Online research in philosophy

En el mundo occidental, la primera figura que encarna el arquetipo del mediador sapiencial entre la comunidad humana y lo divino es, sin duda, Pitágoras de Samos. Las implicaciones de las doctrinas de este chamán en la historia de las ideas son enormes, pues sus invenciones abarcan todos los campos del saber: matemáticas, astronomía, filosofía, retórica, política, adivinación, medicina y religión. Nada escapa a este sabio griego, al que se atribuye un famoso teorema matemático, las escalas musicales y la idea (...) de la inmortalidad del alma. La primera parte del libro se ocupa de estudiar a Pitágoras como figura carismática y legendaria, la colección de sus enseñanzas, sus aspectos mánticos y políticos y, finalmente, la tradición pitagórica entre la realidad y la falsificación. En la segunda parte se presenta por primera vez, en una nueva traducción anotada, una recopilación de todas las biografías del filósofo: las escritas por Porfirio de Tiro, Jámblico de Calcis y Diógenes Laercio, y, como novedad, la más antigua que se conserva, redactada por el historiador griego Diodoro de Sicilia (s. I a.C.), y la del patriarca Focio de Constantinopla (s. IX). Todo ello, junto a la colección de máximas pitagóricas de origen tardío, llamada Versos de oro, así como el epítome de la enciclopedia bizantina Suda (s. X), forma el presente corpus biográfico-doctrinal de Pitágoras, que era una labor pendiente en el panorama bibliográfico español. David Hernández de la Fuente (Madrid, 1974) es escritor y profesor universitario, especializado en religión griega, antigüedad tardía e historia del platonismo. Doctor en filología clásica y sociología, es autor de los ensayos Oráculos griegos (Alianza) y Bakkhos Anax (CSIC), así como de numerosos artículos en revistas académicas y ediciones de autores clásicos, y ha coordinado la obra colectiva New Perspectives on Late Antiquity (Cambridge Scholars Pub.). Como autor de narrativa ha publicado Las puertas del sueño (Premio de Arte Joven 2005 de la Comunidad de Madrid), Continental (2007) y A cubierto (Premio Diputación de Valencia 2010). Memoria mundi 59 Isbn: 978-84-938466-6-4 440 páginas. (shrink)

Most people are familiar with Justice Stewart's now classic statement that while he cannot describe pornography, he certainly knows it when he sees it. We instantly identify with Justice Stewart. Pornography is not difficult to recognize, but it does elude description. This is because traditional attempts at description are attempts that seek to explain at either an abstract or empirical level rather than at the level that accounts for experience in its totality. Justice Stewart's lament represents the need to understand (...) the subjective experience of pornography and cease trying to explain it in purely objective terms. Much feminist literature in general and Catharine MacKinnon's work in particular seeks to do just this. MacKinnon argues that pornography should not be explained in familiar First Amendment freedom-of-expression terms, but rather in terms of the actual sexual abuse it constitutes in experience. Then, and only then, are we able to select the appropriate legal remedy. This essay suggests that MacKinnon's position not only needs the support of a non-traditional philosophical approach, but has one readily available in the phenomenology of philosopher Edmund Husserl. (shrink)

We are reporting on how involved the mentor was in promoting responsible research in cases of research misconduct. We reviewed the USPHS misconduct files of the Office of Research Integrity. These files are created by Institutions who prosecute a case of possible research misconduct; ORI has oversight review of these investigations. We explored the role of the mentor in the cases of trainee research misconduct on three specific behaviors that we believe mentors should perform with their trainee: (1) review source (...) data, (2) teach specific research standards and (3) minimize stressful work situations. We found that almost three quarters of the mentors had not reviewed the source data and two thirds had not set standards. These two behaviors are positively correlated. We did not see convincing evidence in the records that mentors were causing stress, but it was apparent in the convicted trainees’ confessions that over 50% experienced some kind of stress. Secondary data, while not created for this research purpose, allows us to look at concrete research behaviors that are otherwise not very researchable. We believe it is important for mentors and institutions to devote more attention to teaching mentors about the process of education and their responsibilities in educating the next generation of scientists. This becomes a critical issue for large research groups who need to determine who is in charge educating, supervising and assuring data integrity. (shrink)

Two experiments using a realistic version of the selection task examined the relationship between participants probability estimates of finding a counter example and their selections. Experiment 1 used everyday categories in the context of a scenario to determine whether or not the number of instances in a category affected the estimated probability of a counter-example. Experiment 2 modified the scenario in order to alter participants estimates of finding a specific counter-example. Unlike Kirby 1994a , but consistent with his proposals, (...) both studies showed that probability estimates significantly predicted selection. Overall results point to the value of understanding selections in terms of their subjective expected utility. (shrink)

Many prescriptions offered in the literature for enhancing creativity and innovation in organizations raise ethical concerns, yet creativity researchers rarely discuss ethics. We identify four categories of behavior proffered as a means for fostering creativity that raise serious ethical issues: (1) breaking rules and standard operating procedures; (2) challenging authority and avoiding tradition; (3) creating conflict, competition and stress; and (4) taking risks. We discuss each category, briefly identifying research supporting these prescriptions for fostering creativity and then we delve (...) into ethical issues associated with engaging in the prescribed behavior. These four rubrics illustrate ethical issues that need to be incorporated into the creativity and innovation literature. Recommendations for how organizations can respond to the ethical issues are offered based on practices of exemplary organizations and theories of organizational ethics. A research agenda for empirically investigating the ethical impact these four categories of behavior have on organizations concludes the article. (shrink)

It might be thought strange to begin a study in the ethics of Karl Barth with a quotation from James Baldwin, who bears no obvious theological credentials, ...

In his commentary, Oaksford makes two main claims: (1) that the externalisation method used by Green, Over, and Pyne (1997) enforces the correlation observed between probability estimates and selection, and (2) that these estimates support the prediction of a downward revision of P(p) when P(p) > P(q). In this reply, we rebut claim 1 by describing the instructions more comprehensively, and claim 2 by reiterating the importance of making certain theoretical distinctions which Oaksford does not make. Our interest is the (...) psychological process of reaching decision: externalisation methods provide a means of exploring this process and of assessing the value of Bayesian approaches. (shrink)

Narrowly speaking, the correspondence theory of truth is the view that truth is correspondence to a fact -- a view that was advocated by Russell and Moore early in the 20 th century. But the label is usually applied much more broadly to any view explicitly embracing the idea that truth consists in a relation to reality, i.e., that truth is a relational property involving a characteristic relation (to be specified) to some portion of reality (to be specified). During the (...) last 2300 years this basic idea has been expressed in many ways, resulting in a rather extended family of views, theories, and theory sketches. The members of the family employ various concepts for the relevant relation (correspondence, conformity, congruence, agreement, accordance, copying, picturing, signification, representation, reference, satisfaction) and/or various concepts for the relevant portion of reality (facts, states of affairs, situations, events, objects, sequences of objects, sets, properties, tropes). The resulting multiplicity of versions and reformulations of the theory is due to a blend of substantive and terminological differences. (shrink)

The paper offers some preliminary and rather unsystematic reflections about the question: Do Beliefs Have Their Contents Essentially? The question looks like it ought to be important, yet it is rarely discussed. Maybe that’s because content essentialism, i.e., the view that beliefs do have their contents essentially, is simply too obviously and trivially true to deserve much discussion. I sketch a common-sense argument that might be taken to show that content essentialism is indeed utterly obvious and/or trivial. Somewhat against this, (...) I then point out that a sexy conclusion that is sometimes drawn from Putnam-Burge-style externalist arguments, namely that our mental states are not in our heads, presupposes content essentialism — which suggests that the view is not entirely trivial. Moreover, it seems intuitively that physicalists should reject the view: If beliefs are physical states, how could they have their propositional contents essentially? I distinguish three readings of the title question. Content essentialism does seem fairly obvious on the first two, but not so on the third. I argue that the common-sense argument mentioned earlier presupposes one of the first two readings but fails to apply to the third, on which ‘belief’ refers to belief-state tokens. That’s because ordinary belief individuation is silent about belief-state tokens. Token physicalists, I suggest, should indeed reject content essentialism about belief-state tokens. What about token dualists? One might think they ought to embrace content essentialism about belief-state tokens. I end with puzzling why this should be so. (shrink)

We give a direct, purely arithmetical and elementary proof of the strong normalization of the cut-elimination procedure for full (i.e., in presence of all the usual connectives) classical natural deduction.

Quasi al termine della seconda guerra mondiale, alcuni ufficiali tedeschi diedero l’ordine di abbattere le storiche torri di San Gimignano; tutto pareva ormai deciso, quando un gruppo di civili riuscì con successo a ritardare l’esecuzione fino all’arrivo delle truppe alleate. Grazie a quei civili, le torri di San Gimignano sono ancora ben visibili a tutti, meta ogni anno di numerosi turisti; ma che cosa dire della possibilità che oggi esistessero soltanto le loro macerie? Esse rientrano in quella classe di cose (...) che chiamerò oggetti possibili, ovvero sono oggetti che avrebbero potuto esistere, ma per un qualche motivo non sono esistiti. Proprio di essi parlerò nelle prossime pagine, cercando di capire quale sia il loro statuto ontologico e in quale modo possiamo parlarne usando le espressioni del nostro linguaggio.1 Come vedremo, ci sono varie teorie che spiegano cos’è un oggetto possibile, tra loro anche molto diverse. Compito di ciascuna è quello di motivare e, se necessario, rendere plausibile una scelta filosofica. Quindi, ogni teoria degli oggetti possibili, attribuirà loro un preciso statuto ontologico e provvederà una semantica delle espressioni del linguaggio naturale sulla possibilità. Nelle poche pagine che seguono però, non scenderò nei dettagli di tutte le teorie della possibilità; piuttosto, ne considererò una particolarmente controversa e singolare: quella sostenuta da David K. Lewis. (shrink)

David E. Fisher: Much Ado about (Practically) Nothing. A History of the Noble Gases Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s10698-011-9114-0 Authors Sandra D. Hojniak, Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, 3001 Leuven, Belgium Journal Foundations of Chemistry Online ISSN 1572-8463 Print ISSN 1386-4238.

Do Buddhist ‘moral’ principles, such as generosity, equanimity, and compassion, consistently map onto Greek and, more generally, Western ‘virtues’? In other words, is it at all possible to talk about a Buddhist ‘virtue ethics’? Should equanimity, for instance, be understood as having the same function in Buddhist moral thought as temperance has for Plato, Aristotle, or the Stoics? Does the Buddha’s effort to embody certain cardinal virtues (sīla) resemble the classical Greek and Roman pursuit of a life of personal flourishing (...) (eudaimonia)? And, to take one step further – Is Buddhism’s perceived enlightened attitude toward the environment suggestive of a new ethics aimed at confronting the global ecological crisis? Buddhism, Virtue, and Environment, a volume co-authored by David Cooper and Simon James, addresses these questions and concerns in a systematic and philosophically sophisticated way. (shrink)

This rich, subtle and hugely ambitious book might also have been called “why (and how) metaphysics matters”. Cooper's themes are the tensions implicit in the relation of contingent human beings to the world and the implications of those tensions, and of putative means of their.