The philosophy of literature, as developed by analytical philosophers, places the values of literature, implicitly or explicitly, at the centre of its core debates. Is literature an honorific (value-laden) concept or a descriptive one? What is literary interpretation if not primarily the uncovering of deeper significance and interest in works of literature? What about the pursuit of truth and knowledge? Is it not one of the most valued aspirations of literature? And can readers of novels not sharpen their moral sensibility, (...) their empathy, their understanding of human weakness, desires and follies, by engaging with the lives of fictional characters? Can the great works of fiction or poetry or drama not offer enduring psychological rewards, not just in the pleasures of literary artifice but in having the imagination stretched through immersion in worlds and possibilities well beyond the banalities of everyday life? These are some of the debates, even if no final resolution has emerged. Are there such distinctive literary values as implied in these debates? Is it possible to generalize across literary genres or are there only, at best, values of poetry, the novel, the short story, drama? And how are individual works to be evaluated? Are there objective values or only values relative to individual readers or "communities"? Is there a canon of great works, and if so, how is it constructed? How do moral values relate to literary values? Can great works be immoral? These are live issues for the philosopher of literature. (shrink)

Decision making often takes place in social environments where other actors influence individuals' decisions. The present article examines how advice affects individual learning. Five social learning models combining advice and individual learning‐four based on reinforcement learning and one on Bayesian learning‐and one individual learning model are tested against each other. In two experiments, some participants received good or bad advice prior to a repeated multioption choice task. Receivers of advice adhered to the advice, so that good advice improved performance. The (...) social learning models described the observed learning processes better than the individual learning model. Of the models tested, the best social learning model assumes that outcomes from recommended options are more positively evaluated than outcomes from nonrecommended options. This model correctly predicted that receivers first adhere to advice, then explore other options, and finally return to the recommended option. The model also predicted accurately that good advice has a stronger impact on learning than bad advice. One‐time advice can have a long‐lasting influence on learning by changing the subjective evaluation of outcomes of recommended options. (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Original and cumulative prospect theory differ in the composition rule used to combine the probability weighting function and the value function. We test the predictive power of these composition rules by performing a novel out-of-sample prediction test. We apply estimates of prospect theory’s weighting and value function obtained from two-outcome cash equivalents, a domain where original and cumulative prospect theory coincide, to three-outcome cash equivalents, a domain where the composition rules of the two theories differ. Although both forms of prospect (...) theory predict three-outcome cash equivalents very well, at the aggregate level, we find small but systematic under-prediction of cash equivalents for cumulative prospect theory and small but systematic over-prediction of cash equivalents for original prospect theory. We also observe substantial heterogeneity across subjects and types of gambles, some of which is accounted for by differences in the curvature and elevation of the weighting function across individuals. We also find differences in prediction related to whether the worst outcome is zero or non-zero. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Researchers are concerned about whether manipulations have the intended effects. Many journals and reviewers view manipulation checks favorably, and they are widely reported in prestigious journals. However, the prototypical manipulation check is a verbal (rather than behavioral) measure that always appears at the same point in the procedure (rather than its order being varied to assess order effects). Embedding such manipulation checks within an experiment comes with problems. While we conceptualize manipulation checks as measures, they can also act as interventions (...) which initiate new processes that would otherwise not occur. The default assumption that manipulation checks do not affect experimental conclusions is unwarranted. They may amplify, undo, or interact with the effects of a manipulation. Further, the use of manipulation checks in mediational analyses does not rule out confounding variables, as any unmeasured variables that correlate with the manipulation check may still drive the relationship. Alternatives such as nonverbal and behavioral measures as manipulation checks and pilot testing are less problematic. Reviewers should view manipulation checks more critically, and authors should explore alternative methods to ensure the effectiveness of manipulations. (shrink)

A Richard Rorty se le considera hoy en día como uno de los filósofos más importantes de Norteamérica. Es posible que esta afirmación sea discutible; lo indiscutible es que, a juicio de los críticos, es el mejor escritor filosófico después de Bertrand Russell….

Resumen Este artículo tiene el objetivo de realizar una aproximación crítica al pensamiento de Richard Sennett con la mirada puesta en las aportaciones que su obra puede realizar al desarrollo de la Ética Empresarial. De ahí que el estudio busca reconocer las transformaciones que están produciéndose en el nivel organizativo, y que se traducen en la implementación de nuevas formas de producción y trabajo en el seno de las relaciones capitalistas, aspectos sumamente relevantes para ser capaces de orientar dichas (...) relaciones en un sentido de justicia, prudencia y responsabilidad tal y como se plantea por la Ética Empresarial de corte discursivo.The objective of this article is to conduct a critical study of Richard Sennett’s thinking by focusing on the contributions his work can make to develop Business Ethics. This study aims to recognize the transformations that take place in organizational terms, and are then implemented into new forms of production and work at the heart of capitalist relations, which are extremely important aspects for guiding these relations in justice, prudence and responsibility terms, as it is proposed by discourse business ethics. (shrink)

Law clings to rules to stabilize a preferred normative reality. But rules never suffice. Character is the dark matter of law. Ethos anthropos daimon. “Character is fate.” This paradoxically reversible saying by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus asserts that we are defined by the daimon – the god or messenger angel – with which we identify most. As Plato queried in the Phaedrus: which god do you follow, whose love claims you? In contemporary terms we might say, what character type, (...) what emotional ideal, what deep story do you hold most sacred? Out of the maelstrom that is the state of exception, choices must be made. What emotional field shall we occupy when we do politics and law? Bound by what sovereign values or ideals, embodied within what sort of character, emplotted in what sort of political or legal narrative? In synergy with culture, character plays out the emotional conflicts and aspirations of the time. Whether we witness this in the mostly silent resistance of unassimilable characters like Barnardine in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure or in the silent prayer of nineteen-year-old Emma Gonzalez, in public protest against uncontrolled gun violence in American schools, we are all called upon, as citizens in public life, to occupy an emotional space that attains centrality within deep narratives that vie for political dominance. Reverse engineering liberal society, we might ask: what emotional and character ideals are optimal in order for a particular kind of political society to arise and be sustained? There is a reciprocal relationship between the sovereign authority of law and the character ideals that express a capacity and willingness to accept that authority. What will the configuration be? Addressing this question constitutes the ethical, esthetic, and epistemological calling of our time. (shrink)

This text proposes a conception of Richard Rorty’s philosophy from the distinction between systematic philosophy and edifying philosophy, proposing this distinction as a key to reading his neo-pragmatism and his political-ethical proposal of the 90s, whose consequence main will be his conception of liberal democracy, ironic citizen and post-philosophical culture.

El espectáculo cinematográfico Cinerama es un referente en la tecnología de la gran pantalla. Gracias a Fred Waller y Hazard Reeves, Cinerama elevó su popularidad. Este hecho derivó en la creación de pabellones móviles itinerantes. Cinesa inició en España el desarrollo del Cinerama móvil, ante la falta de salas cinematográficas. Recurrieron, en 1966, a Emilio Pérez Piñero para la realización de un pabellón móvil que imitara Cinerama Dome, obra de Welton Becket, que siguió la patente de la cúpula geodésica de (...) Richard Buckminster Fuller. Sin embargo, Piñero diseñó una patente propia conocida como cúpula reticular de directriz esférica. (shrink)

A selection of speeches and essays from the author's second decade as president of Yale University.

The search for mechanisms has been a common practice in scientific research. However, since the empiricist critique of causality, and especially during the second third of the twentieth century, other non-mechanistic perspectives—especially deductivism—gained predominance. But the sustained effort of authors such as Michael Scriven, Mario Bunge and especially Wesley Salmon contributed to restoring the respectability of causality and mechanisms in philosophy of science. Some members of the causal family, usually lumped under the name of “new mechanistic philosophy”, emphasize the description (...) of mechanisms, especially causal ones, as a central aspect of explanation and other research practices in several areas of science. This approach offers viable solutions to the various ontological and methodological objections that are opposed to the two traditional approaches. In this work the basic characteristics of three philosophies that highlight the description of mechanisms as a central element to explanation and their suitability for the science of ecology are discussed. (shrink)

El presente artículo estudia las representaciones de mujeres con VIH/sida, en el libro Tiempos del SIDA. Relatos de la vida real, de Myriam Francis. El trabajo inicia con un análisis sobre la exclusión de los sujetos femeninos de la literatura “seropositiva” latinoamericana. Se plantea que las pocas representaciones que existen se enfocan en “mujeres sospechosas”, lo cual se repite, hasta cierto punto, en los textos de Francis seleccionados: “La última puerta”, “La viuda alegre” y “La chica alegre”. Luego, se ofrece (...) una explicación sobre el contexto en el que surgen las historias, un “pabellón-moridero” que se describe más bien como un espacio ameno, el cual, sin embargo, enfatiza la tragicidad que rodea a cada “caso”. Después, se estudian los tres relatos mencionados, en los que se mueven los símbolos primarios del mal (la mancilla, el pecado y la culpabilidad), de manera que una mujer es representada como una “víctima inocente” y otras, como “víctimas culpables” (fundamentalmente por sus “estilos de vida nocivos”). Finalmente, el trabajo concluye que la narrativa de Francis moviliza algunos principios de la “teoría de la degeneración”, para explicar las situaciones experimentadas por los personajes femeninos y ofrecer un mensaje didáctico-moralizante. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Academic Skepticism in Hume and Kant: A Ciceronian Critique of Metaphysics by Catalina González QuinteroZuzana ParusnikováCatalina González Quintero. Academic Skepticism in Hume and Kant: A Ciceronian Critique of Metaphysics. Cham: Springer, 2022. Pp. 268. Hardcover. ISBN: 978-3-030-89749-9. £99.99.This book is a valuable contribution to the rapidly expanding field of research into the formative impact of ancient skepticism on early modern philosophy. This new paradigm was introduced several decades (...) ago, as González Quintero acknowledges, by the pioneering work of Richard Popkin; and while Popkin emphasized the constitutive role of Pyrrhonism in this process, recent philosophical debates have been characterized by a more measured approach, carefully differentiating between the Academics and the Pyrrhonists, and their respective influence on modern skeptics. Gonzáles Quintero opts for the Academic interpretation of Hume’s skepticism, applying it to both his Treatise and the first Enquiry, and extending it to both of Kant’s Critiques—an area much less explored in the context of ancient skepticism. She thus heads into a complex philosophical landscape.The reader may be somewhat puzzled by the book’s subtitle, one which seems to add yet another theme to its already broad structure. However, as Gonzáles Quintero explains in the Introduction, she wants to take the discussions of Academic skepticism beyond the field of empirical science and concentrate on the attitude of the skeptics towards metaphysics; her aim is to show how Cicero, Hume, and Kant “used skeptical means to examine the justification of metaphysical claims and to determine, in this way, which resulting beliefs could be held non-dogmatically and for practical purposes” (1). Perhaps then, the book may be more accurately titled Academic Skepticism and Metaphysics: Cicero, Hume and Kant.Though this may seem a reduction in the scope of the topics, in this particular case it is an expansion, since the author reconstructs how the attitude of the skeptics to metaphysics unfolds from their general epistemological skepticism concerning the limits of reason. She divides the book into three main parts (Cicero, Hume, and Kant), with the first chapter of each part describing the skeptical method of that particular philosopher or school, and the second examining its application to metaphysical matters. This is a huge undertaking for one book, requiring the author to navigate a vast field of philosophical material, including a significant amount of primary and secondary literature, while turning it all back toward the main question concerning the role played by Academic (Carneadean) skepticism in the ancient, Humean, and Kantian treatments of religion and other metaphysical issues. The danger of topic-overload arises and a selective approach is crucial to avoid “dropping the ball.” Gonzáles Quintero tackles this task with varying success. [End Page 346]The first chapter of the first part of the book provides a thorough analysis of Academic skepticism and how it differs from Pyrrhonism and stoicism. With an extensive knowledge of scholarly debates on ancient skepticism, the author discusses various nuances in the relationship between radical Pyrrhonism and Arciselaus of the Second Academy, moving on, predictably, to Carneades of the Third Academy, who proposed a moderate version of skepticism based on evaluating the degree of persuasiveness of impressions. Such impressions deserve non-dogmatic approval and can thus reduce the scope of epoché; they motivate our search for truth while admitting our fallibility; and they guide us in practical matters. Her argument that assenting to persuasive beliefs contains a rational (normative) aspect perhaps deserves further discussion; for the ancient skeptics the criterion of persuasiveness was subjective and unstable, reflecting our momentary feelings about appearances.In the chapter on metaphysics, the author compares Cicero’s skeptical method in De Natura Deorum (DND) and the Tusculan Disputations. In the former, Cicero (through the character of Cotta) abandons skeptical principles (which would prevent us from defining the nature of the gods) for the sake of the practical usefulness of religious rituals as endorsed by the Stoics; while for the Epicureans (Velleius) the gods (or some cosmic Deity) are utterly unconcerned by our world, for the Stoics (Balbus) they care about human affairs—thus this latter stance supports the state religion that Cicero... (shrink)

It is widely held that there is a distinctive norm of assertion. A plausible idea is that there is an analogous, perhaps weaker, norm for indirect communication via implicatures. I argue against this type of proposal. My claim is that the norm of assertion is a social norm governing public updates to the conversational record. Off the record implicatures are not subject to social norms of this type. I grant that, as happens in general with intentional actions, off the record (...) communicative acts may be subject to normative assessments on different levels (for instance, regarding their moral or prudential appropriateness). However, such assessments do not generate distinctive norms that apply to all cases of implicature. (shrink)

The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work yet: a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's Tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims (...) swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism. Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world. (shrink)

The desirability of what actually occurs is often influenced by what could have been. Preferences based on such value dependencies between actual and counterfactual outcomes generate a class of problems for orthodox decision theory, the best-known perhaps being the so-called Allais Paradox. In this paper we solve these problems by extending Richard Jeffrey's decision theory to counterfactual prospects, using a multidimensional possible-world semantics for conditionals, and showing that preferences that are sensitive to counterfactual considerations can still be desirability maximising. (...) We end the paper by investigating the conditions necessary and sufficient for a desirability function to be an expected utility. It turns out that the additional conditions imply highly implausible epistemic principles. (shrink)

The discussion of good and evil must not be confined to the sterile lecture halls of academics but related instead to ordinary human feelings, needs, and desires, says noted philosopher Richard Taylor. Efforts to understand morality by exploring human reason will always fail because we are creatures of desire as well. All morality arises from our intense and inescapable longing. The distinction between good and evil is always clouded by rationalists who convert the real problems of ethics into complex (...) philosophical puzzles. In the first part of Good and Evil, Taylor looks for a more meaningful conception by reexamining and rejecting the whole rationalistic tradition that dominates philosophical ethics. The second part provides an empirical explanation of good and evil, noting that one does not have to look too far to find prime examples of the failure of fixed moral rules. Including important commentary on Joseph Fletcher's groundbreaking situation ethics, and Aristotle's virtues (e.g., magnanimity and pride), Taylor rounds out the book by developing a philosophy of aspiration--personal worth as an ethical ideal--to replace the morality of duty. He offers a modified form of situation ethics to fit the contemporary problems we face. (shrink)

Orientalism and Religion offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, including Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted, and shows us how religion needs to be redescribed along the lines of cultural studies.

This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work ha generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historical research. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of the (...) theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history now as much as ever. (shrink)

Thinking through the body: educating for the humanities -- The body as background -- Self-knowledge and its discontents: from Socrates to somaesthetics -- Muscle memory and the somaesthetic pathologies of everyday life -- Somaesthetics in the philosophy classroom: a practical approach -- Somaesthetics and the limits of aesthetics -- Somaesthetics and Burke's sublime -- Pragmatism and cultural politics: from textualism to somaesthetics -- Body consciousness and performance -- Somaesthetics and architecture: a critical option -- Photography as performative process -- Asian (...) ars erotica and the question of sexual aesthetics -- Philosophy as awakened life : everyday aesthetics of embodiment in American transcendentalism and Japanese Zen practice -- Somatic style. (shrink)

El presente artículo pretende analizar los efectos transformadores que la pandemia por Covid-19 ha obrado en nuestras existencias individuales y en nuestra convivencia social cotidiana desde la propuesta analítica del filósofo surcoreano Byung Chul-Han. Dicha transformación es de tal profundidad que, para nuestro autor, viene a exacerbar los males de la sociedad contemporánea, como el agotamiento y el cansancio por autoexplotación y permanente optimización de sí mismo propiciados por el neoliberalismo globalizado y omnipresente en Occidente. Desde esta constatación analizaremos en (...) particular cómo la prevalencia de la comunicación digital obligada por la emergencia viral trae consecuencias antropológicas que amenazan con eliminar lo esencial de la vida humana: la construcción de rituales, la estructura temporal cotidiana, el contacto corporal con los demás, la pertenencia a una comunidad y la apreciación de lo real en su genuina dimensión ontológica. Finalmente, exploraremos una posible salida a la alienación virtual en que forzadamente se encuentra la sociedad contemporánea. (shrink)

Coherentists fail to distinguish between the individual revision of a conviction and the intersubjective revision of a rule. This paper fills this gap. A conviction is a norm that, according to an individual, ought to be ascribed to a provision. By contrast, a rule is a judicially ascribed norm that controls a case and is protected by the formal principles of competence, certainty, and equality. A revision of a rule is the invalidation or modification such a judicially ascribed norm, provided (...) that the judge meets the burden of argumentation of formal principles. Thus, judges can revise their convictions without changing the law. (shrink)

Del sentimiento trágico (de sinsabor) de la vida - ¡El triunfo del sinsabor! - Nietzshe ha muerto - Sigue. Los personajes que importan - Dimensiones del sinsabor - El mundo de la sensación - La sensación de sinsabor - Los sonidos de la oficina. Los sonidos que trascienden la oficina. La posible solución no es posible. Un placer estético en una oficina. Experiencias místicas en una oficina. Comienzo del relato. Sensaciones - La gracia del azar - Vuelven los sonidos (que (...) nos muestran algo diferente) -El placer estético sería la única solución - Fase de prueba - Tres dimensiones del sensacionismo - La mística, solución por un momento - La verdad incompleta - El sinsabor del Sr. Sin que tiende a la tristeza. Las cosas que ocurren han pasado a tener menos interés que las sensaciones que producen - El placer mundano y el canto a la vida. (shrink)

The book begins with an overview that introduces the Theorem and the issues surrounding it, and explores how the essays that follow contribute to our understanding of those issues.