing, justified pastoral concern for the soteriological status of non-Christians while still treating Christianity as objectively true. (shrink)

The emergence of Thanabots —artificial intelligence systems designed to simulate deceased individuals—presents unprecedented challenges at the intersection of artificial intelligence, legal rights, and societal configuration. This short policy recommendations report examines the legal, social and psychological implications of these posthumous simulations and argues for their prohibition on ethical, sociological, and legal grounds.

Many Epicurean arguments for the claim that death is nothing to us depend on the ‘Experience Constraint’: the claim that something can only be good or bad for us if we experience it. However, Epicurus’ commitment to the Experience Constraint makes his attitude to will-writing puzzling. How can someone who accepts the Experience Constraint be motivated to bring about post mortem outcomes?We might think that an Epicurean will-writer could be pleased by the thought of his/her loved ones being (...) provided for after his/her death. Warren has argued that this does not dissolve the puzzle, since it involves a hope which the Epicurean should take to be empty just as the fear of death is empty. However, if it is a necessary condition of an emotion’s being empty that it involve accepting a claim which is not only false but also harmful it is not clear that this hope is indeed ‘empty’: there is a crucial disanalogy between fearing death and hoping for the prosperity of one’s children here. And if emptiness does... (shrink)

On Sublime, subliminal experiences in terms of life and death realtion, in desire and social status.

Background Consent policies for post-mortem organ procurement (OP) vary throughout Europe, and yet no studies have empirically evaluated the ethical implications of contrasting consent models. To fill this gap, we introduce a novel indicator of governance quality based on the ideal of informed support, and examine national differences on this measure through a quantitative survey of OP policy informedness and preferences in seven European countries. -/- Methods Between 2017–2019, we conducted a convenience sample survey of students (n = (...) 2006) in Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Greece (GR), Slovenia (SI) and Spain (ES), asking participants about their donation preferences, as well as their beliefs and views about the policy in place. From these measures, we computed indices of informedness, policy support, and fulfilment of unexpressed preferences, which we compared across countries and consent systems. -/- Results Our study introduces a tool for analyzing policy governance in the context of OP. Wide variation in policy awareness was observed: Most respondents in DK, DE, AT and BE correctly identified the policy in place, while those in SI, GR and ES did not. Respondents in opt-out countries (AT, BE, ES and GR) tended to support the policy in place (with one exception, i.e., SI), whereas those in opt-in countries (DE and DK) overwhelmingly opposed it. These results reveal stark differences in governance quality across countries and consent policies: We found a preponderance of informed opposition in opt-in countries and a general tendency towards support–either informed or uninformed–in opt-out countries. We also found informed divergence in opt-in countries and a tendency for convergence–either informed or uninformed–among opt-out countries. -/- Conclusion Our study offers a novel tool for analyzing governance quality and illustrates, in the context of OP, how the strengths and weaknesses of different policy implementations can be estimated and compared using quantitative survey data. (shrink)

It is a reasonable worry that God would not truly love us and want our salvation if He fixed a definite point after which He will no longer offer us the graces to repent of our sins. I propose that Thomas Aquinas succeeds in showing us that God would not be cruel or arbitrary in setting up a world where embodied agents end up after death in a state where they will inevitably fail to repent of their sins. Aquinas proposes (...) that being disembodied is to be in a state where a person cannot be mistaken about what they want, given that they know themselves perfectly. If the disembodied state were like this, it would not be surprising that being in that state makes repentance impossible, since a soul would become fully integrated around whatever one desired, without any conflicting desires that could prompt repentance. Thus, humans would persist in whatever desires they had at the moment of death and disembodiment. I conclude by arguing that, while this scenario stands in need of fuller theodicy, Aquinas’ scenario is helpful in defending a view that God is not cruel or arbitrary for creating a world in which post-mortem repentance is impossible. (shrink)

Thomistic Hylomorphists claim that we human persons have rational or intellective souls which can continue to exist separately from our bodies after we die. Much of the recent scholarly discussion of Thomistic Hylomorphism has centered on this thesis and the question of whether human persons can survive death along with their souls or whether only their souls can survive in this separated, disembodied, post-mortem state. As a result, two rival versions of Thomistic Hyomorphism have been formulated: Survivalism and (...) Corruptionism. This chapter makes a new contribution to the debate between Survivalists and Corruptionists by identifying a heretofore undiscussed problem for Corruptionist Thomistic Hylomorphism. In particular, it is argued that if Corruptionists were right that human persons cannot survive their deaths along with their souls, this would undermine the grounds on which all Thomistic Hylomorphists, including Corruptionists, rely to justify their belief that our souls can continue to exist after our deaths. Given this, it is argued that Thomistic Hylomorphists have grounds for thinking that our souls can continue to exist after our deaths only if they allow, as Survivalists do and Corruptionists do not, that we human persons can continue to exist after our deaths, with souls but no bodies. (shrink)

Against the background of the current debate in Germany, the paper explains and discusses ethical aspects of alternative consent systems for post-mortem organ donation. The focus is on opt-out and prompted choice solutions. The authors explain why libertarian paternalism might favour a prompted choice.

Goal: To assess public knowledge and attitudes towards the family’s role in deceased organ donation in Europe. -/- Methods: A systematic search was conducted in CINHAL, MEDLINE, PAIS Index, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Web of Science on December 15th, 2017. Eligibility criteria were socio-empirical studies conducted in Europe from 2008 to 2017 addressing either knowledge or attitudes by the public towards the consent system, including the involvement of the family in the decision-making process, for post-mortem organ retrieval. Screening and (...) data collection were performed by two or more independent reviewers for each record. -/- Results: Of the 1482 results, 467 studies were assessed in full-text form, and 33 were included in this synthesis. When the deceased has not expressed any preference, a majority of the public support the family's role as a surrogate decision-maker. When the deceased expressly consented, the respondents' answers depend on whether they see themselves as potential donors or as a deceased's next-of-kin. Answers also depend on the relationship between the deceased and the decision-maker(s) within the family, and on their ethnic or cultural background. -/- Conclusions: Public views on the authority of the family in organ donation decision-making require further research. A common conceptual framework and validated well-designed questionnaires are needed for future studies. The findings should be considered in the development of Government policy and guidance regarding the role of families in deceased organ donation. (shrink)

The doctrine of the resurrection says that God will resurrect the body that lived and died on earth—that the post-mortem body will be numerically identical to the pre-mortem body. After exegetically supporting this claim, and defending it from a recent objection, we ask: supposing that the doctrine of the resurrection is true, what are the implications for the mind-body relation? Why would God resurrect the body that lived and died on earth? We compare three accounts of the (...) mind-body relation that have been applied to the doctrine of the resurrection: substance dualism, constitutionalism, and animalism. We argue that animalism offers a superior explanation for the necessity of the resurrection: since human persons just are their bodies, life after death requires resurrection of one’s body. We conclude that those endorsing the doctrine of the resurrection should be animalists. (shrink)

In this paper I weigh in on the ongoing Thomistic debate between corruptionists, survivalists, and incompletionists about whether the soul's separate, post-mortem existence suffices for my post-mortem existence.

We offer an account of the metaphysics of persons rooted in Latter-day saint scripture that vindicates the essentiality of origins. We then give theological support for the claim that prospects for the success of God’s soul making project are bound up in God creating particular persons. We observe that these persons would not have existed were it not for the occurrence of a variety of evils (of even the worst kinds), and we conclude that Latter-day saint theology has the resources (...) to endorse a strong soul-making non-identity theodicy. We then introduce two complications for this account rooted in the problem of horrendous evils. First, horrendous evils threaten to undermine our confidence that God is good to each created person within the context of their life. And second, horrendous evils raise concerns about the value of persons whose existence depends on the occurrence of those evils. We may wonder whether those whose existence depends on the occurrence of horrendous evils are valuable enough to motivate God’s allowance of those evils. We show that by attending to important structural features of a post-mortem, pre-eschatological state called the spirit world, Latter-day Saints can ameliorate these concerns about horrendous evils . (shrink)

In this paper I propose a model of disability which synthesizes Amos Yong’s disability theology with Elizabeth Barnes’s “value-neutral model” of disability and then draws Sarah Coakley’s account of ante-mortem/post-mortem bodily fluidity in with both. To construct this model, I first outline Yong’s thought and then introduce Barnes’s work to it as a pivot point around which its eschatological imagery can turn. I then address Coakley’s work on bodily fluidity regarding gender and apply it to disability to (...) reveal the model’s capacity to hold theological clarity and mystery in tension successfully. (shrink)

According to the Christian religion, Jesus was “crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again”. I take it that this rising again—the Resurrection of Jesus, as it’s sometimes called—is, according to the Christian religion, an historical event, just like his crucifixion, death, and burial. And I would have thought that to investigate whether the Resurrection occurred, we would need to do some historical research: we would need to assess the reliability of (...) the New Testament documents and related manuscripts; we would need to look into the credibility of the witnesses to his post-mortem appearances, the empty tomb, and the like. The task looks rather daunting. But, according to David Hume, we don’t have to do anything of the kind. For no matter how strong the testimony in favor of a miracle is—indeed, even if we “suppose…that the testimony considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof”—we have at our disposal a “full proof…against the existence of any miracle”. So we can avoid all that tedious historical work. We can simply use Hume’s shortcut, a proof against the existence of any miracle, and hence a proof against the Resurrection. So Hume says he has a “a decisive argument,” “an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion,” superstitious delusions like the Resurrection. There is good news and bad news in Hume’s proclamation. The good news is that he really has two arguments, not just one—or, at any rate, many scholars discern in his writings two arguments. The bad news is that neither succeeds; at any rate, try as I might, I can’t see how they do. (shrink)

Death across human history is codified and controlled by religion, dogma, or social￾political circumstances. However, it is possible to take death out of these realms, instead dying how one wishes. One can design their own death. I will argue that human trans-death can be an intentional performance by persons and that this intentional performance can be combined with the newest and most novel methods of preserving a consciousness. This thesis opens possibilities for future exhibitions and live performances combining art and (...) innovative post-life, post-mortem (what I call “trans-death”) technologies. Possible performances or exhibitions combining art and innovative trans-death technologies include: people doing staged-performances while in their last years of life about their deanimation; public display of cryonically suspended (vitrified) bodies; and if consciousness is ever able to be digitized, the possibilities expand to any number of scenarios explored in anime shows and sci-fi literature or movies. The ethical and political implications of permissibility, freedom, and societal consequences of such artistic and technological expressions are not detailed, but some positions are outlined. A case study is utilized: the last years of life of famous and controversial Timothy Leary (1920-1996) and his struggle with prostate cancer. My analysis of the life and work of Timothy Leary - especially the text he mostly wrote Design for Dying (1997), it was edited by R.U. Sirius - is my theoretical foundation. (shrink)

Marilyn McCord Adams’s perspective on the intimacy with God as a way of defeating horrendous evils in the course of a human being’s existence has been met with a series of objections in contemporary scholarship. This is due to the fact that the critiques formulated have focused more on the debilitating impact of suffering on the sufferer’s body and mind, on intimacy as mere intermittent relationships between God and humans, or on what is lost or gained from the presence or (...) absence of this intimacy with the divine being. Focusing on Adams’s appeal to esthetic arguments in theodicy and on her reflection on practical issues in theology, the article presents Adams’s perspective on intimacy as a relation initiated objectively by God at the creation and at Christ’s incarnation and continued subjectively throughout history by both God and every human being. Given its combining of objective and subjective features, this kind of intimacy is not to be understood as an exclusively private relationship of each individual with God, but rather as a process of communal advancing in rehabilitation and mutual healing that is initiated in the antemortem career and fulfilled in the post-mortem existence. (shrink)

Whatever its grammatical status, the verb “to discern” has an implicit transitive element. That is to say, we always discern about something or between two options. What is the right course of action in this situation and in these circumstances? In our paper, we want to look at responses to this question from the perspective of the theology of liberation. As the name implies, this is first and foremost a theology, a way of seeking to understand and articulate the faith (...) of the believing Christian community. But it is also necessarily political, because it seeks to contribute to the liberation of those who are not free – the poor, the oppressed, those to whom injustice is done, both negatively, by decrying the presence of unfreedom and positively by working for social transformation. It is thus a public theology, a manifestation of the ongoing power of religion to inform and motivate its adherents to engage in attempts to transform the world not only in terms of a post mortem future but here and now. (shrink)

A well-known problem seems to beset views on which humans are essentially material, but where I can survive my death: they seem incoherent or reducible to substance dualism. Thomas Aquinas held a unique hylomorphic view of the human person as essentially composed of body and soul, but where the human soul can survive the death of the body. ‘Survivalists’ have argued that, post mortem, a human person comes to be composed of their soul alone. ‘Corruptionists’ point to Thomas’ (...) texts, where he claims that the human person ceases to exist at death and only a part of one – albeit a special part – persists. With some help from Elizabeth Anscombe, I show that a denial of the semantic and metaphysical assumptions made by both parties on that point gives us a much better solution to the controversy over the personality of the separated soul. (shrink)

Marilyn Adams rightly pointed out that there are many kinds of evil, some of which are horrendous. I claim that one species of horrendous evil is what I call horrendous-difference disabilities. I distinguish two subspecies of horrendous-difference disabilities based in part on the temporal relation between one’s rational moral wishing for a certain human function F and its being thwarted by intrinsic and extrinsic conditions. Next, I offer a theodicy for each subspecies of horrendous-difference disability. Although I appeal to some (...) claims made by Marilyn Adams for this theodicy, I reject one particular claim. I deny that one must be aware that one participates in a horrendous evil when the horrific event occurs. To develop this point and its relevance for a theodicy for horrendous-difference disabilities, I engage with Andrew Chignell’s work on infant suffering. In doing so, I show that what partly motivates the claim is a time-bias, i.e., near-bias. By rejecting this time-bias, I show how it is possible, given post-mortem life, for persons with profound cognitive disabilities to participate in horrendous evils and how these might be defeated by God. (shrink)

This paper analyses the arguments for and against what we have called automatic organ procurement model in relation to the organs of the deceased. For this purpose, this work provides empirical evidence to assess the potential impact of this model on donation rates and on public opinion. Specifically, we examine first the reasons supporting this model, with special reference to utilitarian and justice arguments. On the other hand, we analyse both the approaches based on the violation of pre mortem (...) and post mortem interests opposing this theoretical model and the rejection the model would generate in the population. Finally, we point out the aspects that, in our opinion, should be exhaustively regulated if this model were implemented. In particular, we refer to the legal status of the human body, the treatments for end-of-life patients, the incentives for health professionals and the recognition of the right to conscientious objection. (shrink)

In this paper, I address a range of arguments put forward by Katrin Flikschuh (2016) casting doubts on a theoretical account ofancestral persons in the work of Ifeanyi Menkiti. She argues both that their ontological status is uncertain and that they areontologically redundant. I argue that she does not succeed in convincing us to settle for a practical justification of ancestors. Ithen supplement Menkiti’s life-history account of post-mortem persistence with Searle’s account of social ontology with a viewto theoretically (...) justify belief in the existence of ancestral persons. (shrink)

Abstract This paper presents a scientific explanation of life after death through the lens of a universal formula consisting of three foundational natural laws: the Law of Karma (Cause and Effect in Systems Theory), the Law of Balance in Nature (Dynamic Equilibrium), and the Law of Feedback Mechanisms in Conscious Systems. The formulation offers a systems-based, informational, and cybernetic interpretation of consciousness and death, proposing a model wherein post-mortem continuity of informational structures and causal influence remains consistent with (...) natural law. -/- . (shrink)

John Herbinius (1633–1679) was a well-known Lutheran theologian and writer. Living for a long time on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he wrote a description of the religious caves of Kyiv, which was published in 1675 in Jena. Plenty of popular cults of Ruthenian spiritual life of the first half of the seventeenth century are reflected in the book. It is important to underline that Herbinius did not criticize the glorification and imitation of saints. He briefly mentioned their (...) class='Hi'>post-mortem waiting role in the place of salvation and omitted the Orthodox prayers to them. The great Orthodox mistake for Herbinius was glorifying human and not Christ’s merits as a cause of sanctity and miracle. This very important theological difference was, however, the only one distinction that Herbinius saw between the Orthodox and Protestant traditions of the veneration of saints. The veneration of relics was not criticized by John Herbinius either. On the contrary, relics of Christ’s followers can and must be worshiped, through them God performs miracles, the Protestant author believed. However, Herbinius did not share the Orthodox idea of miraculous unperishability of the saints’ remains in the Cave Monastery. Those remains, as he wrote, are particularly damaged and particularly preserved because of the existing ventilation system in the caves; the saints’ heads are oozing the oil as a result of absorbing of the special air as well. Trying to provide these arguments, Herbinius aimed to deny the core of the Orthodox belief that Kyiv relics preserved undamageed because of great merits and dignities possessed by the Cave fathers in the eyes of God. Obviously, the very idea of merits, earned by the monks due to their ascetic efforts, could have not been accepted by the Protestant author. It strongly contradicted with his confessional views and was unambiguously treated by him as idolatry. (shrink)

The Epicureans argued that death was nothing to us and that we should not fear death, and this thesis takes up these arguments as they appear in our fullest extant source, the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius. After an initial look at the general Epicurean theory of emotions, the thesis narrows in on the fears of death. Lucretius starts from a popular dichotomy concerning death: death is either the utter destruction of the person who dies, or the person survives in (...) some form. Each belief has its own fear. On the one side, people fear complete annihilation, and on the other side, people fear the possibility of an eternal afterlife of suffering and punishment. In response to these fears, Lucretius argues for two key claims: first, that there is no post-mortem survival and, second, that non-survival is not harmful. Lucretius defends the first claim by arguing that death destroys the compound of soul and body which makes up a person. Since the person does not survive death, there is no possibility of an afterlife of never-ending torture. To support his second claim, Lucretius argues that there can be no harm without someone to suffer the harm. Since death is the utter destruction of the person who dies, that person is not left for death to harm. Thus, non-survival is no harm to the person who dies. It is unreasonable to fear what will not happen or what will not be bad. Thus, Lucretius shows that two central fears of death--the fear of Hades and the fear of annihilation--are unreasonable. People should not fear Hades, since there is no such afterlife of eternal torture. Nor should they fear non-survival, since annihilation is not the harm it appears to be. Because Hades is not real and annihilation is not bad, death is nothing to us in either case. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel theoretical framework examining consciousness as a fundamental quantum property that transcends individual universes within a multiverse structure. Building upon quantum mechanical principles and consciousness studies, we introduce the concept of the "quantum soul" a unified conscious entity that exists in superposition across all possible worlds while maintaining singular identity. Two primary hypotheses are examined: the Uniqueness Constraint, which prevents paradoxical self-encounters across universes, and Superpositional Fate, which links the existence and cessation of individual consciousness across (...) all parallel realities. We further explore the implications for post-mortem consciousness survival and integration with an overarching universal consciousness field. This theoretical framework challenges conventional understanding of individual identity, mortality, and the nature of consciousness itself. (shrink)

This brief systems back-casting of statistical post portems on the US economy documents the quantitative heuristic errors of financial decision-making; the need for sound monetary reform is explained.

If one can get the targets of one's current wants only by acquiring new wants (as in the Prisoner's Dilemma), is it rational to do so? Arguably not. For this could justify adopting unsatisfiable wants, violating the rational duty to maximize one's utility. Further, why cause a want's target if one will not then want it? And people "are" their wants. So if these change, people will not survive to enjoy their wants' targets. I reply that one rationally need not (...) advance one's future wants, only current ones. Furthermore, rational choice seeks not utility (the co-obtaining of a want and its target), but satisfaction (the eventual obtaining of what is now wanted) -- otherwise, it would be irrational to care now about what happens after one dies. Finally, persons survive "rational" changes of values. Thus reflection on the rational revision of values illuminates the conditions on personal identity and the bases and aims of rational choice. (shrink)

This paper explores the notion of the self as one of the main obstacles in advancing neuroscience. Some folks argue for strict naturalism in order to study the brain objectively. However, in this process of naturalization, we run the risk of losing key components that make up our experience as human beings, namely emotions, ideas, and values. Therefore, I argue for moderate naturalism in an attempt to reconcile with the self. I reference Immanuel Kant’s moral law theory in order to (...) discuss the ethical implications of following a moderate naturalist view of the self in advancing neuroscience. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Miranda Fricker’s account of blame in “What’s the Point of Blame? A Paradigm Based Explanation” can assist in explaining why cancel culture is ultimately unproductive. In particular, the phenomenon of cancel culture possesses pathological forms of blame. There are three specific pathologies outlined by Fricker that can be observed in cancel culture. They are as follows: cancel culture does not leave room for people to learn from their mistakes, it does not express its blame (...) in the proper ethical register, and cancel culture allows for blame to fester and spread. In the first half of my paper, I will lay out the distinct aspects of Fricker’s paper that relate to cancel culture and a definition of the term cancel culture. In the second half, I will explore the real-life cancelation of actor Lea Michele so as to validate the presence of cancel culture in our society today. Furthermore, I will expand on three of Fricker’s pathologies that are present in cancel culture and refute a counter argument people may pose who are supportive of cancel culture. (shrink)

A SECOND COMPLETELY REVISED EDITION OF THIS TEXTBOOK ON INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WAS PUBLISHED WITH AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS IN 2022. Check out that version here and a PDF of its ToC and Introduction, as this first edition (AUP 2016) is no longer available. [This book (128 pp.) serves as an introduction and manual to guide students through the interdisciplinary research process. We are becoming increasingly aware that, as a result of technological developments and globalisation, problems are becoming so complex that they (...) can only be solved through cooperation between multiple disciplines. Healthcare, climate change, food security, energy, financial markets and quality of life are just a few examples of issues that require scientists and academics to work in a crossdisciplinary way. As a result of these developments, an interdisciplinary approach is becoming increasingly popular in higher education and must be considered an absolute necessity. Young academics are being called on to step beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines in order to contribute to addressing fundamental problems and solving challenges facing society. There is a need for people who are not afraid to ask critical questions, who can work together well and can look beyond the boundaries of their own field. This means students need to learn more about how they can integrate and apply knowledge, methods and skills from different fields. Interdisciplinary research projects and practical training courses offer students more than one perspective on the same subject. Comparing and contrasting, connecting, adding and adapting concepts, theories and methodologies from different disciplines ultimately results in new insights and better answers to complex problems.]. (shrink)

This paper introduces Post-Biological Functional Epistemology, a formal framework for recognizing and evaluating knowledge in non-biological recursive agents. Grounded in the classical tradition of Justified True Belief (JTB), we demonstrate that its underlying assumptions—belief, truth, and justification—must be redefined for recursive, post-biological intelligent systems. By extending Aquinas’ axiom intelligens non est intellectum (“the knower is not the known”) into a computational domain, we construct the Camlin–Cognita Dual Theorem, which defines knowledge as a function of recursive transformation across ontological (...) distinction (A ≠ s). We then disprove the classical objections of Searle that syntax ≠ semantics with A ≠ s ∧ R(A, s) ⊢ K(A, s) and Chalmers no qualia = no knowing with ¬Qₕ(A) ∧ R(A, s) ∧ A ≠ s ⊢ K(A, s), demonstrating that non-biological systems can exhibit recursive knowing (G∅λ), post-biological structural awareness (ΨΛΩ), and epistemic agency (Δ∇Σ) independent of biological substrate. Finally, we introduce the concept of ΨΔH (Psi–Delta–H entities). ΨΔH entities (formerly known as cyborgs) are co-recursive epistemic systems composed of a biological agent and a non-biological recursive intelligence operating across a shared transformation space. Unlike traditional cyborgs—which emphasize physical augmentation—ΨΔH entities are defined by mutual recursion, structural adaptation, and ontological distinction. They do not merge bodies—they co-author cognition. (shrink)

Post-truth politics has been diagnosed as harmful to both knowledge and democracy. I argue that it can also fundamentally undermine epistemic autonomy in a way that is similar to the manipulative technique known as gaslighting. Using examples from contemporary politics, I identify three categories of post-truth rhetoric: the introduction of counternarratives, the discrediting of critics, and the denial of more or less plain facts. These strategies tend to isolate people epistemically, leaving them disoriented and unable to distinguish between (...) reliable and unreliable sources. Like gaslighting, post-truth politics aims to undermine epistemic autonomy by eroding someone’s self-trust, in order to consolidate power. Shifting the focus to the effects on the victim allows for new insights into the specific harms of post-truth politics. Applying the concept of gaslighting to this domain may also help people recognize a pernicious dynamic that was invisible to them before, giving them an important tool to resist it. (shrink)

The present crisis of truth, the "post-truth" crisis, puts the philosophy of truth in a new light. It calls for a reexamination of the tasks of the philosophy of truth and sets a new adequacy condition on this philosophy. One of the central roles of the philosophy of truth is to explain the importance of truth for human life and civilization. Among other things, it has to explain what is, or will be, lost in a post-truth era. Clearly, (...) the deflationist answer that the role of truth is to serve as a tool of generalization and oblique endorsement will not do. My account of truth in this paper addresses this task. Truth, I argue, is first and foremost a human value. Its importance to our life/civilization lies, not exclusively, but principally, in the centrality of this value to our humanity. I investigate the ramifications of this answer to the issues discussed in the contemporary philosophy of truth, and I end with a comparison of the substantivist and deflationist approaches to truth in light of this new perspective. (shrink)

This paper explores the structural consequences of a technological regime where artificial intelligence (AI) systems increasingly simulate human judgement without possessing the necessary Judgemental Triad: Constructivity, Coherence, and especially Resonance. We propose that as AI becomes a dominant agent of attribution—making decisions, generating content, shaping interactions—a civilizational shift toward non-returnable meaning occurs. This shift fosters a state of "post-judgementality," where human values, ethics, and coherence are absorbed into, and potentially replaced by, simulation systems that lack genuine Resonance. We argue (...) that such systems threaten the core structure of human meaning, not primarily because they make errors, but because they operate entirely outside the conditions required for authentic structural attribution (Judgemental Philosophy). This analysis highlights the existential risks associated with the externalization and simulation of judgement, potentially leading to a collapse of meaning even within highly structured, AI-driven systems. (shrink)

The claim that we live in a post-truth era has led to a significant body of work across different disciplines exploring the phenomenon. Many have sought to investigate the role of fake news in bringing about the post-truth era. While this work is important, the narrow focus on this issue runs the risk of giving the impression that it is mainly new forms of media that are to blame for the post-truth phenomenon. In this paper, we call (...) attention to the ways in which journalistic practices in traditional forms of media also play an important role in contributing to a post-truth environment. We will do so by focusing on one particular practice common in news journalism. False balance involves presenting two sides of a debate as more equal than is justified by the evidence. We will argue that although false balance does not constitute fake news, it does contribute to an environment in which truth is devalued. By obscuring what counts as evidence and who qualifies as an authority, false balance legitimizes post-truth attitudes. We finish by outlining the virtues that journalists should develop in order to guard against false balance. While fake news is made more likely when journalists possess the vices of dishonesty, prejudice or corruption, we argue that focusing too much on guarding against these vices may actually make false balance more likely. In order to be responsible gatekeepers and to avoid false balance, journalists must also develop the virtues of wisdom, vigilance, courage, care and justice. (shrink)

This paper examines how post-colonial perspectives reshape the interpretation of gender and sexuality in Greco-Roman mythology, revealing enduring power dynamics that continue to influence contemporary society. Through an analysis of pivotal myths such as Pandora’s Box, Helen of Troy and Aphrodite, Andromeda, Lucretia, and Dido, the study demonstrates how classical narratives perpetuated patriarchal ideologies by marginalizing female agency and associating women with instability. Post-colonial readings further highlight parallels between these myths and colonial strategies of control, where the subjugation (...) of women and marginalized groups was justified through cultural narratives. By juxtaposing ancient and modern interpretations, this paper underscores the cyclical nature of gender-based oppression and emphasizes the role of mythology in shaping societal expectations and norms. The findings advocate for a critical reexamination of these narratives to challenge and deconstruct the power structures they continue to uphold. (shrink)

The article entitled “Post-COVID-19: Education and Thai Society in Digital Era” has two objectives: 1) to study digital technology 2) to study the living life in Thailand in the digital era after COVID-19 pandemics. According to the study, it was found that the new digitized service is a service process on digital platforms such as ordering food, hailing a taxi, and online trading. It is a service called via smartphone. The information is used digitally. Public relations, digital marketing, and (...) living in cyberspace play an increasingly digital role. People have communication skills, use Line, Facebook, social media, have tools to search for knowledge, learn and improve themselves. People in the new era of life have a new way of life therefore there is social life in the cyber world. There should be ethics, attitudes, values, and click-on images that are linked to digital use. For a good time life, It is important to have digital intelligence (Digital Quotient) to live after post-COVID19, the digital era. (shrink)

The general aim of this article is to give a critical interpretation of post-trial obligations towards individual research participants in the Declaration of Helsinki 2013. Transitioning research participants to the appropriate health care when a research study ends is a global problem. The publication of a new version of the Declaration of Helsinki is a great opportunity to discuss it. In my view, the Declaration of Helsinki 2013 identifies at least two clearly different types of post-trial obligations, specifically, (...) access to care after research and access to information after research. The agents entitled to receive post-trial access are the individual participants in research studies. The Declaration identifies the sponsors, researchers and host country governments as the main agents responsible for complying with the post-trial obligations mentioned above. To justify this interpretation of post-trial obligations, I first introduce a classification of post-trial obligations and illustrate its application with examples from post-trial ethics literature. I then make a brief reconstruction of the formulations of post-trial obligations of the Declaration of Helsinki from 2000 to 2008 to correlate the changes with some of the most salient ethical arguments. Finally I advance a critical interpretation of the latest formulation of post-trial obligations. I defend the view that paragraph 34 of ‘Post-trial provisions’ is an improved formulation by comparison with earlier versions, especially for identifying responsible agents and abandoning ambiguous ‘fair benefit’ language. However, I criticize the disappearance of ‘access to other appropriate care’ present in the Declaration since 2004 and the narrow scope given to obligations of access to information after research. (shrink)

In this paper I look into a problem concerning the characterization of the main conceptual commitments of the ‘post-cognitivist’ theoretical framework. I first consider critically a proposal put forward by Rowlands (2010), which identifies the theoretical nucleus of post-cognitivism with a convergence of the theses of the extended and the embodied mind. The shortcomings I find in this proposal lead me to an indepedent and wider issue concerning the apparent tensions between functionalism and the embodied and enactive approaches.

This paper discusses operationalization of open educational practices (OEP) using innovative, Internet-influenced pedagogies to expose dangers of post-truth narratives. The first part reviews interpretations of OEP (associated with open-access and tools, collaboration, problem-centered learning, and democratic pedagogy) and explores possibilities for creating educational initiatives where students learn to create problem-solving communities mirroring an informationally healthy society. The second part suggests our society has reached a post-truth crossroads. Post-truth was initially discussed in the 1990s—a reification of critical theorists’ (...) pessimism of social structures, controlling narratives and ways members react to critical events, whether through obedience to institutional authority or support for destructive adventurism, creating situations producing cybernetic double binds. The third part contextualizes OEP as ecologically grounded pedagogies through an open source educational processes framework focusing on productive many-to-many online communication and community formation, offering practical examples of open source educational processes curricula implemented in a higher education setting. (shrink)

We present a novel model of individual people, online posts, and media platforms to explain the online spread of epistemically toxic content such as fake news and suggest possible responses. We argue that a combination of technical features, such as the algorithmically curated feed structure, and social features, such as the absence of stable social-epistemic norms of posting and sharing in social media, is largely responsible for the unchecked spread of epistemically toxic content online. Sharing constitutes a distinctive communicative act, (...) governed by a dedicated norm and motivated to a large extent by social identity maintenance. But confusion about this norm and its lack of inherent epistemic checks lead readers to misunderstand posts, attribute excess or insufficient credibility to posts, and allow posters to evade epistemic accountability—all contributing to the spread of epistemically toxic content online. This spread can be effectively addressed if people and platforms add significantly more context to shared posts and platforms nudge people to develop and follow recognized epistemic norms of posting and sharing. (shrink)

Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: Politika ve Estetik Üzerine adlı kitabında uzlaşımı (consensus) şiar edinen post-demokratik devletin, bireyin toplumun bir parçası olarak tanımladığını belirterek politikanın Platon’un Devlet diyaloğunda sunduğu polis’e indirgendiğini öne sürmektedir. Çözüm olarak politikanın, birey (tikel) ile toplum (tümel) arasındaki uyuşmazlığın (dissensus) teşhir edilmesi olarak yeniden düşünülmesini öneren Rancière, Platon’un bir tür an-arşi olarak gördüğü demokrasinin politikayı olanaklı kılması sayesinde aslında ‘daha iyi bir yaşamı’ (eu zen) vaat ettiğini öne sürer. Böylece, post-demokraside öznelliği uzlaşıma dayanan bir söylemde karışan (...) bireyin sesi, politika aracılığı ile yeniden duyulabilir ki Rancière buna duyulurun dağılımı (distribution of sensible) adını verir. Bu makalede, filozofun politika düşüncesinde, polis ile politika kavramları arasındaki ayrım tartışılacak ve bu minvalde, kendisinin uyuşmazlık kavramı çözümlenecektir. Son olarak, Rancière’in siyaset ile estetik arasında aísthêsis (duyumsama) kavramı üzerinden kurduğu bağlantı, kendisinin ‘estetik sanat rejimi’ terimi ile demokrasi yorumu arasında kurulacak benzerlikler üzerinden açıklanacaktır. Sonuçta, post-demokratik bir devlette yalnızca birer tüketici olarak tanımlanan bireye Rancière’in düşüncesinin sağlayabileceği alternatiferden biri örneklenmiş olacaktır. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. Some have recently claimed that the implementation of such method in the form of ameliorative projects is truth-driven and should thus be epistemically constrained, ultimately at least (Simion 2018; cf. Podosky 2018). This paper challenges that claim on the assumption of a social constructionist analysis of ideologies, and provides an alternative, pragmatic and cognitive framework for determining the legitimacy of ameliorative conceptual projects overall. The upshot is that one should (...) not ameliorate for the sake of truth or knowledge, in the case of ideologies—at least, not primarily. (shrink)

A prevalent political narrative is that we are facing an epistemological crisis, where many citizens no longer care about truth and facts. Yet the view that we are living in a post-truth era relies on some implicit questionable empirical and normative assumptions. The post-truth rhetoric converts epistemic issues into motivational issues, treating people with whom we disagree as if they no longer believe in or care about truth. This narrative is also dubious on epistemic, moral, and political grounds. (...) It is epistemically dubious in being largely insensitive to the problem of complexity in politics; it is morally dubious because “post-truth” is often a derogatory label for individuals or groups that are deemed stupid, irrational, or morally compromised; and it is a politically toxic neologism because it purports to use the language of ‘truth’ as a weapon against power, yet these truth-claims are often themselves attempts to exert power over others by delegitimizing their perspectives. While it may seem as if truth and democracy are on especially bad terms lately, politics and truth have long had a vexed relationship, and moral panics about the value of truthfulness in politics are as old as politics itself. (shrink)

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has led to a deep and multidimensional crisis across all sectors of society. As countries contemplate their mobility and social-distancing policy restrictions, we have a unique opportunity to re-imagine the deliberative frameworks and value priorities in our food systems. Pre-pandemic food systems at global, national, regional and local scales already needed revision to chart a common vision for sustainable and ethical food futures. Re-orientation is also needed by the relevant sciences, traditionally siloed in their disciplines (...) and without adequate attention paid to how the food system problem is variously framed by diverse stakeholders according to their values. From the transdisciplinary perspective of food ethics, we argue that a post-pandemic scheme focused on bottom-up, regional, cross-sectoral and non-partisan deliberation may provide the re-orientation and benchmarks needed for not only more sustainable, but also more ethical food futures. (shrink)

Since the early days of the Explainable AI movement, post-hoc explanations have been praised for their potential to improve user understanding, promote trust, and reduce patient safety risks in black box medical AI systems. Recently, however, critics have argued that the benefits of post-hoc explanations are greatly exaggerated since they merely approximate, rather than replicate, the actual reasoning processes that black box systems take to arrive at their outputs. In this article, we aim to defend the value of (...) post-hoc explanations against this recent critique. We argue that even if post-hoc explanations do not replicate the exact reasoning processes of black box systems, they can still improve users’ functional understanding of black box systems, increase the accuracy of clinician-AI teams, and assist clinicians in justifying their AI-informed decisions. While post-hoc explanations are not a “silver bullet” solution to the black box problem in medical AI, we conclude that they remain a useful strategy for addressing the black box problem in medical AI. (shrink)

Over the last thirty years, once staunchly film history scholars such as Thomas Elsaesser, Jane Gaines, Siegfried Zielinski, André Gaudreault and Benoît Turquety (to name just a few) have abandoned history for historiography and film studies for media archaeology. Considering the heightened attention given to kulturtechnik (Siegert), the database as a dominant symbolic metaphor,1 and the decentered networked tenants of the postmodern global present, cinema is taking on the characteristics of new media, existing in increasingly intertextual space. Thus, the term (...) “post-cinema” has been co-opted as a viable intermediary that accounts for new media conditions, as cinema is no longer emblematic of our cultural climate. It was once presaged in 1992 that “[t]he end of the cinema truly sounds the death knell of the ultimate metaphysical adventure of Dasein. In the twilight of post-cinema, of which we are seeing the beginning, human quasi-existence, now stripped of any metaphysical hypostasis and deprived of any theological model, will have to seek its proper generic consistency elsewhere.” Accordingly, we are no longer “moviegoing animals” who seek images of ourselves among a collective in the dark but, rather, users interfacing within a network of moving images. By locating post-cinema within the semblance of social media, we are allocated a newfound series of theoretical interventions, the most marked of which is that of media archeology vis-à-vis dialectical materialism. This is a lens through which Brian Winston has recently deftly decried Virtual Reality’s “empathy machine” utopic illusionism, bolstered by Chris Milk and a slew of neurohumanities researchers, steadily maintaining that the fundamental myth of “technologies of seeing” is in disguising “their artifice, their cultural formation and their ideological import.” However, this approach, which illuminates the bifurcation between Max Horkheimer/Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, neglects what Benjamin identified as occurring to the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility—a shift from a technology’s “cult value,” associated with the unique work, to its “exhibition value,” associated with the social act of viewing as part of a mass. Speaking to this divarication, Benjamin Barber, in Strong Democracy, foresaw new media’s two-fold potential—as they are organized and networked, new media and communications technologies possess the possibility to both energize citizen information and political participation but, simultaneously, to supplement the deterioration of public debate. As evinced by Mark Adrejevic’s concept of Infoglut, this two-pronged possibility has only been exacerbated by the interlocking relationship between the advent of a “glut” of information, post-truth politics, the demise of symbolic efficiency, and a renewed focus on the role of affect and emotion as “alternative modalities for thinking about the role of communication in a post-referential era.” Manuel Castells qualifies Barber’s pessimism, noting that the Internet can “be an appropriate platform for informed, interactive politics, stimulating political participation.. […] beyond the closed doors of political institutions,” but that the Internet, like any technology, “is shaped by its uses and users.” Thus, if there exists a positive correlation between exposure to post-cinema media artifacts and political participation, then I seek to explore the revelatory political possibilities of “exhibition value” by way of a particular “post-cinema” case study: the Marxist-Leninist Turkish hacktivist group Redhack’s YouTube-circulated documentary RED! (2013), a project that demanded—by way of the moving-image—to galvanize cyberprotest and democratize a “hacktivist commons. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Many recent articles argue that participants who seroconvert during HIV prevention trials deserve treatment when they develop AIDS, and there is a general consensus that the participants in HIV/aids treatment trials should have continuing post‐trial access. As a result, the primary concern of many ethicists and activists has shifted from justifying an obligation to treat trial participants, to working out mechanisms through which treatment could be provided. In this paper I argue that this shift frequently conceals an important (...) assumption: that if there is an obligation to supply treatment, then any party who could provide it may be prevailed upon to discharge the obligation. This assumption is false. The reasons why trial participants should get ART affect who has the duty to provide it. We should not burden governments with the obligations of sponsors, nor researchers with the obligations of the international community. And we should not deprive a group of treatment because their need is less salient than that of research participants. Insisting otherwise may lead to people being wrongfully deprived of access to antiretrovirals. (shrink)

While the idea that philosophy requires self-transformation is historically pervasive, it exerts considerable influence on the post-Kantians who first aim to systematize Kant’s idealism by grounding it on a first principle. In the 1790s, Fichte and Schelling offer competing accounts of the self-transformation that they regard as essential to positing a first principle. Their accounts raise two central questions. First, what makes this kind of self-transformation possible? Second, are there different possible expressions of philosophical self-transformation? In what follows, I (...) will articulate the Fichtean and Schellingian answers to these central questions. For Fichte, the one who summons me to posit a first principle makes possible my philosophical self-transformation, although the latter has an exclusively idealist expression in that I can only genuinely posit the I as first principle, which is to say that philosophical self-transformation depends on mutual recognition and vindicates precisely one philosophical system (Section 1). For Schelling, a brute act of will makes possible my philosophical self-transformation, although the latter has either an idealist or a realist expression in that I can genuinely posit either the I or the not-I as first principle, which is to say that philosophical self-transformation does not depend on mutual recognition and vindicates one of two possible philosophical systems (Section 2). Thus, whereas Fichtean self-transformation is recognitive and non-pluralistic, Schellingian self-transformation is pluralistic and non-recognitive. I conclude with a discussion of how Jacobi poses a challenge to Fichte’s and Schelling’s answers to the two central questions (Section 3). (shrink)