Calls for taking up wisdom in its place risk re-inscribing coloniality at the level of signification if attempts to resituate intelligibility in the specificity of place are not enacted through a careful translation of experience between victims and perpetrators of colonial violence. At some level, decolonization ought to be conceived as a kind of translation. Emmanuel Levinas’ project to “translate” Judaism into Greek is one way of staging such decolonial translation by providing us an internal critique of coloniality while remaining (...) receptive to indigenous inspirations that enrich eco-phenomenological ways of encountering place. In the final instance, however, this paper calls for encountering place through the indigenous languages that make place ethically legible. (shrink)

Calls for taking up wisdom in its place risk re-inscribing coloniality at the level of signification if attempts to resituate intelligibility in the specificity of place are not enacted through a careful translation of experience between victims and perpetrators of colonial violence. At some level, decolonization ought to be conceived as a kind of translation. Emmanuel Levinas’ project to “translate” Judaism into Greek is one way of staging such decolonial translation by providing us an internal critique of coloniality while remaining (...) receptive to indigenous inspirations that enrich eco-phenomenological ways of encountering place. In the final instance, however, this paper calls for encountering place through the indigenous languages that make place ethically legible. (shrink)

In common with history, all the social sciences crucially rely on descriptions of the past for their evidence. But when, if ever, is it reasonable to regard such descriptions as true? This book attempts to establish the conditions that warrant belief in historical descriptions. It does so in a non-technical way, analysing numerous illustrations of the different kinds of argument about the past employed by historians and others. The author concludes that no historical description can be finally proved, and that (...) we are only ever justified in believing them for certain practical purposes. This central question has not been addressed in such a thorough and systematic manner before. It draws on recent philosophy of history and will interest philosophers. But the wealth of material and accessibility of the presentation will also make it very valuable for historians and other social scientists concerned with the logic of their disciplines. (shrink)

Diálogo con Daniel Balderston, director del Borges Center de la University of Pittsburgh y de la revista Variaciones Borges, que ofreció una conferencia titulada “Una tarde con Borges” en la Villa Victoria Ocampo de la ciudad de Mar del Plata el 6 de julio de 2022.

A key distinction in ethics is between members and nonmembers of the moral community. Over time, our notion of this community has expanded as we have moved from a rationality criterion to a sentience criterion for membership. I argue that a sentience criterion is insufficient to accommodate all members of the moral community; the true underlying criterion can be understood in terms of whether a being has interests. This may be extended to conscious, self-aware machines, as well as to any (...) autonomous intelligent machines. Such machines exhibit an ability to formulate desires for the course of their own existence; this gives them basic moral standing. While not all machines display autonomy, those which do must be treated as moral patients; to ignore their claims to moral recognition is to repeat past errors. I thus urge moral generosity with respect to the ethical claims of intelligent machines. (shrink)

This article analyzes in depth the general context of the teaching of the minority religions in the Spanish State. We focus on the specific case of andalusia (extensible to the Spanish case), and on two of the three religions that have signed Cooperation agreements with the Spanish State: the Evangelical and the Islamic religions. The legislative framework guarantees the parents the right to religious and moral education for their children, according to their beliefs, in public schools. However, putting these rights (...) in practice is being insignificant in the more and more plural and multireligious Spanish society. (shrink)

This study examines the impact of Sarbanes–Oxley on the nonprofit sector. Focusing on three key SOX policies applicable to charities—conflict-of-interest policies, records retention policies, and whistleblower policies—this study tests the relationship between the existence and addition of these policies on subsequent ethical and governance lapses as reflected in the issuance of “donor advisories” by the large third-party ratings agency Charity Navigator. The findings suggest that, controlling for other relevant organizational factors, the three SOX-inspired written policies are related to a reduced (...) likelihood of donor advisories in the organizations rated by Charity Navigator. (shrink)

In what follows I explore the question of fictionality in history writing. First, I venture into the unfamiliar genre of ego-histoire and make my own professional training in the tenets of positivist or realist historiography an object of theoretical reflection and critical analysis. Then as a way of dealing with the literary dimension of written history, I make a canonical work in history of education an object of rhetorical analysis. Finally, as another way of coming to terms with the “fictions (...) of historiography,” I revisit one of my own productions and make it an object of metacritical consideration. My central theme is that historiographical realism alone will not suffice, that historians are as dependant upon literary invention as upon documents, that history cannot be written without the aid of the “fictions of historiography,” and that the difference between the historian and the novelist is narrower than we may have been accustomed to think. I further argue that attention to the literary or rhetorical dimension of history is long overdue in history of education, where it flourishes unacknowledged. I conclude that historical writing is not just a literary pastime and the issue remains: how to come to grips with fictionalizing and the truth claims of historiography. (shrink)

Scholarly tributes of the international world of academe in Philosophy, the History of Ideas and Religion on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of service of Professor Arthur Hyman to the Philosophy Department at Columbia University.

Research on reported speech in classrooms has focused on the roles and functions of quoted conversation produced by the teacher; however, there is less information on the responses following this device and its multimodal character. This study draws on a multimodal conversation analysis approach to investigate teachers’ use of reported speech in evaluating students’ performances by examining 83 hours of videotaped elementary school classroom interactions in Korea. The findings suggest that teachers frequently employ reported speech in the evaluative element of (...) the three-turn instructional sequence to create an affiliative atmosphere in the event of a negative assessment. Sequences that contained reported speech were compared with teachers’ evaluations produced by simply repeating students’ answers. The findings suggest that the multimodal production of reported speech might be a tool adapted for the classroom institutional context by creating a positive space for learning compared to other similar devices available in the classroom. (shrink)

Augmented reality blends the virtual and physical worlds such that the virtual content experienced by a user of AR technology depends on the user’s geographical location. Games such as Pokémon GO and technologies such as HoloLens are introducing an increasing number of people to augmented reality. AR technologies raise a number of ethical concerns; I focus on ethical rights surrounding the augmentation of a particular physical space. To address this I distinguish public and private spaces; I also separate the case (...) where we access augmentations via many different applications from the case where there is a more unified sphere of augmentation. Private property under a unified sphere of augmentation is akin to physical property; owners retain the right to augment their property and prevent others from augmenting it. Private property with competing apps is more complex; it is not clear that owners have a general right to prevent augmentations in this case, assuming those augmentations do not interfere with the owner’s use of the property. I raise several difficult cases, such as augmenting a daycare with explicit sexual or violent images. Public property with competing apps is relatively straightforward, and most augmentation is ethical; those apps simply function like different guidebooks. Under a unified sphere of augmentation it is unclear whether augmentations should be treated more like public speech or graffiti or some of each. Further consideration is needed to determine what kinds of augmentations we view as ethical. (shrink)

La sostenibilidad ambiental está relacionada directamente con el ciclo del agua y las intervenciones del hombre sobre el mismo, tanto en su extracción, uso y eliminación. La conservación del suelo y la vegetación dependen invariablemente del impacto acumulado de este proceso. La perspectiva de un cambio climático mayor, con el subsecuente aumento de las temperaturas en el planeta, implica transformaciones radicales en el ciclo del agua, y por ende, en su disponibilidad y utilización. Para ello se hace imperioso mejorar radicalmente (...) el ahorro del agua, aumentando al mismo tiempo los sistemas de depuración y eficiencia en el regadío. La autora propone una seria de medidas en esta dirección. (shrink)

LAMAS, Marta. Acoso. ¿Denuncia legítima o victimización? México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2018, 118 pp.

Categorical loudness scaling (CLS) measures provide useful information about an individual’s loudness perception across the dynamic range of hearing. A probability model of CLS categories has previously been described as a multi-category psychometric function (MCPF). In the study, a representative “catalog” of potential listener MCPFs was used in conjunction with maximum-likelihood estimation to derive CLS functions for participants with normal hearing and with hearing loss. The approach of estimating MCPFs for each listener has the potential to improve the accuracy of (...) the CLS measurements, particularly when a relatively low number of data points are available. The present study extends the MCPF approach by using Bayesian inference to select stimulus parameters that are predicted to yield maximum expected information (MEI) during data collection. The accuracy and reliability of the MCPF-MEI approach were compared to the standardized CLS measurement procedure (ISO16832:2006). A non-adaptive, fixed-level, paradigm served as a “gold-standard” for this comparison. The test time required to obtain measurements in the standard procedure is a major barrier to its clinical uptake. Test time was reduced from approximately 15 minutes to approximately 3 minutes with the MEI-adaptive procedure. Results indicated that the test-retest reliability and accuracy of the MCPF-MEI adaptive procedures were similar to the standardized CLS procedure. Computer simulations suggest that the reliability and accuracy of the MEI procedure were limited by intrinsic uncertainty of the listeners represented in the MCPF catalog. In other words, the MCPF provided insufficient predictive power to significantly improve adaptive-tracking efficiency under practical conditions. Concurrent optimization of both the MCPF catalog and the MEI-adaptive procedure have the potential to produce better results. Regardless of the adaptive-tracking method used in the CLS procedure, the MCPF catalog remains clinically useful for enabling maximum-likelihood determination of loudness categories. (shrink)

Additive manufacturing has spread widely over the past decade, especially with the availability of home 3D printers. In the future, many items may be manufactured at home, which raises two ethical issues. First, there are questions of safety. Our current safety regulations depend on centralized manufacturing assumptions; they will be difficult to enforce on this new model of manufacturing. Using current US law as an example, I argue that consumers are not capable of fully assessing all relevant risks and thus (...) continue to require protection; any regulation will likely apply to plans, however, not physical objects. Second, there are intellectual property issues. In combination with a 3D scanner, it is now possible to scan items and print copies; many items are not protected from this by current intellectual property laws. I argue that these laws are ethically sufficient. Patent exists to protect what is innovative; the rest is properly not protected. Intellectual property rests on the notion of creativity, but what counts as creative changes with the rise of new technologies. (shrink)

This article explores the connection among woman, sex, and finitude. In stuying finitude, the argument follows the articulation of finitude with woman. In a first part, it discusses three “women” writers—Virginia Woolf, Simone De Beauvoir, and Hélène Cixous—to establish their thoughts on woman in terms of finitude. The three of them are identified as women and yet they problematized what to be a woman is. In tracing their thoughts on finitude and woman, sexual difference –the body as enjoying emerges as (...) an issue. Thus, in a second part, it discusses two seemingly opposed positions—Lacanian psychoanalysis, with Joan Copjec, and deconstruction, with Derrida—to think further about the question of woman, sexual difference, the “two,” and finitude. This study compares the Lacanian feminine side with the movement of deconstruction and establishes the necessity of thinking a “two” beyond the binary of phallogocentrism. My thesis is that thinking finitude with woman leads us to a non-oppositional two that correlates with sexual difference. The Lacanian feminine side, and Derrida’s deconstruction aim to think these two logics, delineating two sides: a male one (comparable with phallogocentrism) and a feminine side (comparable with the movement of deconstruction). If the male side considers finitude (death) as the limit of life, the feminine side opens to death and life, and the in-finitude of the undetermined and undecidable. In thinking finitude with woman, the knowledge of what to be a woman is, becomes undetermined and undecidable. (shrink)

In this essay, after first briefly reviewing the literature on experimental philosophy and how and why it is important especially for contemporary analytic philosophy, we focus on two earliest experimental research papers on free will intuitions. We also present psychological mechanisms that try to explain why both philosophers and ordinary people have incompatibilist and compatibilist intuitions and free will and moral responsibility. We then move on to another experimental research on moral intuitions and develop a dual process model based on (...) the model to explain moral intuitions. However, our dual interacting-process model is not intended for moral intuitions but free will intuitions. Finally, we critically examine other mechanism and briefly defend our model. (shrink)