A distinguishing characteristic of the biomedical model is its compartmentalized view of man. This way of seeing human beings has its origin in Greek thought; it was stated by Descartes and to this day it still considers humans as beings composed of distinct entities combined into a certain form. Because of this observation, one began to believe that the focus of a health treatment could be exclusively on the affected area of the body, without the need to pay attention to (...) patient’s subjectivity. By seeing pain as a merely sensory response, this model was not capable of encompassing chronic pain, since the latter is a complex process that can occur independently of tissue damage. As of the second half of the twentieth century, when it became impossible to deny the relationship between psyche and soma, the current understanding of chronic pain emerges: that of chronic pain as an individual experience, the result of a sum of physical, psychological, and social factors that, for this reason, cannot be approached separately from the individual who expresses pain. This understanding has allowed a significant improvement in perspective, emphasizing the characteristic of pain as an individual experience. However, the understanding of chronic pain as a sum of factors corresponds to the current way of seeing the process of falling ill, for its conception holds a Cartesian duality and the positivist premise of a single reality. For phenomenology, on the other hand, the individual in his/her unity is more than a simple sum of parts. Phenomenology sees a human being as an intending entity, in which body, mind, and the world are intertwined and constitute each other mutually, thus establishing the human being’s integral functioning. Therefore, a real understanding of the chronic pain process would only be possible from a phenomenological point of view at the experience lived by the individual who expresses and communicates pain. (shrink)

This article proposes to analyse some aspects of the appropriation of New School thinking in Brazil, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, in the 1950s and 1960s. The analysis is based on the assumption that the developmentalist ideology that punctuated the debate on the economic, political and social restructuring of the country in these two decades constituted fertile ground for the return and expansion of pragmatist thinking amongst Brazilian educators, articulating itself, sometimes in contradictory ways, with this ideology. The focus of the analysis (...) will be on the writings of the group of educators which circulated around the figure of Anísio Teixeira, at the time director of the National Institute for Pedagogic Studies, an organ linked to the Ministry of Education and Culture, which set itself the task of producing research that would support public policy in the field of education, as well as constituting itself as a center for teacher education and the stimulus and development of innovative experiences in the public school system. The appropriation of Deweyan pragmatism, in this context, had a triple perspective: pragmatism as scientific method, implying a specific conception of science, particularly the social sciences, with emphasis on the application of scientific knowledge in the solution of practical problems; as a way of democratic life; and as a synonym for experimentalism, in the sphere of schooling. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to establish linear relations (association and prediction) and inferential relations between three constructs at different levels of psychological research –executive dysfunction(microanalysis),self-regulation(molecular level), andself-vs.external regulation(molar level), in the prediction of emotion regulation difficulties. We hypothesized that personal and contextual regulatory factors would be negatively related to levels of executive dysfunction and emotion regulation difficulties; by way of complement, non-regulatory and dysregulatory personal, and contextual factors would be positively related to these same difficulties. To establish relationships, (...) we used a retrospective,ex postfacto design, where 298 university students voluntarily participated by completing standardized self-reports. Linear and structural correlational, predictive analyses were performed, as well as inferential analyses. Results were consistent and validated the proposed hypotheses, for both association and prediction. The most important result refers to the discriminant value of the five-level combination heuristic for predicting Executive Function and External (contextual) Dys-Regulation. In conclusion: (1) both personal and contextual regulation factors must be analyzed in order to better understand the variation in executive functions and emotion regulation difficulties; (2) it is important to continue connecting the different levels of the constructs referring to self-regulation, given their complementary role in the behavioral analysis of regulation difficulties. (shrink)

What does it mean to consider the world of AI through a Christian lens? Rapid developments in AI continue to reshape society, raising new ethical questions and challenging our understanding of the human person. Encountering Artificial Intelligence draws on Pope Francis’ discussion of a culture of encounter and broader themes in Catholic social thought in order to examine how current AI applications affect human relationships in various social spheres and offers concrete recommendations for better implementation. The document also explores questions (...) regarding personhood, consciousness, and the kinds of relationships humans might have with even the most advanced AI. Through these discussions, this book investigates the theoretical and practical challenges to interpersonal encounter raised by the age of AI. (AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery of Culture and Education of the Holy See). (shrink)

Do numbers exist? Carnap (1956 [1950]) famously argues that this question can be understood in an “internal” and in an “external” sense, and calls “external” questions “non-cognitive”. Carnap also says that external questions are raised “only by philosophers” (p. 207), which means that, in his view, philosophers raise ”non-cognitive” questions. However, it is not clear how the internal/external distinction and Carnap’s related views about philosophy should be understood. This paper provides a new interpretation. I draw attention to Carnap’s distinction between (...) purely external statements, which are independent from all frameworks, and pragmatic external statements, which concern which framework one should adopt, and argue that the latter express noncognitive mental states. Specifically, I argue that “frameworks” are systems of rules for the assessment of statements, which are utterances of ordinary language sentences. Pragmatic external statements express noncognitive dispositions to follow only certain rules of assessment. For instance, “numbers exist” understood as a pragmatic external statement expresses a noncognitive disposition to use only rules of assessment according to which numbers do exist. Carnap can thereby be understood as proposing a distinctive form of noncognitivism about ontology that is in some respects analogous to norm-expressivism in metaethics. (shrink)

BackgroundScientific literature on posttraumatic growth after terrorist attacks has primarily focused on persons who had not been directly exposed to terrorist attacks or persons who had been directly exposed to them, but who were assessed few months or years after the attacks.MethodsWe examined long-term PTG in 210 adults directly exposed to terrorist attacks in Spain a mean of 29.6 years after the attacks. The participants had been injured by a terrorist attack or were first-degree relatives of people who had been (...) killed or injured by a terrorist attack. They completed diagnostic measures of emotional disorders and measures of PTSD and depression symptomatology, optimism, and PTG.ResultsMultiple regression analyses revealed gender differences and a positive linear relationship between PTG and cumulative trauma after the terrorist attack. Some PTG dimensions were significantly associated with PTSD symptomatology, these associations being linear, not curvilinear. However, PTG was not associated with depression symptomatology, diagnosis of emotional disorders, age, elapsed time since the attack, or optimism. In comparison with survivors assessed 18 years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Spanish victims of terrorism showed higher levels of appreciation of life, but lower levels of relating to others and spiritual change.ConclusionThe findings underscore the influence of gender on PTG and provide support to the hypothesis that some emotional distress may be a necessary condition of PTG. Future studies on PTG after terrorist attacks should take into consideration the characteristics of the terrorist attack itself and the contexts of violence and threat in which it occurred. The political, social, and cultural characteristics of the community affected by it and the profile and characteristics of other traumatic events suffered after the attack should also be taken into account in further research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Desire of the Analysts: Psychoanalysis and Cultural CriticismVera J. Camden (bio)Desire of the Analysts: Psychoanalysis and Cultural Criticism. Ed. Greg Forter and Paul Allen Miller. New York: SUNY P, 2008. 258 pp.This collection takes up the uses of psychoanalysis for cultural studies in the new millennium. Its editors and contributors ask, “Where is psychoanalysis in contemporary thought?” At a time when the empirically based psychologies have long repudiated (...) the “talking cure” to the extent that the unconscious is not visible or easily measured, and when, on the other hand, psychoanalysis has been associated in the humanities with a radical political and social agenda, disappointed hopes for change have led many to throw the baby of psychoanalysis out with the bathwater of a utopian vision of transformation. The question now remains: “Whither psychoanalysis?” To answer this question (which is also a demand), the editors first acknowledge that the critique and curtailing of psychoanalytic thought in the cultural studies programs across the country in the last decade or so has been influenced by the works of Michel Foucault, his disciples, and the New Historicism. At the same time, they believe that the political, psychological, and moral dangers of embracing a knowing and cynical postmodernism that fosters hollow consumerism premised on modes of subjectivity that “neither ‘express’ interiority nor bear any relation to a lived past” are a real and present danger in contemporary life. “That the triumph of such a view has coincided with intellectuals’ renewed suspicion of psychoanalysis should, we believe, give us pause” (8). The essays that constitute the present volume thus insist on the persistence of the desire of the analyst: for knowledge of self and other, and by those who long for interpretive insight into interior lives and social places. The volume thus poses for its readers twin questions: “Why do we continue to desire psychoanalysis, and what should its role be in the cultural criticism of the new millennium?”This collection grew out of a conference organized around this question and thus reflects the varied but not necessarily interconnected papers offered in that setting. In an effort to provide some interconnections, the collection is divided into four sections grouped around the topics of psychoanalysis and the future of cultural criticism, collectivity, the author, and sexuality. The grouping does not, in my estimation, provide unity or coherence to the volume as a whole; nevertheless, each article emerges on its own terms as a strong contribution to the general field of psychoanalytic cultural criticism and critical theory. Henry Sussman’s “Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Cultural Criticism at the Millennium” provides an anchoring perspective to the volume, addressing with particular urgency the mutually transformative desire of and for analysis modeled on the transference/countertransference clinical encounter. This analogy [End Page 153] suggestively sets the stage for a like transformative intervention by the analyst in a cultural critique, while acknowledging that cultural studies provides the best interpretation and assessment of the ways that psychoanalysis operates historically and clinically in contemporary society. Sussman—and indeed many of the contributors—underscores the editors’ organizing declaration that since psychoanalysis derived from lived human experience it stands to reason that “analysis is both the product of and answer to suffering” (15).Thus it comes as something of a surprise that one of its editors, Greg Forter, in “F. Scott Fitzgerald, Psychobiography, and the Fin-de-Siecle Crisis in Masculinity,” locks the subject of psychoanalysis into a stranglehold with his presuppositions about the limits of history and the origins of psychoanalysis in the modern moment: “Because the theory and techniques of psychoanalysis were developed by analyzing modern men and women, psychoanalysis may be a theory of modern subjectivity rather than of subjectivity as such, and its mode of inquiry may be best suited to analyzing the phenomena of modernity” (148). Contrast this limiting and limited sense of the place of psychoanalysis in history (and the concomitant restriction of its utility expressed ironically in a volume with two major articles on premodern cultural texts!) to recent remarks in a new book by Christopher Bollas: “For thousands of years there has been an unconscious preconception of psychoanalysis. We [...] human beings [...] have been searching for... (shrink)

N’y eut-il pas de femmes artistes dans le symbolisme? Le plus souvent oubliées, ces actrices du mouvement du passage du siècle refont progressivement surface à travers les illustrations et les récits de cet ouvrage. Revendiquant l’apport des études culturelles et des gender studies, Charlotte Foucher Zarmanian exhume ce « symbolisme enfoui » (p. 13), point aveugle de l’historiographie des symbolistes comme de celle des femmes artistes. Elle y condense les résultats d’une thèse en histoire de...

A definition of a property P is impredicative if it quantifies over a domain to which P belongs. Due to influential arguments by Ramsey and Gödel, impredicative mathematics is often thought to possess special metaphysical commitments. It seems that an impredicative definition of a property P does not have the intended meaning unless P already exists, suggesting that the existence of P cannot depend on its explicit definition. Carnap (1937 [1934], p. 164) argues, however, that accepting impredicative definitions amounts to (...) choosing a "form of language" and is free from metaphysical implications. This paper explains this view in its historical context. I discuss the development of Carnap’s thought on the foundations of mathematics from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, concluding with an account of Carnap’s (1937 [1934]) non-Platonistic defense of impredicativity. This discussion is also important for understanding Carnap’s influential views on ontology more generally, since Carnap’s (1937 [1934]) view, according to which accepting impredicative definitions amounts to choosing a "form of language", is an early precursor of the view Carnap presents in "Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology" (1956 [1950]), according to which referring to abstract entities amounts to accepting a "linguistic framework". (shrink)

We show that base matrices for P(ω)∕fin of regular height larger than h necessarily have maximal branches that are not cofinal. The same holds for base matrices of height h if tSpoiler

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We investigate maximal free sequences in the Boolean algebra \ {/}\text {fin}\), as defined by Monk :593–610, 2011). We provide some information on the general structure of these objects and we are particularly interested in the minimal cardinality of a free sequence, a cardinal characteristic of the continuum denoted \. Answering a question of Monk, we demonstrate the consistency of \. In fact, this consistency is demonstrated in the model of Shelah for \ :433–443, 1992). Our paper provides a streamlined (...) and mostly self contained presentation of this construction. (shrink)

We investigate maximal free sequences in the Boolean algebra \ {/}\text {fin}\), as defined by Monk :593–610, 2011). We provide some information on the general structure of these objects and we are particularly interested in the minimal cardinality of a free sequence, a cardinal characteristic of the continuum denoted \. Answering a question of Monk, we demonstrate the consistency of \. In fact, this consistency is demonstrated in the model of Shelah for \ :433–443, 1992). Our paper provides a streamlined (...) and mostly self contained presentation of this construction. (shrink)

We investigate maximal free sequences in the Boolean algebra \ {/}\text {fin}\), as defined by Monk :593–610, 2011). We provide some information on the general structure of these objects and we are particularly interested in the minimal cardinality of a free sequence, a cardinal characteristic of the continuum denoted \. Answering a question of Monk, we demonstrate the consistency of \. In fact, this consistency is demonstrated in the model of Shelah for \ :433–443, 1992). Our paper provides a streamlined (...) and mostly self contained presentation of this construction. (shrink)

A condition, in two variants, is given such that if a property P satisfies this condition, then every logic which is at least as strong as first-order logic and can express P fails to have the compactness property. The result is used to prove that for a number of natural properties P speaking about automorphism groups or connectivity, every logic which is at least as strong as first-order logic and can express P fails to have the compactness property. The basic (...) idea underlying the results and examples presented here is that it is possible to construct a countable first-order theory T such that every model of T has a very rich automorphism group, but every finite subset T′ of T has a model which is rigid. (shrink)

Motivated by recent results and questions of Raghavan and Shelah, we present ZFC theorems on the bounding and various almost disjointness numbers, as well as on reaping and dominating families on uncountable, regular cardinals. We show that if $\kappa =\lambda ^+$ for some $\lambda \geq \omega $ and $\mathfrak {b}=\kappa ^+$ then $\mathfrak {a}_e=\mathfrak {a}_p=\kappa ^+$. If, additionally, $2^{<\lambda }=\lambda $ then $\mathfrak {a}_g=\kappa ^+$ as well. Furthermore, we prove a variety of new bounds for $\mathfrak {d}$ in terms of (...) $\mathfrak {r}$, including $\mathfrak {d}\leq \mathfrak {r}_\sigma \leq \operatorname {\mathrm {cf}}]^\omega )$, and $\mathfrak {d}\leq \mathfrak {r}$ whenever $\mathfrak {r}<\mathfrak {b}^{+\kappa }$ or $\operatorname {\mathrm {cf}})\leq \kappa $ holds. (shrink)

We study \(\kappa \) -maximal cofinitary groups for \(\kappa \) regular uncountable, \(\kappa = \kappa ^{. Revisiting earlier work of Kastermans and building upon a recently obtained higher analogue of Bell’s theorem, we show that: Any \(\kappa \) -maximal cofinitary group has \({ many orbits under the natural group action of \(S(\kappa )\) on \(\kappa \). If \(\mathfrak {p}(\kappa ) = 2^\kappa \) then any partition of \(\kappa \) into less than \(\kappa \) many sets can be realized as the (...) orbits of a \(\kappa \) -maximal cofinitary group. For any regular \(\lambda > \kappa \) it is consistent that there is a \(\kappa \) -maximal cofinitary group which is universal for groups of size \({. If we only require the group to be universal for groups of size \(\kappa \) then this follows from \(\mathfrak {p}(\kappa ) = 2^\kappa \). (shrink)

Desde o 11 de setembro de 2001, debates sobre o Islã foram intensificados, em busca de explicações plausíveis sobre os ataques terroristas ao World Trade Center. Foram colocadas em pauta, sobretudo nas mídias, nacional e internacional, hoje, uma das mais importantes fontes de informação e de construção dos nossos mundos cognitivos, questões sobre o que são os muçulmanos e o Islã. Motivada por esse cenário e pelo crescimento do número de muçulmanos no mundo, praticamente um quarto da população mundial, no (...) qual os muçulmanos por conversão também são parte, decidi observar e comparar os dois campos, Brasil e em Portugal, tomando nota das ricas relações entre religião e cultura, entre tradição e modernidade. Dois campos com diferentes procedências, vertentes religiosas, escolas de pensamento, movimentos religiosos, que resultaram não somente em diversidade, mas igualmente em semelhança, em conflito e em dilema. De onde se observa que também a diferença une todos os muçulmanos do mundo. Palavras-chave: Islã; Muçulmanos; Convertidos.Since September 11th 2001, debates over Islam have been intensified in search for plausible explanations for the terrorist attacks to the World Trade Center . Questions on what Muslims and Islam are have been at stake, above all, in the national and international media nowadays, one of the most important information sources as well as for building our cognitive worlds. Inspired by the scenario as well as by the growing number of Muslims in the world, almost a quarter of the population, included converted Muslims, I decided to observe and compare two fields, Brazil and Portugal, taking note about the richly relations between religion and culture, tradition and modernity. They are two fields with different origins, religious tendencies, schools of thought, religious movements, which have resulted not only in diversity, but also in similarity, conflict and dilemma. In observing that the difference also unites all Muslims in the world. Key words: Islam; Muslims; Converted. (shrink)

Mr B. H. Slater distinguishes between various pairs of questions: 1 Did they agree either that they would go to the pictures or that they would go out for a meal? 1 Did they agree that either they would go to the pictures or they would go out for a meal? 2 Is it known either that Jones was guilty or that Smith was guilty? 2 Is it known that either Jones was guilty or Smith was guilty? 3 Did he (...) say either that he would get the puzzle solved or that he would eat his hat? 3 Did he say that either he would get the puzzle solved or he would eat his hat? According to Slater, if we can only say ‘Yes’ to 1 or 3), then we immediately know what was agreed, namely, that either they would go to the pictures or they would go out for a meal; but if we can just say ‘Yes’ to 1 or 3), then we cannot immediately say what was agreed; all we know is that either they agreed to go to the pictures or they agreed to go out for a meal. Or, generalizing somewhat, a ‘Yes’ answer to the question ‘Did they agree that either p or q?’ tells us that they agreed that either p or q; but, with the question ‘Did they agree either that p or that q?’, while ‘Yes, they agreed that p’, and ‘Yes they agreed that q’ are possible answers , there is no answer, ‘Yes they agreed that r’, which is invariably correct, when ‘Yes’ is correct. In particular, the answer certainly cannot be ‘Yes, they agreed that p or q’. (shrink)

Several authors have recently claimed that the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties is hyperintensional, i.e., that there are cointensional properties P and Q, such that P is intrinsic, while Q is extrinsic. In this paper, I aim to defend the classical view that whenever P and Q are cointensional properties, then P and Q are either both intrinsic or both extrinsic. I first argue that the standard characterization of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction involves dependence claims: intrinsic properties are those properties (...) whose instantiation by x only depends on what x is like in itself, whereas extrinsic properties are those properties whose instantiation by x may also depend on what other individuals are like. I then consider a number of examples supposed to show that the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is hyperintensional and argue that none of them succeeds if the dependence characterization of the distinction is taken seriously. (shrink)

Let an X/Y distinction be a distinction between kinds of properties, such as the distinctions between qualitative and non-qualitative, intrinsic and extrinsic, perfectly natural and less-than-perfectly natural or dispositional and categorical properties. An X/Y distinction is hyperintensional iff there are cointensional properties P and Q, such that P is an X-property, whereas Q is a Y-property. Many accounts of metaphysical distinctions among properties presuppose that such distinctions are non-hyperintensional. In this paper, I call this presupposition into question. I develop a (...) sufficient condition for the hyperintensionality of X/Y distinctions and argue that this condition is satisfied by a number of standard classifications of properties. It follows that non-hyperintensional analyses of distinctions among properties are harder to defend than is often assumed. (shrink)

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to (...) engage in “reflective” thinking. (shrink)

Is behavioral integration a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from over 5,000 people across 26 samples, spanning 22 countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we argue that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, nonlinguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we (...) take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology. (shrink)

We show that Miller partition forcing preserves selective independent families and P-points, which implies the consistency of $\mbox {cof}(\mathcal {N})=\mathfrak {a}=\mathfrak {u}=\mathfrak {i}<\mathfrak {a}_T=\omega _2$. In addition, we show that Shelah’s poset for destroying the maximality of a given maximal ideal preserves tight mad families and so we establish the consistency of $\mbox {cof}(\mathcal {N})=\mathfrak {a}=\mathfrak {i}=\omega _1<\mathfrak {u}=\mathfrak {a}_T=\omega _2$.

Background: A short version of the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale comprising only re-experiencing symptom items has been recently validated on Japanese adults. This short-version-PDS had good psychometric properties among Japanese adults with and without posttraumatic stress disorder. The aim of this study was to translate and culturally validate the short-version-PDS for the Brazilian sociolinguistic context.Methods: A translation of the short-version-PDS was performed based on established guidelines. We enrolled 53 patients with PTSD as a potential comorbidity. The translation and cross-cultural adaptation of (...) the short-version-PDS included forward and back-translation by a Japanese Brazilian researcher and a certified translator; synthesis was achieved by consensus, backward translation, pilot test, and finalization. Content validity coefficient was used to assess quality of adaptation. Internal consistency was calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Spearman correlations were between the new short-version-PDS and the Brazilian version of the posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5, and a receiver operating characteristic curve was used to determine the best cut-off values for the short-version-PDS.Results: The short-version-PDS was well accepted by all subjects, none of the questions were experienced as inappropriate, and all questions of the 3 items were judged important. Item 1 presented CVCt = 0.92; item 2 had a CVCt = 0.87 and item 3 had a CVCt = 0.95. The internal consistency of the final version as measured by Cronbach's alpha was 0.78. The short-version-PDS scale correlated positively with the DSM-5 scale with a Spearman rho of 0.64 (95%CI [0.4-0.8], p 31.0 with sensitivity and specificity are 86.4 and 93.5%, respectively.Conclusions: This Brazilian Portuguese version of the short-version-PDS had good psychometric properties among Brazilian adults with and without PTSD. Transferability and generalizability of the cut-off scores should be further analyzed. (shrink)

Gesellschaftliche Veränderungen in grossem Massstab, von der Pluralisierung der Gesellschaft, der Digitalisierung, die als Vierte Kulturtechnik bezeichnet wird, bis hin zur Widerfahrnis von Kontingenzen wie Armut und Flüchtlingsströmen oder Umweltkatastrophen, stellen die Verantwortungsfähigkeit des Menschen vor neue Herausforderungen. Es wird dabei deutlich: Humanität und Vernunft, Würde und Freiheit verdanken ihren Gehalt und ihre Gestalt einem die Vernunft selbst übersteigenden Transzendenten, in dem die Vernunft je und je ihres eigenen Grundes ansichtig werden kann. Dass dieses Verhältnis zwischen Vernunft und ihrem transzendenten (...) Grund alle Wissens- und Lebensbereiche durchdringt, zeigen die interdisziplinären Beiträge dieses Bandes, die Fragen der Weltentstehung und Anthropologie, der Logik und Mystik, des Glaubens und des Gottesbildes, des Sinns und der Religion, der Gottesdienstpraxis und der Architektur behandeln. (shrink)

Health care often involves ethically difficult situations that may disquiet the conscience. The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire for identifying various perceptions of conscience within a framework based on the literature and on explorative interviews about perceptions of conscience (Perceptions of Conscience Questionnaire). The questionnaire was tested on a sample of 444 registered nurses, enrolled nurses, nurses’ assistants and physicians. The data were analysed using principal component analysis to explore possible dimensions of perceptions of conscience. The (...) results showed six dimensions, found also in theory and empirical health care studies. Conscience was perceived as authority, a warning signal, demanding sensitivity, an asset, a burden and depending on culture. We conclude that the Perceptions of Conscience Questionnaire is valid for assessing some perceptions of conscience relevant to health care providers. (shrink)

Incest is a crime in most societies. In the United States, incest is punishable in almost every state with sentences going as far as 20 and 30 years in prison, and even a life sentence. Yet the reasons traditionally proffered in justification of criminalization of incest—respecting religion and universal tradition; avoiding genetic abnormalities; protecting the family unit; preventing sexual abuse and sexual imposition; and precluding immorality—at a close examination, reveal their under- and over-inclusiveness, inconsistency or outright inadequacy. It appears that (...) the true reason behind the long history of the incest laws is the feeling of repulsion and disgust this tabooed practice tends to evoke in the majority of population. However, in the absence of wrongdoing, neither a historic taboo nor the sense of repulsion and disgust legitimizes criminalization of an act. (shrink)

We show that in the Maxwell–Lorentz theory of classical electrodynamics most initial values for fields and particles lead to an ill-defined dynamics, as they exhibit singularities or discontinuities along light-cones. This phenomenon suggests that the Maxwell equations and the Lorentz force law ought rather to be read as a system of delay differential equations, that is, differential equations that relate a function and its derivatives at different times. This mathematical reformulation, however, leads to physical and philosophical consequences for the ontological (...) status of the electromagnetic field. In particular, fields cannot be taken as independent degrees of freedom, which suggests that one should not add them to the ontology. (shrink)

Plants synthesize with photons, so we commonly say. This article on photosynthesis introduces a notion of concepts that are to be thought of as capital and yet natural. They constitute a metaphysics of meteora alloys and copiousness through “actively lacking” a “proper” notion of conception.

Many arguments have been made against gene editing. This paper addresses the commonly invoked argument that gene editing violates human dignity and is ultimately a subversion of human nature. There are several drawbacks to this argument. Above all, the concept of what human dignity means is unclear. It is not possible to condemn a practice that violates human dignity if we do not know exactly what is being violated. The argument’s entire reasoning is thus undermined. Analyses of the arguments involved (...) in this discussion have often led to the conclusion that gene editing contravenes the principle of genetic identity (genetic immutability) thereby subverting a requisite of human dignity and ultimately threatening human nature. This paper refutes these arguments and shows that any opposition to gene editing cannot rely on the human dignity argument. (shrink)

The defense of necessity, also known as the “choice of evils,” reflects popular moral intuitions and common sense: sometimes, breaking the rules is the right—indeed, the only—thing to do in order to avoid a greater evil. Citing a classic example, mountain climbers may break into a cabin to wait out a deadly snow storm and appropriate the owner’s provisions because their property violations are a lesser evil compared to the loss of life. At the same time, this defense contradicts the (...) fundamental principles of criminal responsibility in that it authorizes violation of rights of innocent bystanders. By allowing the mountain climbers to override the property rights of the cabin owner, the defense effectively forbids the cabin owner to use force in response—a different rule would perpetuate violence. This outcome is at odds with the basic criminal law doctrines. There is no general duty to rescue in Anglo-American law. Yet, by forbidding the cabin owner to use force, the defense of necessity essentially imposes on him the duty to forego his interests in favor of those of the mountain climbers. The paper explores the origins and boundaries of the defense of necessity. It argues that the existing public and private theories of necessity are unsatisfactory and concludes that a viable theory of necessity should be able to explain why it is sometimes permissible to override individual rights of citizens without their consent or fault. (shrink)

In this article, I try to go beyond the traditional objections to strict liability public welfare offenses and confront other possible justifications for punishing non-culpable conduct. Specifically, I consider the following arguments:Penalties for public welfare offenses are punishment by name only, thus traditional justifications for punishment are not needed;Even if those penalties are punishment, punishing those who produce or threaten significant harm to others is not necessarily unjust; andEven if such punishment is not entirely just, it is consistent with other (...) widely accepted criminal law doctrines. (shrink)

Il metodo indiziario pone l’investigatore di fronte a un caso esemplare. Quest’ultimo, sulla scorta di indizi rivelatori, permette di rileggere la realtà, formulando ipotesi euristiche che accrescono le nostre competenze conoscitive. Lo aveva ben inteso Peirce teorizzando la cosiddetta inferenza ipotetica; ma, come ricorda Ginzburg, anche Freud, nei suoi studi su Michelangelo, aveva tematizzato come il metodo psicoanalitico, attraverso la sua vocazione allo studio dei dettagli (gli scarti obliati della coscienza), si avvicini ai fenomeni abduttivi tipici delle detection stories, mediante (...) cui si portano allo scoperto le reali operazioni subliminali della coscienza. Assai significativo è che qualcosa di analogo avvenga anche nella produzione fantascientifica di P.K. Dick: i suoi romanzi, al cospetto delle falle, delle incongruenze della logica sociale imperante, sono delle efficaci retroduzioni attraverso cui la realtà del quotidiano si rivela come una grande fantasmagoria mercificata; mentre i mondi immaginifici partoriti dalla mente dello scrittore si mostrano come proiezioni distopiche della realtà politica americana. Questa riscoperta, che si fonda sull’effetto sorpresa prodotto dal caso anomalo (inteso quale sintomo rivelatore), come avviene in modo esemplare nel romanzo Time Out of Joint, può essere intesa come il risultato di una vera e propria “critica dell’informazione spuria”. Critica dell’ideologia, realismo e Science Fiction qui trovano una sorprendente alleanza, che fa di Dick un autore tutt’altro che disimpegnato o impolitico. (shrink)

The aim of this Swedish study was to develop the concept of moral sensitivity in health care practice. This process began with an overview of relevant theories and perspectives on ethics with a focus on moral sensitivity and related concepts, in order to generate a theoretical framework. The second step was to construct a questionnaire based on this framework by generating a list of items from the theoretical framework. Nine items were finally selected as most appropriate and consistent with the (...) research team’s understanding of the concept of moral sensitivity. The items were worded as assumptions related to patient care. The questionnaire was distributed to two groups of health care personnel on two separate occasions and a total of 278 completed questionnaires were returned. A factor analysis identified three factors: sense of moral burden, moral strength and moral responsibility. These seem to be conceptually interrelated yet indicate that moral sensitivity may involve more dimensions than simply a cognitive capacity, particularly, feelings, sentiments, moral knowledge and skills. (shrink)

A claim made by Buddhist or Buddhism-affine scholars such as Michael LaTorra and James Hughes is that transhumanism, neuroscience, and the teachings of Buddhism are compatible because they aim to alleviate suffering and pain and attain a stable state of happiness. This claim can be challenged. At first glance, the approach seems valid, because since the 1980s there have been dialogues and scientific collaborations with representatives of Tibetan Buddhism and scientists on the topics of neuroscience, consciousness, ethics and technology, and (...) in this context new interpretations of Buddhist thought have emerged such as ‘Buddhist modernism’ (E. Thompson). In this discussion note, however, two main arguments are advanced as to why the claim and terminology of Buddhist transhumanism are difficult to reconcile with Buddhist terminology, values, and methods: (1) the difference between the use of such methods as meditation and contemplation and the application of so-called human enhancement technologies (2) and differences concerning self-understanding in Western science and Buddhism. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of Super-Humeanism, the world’s mosaic consists only of permanent matter points and changing spatial relations, while all the other entities and features figuring in scientific theories are nomological parameters, whose role is merely to build the best law system. In this paper, I develop an argument against Super-Humeanism by pointing out that it is vulnerable to and does not have the resources to solve the well-known problem of immanent comparisons. Firstly, I show that it cannot endorse (...) a fundamentalist solution à la Lewis, since its two pillars—a minimalist ontology and a best system account of lawhood—would generate, together, a tedious problem of internal coherence. Secondly, I consider anti-fundamentalist strategies, proposed within Humeanism, and find them inapplicable to the Super-Humean doctrine. The concern is that, since it is impossible to choose the best law system within Super-Humeanism, this doctrine may be charged with incoherence. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss whether the results of loop quantum gravity (LQG) constitute a fatal blow to Humeanism. There is at least a prima facie reason for believing so: while Humeanism regards spatiotemporal relations as fundamental, LQG describes the fundamental layer of our reality in terms of spin networks, which are not in spacetime. However, the question should be tackled more carefully. After explaining the importance of the debate on the tenability of Humeanism in light of LQG, and having (...) presented the Humean doctrine, I review two cases which present serious threats to Humeanism, one concerning the fundamentality of vectorial quantities and the other concerning quantum entanglement. In particular, I recall the strategies that are usually employed in these two cases in order to save Humeanism: in the first case, the strategy consists in amending the characterization of the Humean mosaic; in the second case, it consists in adopting a realist or nomological interpretation of the wave function. These solutions will turn out to be helpful in my discussion of LQG where, after describing LQG, I show that Humeans might save their doctrine either by endorsing a realist interpretation of spin networks, or by giving them a nomological status and, at the same time, by revisiting the characterization of the Humean mosaic. However, I conclude that both solutions are wanting. (shrink)