Alexander Gungov – författare

In this timely study, Jean Buttigieg demonstrates the necessity to make it a legal principle of international law that the human genome is a common heritage of mankind. In 1997, the UNESCO General Conference declared the human genome a common heritage of humankind. This declaration was followed by the Joint Statement of March 14, 2000, by US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which they stated that the “fundamental data on the human genome, including the human DNA sequence and its variations, should be made freely available to scientists everywhere.” This announcement to allow “unencumbered access” to this fundamental data on the human genome, for the benefit of all humanity, appeared to endorse the UNESCO Declaration of 1997 on the human genome. But as it turns out, these statements were only political slogans since there is a complete lack of any genuine attempts to make the human genome a legal principle of international law so far. This study's foremost goal is to re-introduce the philosophical and political implications of the concept of common heritage of mankind into public discourse, as intended by Arvid Pardo when he addressed the UN General Assembly on November 1, 1967, and apply them to the human genome. As Buttigieg demonstrates, the biggest challenge here comes from the patent system in its present form, which encourages the commercialization of the human genome by explicitly denying scientists “unencumbered access” to the fundamental raw data. By putting individual rights before community rights, the patent system effectively hinders discoveries that prompt new and better medical treatments. Buttigieg also discusses issues of biotechnology. While the biotechnology debate is very often centred on which new applications of biotechnology should or should not be permitted, it so far lacks a critical philosophical analysis of biotechnology itself. The true essence of the human genome, Buttigieg argues, is to be found in metaphysics and not biology. This study fills a gap in the literature on the human genome and the common heritage of mankind by addressing the metaphysical nature of the human genome and discussing the philosophical concerns surrounding the field of biotechnology.

In this unique study, Jean-Pierre Clero examines medical ethics from a philosophical perspective. Based on the thoughts of great philosophers, he develops a theory of medical ethics that focuses on the values of intimacy.

The Science of Cookery and the Art of Eating Well is a philosophical and historical reflection on food and dining in human culture. It includes discussions of the nature of the first meals as found in Greek literature and the philosophy of history of Giambattista Vico, the Roman cookbook of Apicius (the first known cookbook), the cookbook of Artusi (the seminal cookbook of Italian cooking), Brillat-Savarin’s Physiology of Taste, Plutarch’s “Dinner of the Seven Wise Men,” and Athenaeus’ work on the Learned Banqueters (the Deipnosophists). These discussions are joined with contemporary observations on the importance of the traditions of home cooking and dining with friends as essential to the promotion of human well-being.

In our time of well-publicized health care travails, in the USA and the UK and elsewhere, matters of financing too often subsume the dimension of patient care. In his latest book, Alexander L. Gungov studies a vital but neglected aspect of patient safety. Of the thousands of medical errors committed on a daily basis, in the bulk of unfortunate clinical decisions, a significant share pertains to various logical flows and epistemological fallacies. By focusing on the logical dimensions of clinical medicine, Gungov promotes awareness of the logical and epistemological traps that lie in the day-to-day care of patients. Such a focus not only allows us to avoid falling into them, but demonstrates the practical value of looking at medicine from a new philosophical perspective. That perspective involves a broad and unusual collection of philosophers. The discussion takes its starting point from J. S. Mill’s inductive methods and Giambattista Vico’s verum-factum principle, but then sets out a unique combination of Charles Sanders Peirce’s abductive reasoning, Immanuel Kant’s reflective judgment, as well as G. W. F. Hegel’s and D. P. Verene’s speculative thinking, all marshalled to present a novel philosophical account of clinical diagnostics. Interpretation of practical examples elucidate the logical aspect of medical errors and suggests strategies of overcoming them. The book as a whole demonstrates the value of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical insights into the enigmatic character of health. This much-needed book will be of interest to medical practitioners, health policy-makers, patients and their families, and to advanced students and scholars in medicine, the medical humanities, medical epistemology, and the philosophy of medicine in general.

Theories about the nature and function of philosophical imagination depend on our understanding of what kind of universe we inhabit. Some theories are compelling if the universe is meaningful as a whole, but they make no sense if it is not. Raymond C. Barfield discusses conditions that would be necessary if the universe is meaningful as a whole, and then develops a theory of philosophical imagination in light of that starting place. The theory moves toward the conclusion that if the universe is meaningful as a whole, the concept of the analogia entis, the analogy of being, illuminates philosophical imagination in a way that changes our understanding of its function and potential, along with the value of its discoveries through the things it creates.