Distributed agile teams are increasingly employed in organizations, partly due to the increased focus on digital transformation. However, research findings about the performance of such teams appear to be inconsistent, calling for more research to investigate the conditions under which distributed agile teams may thrive. Given that task coordination is particularly challenging when team members are not co-located, the present study investigates the roles of the two types of task interdependence, i.e., initiated versus received task interdependence. Survey results from 191 (...) participants working in distributed agile teams within three companies in Norway confirm our hypotheses. Specifically, we show that high initiated task interdependence is associated with higher role clarity of others, while received task interdependence is associated with higher role clarity of self, and that both subsequently result in higher team performance in distributed agile teams. Thus, we argue that each type of task interdependence contributes in a unique way to team performance in distributed agile teams. (shrink)

© 2016 Elsevier LtdJumping spiders are famous for their visually driven behaviors [1]. Here, however, we present behavioral and neurophysiological evidence that these animals also perceive and respond to airborne acoustic stimuli, even when the distance between the animal and the sound source is relatively large and with stimulus amplitudes at the position of the spider of ∼65 dB sound pressure level. Behavioral experiments with the jumping spider Phidippus audax reveal that these animals respond to low-frequency sounds by freezing—a common (...) anti-predatory behavior characteristic of an acoustic startle response. Neurophysiological recordings from auditory-sensitive neural units in the brains of these jumping spiders showed responses to low-frequency tones —recordings that also represent the first record of acoustically responsive neural units in the jumping spider brain. Responses persisted even when the distances between spider and stimulus source exceeded 3 m and under anechoic conditions. Thus, these spiders appear able to detect airborne sound at distances in the acoustic far-field region, beyond the near-field range often thought to bound acoustic perception in arthropods that lack tympanic ears [2]. Furthermore, direct mechanical stimulation of hairs on the patella of the foreleg was sufficient to generate responses in neural units that also responded to airborne acoustic stimuli—evidence that these hairs likely play a role in the detection of acoustic cues. We suggest that these auditory responses enable the detection of predators and facilitate an acoustic startle response. Video. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a unified account of systemic emergence, downward causation, and interlevel integrative explanations. First, I argue for a relational-transformational notion of emergence and a structural-relational account of downward causation in terms of both its transformational and conditioning effects. In my view, downward causation can avoid the problems traditionally attributed to it, provided that we are able to reconceptualize the notion of ‘whole’ and that form of causality in a purely relational way. In this regard, I distinguish (...) contextual or whole-to-part causation from downward causation, the latter defined by the existence of second-order structural relations. Finally, I argue that while emergence and downward-structural causation imply the in-principle failure of micro-determinism and therefore micro-reduction, they do not rule out the possibility of any type of explanation. On the contrary, they call for the development of interlevel integrative explanations. (shrink)

In his new book, Logical Form, Andrea Iacona distinguishes between two different roles that have been ascribed to the notion of logical form: the logical role and the semantic role. These two roles entail a bifurcation of the notion of logical form. Both notions of logical form, according to Iacona, are descriptive, having to do with different features of natural language sentences. I agree that the notion of logical form bifurcates, but not that the logical role is merely descriptive. In (...) this paper, I focus on formalization, a process by which logical form, on its logical role, is attributed to natural language sentences. According to some, formalization is a form of explication, and it involves normative, pragmatic, as well as creative aspects. I present a view by which formalization involves explicit commitments on behalf of a reasoner or an interpreter, which serve the normative grounds for the evaluation of a given text. In previous work, I proposed the framework of semantic constraints for the explication of logical consequence. Here, I extend the framework to include formalization constraints. The various constraints then serve the role of commitments. I discuss specific issues raised by Iacona concerning univocality, co-reference and equivocation, and I show how our views on these matters diverge as a result of our different starting assumptions. (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)

Is there a relation of logical consequence in natural language? Logicality, in the philosophical literature, has been conceived of as a restrictive phenomenon that is at odds with the unbridled richness and complexity of natural language. This article claims that there is a relation of logical consequence in natural language, and moreover, that it is the subject matter of the bulk of current theories of formal semantics. I employ the framework of _semantic constraints_ (Sagi in Log Anal 57(227):259–276, 2014), which (...) generalizes the Tarskian definition of logical consequence. I apply the widely accepted criterion of invariance under isomorphisms (Sher in J. Symb Log 61(2):653–686, 1996) generalized to the framework of semantic constraints (Sagi in Bull Symb Log 28(1):104–132, 2022b), combined with a theory of Glanzberg (in Metasemantics: new essays on the foundations of meaning, 2014) to delineate the relation of logical consequence in natural language. (shrink)

The move from open outcry to electronic trading added another responsibility to futures exchanges—that of matching orders between buyers and sellers. Matching systems can affect the level and speed of price discovery, the distribution of revenue, as well as the level of price efficiency of a given market. Whether the matching system is procedurally fair is another important consideration. I argue that while FIFO (First In First Out) is a fair procedure in principle and is perceived as the default matching (...) system, it is not a fair procedure in practice. Likewise, while pro rata is a fair procedure in principle, it is not so in practice. Nevertheless, both FIFO and pro rata are relics of an open outcry system. Instead, I propose an alternative approach to matching systems that builds on the strengths of electronic trading—the ability to randomize in real time. I introduce random selection for service (RSS) as a matching system that is procedurally fair both in principle and in practice. (shrink)

Generating an account that can sidestep the disagreement among substantive theories of well-being, while at the same time still providing useful guidance for well-being public policy, would be a significant achievement. Unfortunately, the various attempts to remain agnostic regarding what constitutes well-being fail to either be an account of well-being, provide useful guidance for well-being policy, or avoid relying on a substantive well-being theory. There are no theory-free lunches in well-being policy. Instead, I propose an intermediate account, according to which (...) well-being is constituted by endorsed veridical experiences. This account refers back to theories of well-being but does so as agnostically as possible. An intermediate account of well-being is meant as a policy guiding compromise between the different theories of well-being that make claims regarding what constitutes well-being. An intermediate account does as well as can be hoped for in providing a basis for well-being policy. (shrink)

Downward causation exercised by emergent properties of wholes upon their lower-level constituents’ properties has been accused of conceptual and metaphysical incoherence. Only upward causation is usually peacefully accepted. The aim of this paper is to criticize and refuse the traditional hierarchical-vertical way of conceiving both types of causation, although preserving their deepest ontological significance, as well as the widespread acceptance of the traditional atomistic-combinatorial view of the entities and the relations that constitute the so-called ‘emergence base’. Assuming those two perspectives (...) with no reserves, we are condemned to confine our debate to the question of whether reified wholes can have the power to downwardly change or influence their lower-level parts, a question which seems profoundly misleading to me. I therefore propose an alternative relational ontological view, assuming a straightforward horizontal and intra-level way of representing those putative cases of cross-level causation. I finally confront two recent replies to Kim’s well-known objections to DC—Craver and Bechtel and Kistler :595–609, 2009)—, emphasizing their global positive approaches, as well as the reasons why their accounts still seem insufficient to me. I conclude arguing that both Kim’s principle of the causal closure of the physical domain and its allegation of an overdetermination in cases of DC can be surpassed by the new relational ontological perspective presented here. (shrink)

In this article I address the issue of the ontological conditions of possibility for a naturalistic notion of emergence, trying to determine its fundamental differences from the atomist, vitalist, preformationist and potentialist alternatives. I will argue that a naturalistic notion of ontological emergence can only succeed if we explicitly refuse the atomistic fundamental ontological postulate that asserts that every entity is endowed with a set of absolutely intrinsic properties, being qualitatively immutable through its extrinsic relations. Furthermore, it will be shown (...) that, ironically enough, this metaphysical assumption is implicitly shared by all the above mentioned alternatives to Emergentism. The current article concludes that the notion of organization by itself is not enough, and that ontological emergence can only be justified by assuming a relational ontological perspective that, in opposition both to atomism and holism, defends that the existence-conditions, the identity and the causal behavior of any emergent systemic property can only be conceived, and explained, as constructed by and through specific networks of qualitatively transformative relational processes that occur between the system’s components and between the system and its environment. Additionally, I try to explain how one can make sense of the idea that an emergent phenomenon is both dependent on, and autonomous from, its emergence base. (shrink)

It is an open question whether well-being ought to primarily be understood as a temporal concept or whether it only makes sense to talk about a person’s well-being over their whole lifetime. In this article, I argue that how this principled philosophical disagreement is settled does not have substantive practical implications for well-being science and well-being policy. Trying to measure lifetime well-being directly is extremely challenging as well as unhelpful for guiding well-being public policy, while temporal well-being is both an (...) adequate indirect measure of lifetime well-being, and an adequate focus for the purposes of improving well-being through public policy. Consequently, even if what we ought to care about is lifetime well-being, we should use temporal measures of well-being and focus on temporal well-being policies. (shrink)

Spoofing is the act of placing orders to buy or sell a financial contract without the intention to have those orders fulfilled in order to create the impression that there is a large demand for that contract at that price. In this article, I deny the view that spoofing in financial markets should be viewed as morally permissible analogously to the way bluffing is permissible in poker. I argue for the pro tanto moral impermissibility of spoofing and make the case (...) that spoofing is disanalogous from bluffing in at least one important regard—speculative trading serves an important economic role, whereas poker does not. (shrink)

Policy-makers sometimes aim to improve well-being as a policy goal, but to do this they need some way to measure well-being. Instead of relying on potentially problematic theories of well-being to justify their choice of well-being measure, Daniel Hausman proposes that policy-makers can sometimes rely on preference-based measures as evidence for well-being. I claim that Hausman’s evidential account does not justify the use of any one measure more than it justifies the use of any other measure. This leaves us at (...) a loss as to which policy should be chosen in the non-trivial cases for which there is substantial disagreement between the different measures in their assessment of policy. (shrink)

in recent years, policy makers have shown increasing interest in implementing policies aimed at promoting individual well-being. But how should policy makers choose their well-being policies? a seemingly reasonable first step is to settle on an agreed-upon definition of well-being. yet there currently is significant disagreement on how well-being ought to be characterized, and agreement on the correct view of well-being does not appear to be forthcoming. Nevertheless, i argue in this paper that there are several reasons to think that (...) the domain of well-being in the public policy context is narrower than that of well-being in general, which makes agreement on how to understand well-being in the public policy context more likely. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a prevailing view by which logical terms determine forms of sentences and arguments and therefore the logical validity of arguments. This view is common to those who hold that there is a principled distinction between logical and nonlogical terms and those holding relativistic accounts. I adopt the Tarskian tradition by which logical validity is determined by form, but reject the centrality of logical terms. I propose an alternative framework for logic where logical terms no longer (...) play a distinctive role. This account employs a new notion of semantic. (shrink)

In this paper I present an interpretation of Deleuze's concept of the virtual. I argue that this concept is best understood in relation to the problematic of individuation or differentiation, which Deleuze inherits from Duns Scotus. After analysing Scotus' critique of Aristotelian or hylomorphic approaches to the problem of individuation, I turn to Deleuze's account of differentiation and his interpretation of the calculus in chapter 4 of Difference and Repetition. The paper seeks thereby to explicate Deleuze's dialectics or theory of (...) Ideas, his approach to the principle of sufficient reason, and the concept of the virtual itself. (shrink)

I teach with water. It’s nothing very remarkable and I myself do not remember how I settled upon water as a most convenient introduction to what I have to teach, which is to say, to learn. Did not everything begin with water? My own beginnings, in any case, would border on the banal, if they did not signify so much about where I live (race and class) and how I teach (tradition, institution, location), the liberties I can responsibly take, or (...) the sheer length to which one might have to go to register and partake of a sense of wonder – and of outrage – on the impossible path toward a collective experience of learning. In this particular instalment, learning with water is very much about recalling what we know, knowing what we do with the knowledge that we have. I teach with water. I start my class by quietly, if ostensibly, depositing in front of the class, or at the center of the seminar table, a bottle of “spring water.” I then invite the students to attend to this classroom instance of the proverbial elephant, though not necessarily true to the desperate manner of the three blind men. (shrink)

This paper proposes an integrated-structure notion of interlevel emergence, from a dynamic relational ontological perspective. First, I will argue that only the individualist essentialism of atomistic metaphysics can block the possibility of interlevel emergence. Then I will show that we can make sense of emergence by recognizing the formation of structures of transformative and interdependent causal relations in the generation and development of a particular class of mereological complexes called integrated systems. Finally, I shall argue that even though the emergent (...) structural attributes of such systems are not micro-determined nor micro-reducible, they can still be accounted for by an interlevel integrative neo-mechanistic form of explanation. (shrink)

In a recent article, “Logical Consequence and Natural Language,” Michael Glanzberg claims that there is no relation of logical consequence in natural language (2015). The present paper counters that claim. I shall discuss Glanzberg’s arguments and show why they don’t hold. I further show how Glanzberg’s claims may be used to rather support the existence of logical consequence in natural language.

According to what I call the ‘argument from public bads’, if a researcher deceived subjects in the past, there is a chance that subjects will discount the information that a subsequent researcher provides, thus compromising the validity of the subsequent researcher’s experiment. While this argument is taken to justify an existing informal ban on explicit deception in experimental economics, it can also apply to implicit deception, yet implicit deception is not banned and is sometimes used in experimental economics. Thus, experimental (...) economists are being inconsistent when they appeal to the argument from public bads to justify banning explicit deception but not implicit deception. (shrink)

In standard model-theoretic semantics, the meaning of logical terms is said to be fixed in the system while that of nonlogical terms remains variable. Much effort has been devoted to characterizing logical terms, those terms that should be fixed, but little has been said on their role in logical systems: on what fixing their meaning precisely amounts to. My proposal is that when a term is considered logical in model theory, what gets fixed is its intension rather than its extension. (...) I provide a rigorous way of spelling out this idea, and show that it leads to a graded account of logicality: the less structure a term requires in order for its intension to be fixed, the more logical it is. Finally, I focus on the class of terms that are invariant under isomorphisms, as they render themselves more easily to mathematical treatment. I propose a mathematical measure for the logicality of such terms based on their associated Löwenheim numbers. (shrink)

Was Derrida a mama’s boy? Was he not hiding or indeed manifesting, ostensibly displaying even, mommy issues? Let us posit that Derrida had a substantial, perhaps an inordinate amount of things to say about mothers in general, about surrogate mothers too, and about his own mother in particular. Derrida did confess having taken the side of his mother. Yet, what I really want to ask is whether, from Plato to Nancy and, more obviously, from Rousseau to Freud and beyond, mothers (...) can, in fact, be confined to bounded registers of life, of Derrida’s life and, more formally, to the biographical and autobiographical (as ‘Circumfession’ and before it Spurs and The Ear of the Other might suggest). Or even to the psychoanalytical (as The Post Card and, in it, the famous fort/da scene would certainly indicate). A concern — shall I already call it a solicitude — for mothers, on Derrida’s part, might raise a distinct set of questions. (shrink)

Individual choices are commonly taken to manifest personal preferences. The present study investigated whether social and statistical cues influence young children's inferences about the generalizability of preferences. Preschoolers were exposed to either 1 or 2 demonstrators’ selections of objects. The selected objects constituted 18%, 50%, or 100% of all available objects. We found that children took a single demonstrator's choices as indicative only of his or her personal preference. However, when 2 demonstrators made the same selection, then children inferred that (...) it generalized to other agents of the same kind as the original demonstrator's, but not to agents of a different kind. Lastly, only when both demonstrators blatantly violated random selection (i.e., in the 18% condition) did children generalize the preference even to an agent of a different kind. Thus, from a young age, social and statistical cues inform children's naïve sociology. (shrink)

In a recent article, “Logical Consequence and Natural Language”, Michael Glanzberg claims that there is no relation of logical consequence in natural language (2015). The present paper counters that claim. I shall discuss Glanzberg’s arguments and show why they don’t hold. I further show how Glanzberg’s claims may be used to rather support the existence of logical consequence in natural language.

Tarski characterized logical notions as invariant under permutations of the domain. The outcome, according to Tarski, is that our logic, which is commonly said to be a logic of extension rather than intension, is not even a logic of extension—it is a logic of cardinality. In this paper, I make this idea precise. We look at a scale inspired by Ruth Barcan Marcus of various levels of meaning: extensions, intensions and hyperintensions. On this scale, the lower the level of meaning, (...) the more coarse-grained and less “intensional” it is. I propose to extend this scale to accommodate a level of meaning appropriate for logic. Thus, below the level of extension, we will have a more coarse-grained level of form. I employ a semantic conception of form, adopted from Sher, where forms are features of things “in the world”. Each expression in the language embodies a form, and by the definition we give, forms will be invariant under permutations and thus Tarskian logical notions. I then define the logical terms of a language as those terms whose extension can be determined by their form. Logicality will be shown to be a lower level analogue of rigidity. Using Barcan Marcus’s principles of explicit and implicit extensionality, we are able to characterize purely logical languages as “sub-extensional”, namely, as concerned only with form, and we thus obtain a wider perspective on both logicality and extensionality. (shrink)

I discuss some problems related to extreme mathematical realism, focusing on a recently proposed “shut-up-and-calculate” approach to physics. I offer arguments for a moderate alternative, the essence of which lies in the acceptance that mathematics is a human construction, and discuss concrete consequences of this—at first sight purely philosophical—difference in point of view.

Invariance criteria are widely accepted as a means to demarcate the logical vocabulary of a language. In previous work, I proposed a framework of “semantic constraints” for model theoretic consequence which does not rely on a strict distinction between logical and nonlogical terms, but rather on a range of constraints on models restricting the interpretations of terms in the language in different ways. In this paper I show how invariance criteria can be generalized so as to apply to semantic constraints (...) on models. Some obviously unpalatable semantic constraints turn out to be invariant under isomorphisms. I shall connect our discussion to known counterexamples to invariance criteria for logical terms, and so the generalization will also shed light on the current existing debate on logicality. I analyse the failure of invariance to fulfil its role as a criterion for logicality, and argue that invariance conditions should best be thought of as merely methodological meta-constraints restricting the ways the model-theoretic apparatus should be used. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE VINE AND BRANCHES DISCOURSE: THE GOSPEL'S PSYCHOLOGICAL APOCALYPSE Gil Bailie Florilegio Institute Man is after something that cannot be possessed.... Man cannot "have" being, though he absolutely needs it for living. (Roel Kaptein) The anthropological reading of biblical literature which Girard's mimetic theory makes possible sheds new light on many otherwise inscrutable texts. Prominent among these, due to its centrality as well as its elusiveness, is the prologue (...) to the Gospel ofJohn. For the author of this gospel, the "Word" who was "in the beginning," was "the light" without which humanity remained in darkness—whether it be the darkness ofpre-human existence or the moral and mythic darkness of the sacred violence that accompanied hominization. Girard's work helps us realize that humanity generated its own crude forms of illumination precisely by periodically expelling this light. (A vivid symbolic expression ofthis is the reference to the "lanterns, torches, and weapons" with which the Roman cohort arrested Jesus later in John's Gospel.) The Johannine Prologue conveys its message in an elusively universal yet specifiable idiom: The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what Gil Bailie121 was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him, who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or ofthe will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (1 : 9-13) The ontological theme of these verses deserves attention. If, as Raymond Brown has observed, these verses constitute a "description of the history of salvation in hymnic form," they also contain an anthropological summary of the two, and only two, ontologizing circumstances: the identification, respectively, with the victimizing crowd and with the victim. However occluded the illuminating Logos might have been prior to revelation ofthe Cross, the Johannine prologue tells us that it was present from the beginning. How? The most pertinent scriptural clue seems to be the reference to Christ in the Book of Revelation as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," the innocent One whose victimization finally broke open the seals on the scroll of human iniquity and, in the process, unfettered that iniquity from its ancient restraints. One of the great values of Girard's work is that it makes anthropologically explicit what is poetically implicit in these scriptural innuendoes, namely, the link between the Crucified One and all victims slain "from the foundation of the world." Inasmuch as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" was what made the old humanity possible and, in Christ, what brought the new humanity into being, the third verse of the prologue of John's Gospel becomes anthropologically intelligible: All things came into being through him, not one thing had its being except through him. (1:3) Here the explicit claim that all things came to be through him needs to be read in light of the verses that follow in the prologue, but which I have quoted above. Doing so, we are led to consider the radical difference between the crude and fallacious ontology the ancient sacrificial system was able to underwrite by causing its beneficiaries to identify with the victimizing crowd and the ontological renewal born of an identification with the innocent victim—referred to in the New Testament as a dying with Christ and ritualized in baptism. With equal subtlety, this verse alludes as well to the ineradicable homology between these two forms of 122Vine andBranches ontological sustenance. "All culture is sacrificial," writes Eric Gans, adding: Culture covers a lot of ground, from bear-baiting to attending a performance of Saint Matthew's Passion, but whether we savagely revel in the victim's sufferings or identify with them in the depths of our soul, culture is the founded on them. And so is the being of those involved in these two fundamental forms of identification. Corresponding to the moral difference between the ritual experiences to which Gans refers is an ontological difference... (shrink)

The Uninhabitable Earth has one of the most arresting book covers I have ever seen: a single dead honeybee against a clinically white background. If that does not send a chill down your spine, then...

This paper proposes a framework for understanding and analysing online social resistance movements based on Hilde Lindemann’s concept of counterstories (Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, 2003). This framework is based on the premise that we shape our identities in shared social spaces, and that such shared spaces are structured according to so-called ‘master narratives’. Master narratives define the ‘realm of possible identities’ that we can assume, and form the basis for either recognizing or denying recognition to various social groups in specific (...) roles that they might occupy. Social oppression occurs when master narratives preclude or forbid a certain form of self-expression, or alternatively force members of a specific social group into a determinate societal role (say, women who receive recognition only in the roles of mother or housewife). Counterstories serve as a corrective to these aspects of oppression by challenging the oppressive facets of master narratives. Based on this framework, I propose an interpretation of the #MeToo movement as a counterstory that aims to change the oppressive aspects of the patriarchal master narrative that (partially) structures many shared social spaces in the modern Western world. I end this paper by applying the framework to consider potential obstacles #MeToo may encounter as a distinctively online movement. (shrink)

Harry G. Frankfurt has put the problem of volitional conflict at the center of philosophical attention. If you care fundamentally about your career and your family, but these cares conflict, this conflict undermines the coherency of your decision standard and thereby your ability to choose and act autonomously. The standard response to this problem is to argue that you can overcome volitional conflict by unifying your foundational motivational states. As Frankfurt puts it, the ‘totality of things that an agent cares (...) about’ plus his ‘ordering of how important to him they are effectively specifies his answer to the question of how to live’ (The Reasons of Love(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 23). In this paper, I critically assess the three main reasons given for such a coherency requirement: 1) we can do only one action at a time; 2) our motivational states come with normative pressure towards coherency; and 3) conflicting motivational states provide us with an incoherent decision-making framework. I conclude that these reasons do not ground a coherency requirement for practical deliberation and argue that we can autonomously express ourselves as volitionally conflicted by acting on our conflicting motivational states over the course of multiple actions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Vatter’s proposed solution to the problem of thanatopolitics in the development of a concept of eternal life is inadequate. In the first section I situate Vatter’s project, sketching out Foucault’s concept of biopolitics and marking Vatter’s specific difference from others working to articulate an affirmative biopolitics in contemporary discussions. In the second section I argue, following Foucault and Mbembe, that the possibility of a thanatopolitics or necropolitics that institutes regimes of mass death by racist (...) fragmentations of the population is a possibility intrinsic to biopolitics as such. In the third section I reconstruct Vatter’s proposal, according to which the thanatopolitical inversion can be blocked by developing an atheistic and philosophical concept of eternal life. I argue that this is inadequate for three reasons: first, the specifically contemplative character of the life Vatter proposes as eternal seems to valorize only a particular form of life; second, the transfinite character of living as such which is valorized in this conception seems to repeat, rather than repudiate, the logic of thanatopolitics; third, this concept of life as eternal seems not to be able to account for the reality of extinction. (shrink)

Some advances in bioethics regarding ethical considerations that arise in the context of medical research can also be relevant when thinking about the ethical considerations that arise in the context of SoTL research. In this article, I aim to bring awareness to two potential ethical challenges SoTL researchers might face when playing a dual role of teacher and researcher that are similar to the challenges physicians face in their dual role of physician and researcher. In this article, I argue that (...) two commonly discussed concerns in bioethics---the need for clinical equipoise and the possibility of a therapeutic misconception---have analogies when conducting some types of research on students. I call these counterparts educational equipoise and the educational misconception. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre argues that moral virtues are antithetical to what is required of those who trade in financial markets to succeed. MacIntyre focuses on four virtues and argues that successful traders possess none of them: (i) self-knowledge, (ii) courage, (iii) taking a long-term perspective, and (iv) tying one’s own good with some set of common goods. By contrast, I argue that (i)–(iii) are, in fact, traits of successful traders, regardless of their normative assessment. The last trait – caring about the (...) common good – is often counterproductive in most for-profit ventures, including trading, and so singling out traders is inappropriate. (shrink)

In this article I critically assess Deleuze’s interpretation of Spinoza’s metaphysics of modes. I argue that the conception of modal essence that Deleuze attributes to Spinoza is untenable in terms of Spinoza’s metaphysics. I further show that the idea that modal essences are eternally static degrees of power is incompatible with Spinoza’s ethics, wherein modes strive to increase their power by means of positive interactions with others. I suggest that Deleuze’s interpretation of this crucial aspect of Spinozism runs the risk (...) of reinstating Platonic idealist and moralistic themes, of the kind that both Spinoza and Deleuze are committed to overcoming. (shrink)

A world without individual entities? An advice to not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. Should we assume a world without individual entities? I pledge not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. My intention is to focus on the complexity of ontological concepts commonly associated with quantum theory. Using as an example the compatibility of EPR correlations with the existence of individual entities, it is shown that an absolute rejection of an ontological category, based on some (...) aspects of the formalism of quantum theory, does not seem reasonable. A consequence of this argument is that the common sense view - the world is composed of individual entities-can be maintained, despite of the particularities of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Membership in voluntary organizations is associated with individual and social benefits. Due to the negative consequences of the global pandemic on older people, and the governmental challenges posed by population aging, voluntary membership is of great importance to society. To effectively promote volunteering among older people, it is necessary to understand the determinants of voluntary membership. This study analyses the influence of individual values—secular/traditional and survival/self-expression–on voluntary membership among European adults. Specifically, it examines which values orient two age groups, as (...) well as men and women toward a certain type of association. The sample of 31,985 comprises 60% of adults aged 50–64 and 40% aged 65–79; of which 56% are women and 44% men. The empirical estimation considers different levels of data aggregation: individual, national and welfare system, therefore multilevel analysis is used as an analytical strategy. Individual-level variables from the Integrated Values Survey and national-level variables from the World Bank and Eurostat are used. The results indicate that traditional and self-expression values promote membership in voluntary organizations in general more than secular and survival values. However, there are differences according to the type of organization. Furthermore, values are found to moderate the effect of age and gender on voluntary membership. (shrink)

The New Economic Windows Series, derived from Massimo Salzano's ideas and work, incorporates material from textbooks, monographs and conference proceedings that deals with both the theoretical and applied aspects of various sub-disciplines ...

ABSTRACT In this article I challenge a common reading of Benedict de Spinoza’s political philosophy, which holds that since his metaphysics is entirely positive or affirmative, his politics must be affirmative as well. In the first part, I show how this interpretation is found in the works of Gilles Deleuze and Antonio Negri. In the second part, I show that the negative has no ontological reality in Spinoza’s metaphysics. In the third, building on the work of Alexandre Matheron, I show (...) that there is nevertheless real and unavoidable negativity in Spinozist politics, and that according to Spinoza, sad passions and repression must lie at the heart of any political society. (shrink)

In the present article, I propose to give a positive characterization of ontological emergence from a relational perspective that, in opposition both to atomism and to holism, defends that the existence-conditions, the identity and the behavior or causal role of any emergent entity are to be conceived, and explained, as constructed by diverse systems of qualitatively transformative relations. I argue that from this relational perspective, the notion of emergence can be seen as ontologically and epistemologically coherent and significant. Finally, I (...) try to show in what sense, and to what extent, the Nonlinear Quantum Physics, as developed by Croca and his team, expresses such a relational and emergentist view of physical reality. (shrink)

In this article we analyse the issue of what accounts for developmental potential, i.e., the possible phenotypes a developing organism can manifest during ontogeny. We shall argue in favour of two theses. First, although the developing organism is the unit of development, the complete causal basis for its potential to develop does neither lie entirely in itself as a whole nor in any specific part of itself (such as its genome). Thus, the extra-organismal environment must be counted as one of (...) the three necessary, partial and complementary causal bases for development potential. Secondly, we shall defend a constructivist view of the developmental process. If the genome, the developing organism and the extra-organismal environment are to be counted as proper elements of the causal basis for an organism’s developmental potential, the latter is not a given. Rather, it is the result of an interaction-based construction, a process sometimes generating genuine developmental novelty. We will thus argue for an interactionist multi-causal basis view of developmental potential construction. We contend that our view provides a biologically tenable and metaphysically coherent account of developmental dynamics. (shrink)

Many believe that the lack of correlation between happiness and income, first discovered by Richard Easterlin in 1974, entails the conclusion that well-being policies should be made based on happiness measures, rather than income measures. I argue that distinguishing between how well-being is characterized and how that characterization is measured introduces ways of denying the conclusion that policies should be made based on happiness measures. It is possible to avoid the conclusion either by denying that well-being hedonism is true or (...) by denying that happiness measures are a better way of operationalizing hedonism than income measures are. By making these possibilities explicit, we find that less hinges on whether income and happiness are correlated than is often thought. (shrink)