In the age of surveillance capitalism, the prevailing business model underlying the use of social media applications (“apps”) foresees the exchange of personal data for the allowance to use an online service. Such a data business model comes with many potential negative side effects ranging from violation of privacy issues to election manipulation. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to think of alternatives to the current data business model. The present study investigated how strong the support would be for a (...) monetary payment model among a sample of 210 participants. Participants were asked about their willingness to pay for social media, if in turn their data would be private and other problems concerning social media use would be tackled. Only one-fifth of participants (21.43%) supported such a model. From the Big Five Personality traits, Agreeableness was positively associated with support of such a model. Finally, data are also provided on how much participants would be willing to pay for social media on a monthly basis. The present study’s findings are of a preliminary nature and will contribute to the start of an important discussion. (shrink)

Research investigating female gaming is relatively scarce, and past research has demonstrated that men are more likely to be problematic gamers. Few studies have focused on female gamers in community samples, and those that have been published have mainly collected data qualitatively in Europe. There is case study evidence suggesting clinicians are increasingly treating problem female gamers. The aim of this study is threefold: (i) to establish an international female gamer profile, (ii) to determine predictors associated with perceived internet gaming (...) disorder (IGD), and (iii) to identify those who are potentially at risk of developing gaming addiction and its characteristics by applying a quantitative approach. A cross-sectional online survey was applied through international gaming forums recruiting 625 female gamers, assessing sociodemographics, gaming devices used and play genres, and a set of questionnaires on gaming (e.g., problem online gaming [e.g., the nine-item short-form scale to assess IGD: IGDS9-SF], female stereotypes [e.g., sex role stereotyping scale], and psychological symptoms [e.g., Symptom CheckList-27-plus]). Female gamers from all continents reported the use of all videogames, especially popular online games using computers and consoles. The proportion of gamers with potential IGD was one per cent. Regression analyses identified several risk factors for increased scores on the IGDS9-SF, namely having achievement and social motivations, embodied presence and identification with the avatar, hostility and social phobia together with negative body image, playing Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, and First-Person-Shooter games. Findings contribute to filling the gap in knowledge on female gaming, to aid in the applicability of problematic gaming measurements in female gamers, especially those who are at risk of problematic gaming. The purpose of this study is to enhance the validity of the current measures to diagnose problem gaming appropriately in both genders. (shrink)

This article continues the author's research devoted to the study of the problem of choreographic interpretations of literary works, in particular, John Neumeier's ballet "Anna Karenina". In this work, the identification of expressive staging means and choreographic elements used by Neumeier in the production of duets by Anna Karenina and Alexei Vronsky is carried out in order to determine the place of these choreographic fragments in the performance, as well as their significance for the author's interpretation of the images of (...) the main characters of the novel by Leo Tolstoy. In the course of the research, the author applied comparative-historical, ideological-artistic and analytical methods, as well as the method of included observation. In the course of the source analysis, video materials from the archives of the Hamburg Ballettzentrum and the Moscow Bolshoi Theater were used, as well as lectures conducted by Neumeier before the Moscow premiere of Anna Karenina. A detailed analysis of the dance score of three duets by Anna and Vronsky revealed traditional and innovative author's solutions related to the new research results. So, Neumeier uses such staging means as the compilation of Tchaikovsky and Schnittke's music; the inclusion of symbolic images in the choreographic canvas; the appearance of other characters; the use of stage lighting to accentuate the transition from reality to the sphere of the subconscious; active choreographic development based on a technically saturated duet dance, replete with high supports in the neoclassical style, as well as acrobatic elements; semantic use of plastic quotations. It can be concluded that in order to develop the images and relationships of Anna Karenina and Alexey Vronsky, the choreographer chooses a duet as the dominant musical and choreographic form. Moreover, in his version of Anna Karenina, Neumeier makes three duets of the main characters a key component of the performance and the author's interpretation of the images of the main characters. (shrink)

This article explores the role of deliberative democracy in political modernization and the dynamic relationship between civil society and the state. It aims to elucidate the essence of deliberative democracy as a mechanism for civil society’s influence on the state, and systematically analyze the conceptual studies of deliberative democracy in the context of civil society’s power potential, both in Ukraine and globally. The study reflects on the evolution of civil society, highlighting its transformation from a state-dominated concept to one of (...) parity with government institutions. The research emphasizes the significance of public discourse in legitimizing government decisions and examines the roles of various scholars in developing the concept of deliberative democracy.Deliberative democracy, a post-classical theory, is contrasted with electoral democracy, focusing on public discourse as a key legitimacy source for legislative acts. The paper delves into the historical origins of deliberation and deliberative democracy, crediting political scientist J.Bessette with coining the term. It discusses the critical elements of deliberative democracy, including public dialogue, rational discourse, and institutionalized exchange of opinions for decision-making. The model incorporates elements of representative, direct, and participatory democracy, highlighting its basis in public consultation and discourse.The article also examines various forms of the deliberative process, including open public discussions and behind-closed-doors exchanges, underscoring the importance of information, argumentation, and persuasion. It critiques the liberal interpretation of democracy and stresses the need for citizen involvement in governance, spotlighting the role of political civil society organizations in fostering democratic deliberation. (shrink)

The article analyzes J. Gaarder’s s book «Sophie’s world» and defines its place in philosophy for children as a shpere of humanities. Philosophy for children in the «classical» model is presented as a method of P4C (author – M. Lipman). The author presents the audience the main thesises and methods of the P4C method and compares «Sophie’s world» with classic works of M. Lipman. The same moments of these works are: the target audience (partly), «socratic dialogue», the presence of creative (...) imagination. However, the book by Y. Gaarder differs in the literary form of presentation (unlike the methodical works of M. Lipman) and issues («Sophie’s world» analyzes the history of philosophical systems; M. Lipman analyzes philosophical problems without reference to names and periods). «Sophie’s world» has the following features of P4C: philosophical guidance, «socratic dialogue», critical thinking, the formation of responses to questions, interactive interaction, self-reflection. As a result, the author provides recommendations to teachers on the peculiarities of teaching the work «World of Sophia» at school and identifies the competencies that the book can develop in students. «Sophie’s world» can be introduced into the school programm. However, teachers need to follow special recommendations. Children must express their opinions themselves and be a «Сommunity of researchers». Everyone сan to tell their own opinion. To interest students, the teacher can offer: video scribing, team collage, artistic reproduction of the atmosphere (for e[ample decoration), role play. «Sophie’s world» is a relevant work for philosophy for children. Y. Gaarder's book can form the reflective thinking and non-standard view of the world. The novel also develops communication skills, the ability to work in a team and ability to work with a large amount of information. «Sophie’s world» is very important and actual book for modern philosophy for children. (shrink)

I am going to argue that it is time to come to terms with the difficulty of understanding what it means to be physical and start thinking about the mind-body problem from a new perspective. Instead of construing it as the problem of finding a place for mentality in a fundamentally physical world, we should think of it as the problem of finding a place for mentality in a fundamentally nonmental world, a world that is at its most fundamental level (...) entirely nonmental. The mind-body problem, I want to argue, is the problem of determining whether mentality can be accounted for in terms of nonmental phenomena. In other words, it is the question, ‘is mentality a fundamental feature of the world’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology ed. by Michael A. Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, O.P., and Roger W. NuttJ. David MoserThomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology edited by Michael A. Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, O.P., and Roger W. Nutt (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2021), ix + 422 pp.This volume is a collection of papers presented at the "Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology" conference at the (...) Aquinas Center of Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida, in February 2020. Dozens of papers were presented at the conference; this volume contains many of the plenary papers and the two keynote addresses given by Bruce Marshall and Thomas Joseph White, O.P.The title, especially the term "crisis," has multiple meanings in the essays. On the one hand, some of them address the crisis in contemporary Christology. For example, Michael Dauphinais draws on Aquinas's theology of participation to pose what he sees as a better alternative to Richard Rohr's The Universal Christ. As Dauphinais shows, Rohr's popular Christology conflates Incarnation and creation as one and the same reality. Through careful exegesis of Aquinas's Commentary on John, Dauphinais argues that the Incarnation must be distinct as a unique act of God, and thus decidedly not the same as creation (253). On the other hand, as J. Augustine DiNoia observes in his foreword, the term "crisis" comes from the Greek krisis, or "judgment" (ix). Christ's judgment of all human beings emerges as a persistent theme in the volume. So Andrew Hofer's introduction explores Aquinas's teaching on Christ's judgment of teachers of the faith, noting the implications for theologians who hold the office of teacher. Marshall's and Daria Spezzano's essays are powerful accounts of Christ's role as judge. Both diagnose contemporary crises of faith over which we will be judged and remind us that the Lord Jesus judges to save those who love him. These essays read almost like sermons, and they deserve careful attention when [End Page 1435] Christ's judgment seems irrelevant in an age when God can only be thought to be winsome and nice.Some of the essays contribute to ongoing Thomistic scholarly debates. The vexed question of how to understand the esse secundarium in article 4 of Aquinas's De unione verbi incarnati receives two essays: one by Roger Nutt and the other by Steven A. Long. Nutt argues that Aquinas did not reverse his teaching on the single esse of Christ in the De unione. He observes that Aquinas uses the terms principale and secundarium to manifest "the ultimate unity of composite realities," and thus secundarium esse is not "second esse" in the order of being (87). Like Nutt, Long argues that Aquinas is consistent in his position on Christ's singular esse. He invokes a wide array of interpretive and metaphysical arguments in a mere nine pages. Though they do not resolve the problem (at least in my view: how could an esse distinct from another esse be numerically the same esse, as they would have to be for Christ to have one esse?), they are useful contributions to the ongoing interpretation of Aquinas on this point.Similarly, Christ's human knowledge in Aquinas's theology and Catholic doctrine gets two essays. White expands on prior work on this topic and argues that Christ maintained consciousness of his filial identity prior to the resurrection. As usual, he does careful work deploying the insights of Catholic doctrine in conversation with biblical studies. Simon Francis Gaine expands on his argument in Did the Saviour See the Father? Christ, Salvation and the Vision of God by arguing that a divine person does not need to have the beatific vision to be incarnate. He contrasts metaphysical necessity with soteriological necessity; Christ needed to have the beatific vision to give it to us, but he did not need it as a necessary consequence of being incarnate. It would be interesting to see Gaine and other Thomists interact with John Duns Scotus's argument that Christ could be incarnate without the beatific vision, or highest possible grace (Ordinatio III, d. 13). Scotus, in my... (shrink)

Physicalism is standardly construed as a form of monism, on which all concrete phenomena fall under one fundamental type. It is natural to think that monism, and therefore physicalism, is committed to a supervenience claim. Monism is true only if all phenomena supervene on a certain fundamental type of phenomena. Physicalism, as a form of monism, specifies that these fundamental phenomena are physical. But some argue that physicalism might be true even if the world is disorderly, i.e., not ordered by (...) supervenience relations in the way commonly supposed (Montero in J Philos 110:92–110, 2013; Leuenberger in Inquiry 57:151–174, 2014; Montero and Brown in Topoi 37(3):523–532, 2018; Zhong in Philos Stud 178(5):1529–1544, 2021). Unless these authors intend to challenge the claim that physicalism is a type of monism—a claim so central to the dialectic in philosophy of mind that rejecting it risks changing the subject—they are committed to challenging a supervenience requirement for monism. We argue that monism entails that there are substantial supervenience relations among concrete phenomena: relations that would not obtain in a disorderly world. Our argument thus has implications for debates about physicalism and supervenience, and sheds light on an under-discussed issue: what is implied by classifying a theory in the philosophy of mind as a form of monism? We also argue that physicalism’s commitment to monism creates problems for _via negativa_ physicalism, on which the physical is characterized negatively. (shrink)

How could physicalism be true of a world in which there are no fundamental physical phenomena? A familiar answer, due to Barbara Gail Montero and others, is that physicalism could be true of such a world if that world does not contain an infinite descent of mentality. Christopher Devlin Brown has produced a counterexample to that solution. We show how to modify the solution to accommodate Brown’s example: physicalism could be true of a world without fundamental physical phenomena if (...) that world does not contain an infinite descent of mentally constituted mentality. This solution is independently plausible and is available to physicalists of virtually all significant varieties. (shrink)

Much of our everyday, embodied action comes in the form of smooth coping. Smooth coping is skillful action that has become habituated and ingrained, generally placing less stress on cognitive load than considered and deliberative thought and action. When performed with skill and expertise, walking, driving, skiing, musical performances, and short-order cooking are all examples of the phenomenon. Smooth coping is characterized by its rapidity and relative lack of reflection, both being hallmarks of automatization. Deliberative and reflective actions provide the (...) contrast case. In Dreyfus’ classic view, smooth coping is “mindless” absorption into action, being in the flow, and any reflective thought will only interrupt this flow. Building on the pragmatist account of Dewey, others, such as Sutton, Montero, and Gallagher, insist on the intelligent flexibility built into smooth coping, suggesting that it is not equivalent to automatization. We seek to answer two complementary challenges in this article. First, how might we model smooth coping in autonomous agents at fine granularity? Second, we use this model of smooth coping to show how we might implement smooth coping in artificial intelligent agents. We develop a conceptual model of smooth coping in LIDA. LIDA is an embodied cognitive architecture implementing the global workspace theory of consciousness, among other psychological theories. LIDA’s implementation of consciousness enables us to account for the phenomenology of smooth coping, something that few cognitive architectures would be able to do. Through the fine granular analysis of LIDA, we argue that smooth coping is a sequence of automatized actions intermittently interspersed with consciously mediated action selection, supplemented by dorsal stream processes. In other words, non-conscious, automatized actions often require occasional bursts of conscious cognition to achieve the skillful and flexible adjustments of smooth coping. In addition, never-conscious dorsal stream information and associated sensorimotor processes provide further online adjustments during smooth coping. To achieve smooth coping in LIDA we introduce a new module to the LIDA cognitive architecture the Automatized Action Selection sub-module. Our complex model of smooth coping borrows notions of “embodied intelligence” from enactivism and augments these by allowing representations and more detailed mechanisms of conscious control. We explore several extended examples of smooth coping, starting from basic activities like walking and scaling up to more complex tasks like driving and short-order cooking. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Ned Block argues that the higher-order (HO) approach to explaining consciousness is ‘defunct’ because a prominent objection (the ‘misrepresentation objection’) exposes the view as ‘incoherent’. What’s more, a response to this objection that I’ve offered elsewhere (Weisberg 2010) fails because it ‘amounts to abusing the notion of what-it’s-like-ness’ (xxx).1 In this response, I wish to plead guilty as charged. Indeed, I will continue herein to abuse Block’s notion of what-it’s-like-ness. After doing so, I will argue that the HO approach accounts (...) for the sense of what-it’s-like-ness that matters in a theory of consciousness. I will also argue that the only incoherence present in the HO theory is that generated by embracing Block’s controversial notion of what-it’s-like-ness, something no theorist of any stripe ought to do. Block is famous for (among other things) having introduced the notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ into contemporary philosophy of mind (Block 1995). This term is widely employed in the philosophical literature and it even appears in the empirical literature. But wide-speared usage has brought about divergent interpretations of the term. We can distinguish a ‘moderate’ and a ‘zealous’ reading of ‘phenomenal consciousness’. On the moderate reading, ‘phenomenal consciousness’ just means ‘experience’. Many people have embraced this sense of the term and use it to roughly pick out conscious experience involving sensory quality (states like conscious visual experiences or conscious pains, for example).2 On the zealous reading, however, phenomenal consciousness is held to be ‘distinct from any cognitive, intentional, or functional property’ (Block 1995: 234). That is, any explanation of phenomenal consciousness in exclusively cognitive, intentional, or functional terms will fail to capture, without remainder, what is really distinctive about phenomenal consciousness. Block, of course, is fully clear about embracing the zealous reading; indeed, his initial introduction of the notion is in those terms. The same ambiguity occurs with the much-used (and abused) idea of ‘what-it’s-like-ness’.. (shrink)

The problem of wasteful clinical trials has been debated relentlessly in the medical community. To a significant extent, it is attributed to redundant trials – studies that are carried out to address questions, which can be answered satisfactorily on the basis of existing knowledge and accessible evidence from prior research. This article presents the first evaluation of the potential of the EU Clinical Trials Regulation 536/2014, which entered into force in 2014 but is expected to become applicable at the end (...) of 2021, to prevent such trials. Having reviewed provisions related to the trial authorisation, we propose how certain regulatory requirements for the assessment of trial applications can and should be interpreted and applied by national research ethics committees and other relevant authorities in order to avoid redundant trials and, most importantly, preclude the unnecessary recruitment of trial participants and their unjustified exposure to health risks. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo ofrecer una revisión y reinterpretación al problema teórico en la teoría de Darwin en el que se pone en relación el principio de divergencia y la competencia entre los seres vivos. Respecto a este asunto ha habido dos interpretaciones fundamentales. La primera de ellas es la de aquellos que defienden que la divergencia se ve favorecida porque implica una reducción de la competencia a la que se enfrentan los seres vivos que se desplazan de nicho (...) ecológico. Por otro lado, algunos abogan — aunque es una posición menos extendida— por una interpretación en la que la reducción de la competencia no es la ventaja, sino que lo es la especialización y, por tanto, el incremento en la competitividad, es decir, el tener mejores herramientas o capacidades para competir. En este artículo se defiende esta última tesis, fundamentalmente sostenida por William Tammone, pero desde otra perspectiva y sustentada en otros argumentos que se nutren de la propuesta de Trevor Pearce acerca de la noción de economía natural de Darwin. (shrink)

The article presents the advantages and limitations of adaptive clinical trials for assessing the effectiveness of medical interventions and specifies the conditions that contributed to their development and implementation in clinical practice. I advance two arguments by discussing different cases of adaptive trials. The normative argument is that responsible adaptation should be taken seriously as a new way of doing clinical research insofar as a valid justification, sufficient understanding, and adequate operational conditions are provided. The second argument is historical. The (...) development of adaptive trials can be related to lessons learned from research in cases of urgency and to the decades-long efforts to end the productivity crisis of pharmaceutical research, which led to the emergence of translational, personalized, and, recently, precision medicine movements. (shrink)

Social media (SM) influence young adults’ communication practices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used for making recommendations on SM. Yet, its effects on different generations of SM users are unknown. SM can use AI recommendations to sort texts and prioritize them, shaping users’ online and offline experiences. Current literature primarily addresses technological or human-user perspectives, overlooking cognitive perspectives. This research aims to propose methods for mapping users’ interactions with AI recommendations (AiRS) and analyzes how embodied interactions mediated by a digital (...) agent can lead to changes in social and cultural practices. For this, this work proposes a comparative analysis of central practices evoked by AI recommendations-mediated communication on SM among users in Italy, Estonia, and the Netherlands in the age category 18–26 years old. The data used in the comparative analysis was collected via semi-structured interviews and elaborated based on cognitive psychology and semiotics. This research highlights the contextual significance of AI recommendations as a mediator in creating new communication practices. Findings confirm that young adults often choose practices that would enhance their digital representations according to AiRS’ dominant patterns and categories. AiRS impacts individual interpretations and practices and can further affect social and cultural levels. (shrink)

This dissertation explores the influence of time constraints on different research practices. The first two parts present case studies, which serve as a basis for discussing the epistemological and ethical implications of temporal limitations in scientific research. Part I is a case study on gravitational wave research, conducted by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. This exemplifies fundamental research – without immediate societal applications, open-ended in terms of timeline and in terms of research goals. It is based, in part, on qualitative interviews (...) conducted with gravitational wave physicists. I show that considerations about time and speed play a role in every stage of research: goal setting, method design, and the evaluation and communication of results. Part II provides a case study on translational medicine, an approach explicitly dedicated to accelerating research in order to develop and implement new therapies. This epitomizes applied research with high social stakes, motivated by non-epistemic goals. Here, epistemic trade-offs between speed and reliability intersect with ethical trade-offs between different types of harms. In Part III, the insights from both of these case studies are used as the basis for a more general discussion concerning the pragmatic aspects of epistemic practices, especially in relation to current debates centered on the role of values in science. A particular focus is on the value of speed and the ability to generate reliable results, either via choice of methods, or via decisions about which goals to set, as well as decisions about when to stop further testing. The primary thesis of the dissertation is that pragmatic considerations stemming from limitations of resources are a necessary feature of the pursuit of epistemic aims, and that the epistemic is thus inherently pragmatic. (shrink)

The philosophical influence is a concept, a methodological tool and a process worth inquiring, because it sets the frame for the philosopher's contribution into tradition. This study takes a close look at the philosophical influence on the dependence and inter-dependence between ideas and concepts, currents and tendencies and the experiences that every philosopher inherited from past tradition. It also presents four philosophers in order to identify the roots of influence: Arthur Schopenhauer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche and Emil Cioran.

Cet article cherche à situer le concept ontologique de travail que l’on trouve dans l’œuvre tardive de Lukács par rapport à d’autres interprétations de ce concept dans la tradition marxiste. En s’appuyant principalement sur l’ Ontologie de l’être social, l’article pose d’abord la question des difficultés épistémologiques de ce concept, avant d’en venir aux liens qu’il entretient avec l’idée de la centralité sociopolitique du travail. Peut-on tirer des conséquences directement politiques de l’ontologie du travail? Les différentes versions de celle-ci dans (...) le marxisme sont-elles orientées par le besoin de fonder ontologiquement un projet politique ancré dans le travail? (shrink)

This paper studies systems of explicit mathematics as introduced by Feferman [9, 11]. In particular, we propose weak explicit type systems with a restricted form of elementary comprehension whose provably terminating operations coincide with the functions on binary words that are computable in polynomial time. The systems considered are natural extensions of the first-order applicative theories introduced in Strahm [19, 20].

I examine the role of time-sensitivity in science by drawing on a discussion between Kevin Elliott and Daniel McKaughan and Daniel Steel, on the role of non-epistemic values in theory assessment and the epistemic status of speed of inference. I argue that: 1) speed supervenes on ease of use in the cases they discuss, 2) speed is an epistemic value, and 3) Steel’s account of values doesn’t successfully distinguish extrinsically epistemic from non-epistemic values. Finally, I propose an account of time-sensitivity.

The article is devoted to identifying the specifics of Russian philosophy through the analysis of F. M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Shestov’s texts. The stylistic features of the two philosophers have been considered, their ways of philosophizing and denying of the cult of reason have been examined. The analysis is carried out using additional literature of French existentialism. To date, there are many researches in which study features of Russian philosophy. It is noted, that one of them are imagery, inseparable connection (...) between philosophy and faith and criticism of rationalism. The excessive cult of reason leads to such problems in the history as the creation of the hydrogen bomb, the environmental crisis and so on. The revolt against reason and the state of groundlessness are a response to the processes of modern rationalization and technocratization, an attempt to go beyond the limits of the usual paradigm, to get out of the closed subjectivity. Thus, it’s necessary to define the limits of the reason and develop a new way of philosophizing, for this reason it is proposed to consider the concept of groundlessness in the philosophy of L.N. Shestov, which makes the attempt to construct a philosophy, avoiding strict logic and excessive rationality. (shrink)

This article intends to show how the philosophy of Kant supposes a rupture with the doctrines based on a system of absolute rationality, where the most important element is the unity of reason. In this way, it will try to underline the main critiques of the Prussian philosopher to theories based on the unity of reason and direct access to reality, as well as exposing the Kantian proposal of a unitary formal rational structure, but with several irreconcilable uses.

Are species real categories or just conventions? Are species natural kinds? Are teleological statements a distinctive feature of biology? Can life sciences escape from teleology? These are common issues in philosophy of biology. This paper aims to show that in order to answer to each of these questions it is inevitable to take a position respecting the others. Therefore, there is a historical relation between the concept of species and teleological issues. In order to analyse such relation, I will take (...) a historical perspective.After making such historical reconstruction focused on the Aristotle, Linnaeus, Buffon and Lamarck thoughts, I will analyse the Darwinian peculiar view respect teleology and his ideas about species. Although Darwin set out the collapse of teleological essentialisms in biology, there are important vestiges of teleology in his theory. (shrink)