Peter Kemp, a distinguished member of the Board of Consulting Editors of our journal, passed away on August 4, 2018. He was born on January 24, 1937 in Vindum, Jutland, Denmark. He graduated in Theology at the University Aarhus, Denmark, in 1964. Doctor in Theology by the University Copenhagen (1973), he graduated then in philosophy at the University Gothenburg, Sweden in.1991. He also studied in Paris receiving significant influence from the teaching of Paul Ricoeur. University Professor of philosophy since 1972, he occupied several academic positions, he was President of the Nordic Institute for Philosophy, 1980–1989, and of the Academy for Applied Philosophy, 1986–1988. Since 1980 he was Director of the Center for Ethics and Law of the same University, where he organized several important meetings and publications. This Center promoted, in particular, a research collaboration among scholars of different specializations and philosophical orientations aiming at elaborating an original view regarding fundamental bioethical and bio-juridical issues that could be considered as an expression of the European continental philosophy. After a five year activity this group of scholars had a meeting in Barcelona in which was produced the famous “Declaration of Barcelona” that contained several suggestions that were then accepted and included in legal instrument by the majority of the States of the European Community. Peter Kemp and Jacob Rendthorff were the editors of the volumes containing the contributions of that work, and also of journal articles in which this new bioethival approach was illustrated.
These facts testify of the serious commitment that Kemp devoted to bioethics and is present in several publications of which he was the editor. He also occupied important positions in international institution, such as the International Federation of the Philosophical Societies (FISP), of which he was Secretary General and then President (2003–2008), and of the International Institute of Philosophy (Paris) of which he was Treasurer for many years.
Gilbert Hottois was also a distinguished member of the Board of Consulting Editors of our journal, who passed away on March 16, 2019. He was born on 29 March 1946 in Brussels, and has been one of the most important Belgian philosophers. He spent almost the whole of his academic career as professor of Philosophy at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and occupied important positions both in his own country and at an international level. Among the most significant we can mention: Member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (2003–); President of the Société Belge de Philosophie (1990–1993); Founder member of the Société pour la philosophie de la technique (Paris); of which he was also Président (1997–1999); Vice-Président of the Association des Sociétés de Philosophie de Langue Française (ASPLF) (2002–); Member of the Comité Directeur of the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie (1991-2008); Member of the Institut International de Philosophie (2008-).
After an initial period in which his interests were focused on issues concerning the philosophy of language, he turned towards the philosophy of technology and finally devoted his reflection and also practical commitments to the domain of Bioethics and biopolitics, in which he elaborated original views regarding the contributions that contemporary philosophy can offer to the treatment of practical issues imposed by the development of medicine and technoscience. He is the author of many books and papers that have regularly appeared along his intellectual trajectory, from the initial interests for the philosophy of language until the most recent debates regarding posthumanism/transhumanism and even science fiction.
He is chair of the programme committee of the 2008 World Congress of Philosophy
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