This paper investigates the interpretation of counterfactual conditionals. The main goal of the paper is to provide an account of the semantic role of similarity in the evaluation of counterfactuals. The paper proposes an analysis according to which counterfactuals are treated as predications “ de re ” over past situations in the actual world. The relevant situations enter semantic composition via the interpretation of tense. Counterfactuals are treated as law-like conditionals with de re predication over particular facts. Similarity with respect (...) to particular facts is ensured by the semantics of tense in interaction with the modal, while the modal itself is responsible for invoking laws. In the paper, various arguments are provided to support a local view of similarity over the global approach found in semantics along the line of Lewis’s and Stalnaker’s. Arguments are also provided tying the evaluation of similarity to the interpretation of tense. Finally, arguments are provided to show that in key cases, the approaches make comparable predictions. (shrink)

This paper investigates some aspects of the semantics of deontic should-conditionals. The main objective is to understand which actual world facts make deontic statements true. The starting point for the investigation is a famous puzzle known as Chisholm’s Paradox. It is important because making sense of the data in Chisholm-style examples involves arriving at some conclusion regarding the interaction between what we consider ideal and what is actually true. I give an account of how facts affect the evaluation of should (...) formulated in a way that does not predict that the divergence between ideals and facts leads to contradictions. The proposed semantics for should and should-conditionals allows for factual detachment without giving rise to paradoxes. The proposal has several parts: a situation-based semantics for the modal should, a view of the propositions embedded under should that allows aspect to play a crucial role in anchoring propositions to the context set, and a proposal for if-clauses that distinguishes between epistemic if-clauses and if-clauses in the scope of should, treating the latter as restrictors on the quantificational domain of the modal. (shrink)

Differences in the interpretation of would-conditionals with simple (perfective) and perfect antecedent clauses are marked enough to discourage a unified view. However, this paper presents a unified, Lewis–Stalnaker style semantics for the modal in such constructions. Differences in the interpretation of the conditionals are derived from the interaction between the interpretation of different types of aspect and the modal. The paper makes a distinction between perfective and perfect aspect in terms of whether they make reference to or quantify over Lewis-style (...) events. In making reference to Lewis-events, perfective aspect is shown to be incompatible with counterfactual would-conditionals. The so-called ‘epistemic flavor’ of perfective conditionals about the future is derived from the use of diagonalization as an interpretive strategy called upon to resolve reference. (shrink)

The article argues for a parallelism between the interpretation of deontic modals and the interpretation of counterfactuals. The main claim is that dependencies between facts play a role in the resolution of both types of modality: in both cases, facts ‘stand and fall’ together. The article provides two types of evidence supporting this claim: (i) evidence that comes from the interaction between primary and secondary duties (as presented in contrary-to-duty imperatives) and (ii) evidence that comes from the possibility of reproducing (...) well-known counterfactual puzzles in the domain of deontic statements. The article argues that the semantics of deontic modals needs to be stated in a way that pays attention to dependencies between facts and illustrates this with a proposal building on work on counterfactuals by Kratzer and Veltman. (shrink)

This volume explores the linguistic expression of modality in natural language from a cross-linguistic perspective. Modal expressions provide the basic tools that allow us to dissociate what we say from what is actually going on, allowing us to talk about what might happen or might have happened, as well as what is required, desirable, or permitted. Chapters in the book demonstrate that modality involves many more syntactic categories and levels of syntactic structure than traditionally assumed. The volume distinguishes between three (...) types of modality: 'low modality', which concerns modal interpretations associated with the verbal and nominal cartographies in syntax; 'middle modality', or modal interpretation associated to the syntactic cartography internal to the clause; and 'high modality', relating to the left periphery. It combines cross-linguistic discussions of the more widely-studied sources of modality with analyses of novel or unexpected sources, and shows how the meanings associated with the three types of modality are realized across a wide range of languages. (shrink)

Ensayos de Metafísica, Ética y Poética. Los argumentos de Aristóteles contiene una colección de ensayos que pasan revista a cuestiones como la argumentación de los principios, la naturaleza del conocimiento moral y el valor de otras formas de conocimiento o racionalidades alternas.En la primera parte del libro se intenta mostrar que el sentido común es el modus operandi de Aristóteles. Los ensayos recogidos en la segunda parte tratan con la argumentación en una ciencia en particular: la ética. Finalmente, el largo (...) artículo Metáfora, definición y obscuridad en Aristóteles conforma toda la tercera parte. El texto es un escrutinio de la función de la metáfora analógica dentro de la metafísica y ciencia aristotélica, para determinar si es un tipo de conocimiento válido y analizable. (shrink)

Drawing from Goffman’s original observations on stigma and the consequences of interactions between the stigmatized and supportive or stigmatizing audiences, we conduct a 20-year review of the diverse literature on stigma to revisit the collective nature of stigmatization processes. We find that studies on stigma’s origins, responses, processes, and outcomes have diverged from Goffman’s relational view of stigma as they have overlooked important relational mechanisms explaining the processes of (de)stigmatization. We draw from those conclusions to justify the need to study (...) stigma as a collective phenomenon. We develop a relational perspective on stigma based on understanding how attributes are stigmatized (or not) by audiences in their interactions. We argue that to advance stigma research, it is necessary to build on Goffman’s theory to include the stigmatizers (i.e., the normal) and supporters (i.e., the wise); how they create, sustain, or remove stigma; and how they relate to the stigmatized (i.e., the targets). Accordingly, we provide a research agenda on stigma as a collective phenomenon that theorizes a relational perspective, proposes a typology of how audiences relate to stigmatization, and identifies patterns of relations between audiences. We thus offer a missing piece to existing accounts of stigma by focusing on the key role of audiences (i.e., stigmatizers or supporters of the stigmatized) rather than on the targets of stigma (i.e., the own). (shrink)

Vardanyan’s Theorems [36, 37] state that $\mathsf {QPL}(\mathsf {PA})$ —the quantified provability logic of Peano Arithmetic—is $\Pi ^0_2$ complete, and in particular that this already holds when the language is restricted to a single unary predicate. Moreover, Visser and de Jonge [38] generalized this result to conclude that it is impossible to computably axiomatize the quantified provability logic of a wide class of theories. However, the proof of this fact cannot be performed in a strictly positive signature. The system $\mathsf (...) {QRC_1}$ was previously introduced by the authors [1] as a candidate first-order provability logic. Here we generalize the previously available Kripke soundness and completeness proofs, obtaining constant domain completeness. Then we show that $\mathsf {QRC_1}$ is indeed complete with respect to arithmetical semantics. This is achieved via a Solovay-type construction applied to constant domain Kripke models. As corollaries, we see that $\mathsf {QRC_1}$ is the strictly positive fragment of $\mathsf {QGL}$ and a fragment of $\mathsf {QPL}(\mathsf {PA})$. (shrink)

Este artículo1 explora dos obras cinematográficas guatemaltecas, Polvo (2012) y Nuestras madres (2019), dirigidas por Julio Hernández Cordón y César Díaz correspondientemente. En ambos largometrajes la denuncia sobre la violación de derechos humanos durante el pasado conflicto armado guatemalteco, la búsqueda de padres o familiares desaparecidos y sus secuelas en las víctimas constituyen la temática central. Por tanto, el análisis se centra en la importancia que tiene la búsqueda del padre desaparecido en los hijos, quienes, a raíz de esta vivencia (...) traumática, experimentan un vacío identitario, así como estragos individuales provocados por la falta de la figura paterna. Por otro lado, también se analizan el trauma y el silencio de las madres sobrevivientes como remanente del miedo/terror experimentado durante el conflicto armado, pero también como un mecanismo de protección para sus hijos. En especial, el análisis se auxilia teóricamente con el extenso trabajo realizado por el sociólogo uruguayo Gabriel Gatti sobre la desaparición forzada. 1 Este ensayo forma parte de una serie de proyectos de investigación y se realizó con el apoyo de la beca Volgenau de la Academia Naval de Estados Unidos. (shrink)

Fencing for the blind and visually impaired is an emerging sub-discipline of fencing that creates unusual conditions for meaning-making through interaction between embodied endowments and worldly affordances. With the rules of fencing slightly adjusted to the needs of the blindfolded participants – regardless of their sightedness – the discipline requires the fencers to engage in a duel by relying on other than visual cues. This article explores what an autoethnographic account of experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and (...) visually impaired brings to debates on the embodied, and specifically sensory difference. The discussion of these experiences intersects with debates on affect, affordance, and habit, with all three having important roles in related semiotic processes. Presented vignettes draw upon the author’s lived experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and visually impaired and are analyzed as part of a mixed-method autoethnographic study, accompanied by sensory methodologies, with a focus on an inquiry beyond the visual. The vignettes elucidate how we make sense of our surroundings through a complex engagement with the ecology of sensory and affective processes. In addition to exploring the role of affective and pre-conceptual aspects of our experiences, the article seeks to understand how semiosis occurs through both exposure to as well as the active pursuit of specific environmental signs available to us. The article also derives from biosemiotics to examine the complex relationship between meaning-making processes and habits. Finally, the autoethnographic account provides an insight into how we habituate the world and our embodied differences and thus enable meaning-making processes. (shrink)

Mary Livermore'sMy Story of the Waris a valuable piece of travel writing written from the point of view of a nurse who documented her unexpected personal and professional journey to administer the Sanitary Commission of the United States Union Army and provide nursing care during the American Civil War. Although Livermore's pre‐war background had not been solely limited to the domestic sphere, her wartime experience involved a public negotiation between the traditional domestic realm assigned to women and new nursing professional (...) functions that emerged during the war. In a context in which the general access of women to public writing was rather limited and in which nursing was not a formally regulated professional activity, Livermore's triumphal narrative reflects the increasing connection between progressively professional nursing functions that emerged in the context of war and a new women's rights leadership forged during her autobiographical journey. (shrink)

Cette étude vise à comprendre les spécificités sémantiques des lexèmes _manipuler_ et _modifier_ afin d’éclairer l’usage qui en est fait en bioéthique lorsque les actions désignées ont comme objet l’embryon, le cerveau, l’ADN, l’Homme, le vivant ou la procréation. En s’appuyant sur les définitions des dictionnaires et sur les réponses à un questionnaire soumis aux locuteurs, et en se servant de concepts de la sémantique combinatoire, de la sémantique argumentative, de la sémantique des cadres et de l’aspect sémantique, l’étude identifie (...) les éléments de signification propres à chacun des deux lexèmes. Ces éléments sont étroitement liés au potentiel de signification des lexèmes et aux traits aspectuels des procès qu’ils désignent. À l’issue de cette étude, un ensemble de traits sémantiques caractéristiques de chaque lexème est proposé, dans une perspective contrastive. (shrink)

This paper attempts to establish an articulation of ethics, logic and philosophy of psychology in the Tractatus. After showing the ethical purpose of the Tractatus, his picture theory of meaning, and his philosophy of psychology –stressing the role of projection– Arregui sets him-self the task of analyzing the mystical. His insistence on projection allows him to underline the function of the transcendental subject and, therefore, to offer an interpretation of the texts about the mystical, dif-ferent to the usual ones.

A partir de las perspectivas del poeta Rainer Maria Rilque, el autor desarrolla las nociones de la condición existencial del hombre y la naturaleza del hombre así como otras ideas que conforman la poesía antropológica y existencial de Rilque. Se abordan aquí la fragilidad de la existencia, la soledad, la subjetividad, la angustia, la apertura a las posibilidades, la muerte como fruto maduro de la existencia e inmanente a la vida, entre otras temáticas y se dejan atrás las visiones metafísicas (...) del yo como substancia para ofrecer una descripción fáctica del existir del hombre. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relevance in Ethics of the notion of human being. It distinguishes between the sphere of real moral moral practices and the philosophical foundation of such practices. It discusses also the difference between the modern concept of person and that of human being and establishes their role in moral thought. Finally, it focuses on the classical concept of person.

Margaret Archer plays a leading role in the sociological analysis of the relation between structure and agency, and particularly in the study of reflexivity. The main aim of this article is to discuss her approach, focusing on the main contributions and limitations of Archer’s theory of reflexivity. It is argued that even though her research is a pioneering one, proposing an operationalization of the concept of reflexivity in view of its empirical implementation, it also minimizes crucial social factors and the (...) dimensions necessary for a more complex and multi-dimensional study of the concept, such as social origins, family socialization, processes of internalization of exteriority, the role of other structure–agency mediation mechanisms and the persistence of social reproduction. (shrink)

Spin is a fundamental and distinctive property of the electron, having far-reaching implications. Yet its purely formal treatment often blurs the physical content and meaning of the spin operator and associated observables. In this work we propose to advance in disclosing the meaning behind the formalism, by first recalling some basic facts about the one-particle spin operator. Consistently informed by and in line with the quantum formalism, we then proceed to analyse in detail the spin projection operator correlation function \=\left\langle (...) \left \left \right\rangle \) for the bipartite singlet state, and show it to be amenable to an unequivocal probabilistic reading. In particular, the calculation of \\) entails a partitioning of the probability space, which is dependent on the directions \.\) The derivation of the CHSH- or other Bell-type inequalities, on the other hand, does not consider such partitioning. This observation puts into question the applicability of Bell-type inequalities to the bipartite singlet spin state. (shrink)

We explore the distinctive characteristics of Mexico's society, politics and history that impacted the establishment of genetics in Mexico, as a new disciplinary field that began in the early 20th century and was consolidated and institutionalized in the second half. We identify about three stages in the institutionalization of genetics in Mexico. The first stage can be characterized by Edmundo Taboada, who was the leader of a research program initiated during the Cárdenas government (1934-1940), which was primarily directed towards improving (...) the condition of small Mexican farmers. Taboada is the first Mexican post-graduate investigator in phytotechnology and phytopathology, trained at Cornell University and the University of Minnesota, in 1932 and 1933, respectively. He was the first investigator to teach plant genetics at the National School of Agriculture and wrote the first textbook of general genetics, Genetics Notes, in 1938. Taboada's most important single genetics contribution was the production of "stabilized" corn varieties. The extensive exile of Spanish intellectuals to Mexico, after the end of Spain's Civil War (1936-1939), had a major influence in Mexican science and characterizes the second stage. The three main personalities contributing to Mexican genetics are Federico Bonet de Marco and Bibiano Fernández Osorio Tafall, at the National School of Biological Sciences, and José Luis de la Loma y Oteyza, at the Chapingo Agriculture School. The main contribution of the Spanish exiles to the introduction of genetics in Mexico concerned teaching. They introduced in several universities genetics as a distinctive discipline within the biology curriculum and wrote genetics text books and manuals. The third stage is identified with Alfonso León de Garay, who founded the Genetics and Radiobiology Program in 1960 within the National Commission of Nuclear Energy, which had been founded in 1956. The Genetics and Radiobiology Program rapidly became a disciplinary program, for it embraced research, teaching, and training of academics and technicians. The Mexican Genetics Society, created by de Garay in 1966, and the development of strains and cultures for genetics research were important activities. One of de Garay's key requirements was the compulsory training of the Program's scientists for at least one or two years in the best universities of the United States and Europe. De Garay's role in the development of Mexican genetics was fundamental. His broad vision encompassed the practice of genetics in all its manifestations. (shrink)

La mentoría como programa de formación en el inicio de la vida profesional del docente principiante se presenta como una oportunidad para la mejora de la calidad de las instituciones educativas y de sus agentes. Al mismo tiempo, revierte sobre la comunidad y el territorio donde se ubica. En contextos reconocidos como vulnerables se necesitan agentes educativos vocacionales y con un alto nivel de resiliencia, y con una meta clara: formar a personas plenas que contribuyan con su sentir, ser y (...) hacer al desarrollo de la comunidad en la que habitan. (shrink)

Prominent tuberculosis (TB) actors are invoking solidarity to motivate and justify collective action to address TB, including through intensified development and implementation (D&I) of technologies such as drugs and diagnostics. We characterize the ethical challenges associated with D&I of new TB technologies by drawing on stakeholder perspectives from 23 key informant interviews and we articulate the ethical implications of solidarity for TB technology D&I. The fundamental ethical issue facing TB technological D&I is a failure within and beyond the TB community (...) to stand in solidarity with persons with TB in addressing the complex sociopolitical contexts of technological D&I. The failure in solidarity relates to two further ethical challenges raised by respondents: skewed power dynamics that hinder D&I and uncertainties around weighing risks and benefits associated with new technologies. Respondents identified advocacy and participatory research practices as necessary to address such challenges and to motivate sustained collective action to accelerate toward TB elimination. We present the first empirical examination of bioethical accounts of solidarity in public and global health. Our study suggests that solidarity allows us better to understand and address the ethical challenges that arrest the D&I of new TB technologies. Solidarity lends credence to policies and practices that address the relational nature of illness and health through collective action. (shrink)

The somatic mutation theory (SMT) of cancer has been and remains the prevalent theory attempting to explain how neoplasms arise and progress. This theory proposes that cancer is a clonal, cell‐based disease, and implicitly assumes that quiescence is the default state of cells in multicellular organisms. The SMT has not been rigorously tested, and several lines of evidence raise questions that are not addressed by this theory. Herein, we propose experimental strategies that may validate the SMT. We also call attention (...) to an alternative theory of carcinogenesis, the tissue organization field theory (TOFT), which posits that cancer is a tissue‐based disease and that proliferation is the default state of all cells. Based on epistemological and experimental evidence, we argue that the TOFT compellingly explains carcinogenesis, while placing it within an evolutionarily relevant context.magnified imagemagnified imageAna Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein are at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. (shrink)

Online education has become an essential component of education. Thus, several factors, such as the student’s learning strategy and motivation, generally contribute to their academic success. This study investigates the relationship between learning strategies, motivation, and online learning environment among 150 first-year college students. Employing correlational design, the statistical findings of the study reveal that the r coefficient of 0.59 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision (...) to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between learning strategies, motivation, and the online learning environment. (shrink)