Scientific novelty beyond the experiment.

Practical experiments drive important scientific discoveries in biology, but theory-based research studies also contribute novel-sometimes paradigm-changing-findings. Here, we appraise the roles of theory-based approaches focusing on the experiment-dominated wet-biology research areas of microbial growth and survival, cell physiology, host-pathogen interactions, and competitive or symbiotic interactions. Additional examples relate to analyses of genome-sequence data, climate change and planetary health, habitability, and astrobiology. We assess the importance of thought at each step of the research process; the roles of natural philosophy, and inconsistencies in logic and language, as drivers of scientific progress; the value of thought experiments; the use and limitations of artificial intelligence technologies, including their potential for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research; and other instances when theory is the most-direct and most-scientifically robust route to scientific novelty including the development of techniques for practical experimentation or fieldwork. We highlight the intrinsic need for human engagement in scientific innovation, an issue pertinent to the ongoing controversy over papers authored using/authored by artificial intelligence (such as the large language model/chatbot ChatGPT). Other issues discussed are the way in which aspects of language can bias thinking towards the spatial rather than the temporal (and how this biased thinking can lead to skewed scientific terminology); receptivity to research that is non-mainstream; and the importance of theory-based science in education and epistemology. Whereas we briefly highlight classic works (those by Oakes Ames, Francis H.C. Crick and James D. Watson, Charles R. Darwin, Albert Einstein, James E. Lovelock, Lynn Margulis, Gilbert Ryle, Erwin R.J.A. Schrödinger, Alan M. Turing, and others), the focus is on microbiology studies that are more-recent, discussing these in the context of the scientific process and the types of scientific novelty that they represent. These include several studies carried out during the 2020 to 2022 lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic when access to research laboratories was disallowed (or limited). We interviewed the authors of some of the featured microbiology-related papers and-although we ourselves are involved in laboratory experiments and practical fieldwork-also drew from our own research experiences showing that such studies can not only produce new scientific findings but can also transcend barriers between disciplines, act counter to scientific reductionism, integrate biological data across different timescales and levels of complexity, and circumvent constraints imposed by practical techniques. In relation to urgent research needs, we believe that climate change and other global challenges may require approaches beyond the experiment.

Time for different stories: Reflections on IPONS panel addressing current debates in nursing theory, education and practice.

On 4 February 2021 a group of nurse scholar-educators, nurses and other interested folks came together for the second of two virtual events to think together about the role of philosophy in the nursing world. The live streamed open access event provided an opportunity in the COVID-19 pandemic for over 400 people to listen to five nursing scholars' presentations and to interact virtually through comments in chat and on the @IPONSociety Twitter social media platform. By reading the comments and questions that were generated, and by looking at the social media comments related to the event, it is apparent that philosophy is an important thinking practice for nurses but many audience members critically expressed they felt excluded. Critical issues were raised by participants in chat and on Twitter-pointedly around the need for more representative voices-including the imperative to open nursing philosophy to diverse and disparate worldviews. This dialogue provides a summary of critical points raised during the live question and answer session for the panel entitled Addressing Current Debates in Nursing Theory, Education, Practice as well as examing comments selected from the @IPONSociety Twitter space in response to the panel. One commenter said it was great to see the discussion being lifted up from the influential roots of white supremacy, while other nurses expressed that they wished the panellists themselves were more diverse. In discussion of key takeaway, links are made to historical and ongoing structural oppressions in nursing where thinking practices like nursing philosophy and theory are still dominated by world views emanating from positionalities of able-bodied cis-gendered heterosexual western eurocentric whiteness.

Medical Historians and Historians of Medicine: Time for a Truce

It could be argued that the first medical historian in the Western Medical Tradition, is the author of the treatise On Ancient Medicine, included in the Hippocratic Corpus, in all probability, Hippocrates himself. In our time, the domain of the history of medicine is inhabited by two factions, often indifferent towards each other's contributions, if not occasionally confrontational. One faction is represented by medical practitioners who, usually upon retirement from clinical care, research and seek to understand the practice and evolution of their craft in the recent and distant past. They are the medical historians. The other, by academic historians with a background in humanities who view and research the history of medicine from a different perspective. Historiography, the philosophy of science, philological concerns, the provenance of manuscripts, textual scrutiny, the cultural and social parameters relevant to their historical subject, are the focus of the work of these historians of medicine. Rarely, researchers of the history of medicine combine optimally humanities with a medical background. Many will recognize Sir William Osler (1849-1919) as the best representative of this happy cohabitation. The opportunity now arises for a fruitful collaboration between medical historians and historians of medicine in recording the unprecedented times and the global challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now is the time for truce.

Is long-term care a building or a societal moral philosophy?

The number of Older Adults (OAs) in Ontario will double in two decades. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the model of subsidized Long-Term Care (LTC) homes does not reflect the care needs of OAs. Many nations have implemented LTC models as a continuum of care for OAs promoting independent home/community living. These models help delay admission to LTC homes and achieve a higher quality-of-life for OAs. Current financial pressure on the healthcare system and inadequacies of LTC homes necessitate a broader social welfare policy. One viable option for sustainable LTC is implementing Ontario's mandatory public long-term care insurance policy.

Relational autonomy: lessons from COVID-19 and twentieth-century philosophy.

COVID-19 has turned many ethical principles and presuppositions upside down. More precisely, the principle of respect for autonomy has been shown to be ill suited to face the ethical challenges posed by the current health crisis. Individual wishes and choices have been subordinated to public interests. Patients have received trial therapies under extraordinary procedures of informed consent. The principle of respect for autonomy, at least in its mainstream interpretation, has been particularly questioned during this pandemic. Further reflection on the nature and value of autonomy is urgently needed. Relational autonomy has been proposed as an alternative account of autonomy that can more adequately respond to contemporary ethical issues in general and to a pandemic such as the one we are currently facing in particular. As relational autonomy is an emerging notion in current bioethics, it requires further consideration and development to be properly operationalized. This paper aims to show how six different philosophical branches--namely, philosophy of nature, philosophical anthropology, existential phenomenology, discourse ethics, hermeneutics, and cultural anthropology--have incorporated the category of relation throughout the twentieth century. We first delve into primary philosophical sources and then apply their insights to the specific field of medical ethics. Learning from the historical developments of other philosophical fields may provide illumination that will enable bioethics to experience a successful "relational turn", which has been partially initiated in contemporary bioethics but not yet achieved.

Seeing clearly through COVID-19: current and future questions for the history and philosophy of the life sciences.

The role of a journal like HPLS during the novel coronavirus pandemic should serve as a means for scholars in different fields and professions to consider historically and critically what is happening as it unfolds. Surely it cannot tackle all the possible issues related to the pandemic, in particular to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it does have a responsibility to foster the best possible dialogue about the various issues related to the history and philosophy of the life sciences, and thus to solicit contributions from potential authors working in different parts of the world and belonging to different cultural traditions. Only a real plurality of perspectives should allow for a better, large-scale comprehension of what the COVID-19 pandemic is.

What are the COVID-19 models modeling (philosophically speaking)?

COVID-19 epidemic models raise important questions for science and philosophy of science. Here I provide a brief preliminary exploration of three: what kinds of predictions do epidemic models make, are they causal models, and how do different kinds of epidemic models differ in terms of what they represent?

Covid-19 and the need for more history and philosophy of RNA.

RNA is central to the COVID-19 pandemic-it shapes how the SARS Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) behaves, and how researchers investigate and fight it. However, RNA has received relatively little attention in the history and philosophy of the life sciences. By analysing RNA biology in more detail, philosophers and historians of science could gain new and powerful tools to assess the current pandemic, and the biological sciences more generally.

Costa, cancer and coronavirus: contractualism as a guide to the ethics of lockdown.

Lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involve placing huge burdens on some members of society for the sake of benefiting other members of society. How should we decide when these policies are permissible? Many writers propose we should address this question using cost-benefit analysis (CBA), a broadly consequentialist approach. We argue for an alternative non-consequentialist approach, grounded in contractualist moral theorising. The first section sets up key issues in the ethics of lockdown, and sketches the apparent appeal of addressing these problems in a CBA frame. The second section argues that CBA fundamentally distorts the normative landscape in two ways: first, in principle, it allows very many morally trivial preferences-say, for a coffee-might outweigh morally weighty life-and-death concerns; second, it is insensitive to the core moral distinction between victims and vectors of disease. The third section sketches our non-consequentialist alternative, grounded in Thomas Scanlon's contractualist moral theory. On this account, the ethics of self-defence implies a strong default presumption in favour of a highly restrictive, universal lockdown policy: we then ask whether there are alternatives to such a policy which are justifiable to all affected parties, paying particular attention to the complaints of those most burdened by policy. In the fourth section, we defend our contractualist approach against the charge that it is impractical or counterintuitive, noting that actual CBAs face similar, or worse, challenges.

The meaning of Freedom after Covid-19.

Many governments have seen digital health technologies as promising tools to tackle the current COVID-19 pandemic. A much-talked example in this context involves the recent deluge of digital contact tracing apps (DCT) aimed at detecting Covid-19 exposure. In this short contribution we look at the bio-political justification of this phenomenon and reflect on whether DCT apps constitute, as it is often argued, a serious potential breach of our right to privacy. Despite praising efforts attempting to develop legal and ethical frameworks for DCT apps' usage; we argue that such endeavours are not sufficient to tackle the more fundamental problem of mass surveillance, which will remain largely unaddressed unless we deal with the biopolitical arguments presented and resort to a technical and structural defence.

[Reflections on the meaning of pain, suffering and death]. / Reflexiones sobre el sentido del dolor, el sufrimiento y la muerte.

The main aim of this paper is to define an answer, in a key time before COVID19, if it is indeed possible to do so, as to the difference between pain and suffering. In order to do so, we will refer to, although not exclusively, the reflexions of the German philosopher Robert Spaemann. To finish, the question of death will briefly be analysed.

Moral philosophy, pragmatism, and the larger cause: why "war" metaphors are needed during pandemics.

Coronavirus disease (Covid-19), which originated in China, is now a full-blown pandemic which has thrown governments and societies off-track in an unprecedented manner. War metaphors have been used widely to describe the scenario, but many critics decry them as harmful narratives. In this piece, we discuss the utility of the war metaphor to build solidarity and fraternity, which will be essential to get through the crisis. We also explain how concerns regarding increased authoritarianism and state excesses due to the use of these narratives are misplaced. We then tease out the colonial era concept of war that guides the arguments against the use of war metaphors in pandemics. We argue that in the post-modern world and in South Asian and African philosophies, wars are seen through the prism of the larger cause of dharma or ubuntu and that individual losses or gains in these contexts are part of a larger cause. The use of war metaphors reflects the need to get together for a societal cause. These metaphors are largely understood across societies while other alternatives are exclusionary, poetic and tangential in nature.

Keywords : Covid-19, pandemics, war metaphors, communication, philosophy, SARS-CoV-2

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COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death: disentangling facts and values.

In the ongoing pandemic, death statistics influence people's feelings and government policy. But when does COVID-19 qualify as the cause of death? As philosophers of medicine interested in conceptual clarification, we address the question by analyzing the World Health Organization's rules for the certification of death. We show that for COVID-19, WHO rules take into account both facts (causal chains) and values (the importance of prevention).

COVID-19: Rethinking the nature of viruses.

In this brief essay, we combine biological, historical, philosophical and anthropological perspectives to ask anew the question about the nature of the virus. How should we understand Sars-CoV-2 and why does it matter? The argument we present is that the virus undermines any neat distinction between the natural and the human-made, the biological and the social. Rather, to understand the virus and the pandemic we need to understand both as intimately connected to our own social and historical condition. What started as a reflection on the nature of the virus thus turns into a reflection on the human condition as refracted in this pandemic or an anthropology of the virus.

2020: the year of living cautiously.

2020 was the year when microbiology burst onto the world stage, not just as the science of small living things, but as the prism through which we understood global events. Clinical logic suffered under pressure arising from an urgent need to confirm or exclude severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. This is a generation's Hobbesian moment in which the public concern for safety and security from infection outweighs the pursuit of personal freedom. The strangeness of a world in which a minute particle wields superhuman power has generated its list of unlikely heroes and mendacious villains. As the year comes to an end, there are glimmers of light amid the gloom: the prospect of an effective vaccine, and life after the pandemic.

[The philosopher to the aid of the anxious caregiver in the time of COVID-19]. / Le philosophe au chevet du soignant angoissé en période de Covid-19.

Based on a clinical situation of a patient infected with COVID-19, the caregivers of the Saint-Étienne mobile psychiatric team describe their anxieties. Are the procedures carried out appropriate? Did we respect the safety measures? Are we at risk of contracting the virus and contaminating other people? The scientific discourse of "experts", who used to guide our actions, has throughout this crisis been inadequate and people's beliefs have crumbled. This abandonment is a source of anxiety for everyone, an anxiety about death. However, this reflection should kindle hope, a precious emotion for those working with patients in psychiatry.