Interdisciplinary Reflection Research Articles

Neurorights in the Constitution: from neurotechnology to ethics and politics.

Neuroimaging technologies such as brain-computer interfaces and neurofeedback have evolved rapidly as new tools for cognitive neuroscience and as potential clinical interventions. However, along with these developments, concern has grown based on the fear of the potential misuse of neurotechnology. In October 2021, Chile became the first country to include neurorights in its Constitution. The present article is divided into two parts. In the first section, we describe the path followed by neurorights that led to its inclusion in the Chilean Constitution, and the neurotechnologies usually involved in neurorights discussions. In the second part, we discuss two potential problems of neurorights. We begin by pointing out some epistemological concerns regarding neurorights, mainly referring to the ambiguity of the concepts used in neurolegislations, the difficult relationship between neuroscience and politics and the weak reasons for urgency in legislating. We then describe the dangers of overprotective laws in medical research, based on the detrimental effect of recent legislation in Chile and the potential risk posed by neurorights to the benefits of neuroscience development. This article aims to engage with the scientific community interested in neurotechnology and neurorights in an interdisciplinary reflection of the potential consequences of neurorights.This article is part of the theme issue 'Neurofeedback: new territories and neurocognitive mechanisms of endogenous neuromodulation'.

Medical ethics and internal medicine

Recent scientific and technological advances in medicine have raised a number of ethical and regulatory problems, to which medicine alone can no longer provide adequate answers. Bioethics, as an interdisciplinary reflection, essentially deals with the ethical and regulatory aspects posed by biology in general; medical ethics, on the other hand, deals with the more specific aspects of medicine.

Iniciar un (des)aprendizaje del canon formativo desde los feminismos. Relatos desde las escuelas de arquitectura chilenas

This article presents the preliminary results of a survey that begins the work of identifying initiatives that, from Chilean architecture schools, open up possibilities for unlearning the educational canon. Just as we need to rethink how we inhabit and design, we must also review how we teach and learn architecture. The emphases of feminisms offer us some evident clues in two currently active initiatives identified in regional universities. The case of Mujeres Autoconvocadas FARCODI (MAF) encourages collective and interdisciplinary reflection, while the feminist initiative ProfesorARQ reclaims the narratives of female teaching, motivated by the concerns of current generations of students.

Special issue of Public Relations Inquiry PR and Social Justice: Interdisciplinary Reflections and Future Directions on the Impact of Public Relations and Promotional Communication on Human Rights and Social Inequalities

Special issue of <i>Public Relations Inquiry</i> PR and Social Justice: Interdisciplinary Reflections and Future Directions on the Impact of Public Relations and Promotional Communication on Human Rights and Social Inequalities

The Obscure Appellate: The Egyptian Islamic Supreme Court, 1898–1955

Abstract This article examines the Egyptian Islamic Supreme Court (al-Maḥkama al-ʿUlyā l-Sharʿiyya), thereafter the isc, and its role in overseeing Islamic judicial practice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The isc introduced new procedural requirements for dispensation of justice and assumed the responsibility to defend the jurisdiction of Islamic courts against persistent attempts by British colonial administrators and reform-minded political and bureaucratic elite to limit, if not undermine, their authority. The isc marked the recalibration of the legal and judicial authority of the Chief Judge of Egypt (qāḍī Miṣr, an Ottoman administrative judicial position) along with Shaykh al-Azhar and the Muftī of Egypt (who used to exercise oversight of Islamic courts’ decisions and procedures), in favor of this institutional apparatus. The creation of the isc demonstrates the centrality of the regulatory authority of the Ministry of Justice in fostering any potentiality for Islamic law as a system of governance. The continuous attempts to regulate Islamic courts since the 1880s cannot be examined in isolation from the procedural developments pursued in the secular National and Mixed Courts. The role of the isc was determinative of Islamic judicial practice in lower Islamic courts across Egypt. As a result, operations of Islamic courts were readjusted to a set of evolving norms concerning internal coherence, judicial reasoning, adoption of procedural rules to reflect directives from the Ministry of Justice, and attention to the updated rules of evidence and appeal. This process underscores how Islamic judicial practice was both transformed and made possible through an interwoven set of institutions, actors, and traditions. I argue that this institution, the isc, provides an ideal site for critical and interdisciplinary reflection aimed at exploring both the structural and the contextual history of law in colonial Egypt.

Regulatory framework for the assessment of the impacts of plant protection products on biodiversity: review of strengths and limits.

The placing of plant protection products (PPPs) on the market in the European Union is governed by numerous regulations. These regulations are among the most stringent in the world, however they have been the subject of criticisms especially because of the decline in biodiversity. The objectives of this work were to review (1) the functioning and actors involved in the PPP framework processes, (2) the construction of the environmental risk assessment focused on biodiversity, and (3) the suggested ways to respond to the identified limits. Both literature from social sciences and ecotoxicology were examined. Despite the protective nature of the European regulation on PPPs, the very imperfect consideration of biodiversity in the evaluation process was underlined. The main limits are the multiplicity of applicable rules, the routinization of the evaluation procedures, the lack of consideration of social data, and the lack of independence of the evaluation. Strengths of the regulation are the decision to integrate a systemic approach in the evaluation of PPPs, the development of modeling tools, and the phytopharmacovigilance systems. The avenues for improvement concern the realism of the risk assessment (species used, cocktail effects…), a greater transparency and independence in the conduct of evaluations, and the opening of the evaluation and decision-making processes to actors such as beekeepers or NGOs. Truly interdisciplinary reflections crossing the functioning of the living world, its alteration by PPPs, and how these elements question the users of PPPs would allow to specify social actions, public policies, and their regulation to better protect biodiversity.

The Role of the Discipline of Canon Law in the Liturgical Formation of the Faithful of the Catholic Church

In order to show the role of canon law in the liturgical formation of the faithful, the author undertakes an interdisciplinary reflection (philosophy, theology, legal sciences) on the understanding of law. Analysing the existing definitions of canon and liturgical law, she notes the positivist approach in this field. Then, on the basis of metaphysics and Thomism, she proposes a different view of law, canon law and liturgical law. She also notices the presence of Roman law in the church's legal culture. The legal formation of the faithful, based on such foundations, will allow for a deeper understanding and a better experience of the liturgy.

Genetic studies on forensic-psychiatric inpatients? : Clinical, ethical and legal considerations

Research on people deprived of liberty raises serious questions, especially concerning behavioral genetic studies. Does including criminally detained patients with mental disorders in genetic studies lead to again of new knowledge and can this be ethically and legally justified? Evaluation of existing literature and interdisciplinary reflection. After areview of research ethics and legal norms, we consider the benefits and risks of behavioral genetic research, taking the unique situation of test persons deprived of their liberty into account. The fundamental right to freedom of research also justifies foundational research in forensic psychiatry and psychotherapy. The possible future benefits of improving treatment plans must be weighed against the risks resulting from potential data leaks and inappropriate public reception of research results. Then we analyze possible threats to voluntary and informed consent to study participation in more detail by the ethical concept of vulnerability. Alongside problems with grasping complex issues, above all dependencies and power dynamics in the correctional system play apivotal role. Recommendations on the ethical and legal inclusion of this study population are given. Including criminally detained study participants can be ethically and legally justified when autonomous consent is supported by specific organizational and legal procedures and measures, for example via aclear professional and organizational separation of correction and research.

Some present and future ethical dilemmas surrounding advancements in in vitro fertilization.

The growing field of assisted human reproduction has achieved unimaginable milestones. Its continuous development and the innovations it generates at times pose both ethical and legal dilemmas. This essay aims to elucidate the progressive changes occurring in the realm of the origin of life due to the development of new options and strategies in assisted human reproduction. First, it constructs an interdisciplinary reflection on human nature and the changes society faces from the perspectives of science, ethics, and law, particularly from the perspective of Spain. Second, it provides a brief overview of current or future biomedical techniques in the field of human reproduction. It concludes with a discussion of the need to reflect on the rapid advancement of science in assisted human reproduction.

Resilience and gender-based violence

During the national lockdown in 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa voiced concern about the ongoing problem of gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa, calling it a pandemic alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 intensified the occurrence of gender-based violence within South African communities which consequently highlighted the need for awareness regarding this phenomenon. South Africa is a predominantly Christian culture, yet the actions of community members seem to be defined by patriarchal cultures. There is therefore a need to rethink how we address social issues, especially GBV. This article aims at providing an interdisciplinary reflection on shaping stories of resilience relating to gender-based violence from the perspectives of both theology and social work at Hugenote Kollege.

Addressing the Ocean-Climate Nexus in the BBNJ Agreement: Strategic Environmental Assessments, Human Rights and Equity in Ocean Science

Abstract The Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) opens a new path in international law towards addressing issues at the ocean-climate nexus, as well as considering implications for the protection of human rights and achieving equity among States in the context of ocean knowledge production and environmental management. Based on an interdisciplinary reflection, the new international obligations on strategic environmental assessments (SEAs), and new institutional arrangements, are identified as crucial avenues to addressing climate change mitigation and ensuring fair research partnerships, mutual capacity-building and technology co-development between the Global North and South. SEAs can also support integrated implementation of other parts of the BBNJ Agreement and contribute to the broader effectiveness of the general provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the protection of the marine environment, within and beyond national jurisdiction.

Territorial Brand in Regional Development: Interdisciplinary Discussions

Almost half of the world’s countries, including cities, have strategically adopted the territorial brand. This essay proposes an interdisciplinary reflection on the relationship between territorial brands and territorial and regional development theories. It discusses how the brand relates to the territory, making it a social actor mediated by a distinctive signal, the territorial brand. The intersection between the concepts of territory and brand reveals the legitimation strategies of social actors in producing a collective space delimited by power relations. Beyond the economic and tourist spheres, this context brings new debates to politics, theory, and social sciences in interdisciplinary regional development.

A Study on the Development of Convergence Online Liberal Arts Education in the Post-COVID Era

This study aims to examine the importance of convergence education in addressing global issues like the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also explores the features of online lectures and analyzes a case study of an online liberal arts lecture titled “Transformative Civilization in the Post COVID-19 Era” produced by K Cyber- University in 2020.The study analyzes the pre-production process and the results of a pre-survey to identify the characteristics of the lecture. The study categorizes the OX quiz, which is a measure of learner participation, and analyzes the lecture composition and content. Lastly, the students' changed perceptions and attitudes toward knowledge were investigated through post-mortem surveys.The study finds that “Transformative Civilization in the Post COVID-19 Era” has the following characteristics as a convergence course: student participation, conversational lectures, visualized summary, and interdisciplinary reflection on social phenomena. The lecture was designed to maximize interaction between the instructor and the learners by identifying and reflecting on the students' needs.Overall, the study presents a direction for online lectures during a period of transition in the history of civilization and is a significant case study of convergence in online education. Online education has become a crucial paradigm due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and this study offers valuable insights into creating effective online courses that engage learners and addresses global issues through convergence education.

The right to freedom of thought: an interdisciplinary analysis of the UN special rapporteur’s report on freedom of thought

ABSTRACT In 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief presented his ‘Report on Freedom of Thought’ to the United Nations General Assembly. This was the first substantive consideration of the right to freedom of thought at the United Nations level since the right was recognised in 1948. This paper provides interdisciplinary reflections on this report to support ongoing discussions on the appropriate content and scope of this fundamental human right. We begin by addressing reasons for the historical neglect of this right, namely the right being viewed as more symbolic than practical and relevant interests being perceived as already protected by other rights. Next, given there is no consensus on what the right protects, or how it protects, we consider its potential attributes. We then consider potential violations of this right, turning to its application to mental health. Finally, we consider the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations, discussing how some may be realised through human rights-centered regulation in the form of the European Union’s new Digital Services Act. In this context, we also briefly consider relevant aspects of the EU Commission’s proposal for an AI Act. We conclude by outlining pressing challenges facing the development of this right.

“Sweet Spot” for Reflection in Problem-oriented Education

This paper examines the impact of a structured, multi-dimensional reflection track of a 16-week pilot programme in experimental pedagogics (XP) in The Netherlands. XP is an elective undergraduate programme in which students investigate socially relevant educational problems in local communities and design educational interventions to address these issues through problem-oriented project work (PPL). To accompany the learning journey, students follow a reflection track structured with workshops, learning diaries, and articulated learning essays, that covers cognitive, phenomenological, relational, social and global dimensions of reflection. The design of the track was informed by an interdisciplinary reflection framework combining inputs from cognitive and critical paradigms. To evaluate and improve the impact of this novel approach to reflection in problem-oriented education, the authors undertook an Education Action Research (EAR) process with the 17 participating students. The evaluation phase of the EAR was conducted using a phenomenographic design to draw out qualitative variations in conceptions of reflection among students who participated in the pilot. Focusing on variations of conceptions allowed the teachers-as-action-researchers to gain a fine-grained understanding of reflection within the XP problem-oriented setting. The findings reveal an outcome space comprising seven increasingly complex reflection categories. A phenomenographic analysis of the categories led us to conclude that there exists a reflection “sweet spot” inside which there is growth in reflection breadth and depth. Outside the sweet spot, students either do not reflect at all, or become so entangled in reflection that an infinite reflection regress appears to derail learning. We conclude by discussing the contributions of these findings to strengthening critical, socially relevant reflection in problem-oriented project work in the context of current global crises, focusing on the role of supervisors in fostering productive reflection.

Citizenship and Postcolonialism: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Filipino Americans and their Pursuit of the American Dream

This essay seeks to situate discussions of seminal Filipino intellectual Carlos Bulosan's (1946) America Is in the Heart, an early twentieth century autobiographical novel, within the literary trope of the “American dream,” and trace the themes present in his work within contemporary recorded experiences, or in this case, contemporary twenty-first century interviews: in-depth qualitative interviews and personal testimonies of Filipino American citizens. I will highlight the historical and ongoing ethos that Asian American immigrants face with respect to their citizenship, their relationship to the host-nation, or specifically the United States, and the sacrifices that have accompanied attempts of attaining the American dream. The US formally colonized the Philippines during the early twentieth century, a historical relationship that complicates this inquiry. Given the postcolonial dynamic, or that the Philippines is the only Asian country that the United States colonized on a clearly public policy level, how might this historical relation of power shape postcolonial citizenship? Moreover, how might Bulosan's understandings of citizenship connect with Filipino Americans’ notions of the American dream in the early twenty-first century? By reflecting through an interdisciplinary approach, I directly place into conversation a seminal Filipino American thinker from the twentieth century vis-à-vis Filipino Americans in the twenty-first century to interrogate notions of belonging and identity within the framework of the American dream.

Phenomenon of Disease in the Bible: Historical, Theological and Interdisciplinary Reflection

Phenomenon of Disease in the Bible: Historical, Theological and Interdisciplinary Reflection

Ынтымақтастық философиясы: философиялық мәдени дипломатияның алғышарттары

People are always important only to people. Such practices as “communication”, “cooperation” have developed since mankind created society and are not new. The concept of “cultural diplomacy,” aimed at creating and maintaining peace and stability throughout the world through intercultural relations, forms the basis of a new science. While the new science considers new research, mechanisms and new ways, the proposed article examines a number of fundamental ways linking philosophy and cultural diplomacy. Such a step may be necessary for interdisciplinary reflection, research and practice. This is justified by the fact that philosophy is necessary to provide a theoretical vision of each science, while rational thinking seeks to clarify and determine the origin, causes, goals, characteristics, methods, scientific vocabulary, various areas of its specific part. Since philosophy is a worldwide science, the study of international exchange of experience can create an effective field of research.Cultural diplomacy is common to a number of fields of philosophy, such as “philosophy of culture”, “political philosophy” and “philosophical anthropology,” therefore, the field of research is open for development in terms of new philosophical considerations and many valuable ideas. The authors of the article believe that intercultural and internal relations can be strengthened and maintained through constant and continuous dialogue and exchange, which, in turn, helps to strengthen understanding and trust between peoples and communities, prevent misunderstandings, improve relations and cooperation, and reduce the likelihood of socio-cultural conflicts and disputes.

Artificial Aesthetics and Aesthetic Machine Attention

The aesthetics of artificial intelligence is often viewed in relation to the qualities of their generated expressions. However, aesthetics could have a broader role in developing machine perception. One of the main areas of expertise in aesthetics is the understanding of feature-based information, which involves how the aesthetics of sensory features can cause affective changes in the perceiver, and the other way around – how affective states can give rise to certain kinds of aesthetic features. This two-way link between aesthetic features and affects is not yet well-established in the interdisciplinary discussion; however, according to perceptual psychology, it fundamentally constructs the human experience. Machine attention is an emerging technique in machine learning that is most often used in tasks like object detection, visual question answering, and language translation. Modern use of technology most often focuses on creating object-based attention through linguistic categories, although the models could also be utilized for nonverbal attention. This paper proposes the following perceptual conditions for aesthetic machine attention: 1) acknowledging that something appears (aesthetic detection); 2) suspension of judgment (aesthetic recognition); and 3) making the incident explicit with expression (aesthetic identification and amplification). These aspects are developed through an interdisciplinary reflection of literature from the fields of aesthetics, perceptual psychology, and machine learning. The paper does not aim to give a general account of aesthetic perception but to expand the interdisciplinary theory of aesthetics and specify the role of aesthetics among other disciplines at the heart of the technological development of the human future. Article received: May 10, 2022; Article accepted: July 15, 2022; Published online: October 15, 2022; Original scholarly paper

Marina Pak (c. 1572–1636): An Attempted Reconstruction of Her Years in the Philippines

Marina Pak (c. 1572–1636) entered Christian history as Korea’s first significantly cloistered individual, but researchers know almost nothing about her twenty-two years in the Philippines because of the scarce primary source testimonies. On the other hand, through interdisciplinary reflections on Marina’s pluralistic religious background, the influence of the Japanese state, the significance of the Pasig River, and her relationship in the Philippines with Miyako no Bikuni foundress Naitō Julia (c. 1566–1627), one can reconstruct the steps that Marina might have undertaken to navigate a Christian vocation in a foreign land. This article explores the ways in which Marina might have tried to reconcile three different cultural factors (the Korean identity of her birth, Japanese influences arising from her involuntary sojourn in Japan, and the Filipino culture of her final destination), and despite the tentative nature of the study’s conclusions, these findings may offer paths for future scholars to follow.