Status anxiety, the constant concern about individuals’ position on the social ladder, negatively affects social cohesion, health, and wellbeing. Given previous findings showing that status anxiety is associated with economic inequality, we aimed in this research to test this association experimentally. A cross-sectional study was run in order to discard confounding effects of the relationship between perceived economic inequality and status anxiety, and to explore the mediating role of a competitive climate. Then we predicted that people assigned to a condition (...) of high inequality would perceive more status anxiety in their social context, and they would themselves report higher status anxiety. Thus, in an experimental study PEI was manipulated. In Study 1, PEI uniquely predicted status anxiety, and perceived competitiveness mediated the relationship. In Study 2 PEI increased perceived contextual status anxiety, a specific form of perceived competitiveness based on socioeconomic status. Moreover, preliminary evidence of an indirect effect was found from PEI to personal status anxiety, through perceived contextual status anxiety. These preliminary findings provide experimental evidence for the effects of economic inequality on status anxiety and the mechanism involved. Economic inequality makes people feel that they live in a society where they are constantly concerned and competing with each other for their SES. These results could have important implications as health and wellbeing could be promoted by reducing economic inequalities and the competitive and materialistic environments of our societies. (shrink)

Communicative acts of some women are perpetuating the dominance that DTM have over both women and OTM. Some women use language in a disdainful manner to reprimand oppressed men’s behavior in daily life situations, the same behavior that such women would not reproach to DTM. But NAM are reacting to this. This article analyzes the communicative acts employed in all these situations, both those produced by women and DTM, as well as NAM’s communicative acts in response to those offenses. Data (...) was collected using communicative daily life stories of give women and three men with diverse profiles and different levels of participation in women’s and men’s movements. Findings highlight, from the transformative dimension of the communicative methodology, that the use of language of desire in NAM’s reactions is effective not only to make justice with men who have never executed violence on women, but also to undermine the attractiveness of both DTM’s behavior and the comments of some women on such behavior. These findings complement previous research on preventive socialization of gender violence by broadening scientific knowledge on NAM’s communicative acts that prevent and eradicate gender-based violence. Further research ought to broaden the evidence of how some women who defend feminist values sometimes do not support and even tease or reprimand men who practice these values; moreover, an important line could analyze the way people talk about men with NAM attitudes to hold back reprimands in comparison to how people talk about men who follow a DTM model. (shrink)

La libertad se sitúa, desde Kant, más allá de los límites de la razón, y este aspecto persiste hasta el pensamiento de Kierkegaard. La elección de ser libres, que se inaugura como preocupación en O lo uno o lo otro de 1843 y que también ya estaba presente en Kant, se pone de relieve ante la imperiosa necesidad de mostrar que la libertad (Friheden) es el fundamento propiamente subjetivo y que, como tal, no puede ser impuesto ni demostrado desde afuera, (...) es decir, no puede ser aplicado ni mostrado por ninguna ciencia particular, sino en una instancia denominada ética (der Ethiske). Sin embargo, la subjetividad ética que el juez Guillermo desarrolla presenta límites, ya que, ante la aparición del concepto de pecado, el concepto de libertad se ve resignificado, dando lugar a un nuevo modo de concebir la libertad en las obras posteriores del pensador danés. (shrink)

Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time. According to Rosa, both the structural and cultural (...) aspects of our institutions and practices are marked by the "shrinking of the present," a decreasing time period during which expectations based on past experience reliably match the future. When this phenomenon combines with technological acceleration and the increasing pace of life, time seems to flow ever faster, making our relationships to each other and the world fluid and problematic. It is as if we are standing on "slipping slopes," a steep social terrain that is itself in motion and in turn demands faster lives and technology. As Rosa deftly shows, this self-reinforcing feedback loop fundamentally determines the character of modern life. (shrink)

The logicality of language is the hypothesis that the language system has access to a ‘natural’ logic that can identify and filter out as unacceptable expressions that have trivial meanings—that is, that are true/false in all possible worlds or situations in which they are defined. This hypothesis helps explain otherwise puzzling patterns concerning the distribution of various functional terms and phrases. Despite its promise, logicality vastly over-generates unacceptability assignments. Most solutions to this problem rest on specific stipulations about the properties (...) of logical form—roughly, the level of linguistic representation which feeds into the interpretation procedures—and have substantial implications for traditional philosophical disputes about the nature of language. Specifically, contextualism and semantic minimalism, construed as competing hypotheses about the nature and degree of context-sensitivity at the level of logical form, suggest different approaches to the over-generation problem. In this paper, I explore the implications of pairing logicality with various forms of contextualism and semantic minimalism. I argue that to adequately solve the over-generation problem, logicality should be implemented in a constrained contextualist framework. (shrink)

Contingentism depicts normativity as one of our human effective possibilities rather than as a metaphysical bottleneck which we should necessary fulfill. The book is a critical survey of Richard McKay Rorty’s “neo-pragmatism”, in the light of various theoretical arguments as well as of his own resourceful attempts to renew philosophy from within its practice.

We present a mathematical approach to defeasible reasoning based on arguments. This approach integrates the notion of specificity introduced by Poole and the theory of warrant presented by Pollock. The main contribution of this paper is a precise, well-defined system which exhibits correct behavior when applied to the benchmark examples in the literature. It aims for usability rather than novelty. We prove that an order relation can be introduced among equivalence classes of arguments under the equi-specificity relation. We also prove (...) a theorem that ensures the termination of the process of finding the justified facts. Two more lemmas define a reduced search space for checking specificity. In order to implement the theoretical ideas, the language is restricted to Horn clauses for the evidential context. The language used to represent defeasible rules has been restricted in a similar way. The authors intend this work to unify the various existing approaches to argument-based defeasible reasoning. (shrink)

Con base en El nombre de la Rosa de Umberto Eco se intenta mostrar la relación poder, saber y lenguaje desde la figura del laberinto tipo rizoma, sin centro ni periferia, siempre estructurable, nunca estructurado. Para hacerlo se plantean dos paradigmas hermenéuticos para descifrar los textos como laberinto. El primero se simboliza en Jorge de Burgos: todo texto es monosemántico y unidimensional, lo que políticamente lleva a fanatismos jacobinos y dogmáticos. El segundo se materializa en Guillermo de Baskerville: los (...) textos son polisemánticos y su semiosis es ilimitada, de modo que no hay textos definitivamente escritos, leídos e interpretados. Hay que habitar el mundo desde la duda como gozosa búsqueda ad infinitum, lo que se traduce políticamente en una lucha contra todo tipo de jacobismos. La conclusión es, desde este último paradigma, que la hermenéutica mora los textos desde Babel, no desde Pentecostés. Es el contraste entre la seriedad hermenéutica de Burgos y la sonrisa hermenéutica de Baskerville. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo propone que la 31ª Bienal de Sao Paulo entraña un afán emancipador para los "sin tierra" - errantes, migrantes y viajeros. Para ello se conforma como un cuerpo sin órganos, que despliega estrategias liberadoras promoviendo: desarticulación, experimentación, vagabundeo y tránsito de sujetos y pueblos. Esta Bienal, en tanto CsO, mueve intensidades como flujos sensibles por los intersticios de los proyectos artísticos dispuestos en organismo. Acá el CsO es un conjunto de prácticas reservadas a desterritorializar los estratos (...) del "organismo social" y hacer estallar los órganos estructurados en dichos sistemas.: This article shows that the 31st Sao Paulo Biennial has an emancipatory affinity for the landless - wanderers, migrants, and travelers. As such it becomes a Body without Organs that displays liberating strategies, promoting disarticulation, experimentation, wandering, and the transit of subjects and peoples. This Biennial, as a BwO, moves intensities as sensible flows through the interstices of the artistic projects inside the organism. Here, the BwO becomes a set of practices that deterritorialize the strata of the "social organism", making the structured organs in these systems explode. (shrink)

KOINONIA/ASETT MINGA/MUTIRÃO DE REVISTAS DE TEOLOGIA LATINO-AMERICANAS Teología de la Liberación y movimiento ecuménico: breve reflexión desde una práctica (Liberation Theology and ecumenical movement: a brief reflection from praxis).

Recent work in formal semantics suggests that the language system includes not only a structure building device, as standardly assumed, but also a natural deductive system which can determine when expressions have trivial truth-conditions (e.g., are logically true/false) and mark them as unacceptable. This hypothesis, called the `logicality of language', accounts for many acceptability patterns, including systematic restrictions on the distribution of quantifiers. To deal with apparent counter-examples consisting of acceptable tautologies and contradictions, the logicality of language is often paired (...) with an additional assumption according to which logical forms are radically underspecified: i.e., the language system can see functional terms but is `blind' to open class terms to the extent that different tokens of the same term are treated as if independent. This conception of logical form has profound implications: it suggests an extreme version of the modularity of language, and can only be paired with non-classical---indeed quite exotic---kinds of deductive systems. The aim of this paper is to show that we can pair the logicality of language with a different and ultimately more traditional account of logical form. This framework accounts for the basic acceptability patterns which motivated the logicality of language, can explain why some tautologies and contradictions are acceptable, and makes better predictions in key cases. As a result, we can pursue versions of the logicality of language in frameworks compatible with the view that the language system is not radically modular vis-a-vis its open class terms and employs a deductive system that is basically classical. (shrink)

How do engineers respond to ethical dilemmas that occur in practice? How do they view their individual and collective responsibilities? How do they make decisions before all the facts are in? Using the space shuttle programme as the framework, this book examines the role of ethical decision making in the practice of engineering. In particular, the book considers the design and development of the main engines of the space shuttle as a paradigm for how individual engineers perceive, articulate, and resolve (...) ethical dilemmas in a large, complex organisation. A series of in-depth case studies show engineers at work on various stages of the project as they balance budgets, deadlines and risks. By documenting the historical development of a single system, the book provides a unique opportunity to explore the complex interactions between political, organisational and technical pressures and engineering and management decisions. (shrink)

Bi-intuitionistic logic is the result of adding the dual of intuitionistic implication to intuitionistic logic. In this note, we characterize the expressive power of this logic by showing that the first order formulas equivalent to translations of bi-intuitionistic propositional formulas are exactly those preserved under bi-intuitionistic directed bisimulations. The proof technique is originally due to Lindstrom and, in contrast to the most common proofs of this kind of result, it does not use the machinery of neither saturated models nor elementary (...) chains. (shrink)

Seventeen essays make up the body of this anthology. Most of the authors are Latin Americans (although some of them work in other regions), and thus we might say that this volume is, in a very approximate sense, a showcase of recent Latin-American ontology and metaphysics. The remaining authors—Pierre Aubenque, Barry Smith, Lorenzo Peña and James Hamilton—are distinguished teachers who have had important contacts with the Latin-American philosophical community. The articles in this anthology address some of the central questions in (...) ontology and metaphysics: the possibility of a science of being (Aubenque), the different possible approaches to ontology (Hurtado), the recent application of ontology to informatics (Smith), guise theory and its Leibnizian antecedents (Herrera), the reduction of space and time to phenomenological properties (Rodríguez Larreta), the Newtonian ontology of space and time (Benítez and Robles), the relation between truth and the so-called “truth-makers” (Rodríguez Pereyra), the ontological position of the Pyrrhonic skeptic (Junqueira Smith), the limits and difficulties of metaphysical realism (Cabanchik, Pereda), the defense of physicalist or emergentist positions regarding the mental (Pérez), the metaphysical nature of persons (Naishtat), the ontology of cultural entities (Peña), political ontology (Nudler), the relation between ontology and literature (Hamilton), the ontology of art (Tomasini). Some of the works (e.g., those Aubenque and Robles) approach the question from a historical perspective: others examine the most recent philosophical literature on the problems focalized (e.g., those by Pérez and Rodríguez Pereyra), and others offer new approaches (e.g., those of Rodríguez Larreta, Peña or Nudler) to a specific problematic area. (shrink)

Lindström’s theorem obviously fails as a characterization of first-order logic without identity ( $\mathcal {L}_{\omega \omega }^{-} $ ). In this note, we provide a fix: we show that $\mathcal {L}_{\omega \omega }^{-} $ is a maximal abstract logic satisfying a weak form of the isomorphism property (suitable for identity-free languages and studied in [11]), the Löwenheim–Skolem property, and compactness. Furthermore, we show that compactness can be replaced by being recursively enumerable for validity under certain conditions. In the proofs, we (...) use a form of strong upwards Löwenheim–Skolem theorem not available in the framework with identity. (shrink)

This paper is a step toward showing what is achievable using non-classical metatheory—particularly, a substructural paraconsistent framework. What standard results, or analogues thereof, from the classical metatheory of first order logic can be obtained? We reconstruct some of the originals proofs for Completeness, Löwenheim-Skolem and Compactness theorems in the context of a substructural logic with the naive comprehension schema. The main result is that paraconsistent metatheory can ‘re-capture’ versions of standard theorems, given suitable restrictions and background assumptions; but the shift (...) to non-classical logic may recast the meanings of these apparently ‘absolute’ theorems. (shrink)

Rousseau et l'exegese biblique du XVIIIe siecle -- Des pratiques bibliques du XVIIIe siecle a la lecture-consolation de Rousseau -- Intertextualite biblique dans l'ouvre de Rousseau -- Intertexte biblique et representation de soi -- Le Levite d'Ephraim : reecriture biblique -- Schemes de la pensee du religieux -- Ouvre de doctrine : la lettre a Christophe de Beaumont -- Etre Chretien de Jacques : les lettres ecrites de La Montagne.

This work develops the ethical attitude of courageous vulnerability through the integration of the phenomenon of involuntary memory in Marcel Proust's work and ...

This paper is devoted to the problem of existence of saturated models for first-order many-valued logics. We consider a general notion of type as pairs of sets of formulas in one free variable that express properties that an element of a model should, respectively, satisfy and falsify. By means of an elementary chains construction, we prove that each model can be elementarily extended to a $\kappa $-saturated model, i.e. a model where as many types as possible are realized. In order (...) to prove this theorem we obtain, as by-products, some results on tableaux and their consistency and satisfiability and a generalization of the Tarski–Vaught theorem on unions of elementary chains. Finally, we provide a structural characterization of $\kappa $-saturation in terms of the completion of a diagram representing a certain configuration of models and mappings. (shrink)

The significance of critical phenomenology for psychiatric praxis has yet to be expounded. In this paper, I argue that the adoption of a critical phenomenological stance can remedy localised instances of hermeneutical injustice, which may arise in the encounter between clinicians and patients with psychosis. In this context, what is communicated is often deemed to lack meaning or to be difficult to understand. While a degree of un-shareability is inherent to subjective life, I argue that issues of unintelligibility can be (...) addressed by shifting from individualistic conceptions of understanding to an interactionist view. This takes into account the contextual, historical and relational background within which meaning is co-constituted. I conclude by providing a corrective for hermeneutical injustice, which entails a specific attentiveness towards the person’s subjectivity, a careful sensitivity to contingent meaning-generating structures, and a degree of hermeneutical flexibility as an attitude of openness towards alternative horizons of possibility. (shrink)

Under a proper translation, the languages of propositional (and quantified relevant logic) with an absurdity constant are characterized as the fragments of first order logic preserved under (world-object) relevant directed bisimulations. Furthermore, the properties of pointed models axiomatizable by sets of propositional relevant formulas have a purely algebraic characterization. Finally, a form of the interpolation property holds for the relevant fragment of first order logic.

In this paper I present reasons for us to accept the hypothesis that suspended judgment has correctness conditions, just like beliefs do. Roughly put, the idea is that suspended judgment about p is correct when both p and ¬p might be true in view of certain facts that characterize the subject’s situation. The reasons to accept that hypothesis are broadly theoretical ones: it adds unifying power to our epistemological theories, it delivers good and conservative consequences, and it allows us to (...) assess processes of reasoning involving attitudes of suspended judgment. (shrink)

Are there representations in the brain? It depends on what you mean by representations, and it depends on what you want them to do for you—both in terms of the causal role they play in the system, and in terms of their explanatory value. But ideally, we would like an account of representation that allows us to assign a representational role and content to the appropriate mechanistic precursors of behavior that in fact play that role and conversely, search for the (...) mechanistic realizers of representational roles that are posited by our models of behavior and cognition. Such an account would be methodologically valuable in neuroscience. Lately, people have started asking similar questions about deep neural networks. What representations do they learn and use, and what is the relation between those representations and the sometimes impressive capacities these networks exhibit? More philosophically puzzling, perhaps, is the question of why the internal activities or dispositions labeled as such in neuroscience and AI research should count as representations at all. I think we can give a unified answer to both sets of questions, in the form of a kind of representational pragmatism. What makes something a representation just is that we can identify and re-identify it as such, and moreover, that we can manipulate it effectively to do whatever it is that we think representations ought to do for us in that particular context. For the first condition, the idea is that so long as we have some probe that allows us to pick out the relevant causally effective candidate, we should consider that to be a candidate representation-relative-to-that-probe. The second condition can be understood as a kind of anti-gerrymandering constraint: one ought to be able to intervene on the candidate, and see effects of that intervention consistent with the functional role the representation is supposed to play. Naturally the details need to be spelled out for different contexts—and I will articulate them for a few illustrative cases—which effectively allows for a kind of pluralism about representation depending on the setting and the kinds of questions being asked. With the extra components filled in, representational pragmatism can make sense of existing practices in neuroscience and AI, as well as their relationship to naturalistic theories of representation in philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophical proponents of predictive processing cast the novelty of predictive models of perception in terms of differences in the functional role and information content of neural signals. However, they fail to provide constraints on how the crucial semantic mapping from signals to their informational contents is determined. Beyond a novel interpretative gloss on neural signals, they have little new to say about the causal structure of the system, or even what statistical information is carried by the signals. That means that (...) the predictive framework for perception can be relabeled in traditional, non-predictive terms, with no empirical consequences relevant to existing or future data. To the extent that neuroscientific research based on predictive processing is both innovative and productive, it will be due to the framework’s suggestive heuristic effects, or perhaps auxiliary empirical claims about implementation, rather than a difference in the information-processing structure that it describes. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has often been regarded as complementary or laissez-faire ethics in solving business problems. This paper seeks conceptual and methodological improvements by developing a virtue character scale that will enable assessment of the link between organizational level virtue and organizational performance, financial or non-financial. Based upon three theoretical assumptions, multiple studies were conducted; the content analysis of 158 Fortune Global 500 firms ethical values and a survey of 2548 customers and employees. Six dimensions of organizational virtue (Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, (...) Courage, Conscientiousness and Zeal) are identified through confirmatory factor analysis, and validated against satisfaction measure. Strategic implications of virtue characters are discussed. (shrink)

The brain is often taken to be a paradigmatic example of a signaling system with semantic and representational properties, in which neurons are senders and receivers of information carried in action potentials. A closer look at this picture shows that it is not as appealing as it might initially seem in explaining the function of the brain. Working from several sender-receiver models within the teleosemantic framework, I will first argue that two requirements must be met for a system to support (...) genuine semantic information: 1. The receiver must be competent —that is, it must be able to extract rewards from its environment on the basis of the signals that it receives. 2. The receiver must have some flexibility of response relative to the signal received. In the second part of the paper, this initial framework will be applied to neural processes, pointing to the surprising conclusion that signaling at the single-neuron level is only weakly semantic at best. Contrary to received views, neurons will have little or no access to semantic information (though their patterns of activity may carry plenty of quantitative, correlational information) about the world outside the organism. Genuine representation of the world requires an organism - level receiver of semantic information, to which any particular set of neurons makes only a small contribution. (shrink)

Delusions are often portrayed as paradigmatic instances of incomprehensibility and meaninglessness. Here we investigate the relationship between delusions and meaning from a philosophical perspective, integrating arguments and evidence from cognitive psychology and phenomenological psychopathology. We review some of the empirical and philosophical literature relevant to two claims about delusions and meaning: delusions are meaningful, despite being described as irrational and implausible beliefs; some delusions can also enhance the sense that one’s life is meaningful, supporting agency and creativity in some circumstances. (...) Delusions are not incomprehensible representations of reality. Rather, they can help make sense of one’s unusual experiences and in some circumstances even support one’s endeavours, albeit temporarily and imperfectly. Acknowledging that delusions have meaning and can also give meaning to people’s lives has implications for our understanding of psychotic symptoms and for addressing the stigma associated with psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against the received view that the anti‐nativist arguments of Book I of Locke's Essay conclusively challenge nativism. I begin by reconstructing the chief argument of Book I and its corollary arguments. I call attention to their dependence on (what I label) “the Awareness Principle”, viz., the view that there are no ideas in the mind of which the mind either isn't currently aware or hasn't been aware in the past. I then argue that the arguments' (...) dependence on this principle is question begging on two counts. Unless this principle is defended, Locke's arguments beg the question against Descartes and Leibniz because their nativism implies the denial of the Awareness Principle. And even when Locke defended the principle, his arguments remain question begging because they presuppose the empiricism they aim to prove. The disclosure of the question‐begging status of these arguments debunks a seemingly powerful way of attacking nativism. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against the received view that the anti-nativist arguments of Book I of Locke’s Essay conclusively challenge nativism. I begin by reconstructing the chief argument of Book I and its corollary arguments. I call attention to their dependence on (what I label) “the Awareness Principle”, viz., the view that there are no ideas in the mind of which the mind either isn’t currently aware or hasn’t been aware in the past. I then argue that the arguments’ (...) dependence on this principle is question begging on two counts. Unless this principle is defended, Locke’s arguments beg the question against Descartes and Leibniz because their nativism implies the denial of the Awareness Principle. And even when Locke defended the principle, his arguments remain question begging because they presuppose the empiricism they aim to prove. The disclosure of the question-begging status of these arguments debunks a seemingly powerful way of attacking nativism. (shrink)

Multiple realizability says that the same kind of mental states may be manifested by systems with very different physical constitutions. Putnam ( 1967 ) supposed it to be “overwhelmingly probable” that there exist psychological properties with different physical realizations in different creatures. But because function constrains possible physical realizers, this empirical bet is far less favorable than it might initially have seemed, especially when we take on board the richer picture of neural and brain function that neuroscience has been uncovering (...) over the past forty years, in which all sorts of brain activities play crucial roles beyond all-or-nothing electrical signaling. Because of its evolutionary history, the brain’s metabolic and informational processes are inextricably intertwined. The resulting complex integrated functions impose more constraints on possible realizers than the clean, single-purpose functions usually cited as examples in discussions of multiple realizability—with ramifications for the functionalist and computationalist foundations of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

It is not yet clear which response behavior requires self-regulatory effort in the moral dilemma task. Previous research has proposed that utilitarian responses require cognitive control, but subsequent studies have found inconsistencies with the empirical predictions of that hypothesis. In this paper we treat participants’ sensitivity to utilitarian gradients as a measure of performance. We confronted participants (N = 82) with a set of five dilemmas evoking a gradient of mean utilitarian responses in a 4-point scale and collected data on (...) heart rate variability and on utilitarian responses. We found positive correlations between tonic and phasic HRV and sensitivity to the utilitarian gradient in the high tonic group, but not in the low tonic group. Moreover, the low tonic group misplaced a scenario with a selfish incentive at the high end of the gradient. Results suggest that performance is represented by sensitivity correlated with HRV and accompanied with a reasonable placement of individual scenarios within the gradient. (shrink)