The main objective of this work is to understand the daily practices of user management in post-reformist devices in the Brazilian mental health field. Through Foucault's genealogical work on government practices, understood as forms of conducting the behavior of others, it is possible to open a possible field for the study of the practices of psi knowledge, considering them as forms of management that act by through the free and natural acts of individuals. More specifically, our goal is to examine (...) day-to-day practices on some reformist devices such as CAPS through user files. Basically, two driving models have been found in the new devices: 1) Cases with frank intervention of production of commitments and agreements with users, seeking the entry of this to varied activities and political leadership ; 2) Cases with little response from the user, in which the forms of conduction are implemented by policies of inclusion of family members and close reference characters in the management of the patient's life. (shrink)

Several countries maintain universal health coverage, which implies responsibility to organize delivery formats of healthcare services and products for citizens. In Brazil, the health system has a principle of universal access for more than 30 years, but many deficiencies remain and the country observes a day practice for those seeking judicial decisions to determine provision of healthcare.

Resenha do livro COLLECTED PAPERS OF HERBERT MARCUSE PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND EMANCIPATION –VOL. 5.

Com o rápido desenvolvimento da técnica e da tecnologia, o campo educacional tem se mostrado estratégico para transformar a racionalidade humana em racionalidade tecnológica, alterando a consecução dos fins da própria Educação. O objetivo do artigo é analisar as contradições entre o processo de reprodução da vida material nas sociedades capitalistas e a perda de liberdade dos indivíduos inseridos e ajustados aos seus critérios e, da mesma forma, o ajustamento dos estudantes às demandas socialmente úteis ao sistema em decorrência da (...) pretensa extinção dos cursos de Ciências Humanas dos currículos, que tende a afastar a Educação de sua prerrogativa fundamental que é educar para a emancipação. A Teoria Crítica do filósofo frankfurtiano Herbert Marcuse refere que o restabelecimento da razão humana é tarefa para uma Pedagogia Radical como forma de resistência em tempos de mercantilização da Educação. Seus argumentos contribuem para uma análise crítica e contextualizada da Educação brasileira em tempos de contrarreformas. (shrink)

Following a Weltanschaaung that involves a concept of life, Hitler has organized one of central chapiters of his autobiography My Struggle, named “Nation and Race”. Three human groups – to know, the founders of culture, the bearers of culture, the destroyers of culture – would be organized as forms of life. These three groups cohabit in competition for the territory of living space. With Hitler´s interpretations, come up then a living economic, that justifies the Total State or the Total War. (...) In front of this horizon, appear critiques as Marcuse, which efforts intend to face the usurpation of concepts as life, nature and racionality by Nazi myth of race and nation. Into this field, Marcuse meets psychoanalysis. Someone considers this meeting as a return to some naturalism too far from the critical exigencies of this time; however, it is possible to insist that this resourse to Freud makes evident a straight critic to a living economic operated from a totalitarian Weltanschauung. (shrink)

This paper develops a non-relativist version of contextualism about knowledge. It is argued that a plausible contextualism must take into account three features of our practice of attributing knowledge: (1) knowledge-attributions follow a default-and-challenge pattern; (2) there are preconditions for a belief's enjoying the status of being justified by default (e.g. being orthodox); and (3) for an error-possibility to be a serious challenge, there has to be positive evidence that the possibility might be realized in the given situation. It is (...) argued that standard "semantic" versions of contextualism (e.g. those of Lewis, Cohen, DeRose) fail to take these features into account, which makes them overly hospitable to the sceptic, and that Williams' version of contextualism, although incorporating (1), fails to do justice to (2) and (3). According to the contextualism developed here, although epistemic standards vary with the context, the truth-value of particular knowledge-attributions does not. Contexts here are understood as being constituted by two elements: an epistemic practice (a rule-governed social practice such as a scientific discipline, the law, a craft etc., in which knowledge-claims are evaluated according to specific standards) and the "facts of the matter" (i.e. those facts which, together with the epistemic standards in question, determine which error-possibilities are relevant and thus have to be eliminated for a knowledge-claim to be true). If there are several epistemic practices, and thus several contexts, in which a knowledge-claim can be evaluated, it is the "strictest" practice that counts. In this way, the counterintuitive consequence of other versions of contextualism that the same knowledge-claim can be true in one context, but false in another, can be avoided. At the same time, scepticism can be resisted since even in the "strictest" epistemic practices, error-possibilities become relevant only when backed by positive evidence that they might in fact obtain. (shrink)

Can you master the ideas of Plato, Kant, Nietzsche and Sartre? What does 'I think, therefore I am' really mean? Do you know the arguments for and against the existence of god? And what do the great philosophers tell us about knowledge and truth, good and evil? Packed with bite-sized briefings, shortcuts and bluffs, Get Smart: Philosophy demystifies 50 key philosophical concepts and provides you with all you need to speak out about the very biggest ideas.

Quick, accessible, compact guide to understanding key political concepts. Contents include: Liberty, Justice, Equality, Human rights, Social contract, Democracy, Monarchy, Anarchism, Capitalism, Socialism, Nationalism and Globalisation.

Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. We review the most well-known application of this kind, known as the 'gauge argument' or 'gauge principle', discuss its difficulties, and then reconstruct the gauge argument (...) as a valid theorem in quantum theory. We then present what we take to be a better and more general gauge argument, based on Noether's second theorem in classical Lagrangian field theory, and argue that this provides a more appropriate framework for understanding how gauge symmetry helps to constrain the dynamics of physical theories. (shrink)

Philosophy in Minutes distils 200 of the most important philosophical ideas into easily digestible, bite-sized sections. The core information for every topic - including debates such as the role of philosophy in science and religion, key thinkers from Aristotle to Marx, and introductions to morality and ethics - is explained in straightforward language, using illustrations to make the concepts easy to understand and remember. Whether you are perplexed by existentialism or pondering the notion of free will, this accessible small-format book (...) will help any reader to quickly grasp the basics of this highly nuanced subject. Chapters include: Truth and logic, Marxism, Communism and Socialism, Ontology, Philosophy and literature, Existence of God, Feminist theory, Consciousness, The future of philosophy. (shrink)

The present paper is about the author’s current research on children’s education in urban contexts. It departs from the rising offer of programmes for school children in out-of-school contexts (e.g. museums, libraries, science centres). It asks what makes these practices educational (and not just interesting, entertaining and/or audience building). Based on Biesta ( 2006a , 2010 ) theory of education, the author frames and analyses the educational characteristics of, and possibilities of articulating, in and out-of-school educational practices. This paper aims (...) at understanding if the occasional outing from primary school premises promotes interruptions in the humanist foundations of school. In order to analyse relations between different institutions and professionals (to be) engaged in educational activities and programmes, Nóvoa ( 2002 , 2009 ) essays will be brought to the discussion, namely his conception of the ‘Public Space of Education’—as a space where culture, education, arts, sports and leisure are shared responsibilities, and where diverse institutions are networked aiming towards societal pluralism. I argue for the possibility of using cities’ public spaces as contexts with a worldly quality to complexify children’s education. Nevertheless, I draw attention to the unbearable educational lightness that these practices may carry if they do not go beyond the praise of chance; as well as to their unsustainable weight if they perpetually repeat school’s normal orders and add up rational discourses. (shrink)

Demystifies complex philosophical ideas and debates in a comprehensive format that introduces the major theories of such great philosophers as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Epicurus, and Thomas Aquinas.

Phenomenal particularism is the view that particular external objects are sometimes part of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. It is a central part of naïve realist or relational views of perception. We consider a series of recent objections to phenomenal particularism and argue that naïve realism has the resources to block them. In particular, we show that these objections rest on assumptions about the nature of phenomenal character that the naïve realist will reject, and that they ignore the full (...) resources that naïve realism has to offer in explaining phenomenal character. (shrink)

The historical formation of Brazil is distinguished from the majority of ex-colonial nations by one factor that is especially characteristic: an intense process of ethnic and cultural mixing. The Portuguese colonisers, who, unlike the English Puritans in North America, left their families and arrived in Brazil in small groups mainly composed of men, naturally tended to pair off with the women they found available - first of all indigenous women and later African women. There was nothing in Brazil to prevent (...) this spontaneous behaviour similar to the role played in the English colonies of North America by the strength of the family group or the strict religious observance of the community. Thus from the outset Brazil tended to accept racial mixing as a de facto reality. As Gilberto Freyre correctly noted in his book Casa Grande e Senzala:They mixed happily with women of colour from the very first contacts and many mixed-race children resulted, so much so that only a few thousand men were enough to colonize vast areas and compete with the greatest and most numerous peoples as regards the extent of the colonial territory and the effectiveness of colonizing activity. (shrink)

Since the last war, one character of the political system in Belgium is the growth and the duration of the ministerial crisis. Some questions of public law appeared. How is it possible to maintain the continuity of the political and administrative action, without ministerial responsibility to Parliament, during the crisis? The Belgian Conseil d'Etat contributed, by the notion of the «affaires courantes», sort of general principle of public law, to give a solution to this problem.

This paper investigates whether 'even if A, B' is pragmatically polysemic, so that a nonconcessive conditional may have 'even if', and whether concessive conditionals, pragmatically defined, can fail to have 'even if' or a non-temporal 'still'. Different paraphrases are used to help elucidate pragmatic meanings. A theory of the pragmatic meanings of concessive and implicative conditionals is presented. The semantic meaning of 'even if' and the question of whether concessive conditionals imply the truth of their consequents are also discussed.

Many of Margaret Cavendish’s criticisms of Thomas Hobbes in the Philosophical Letters (1664) relate to the disorder and damage that she holds would result if Hobbesian pressure were the cause of visual perception. In this paper, I argue that her “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV is aimed at a different goal: to show the explanatory potency of her account. First, I connect Cavendish’s view of visual perception as “patterning” to the “two men” thought experiment in Letter IV. Second, (...) I provide a potential reply on Hobbes’s behalf that appeals to physiological differences between perceivers’ sense organs, drawing upon Hobbes’s optics in De homine. Third, I argue that such a reply would misunderstand Cavendish’s objective of showing the limited explanatory resources available in understanding visual perception as pressing when compared to her view of visual perception as patterning. (shrink)

The effect of violent video games is among the most widely discussed topics in media studies, and for good reason. These games are immensely popular, but many seem morally objectionable. Critics attack them for a number of reasons ranging from their capacity to teach players weapons skills to their ability to directly cause violent actions. This essay shows that many of these criticisms are misguided. Theoretical and empirical arguments against violent video games often suffer from a number of significant shortcomings (...) that make them ineffective. This essay argues that video games are defensible from the perspective of Kantian, Aristotelian, and utilitarian moral theories. (shrink)

Este ensaio aborda o conceito de amizade em Kant, e procura relacioná-lo com amoral, o direito e a política kantianos. Como forma de introduzir a temática, começa otexto com uma abordagem do conceito e dos tipos de amizade apresentados por Aristóteles.Após isso, aborda o conceito e os tipos de amizade apresentados por Kant, tanto naDoutrina da Virtude (A Metafísica dos Costumes) quanto nas Preleções sobre Ética. O textotrata então dos problemas e das vantagens que o conceito kantiano de amizade representa,para, (...) por fim, procurar, sob inspiração de Aristóteles, aproximar a temática da amizadeem Kant de suas filosofias moral, jurídica e política. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo enfoca duas questões abordadas pelo transhumanismo: imortalidade e longevidade. A primeira parte apresenta alguns contornos do programa transhumanista e a sua motivação. A segunda discute até que ponto a promessa de imortalidade não pode ser cumprida pela ideia de fazer o upload do cérebro na internet. A terceira parte se concentra na longevidade e mostra por que o programa transhumanista para idosos falha. Palavras-chave: Transhumanismo. Imortalidade. Longevidade. Upload de cérebro na internet.

Researchers have long suspected that grapheme-color synaesthesia is useful, but research on its utility has so far focused primarily on episodic memory and perceptual discrimination. Here we ask whether it can be harnessed during rule-based Category learning. Participants learned through trial and error to classify grapheme pairs that were organized into categories on the basis of their associated synaesthetic colors. The performance of synaesthetes was similar to non-synaesthetes viewing graphemes that were physically colored in the same way. Specifically, synaesthetes learned (...) to categorize stimuli effectively, they were able to transfer this learning to novel stimuli, and they falsely recognized grapheme-pair foils, all like non-synaesthetes viewing colored graphemes. These findings demonstrate that synaesthesia can be exploited when learning the kind of material taught in many classroom settings. (shrink)

Kant’s revolutionary new approach to philosophy was accompanied by the introduction of a largely novel terminology. With the Kant-Lexikon, a lexical reference gives the modern reader access to his work on the basis of present-day editions and takes into account 20th century and contemporary research and advances in lexicology. The Kant-Lexikon includes 2395 entries authored by 221 scholars.

Resumo Palavras-chave Keywords : Narrative production. Authorship. Language. Memory. Identity. : This article comprises a detailed report on a project of narrative production, which is being conducted, every semester, with students entering the Languages course, on the Portuguese Language subject.The project consists of a process of production, reading, and rewriting of small narratives, which, at the end of the term, are gathered and organized by each student in order to assemble their own book craftily. The proposal came forth as a (...) strategy to try to solve problems related to the little familiarity with writing and to the lack of authorship marks. The engagement in the production of contextualized and guided narratives for a determined purpose has disclosed, at the end of each semester, similar results: pleasure to write, read and expose the produced texts for group discussions; concern with the interlocutor; presence of authorship marks; perception of discursive qualities on the text itself and on the text of others; concern with the adequacy of the writing to linguistic conventions; confidence on the writing process; perception of oneself as part of a history and as a result of multiple intersubjectivities; praise of one’s own life history and of one’s ancestors. The project finds itself based on enunciation theories. : Produção de narrativa. Autoria. Linguagem. Memória. Identidade. : Este artigo constitui-se do relato de um projeto de produção de narrativa que vem sendo desenvolvido, semestralmente, com alunos ingressantes no curso de Letras, na disciplina de Língua Portuguesa. O projeto consiste em um processo de produção, leitura e reescritura de pequenas narrativas com as quais, ao fim do semestre, cada aluno organiza e confecciona artesanalmente o seu próprio livro. A proposta surgiu como estratégia para tentar solucionar problemas relacionados à pouca familiaridade com a escrita e à ausência de marcas de autoria. O enfoque na produção de narrativas contextualizadas e orientadas para um determinado fim tem revelado, no fim de cada semestre, resultados semelhantes: prazer de escrever, de ler e de submeter à discussão do grupo os textos produzidos; preocupação com o interlocutor; presença de marcas de autoria; percepção de qualidades discursivas no próprio texto e no texto do outro; preocupação com a adequação da escrita às convenções linguísticas; segurança em relação à escrita; percepção de si como parte de uma história e como fruto de intersubjetividades múltiplas; valorização da própria história de vida e da de seus antepassados. O trabalho encontra suporte em teorias da linguística da enunciação. (shrink)

Seven informants , aged between 32 and 42, who had experienced at least one career change in their lives were interviewed about the history of their career trajectories. The interviews were analyzed according to the systematic and systemic reflexivity proposed by the phenomenological tradition: description, reduction and interpretation. The findings point to the need for professional guidance practice giving attention not only to professional information but also to a reflection of individual and work-related values. This would help both young people (...) and adults to see their own objectives more clearly and to be capable of formulating their own career plans and following them through. (shrink)

Marcus Giaquinto presents an investigation into the different kinds of visual thinking involved in mathematical thought, drawing on work in cognitive psychology, philosophy, and mathematics. He argues that mental images and physical diagrams are rarely just superfluous aids: they are often a means of discovery, understanding, and even proof.

Cet article propose un itinéraire de réflexion sur les fondements de l’éthique théologique en articulant trois contributions de Karl Barth à ce domaine : la définition de l’éthique comme l’impératif de l’indicatif qu’est la dogmatique, voire l’inséparabilité entre éthique et dogmatique qui place l’éthique à l’écoute de la révélation ; l’articulation d’un nexus christologique entre les catégories d’obéissance et de liberté comme « autodétermination déterminée » ; le débat sur l’Évangile et la Loi, comme révélation de l’histoire de la grâce (...) à partir de laquelle se déploie la grammaire d’une existence chrétienne. Cet itinéraire est entrecoupé par trois passages bibliques qui sont alignés sur les contributions de Barth : la vocation d’Abraham ; l’agonie de Jésus à Gethsémani ; la question posée à Jésus sur le bien qu’il faut faire pour entrer dans la vie éternelle. Nous suggérons que cet itinéraire biblique et barthien souligne qu’une éthique théologiquement construite conflue vers la christologie. (shrink)

Organisations are increasingly transforming themselves to remain profitable and obtain sustainable competitive advantages. Business processes are as important as technology in promoting organisational transformation. Organisational transformation ultimately entails combining existing business components, whether or not with the same use and design, with new ones to generate novel products and services. For example, one particular type of organisation transformation is digital transformation. This notion, which covers even the subjective aspects of organisational transformation, is currently under intensive discussion and suffers from the (...) semantics terms fluctuation related to the notion of ‘organisational transformation’. We argue that this topic could strongly benefit from an ontological analysis and conceptual clarification of these notions. This paper contributes with an attempt in this direction by proposing a Core Ontology of Organisational Transformation (COOT). This ontology comprises concepts and relations central to creating a reference model representing the organisational transformation paradigm. COOT was applied in a real-world case study on a car rental company. (shrink)

Visual thinking -- visual imagination or perception of diagrams and symbol arrays, and mental operations on them -- is omnipresent in mathematics. Is this visual thinking merely a psychological aid, facilitating grasp of what is gathered by other means? Or does it also have epistemological functions, as a means of discovery, understanding, and even proof? By examining the many kinds of visual representation in mathematics and the diverse ways in which they are used, Marcus Giaquinto argues that visual thinking (...) in mathematics is rarely just a superfluous aid; it usually has epistemological value, often as a means of discovery. Drawing from philosophical work on the nature of concepts and from empirical studies of visual perception, mental imagery, and numerical cognition, Giaquinto explores a major source of our grasp of mathematics, using examples from basic geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and real analysis. He shows how we can discern abstract general truths by means of specific images, how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, and how visual means can help us grasp abstract structures. Visual Thinking in Mathematics reopens the investigation of earlier thinkers from Plato to Kant into the nature and epistemology of an individual's basic mathematical beliefs and abilities, in the new light shed by the maturing cognitive sciences. Clear and concise throughout, it will appeal to scholars and students of philosophy, mathematics, and psychology, as well as anyone with an interest in mathematical thinking. (shrink)

Claims that necessary and sufficient conditions are not converse relations are discussed, as well as the related claim that If A, then B is not equivalent to A only if B . The analysis of alleged counterexamples has shown, among other things, how necessary and sufficient conditions should be understood, especially in the case of causal conditions, and the importance of distinguishing sufficient-cause conditionals from necessary-cause conditionals. It is concluded that necessary and sufficient conditions, adequately interpreted, are converse relations in (...) all cases. (shrink)

This book treats modal logic as a theory, with several subtheories, such as completeness theory, correspondence theory, duality theory and transfer theory and is intended as a course in modal logic for students who have had prior contact with modal logic and who wish to study it more deeply. It presupposes training in mathematical or logic. Very little specific knowledge is presupposed, most results which are needed are proved in this book.

Following in a psychological and musicological tradition beginning with Leonard Meyer, and continuing through David Huron, we present a functional, cognitive account of the phenomenon of expectation in music, grounded in computational, probabilistic modeling. We summarize a range of evidence for this approach, from psychology, neuroscience, musicology, linguistics, and creativity studies, and argue that simulating expectation is an important part of understanding a broad range of human faculties, in music and beyond.

All the notes to the Farquharson translation, amplifying the twelve books of the "Meditations," are included in this volume.

Neste artigo, pretende-se descrever os pontos de maior relevância à teoria do conhecimento de Arthur Schopenhauer, levando em consideração a farta influência do idealismo transcendental kantiano em sua produção filosófica. No que diz respeito à formulação do conhecimento empírico, bem como às faculdades e princípios envolvidos no processo, busca-se promover a comparação entre os elementos pertinentes aos sistemas elaborados pelos respectivos filósofos, a fim de tornar explícitos os momentos em que Schopenhauer alinha-se ao idealismo transcendental kantiano e, igualmente, os momentos (...) em que o filósofo rompe com seu predecessor por meio da elaboração de um sistema filosófico original, de notória relevância para a história da filosofia. (shrink)

In this work, we propose a computational approach to the triadic model of Peircean semiosis (meaning processes). We investigate theoretical constraints about the feasibility of simulated semiosis. These constraints, which are basic requirements for the simulation of semiosis, refer to the synthesis of irreducible triadic relations (Sign–Object–Interpretant). We examine the internal organization of the triad S–O–I, that is, the relative position of its elements and how they relate to each other. We also suggest a multi-level approach based on self-organization principles. (...) In this context, semiosis is described as an emergent process. Nevertheless, the term ‘emergence’ is often used in a very informal way in the so called ‘emergent’ computation, without clear explanations and/or definitions. In this paper, we discuss in some detail the meaning of the theoretical terms ‘emergence’ and ‘emergent’, showing how such an analysis can lead to improvements of the algorithm proposed. (shrink)

Neste ensaio apresentamos o conceito de vida para o filósofo e médico francês Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) e, posteriormente, desenvolvemos uma reflexão deste conceito, estabelecendo um paralelo entre a emergência da tecnociência e o transumanismo. Na primeira parte do ensaio, foram selecionados trechos das obras de Canguilhem, O normal e o patológico, O conhecimento da vida e o verbete “vida” escrito para a Encyclopédie Universalis. Sobre o verbete daremos atenção para a quarta interpretação sobre a vida proposta pelo filósofo. Além dos (...) textos escolhidos, utilizaremos artigos de especialistas que aprofundem a filosofia de Georges Canguilhem. Na segunda parte, apresentaremos, de modo geral, o surgimento e as implicações éticas da tecnociência na sociedade contemporânea. Na terceira parte, apresentaremos uma possível origem do transumanismo e o instigante e complexo debate em torno deste movimento. Neste tópico apresentaremos as contribuições de filósofos alinhados ao pensamento de Canguilhem e filósofos que refletem sobre o movimento transhumanista, tais como João de Fernandes Teixeira, Natasha Vita-More e Nick Bostrom. Na conclusão, apresentaremos a relevância do diálogo entre as áreas do conhecimento como a filosofia, ciências da vida e tecnologia para compreendermos os meandros da sociedade contemporânea.Palavras chave: Georges Canguilhem; vida; tecnociência; transhumanismo. (shrink)

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is a private notebook of philosophical reflections with universal significance. Drawing on Stoic philosophy, Marcus confronts challenges that affect us all in our struggle to live meaningful lives. This edition includes a selection of Marcus' correspondence with his tutor Fronto which complements the Meditations.

Marcus Giaquinto tells the compelling story of one of the great intellectual adventures of the modern era: the attempt to find firm foundations for mathematics. From the late nineteenth century to the present day, this project has stimulated some of the most original and influential work in logic and philosophy.

The status of the laws of nature in Hobbes’s Leviathan has been a continual point of disagreement among scholars. Many agree that since Hobbes claims that civil philosophy is a science, the answer lies in an understanding of the nature of Hobbesian science more generally. In this paper, I argue that Hobbes’s view of the construction of geometrical figures sheds light upon the status of the laws of nature. In short, I claim that the laws play the same role as (...) the component parts – what Hobbes calls the “cause” – of geometrical figures. To make this argument, I show that in both geometry and civil philosophy, Hobbes proceeds by a method of synthetic demonstration as follows: 1) offering a thought experiment by privation; 2) providing definitions by explication of “simple conceptions” within the thought experiment; and 3) formulating generative definitions by making use of those definitions by explication. In just the same way that Hobbes says that the geometer should “put together” the parts of a square to learn its cause, I argue that the laws of nature are the cause of peace. (shrink)

This book is a philosophically-oriented introduction to bioethics. It offers the reader an overview of key debates in bioethics relevant to various areas including; organ retrieval, stem cell research, justice in healthcare and issues in environmental ethics, including issues surrounding food and agriculture. The book also seeks to go beyond simply describing the issues in order to provide the reader with the methodological and theoretical tools for a more comprehensive understanding of current bioethical debates. The aim of the book is (...) to present bioethics as an interdisciplinary field, to explore its close relation to other disciplines (such as law, life sciences, theology and philosophy), and to discuss the conditions under which bioethics can serve as an academically legitimate discipline that is at the same time relevant to society. As a systematic and methodologically rigorous overview, Bioethics: Methods, Theories, Domains will be of particular interest to academics and students in the disciplines of Law, Medicine, Ethics and Philosophy. (shrink)

This paper investigates the implicative conditional, a connective intended to describe the logical behavior of an empirically defined class of natural language conditionals, also named implicative conditionals, which excludes concessive and some other conditionals. The implicative conditional strengthens the strict conditional with the possibility of the antecedent and of the contradictory of the consequent. $${p\Rightarrow q}$$ p ⇒ q is thus defined as $${\lnot } \Diamond {(p \wedge \lnot q) \wedge } \Diamond {p \wedge } \Diamond {\lnot q}$$ ¬ ◊ (...) ( p ∧ ¬ q ) ∧ ◊ p ∧ ◊ ¬ q. We explore the logical properties of this conditional in a reflexive normal Kripke semantics, provide an axiomatic system and prove it to be sound and complete for our semantics. The implicative conditional validates transitivity and contraposition, which we take to be integral parts of reasoning and communication. But it only validates restricted versions of strengthening the antecedent, right weakening, simplification, and rational monotonicity. Apparent counterexamples to some of these properties are explained as due to contextual factors. Finally, the implicative conditional avoids the paradoxes of material and strict implication, and validates some connexive principles such as Aristotle’s theses and weak Boethius’ thesis, as well as some highly entrenched principles of conditionals, such as conjunction of consequents, disjunction of antecedents, modus ponens, cautious monotonicity and cut. (shrink)

This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I (...) demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights. (shrink)