Society is the ensemble/the whole of the relations with the others, it is their form based on the natural needs : the perpetuation of the species, the playful expression, the language, the thinking, the communication, the inter-subjectivity report. In the evolution of psychology of human development, sport contributes to the improvement of the body in relation to the environment; of the cognitive, moral development of language, that of complex skills, sensory integrations, games with body schematics, which mobilize self-awareness and structure (...) through learning and experience. Thus, social and communication behaviours generate a mutually advantageous social repertoire. (shrink)

Health Recommender Systems are promising Articial-Intelligence-based tools endowing healthy lifestyles and therapy adherence in healthcare and medicine. Among the most supported areas, it is worth mentioning active aging. However, current HRS supporting AA raise ethical challenges that still need to be properly formalized and explored. This study proposes to rethink HRS for AA through an autonomy-based ethical analysis. In particular, a brief overview of the HRS’ technical aspects allows us to shed light on the ethical risks and challenges they might (...) raise on individuals’ well-being as they age. Moreover, the study proposes a categorization, understanding, and possible preventive/mitigation actions for the elicited risks and challenges through rethinking the AI ethics core principle of autonomy. Finally, elaborating on autonomy-related ethical theories, the paper proposes an autonomy-based ethical framework and how it can foster the development of autonomy-enabling HRS for AA. (shrink)

Residual confounding is a common source of bias in observational studies. In this article, we build upon a series of sensitivity analyses methods for residual confounding developed by Brumback et al. and Chiba whose sensitivity parameters are constructed to quantify deviation from conditional exchangeability, given measured confounders. These sensitivity parameters are combined with the observed data to produce a “bias-corrected” estimate of the causal effect of interest. We provide important generalizations of these sensitivity analyses, by allowing for arbitrary exposures and (...) a wide range of different causal effect measures, through the specification of the target causal effect as a parameter in a generalized linear model with the arbitrary link function. We show how our generalized sensitivity analysis can be easily implemented with standard software, and how its sensitivity parameters can be calibrated against measured confounders. We demonstrate our sensitivity analysis with an application to publicly available data from a cohort study of behavior patterns and coronary heart disease. (shrink)

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to explore the association of family socioeconomic status and internal and external schoolwork support with adolescents’ school satisfaction and whether schoolwork support modifies these associations.MethodsData come from the cross-sectional Health Behavior in School-aged Children study collected in 2018 from Slovak 15-year-olds. SES was measured by Family Affluence Scale. School satisfaction was measured via school engagement and attitudes toward education. Schoolwork support was measured regarding two groups of sources inside and outside the family, separately. Logistic (...) regression models were used to explore the associations of SES and schoolwork support with school satisfaction as well as the moderating effect of schoolwork support.ResultsAdolescents with low SES were more likely to feel indifferent toward school and education, and similarly, adolescents who did not have schoolwork support inside or outside the family. Schoolwork support moderated the associations of SES with school satisfaction. Adolescents with low and middle SES without support inside or outside the family were more likely to feel indifferent than satisfied.ConclusionAdolescents from low and middle SES without schoolwork support inside or outside the family are more likely to feel indifferent toward school and education. (shrink)

I argue that disposition ascriptions—claims like ‘the glass is fragile’—are semantically equivalent to possibility claims: they are true when the given object manifests the disposition in at least one of the relevant possible worlds.

Rural community organisations (RCOs) are part of a non-governmental organisations network, an effective tool for tackling local problems and reducing growing territorial exclusion. Despite their significance, it is not fully clear how many of these organisations exist in Lithuania. This is due to several reasons: the typology of settlements in the national law (more specifically, the definition of rural areas) no longer reflects the demographic reality, and the definitions contained in the sub-legislation are ‘manipulated’. In the context of the activities (...) of RCO, this is a flawed practice as it slows down the empowerment of the existing potential of organisations. The article presents the issue of the RCO network as well as addresses the problem of the typology of the settlement system itself. Adapting the research practice opens a scientific debate to launch a search for answers to emerging problems. (shrink)

Eye movements during mental imagery are not epiphenomenal but assist the process of image generation. Commands to the eyes for each fixation are stored along with the visual representation and are used as spatial index in a motor‐based coordinate system for the proper arrangement of parts of an image. In two experiments, subjects viewed an irregular checkerboard or color pictures of fish and were subsequently asked to form mental images of these stimuli while keeping their eyes open. During the perceptual (...) phase, a group of subjects was requested to maintain fixation onto the screen's center, whereas another group was free to inspect the stimuli. During the imagery phase, all of these subjects were free to move their eyes. A third group of subjects (in Experiment 2) was free to explore the pattern but was requested to maintain central fixation during imagery. For subjects free to explore the pattern, the percentage of time spent fixating a specific location during perception was highly correlated with the time spent on the same (empty) locations during imagery. The order of scanning of these locations during imagery was correlated to the original order during perception. The strength of relatedness of these scanpaths and the vividness of each image predicted performance accuracy. Subjects who fixed their gaze centrally during perception did the same spontaneously during imagery. Subjects free to explore during perception, but maintaining central fixation during imagery, showed decreased ability to recall the pattern. We conclude that the eye scanpaths during visual imagery reenact those of perception of the same visual scene and that they play a functional role. (shrink)

In this article we intend to present Alvin Plantinga’s epistemology by showing the way in which its central concepts: the Reidian foundationalism, the partial critique of evidentialism, warrant, proper function, reliability and externalism - are logically interrelated. A section of this article is reserved to the critiques of his account of warrant brought by Peter Klein and Richard Feldman and to the way in which Plantinga answered them, by developing the concepts of cognitive maxi- and mini-environment. In the end we (...) will see the way in which Plantinga’s epistemology relates to both modernism and postmodernism. (shrink)

Recent advances in machine learning methods have created opportunities to eliminate unfairness from algorithmic decision making. Multiple computational techniques (i.e., algorithmic fairness criteria) have arisen out of this work. Yet, urgent questions remain about the perceived fairness of these criteria and in which situations organizations should use them. In this paper, we seek to gain insight into these questions by exploring fairness perceptions of five algorithmic criteria. We focus on two key dimensions of fairness evaluations: distributive fairness and procedural fairness. (...) We shed light on variation in the potential for different algorithmic criteria to facilitate distributive fairness. Subsequently, we discuss procedural fairness and provide a framework for understanding how algorithmic criteria relate to essential aspects of this construct, which helps to identify when a specific criterion is suitable. From a practical standpoint, we encourage organizations to recognize that managing fairness in machine learning systems is complex, and that adopting a blind or one-size-fits-all mentality toward algorithmic criteria will surely damage people’s attitudes and trust in automated technology. Instead, firms should carefully consider the subtle yet significant differences between these technical solutions. (shrink)

The Birth of the Philologist from the Spirit of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy. Nietzsche’s Inaugural Lecture On the Personality of Homer. This essay highlights Schopenhauer’s decisive and unexplored role in Nietzsche’s Über die Persönlichkeit Homers. Following Schopenhauer’s negative assessment of the study of history, Nietzsche criticizes F. A. Wolf’s organic systematization of the sciences of antiquity and foregrounds the aesthetic dimension of philology. Contrary to Wolf, Nietzsche believes that historical investigation is subordinate to the essential pedagogical function of philology; and only through (...) its aesthetic component can philology establish which literary works of antiquity are to be considered truly “classical.” The debate on the Homeric question after the publication of Wolf’s Prolegomena ad Homerum illustrates that philologists have paradoxically become opponents and “destroyers” of the ideal of antiquity. Nietzsche shows how a methodological approach inspired by Schopenhauer’s philosophy can revive the relationship between philology and art. Nietzsche’s arguments to counter Wolf’s thesis about the problem of Homer’s personality implicitly rest on Schopenhauer’s aesthetics. In particular, through Schopenhauer’s conception of genius, Nietzsche rehabilitates the individuality of the poetic author of the Iliad and Odyssey, even though this poet does not correspond to the one referred to as “Homer” in antiquity. (shrink)

There are some arguments supporting the pessimistic meta-induction, coming from the direction of quantum theory (A. Kukla and J. Walmsley), from the direction of Laudan’s list with successful but false theories, and from the specific direction of the phlogiston theory (whom Kukla Walmsley, and S. Psillos consider to be false). Against these arguments we believe we can successfully oppose, in the first case the interactive quantum realism of I. Niiniluoto, in the second case the realism of the theoretical theoretical constituents (...) responsible for the empirical success of the theories of S. Psillos, and in the third case the analysis of the phlogiston theory done by V. Verronen, R. Vihalemm and E. McMullin (who suggested that this theory was simultaneously insufficiently mature and approximately true). Our conclusion does not necessary prove that the perspective of the scientific realism is true, but rather that the pessimistic meta-induction attack against it proves to be unconvincing. (shrink)

Fairness is one of the most prominent values in the Ethics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) debate and, specifically, in the discussion on algorithmic decision-making (ADM). However, while the need for fairness in ADM is widely acknowledged, the very concept of fairness has not been sufficiently explored so far. Our paper aims to fill this gap and claims that an ethically informed re-definition of fairness is needed to adequately investigate fairness in ADM. To achieve our goal, after an introductory section aimed (...) at clarifying the aim and structure of the paper, in section “Fairness in algorithmic decision-making” we provide an overview of the state of the art of the discussion on fairness in ADM and show its shortcomings; in section “Fairness as an ethical value”, we pursue an ethical inquiry into the concept of fairness, drawing insights from accounts of fairness developed in moral philosophy, and define fairness as an ethical value. In particular, we argue that fairness is articulated in a distributive and socio-relational dimension; it comprises three main components: fair equality of opportunity, equal right to justification, and fair equality of relationship; these components are grounded in the need to respect persons both as persons and as particular individuals. In section “Fairness in algorithmic decision-making revised”, we analyze the implications of our redefinition of fairness as an ethical value on the discussion of fairness in ADM and show that each component of fairness has profound effects on the criteria that ADM ought to meet. Finally, in section “Concluding remarks”, we sketch some broader implications and conclude. (shrink)

A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition from organisms that lacked consciousness to those with consciousness—to minimal subjective experiencing, or, as Aristotle described it, “the sensitive soul”? In this book, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka propose a new theory about the origin of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the transition to basic consciousness. Using (...) a methodology similar to that used by scientists when they identified the transition from non-life to life, Ginsburg and Jablonka suggest a set of criteria, identify a marker for the transition to minimal consciousness, and explore the far-reaching biological, psychological, and philosophical implications. After presenting the historical, neurobiological, and philosophical foundations of their analysis, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose that the evolutionary marker of basic or minimal consciousness is a complex form of associative learning, which they term unlimited associative learning (UAL). UAL enables an organism to ascribe motivational value to a novel, compound, non-reflex-inducing stimulus or action, and use it as the basis for future learning. Associative learning, Ginsburg and Jablonka argue, drove the Cambrian explosion and its massive diversification of organisms. Finally, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose symbolic language as a similar type of marker for the evolutionary transition to human rationality—to Aristotle's “rational soul.”. (shrink)

The Exclusion Problem for mental causation suggests that there is a tension between the claim that the mental causes physical effects, and the claim that the mental does not overdetermine its physical effects. In response, Karen Bennett puts forward an extra necessary condition for overdetermination : if one candidate cause were to occur but the other were not to occur, the effect would still occur. She thus denies one of the assumptions of EP, the assumption that if an effect has (...) two sufficient causes, it is overdetermined. If sound, her argument does two things: it solves EP, and it shows how to use counterfactuals in order to make the notion of overdetermination precise. However, the argument is not sound. (shrink)

The introduction of Linear Logic extends the Curry-Howard Isomorphism to intensional aspects of the typed functional programming. In particular, every formula of Linear Logic tells whether the term it is a type for, can be either erased/duplicated or not, during a computation. So, Linear Logic can be seen as a model of a computational environment with an explicit control about the management of resources.This paper introduces a typed functional language ! and a categorical model for it.

We discuss the evolutionary transition from animals with limited experiencing to animals with unlimited experiencing and basic consciousness. This transition was, we suggest, intimately linked with the evolution of associative learning and with flexible reward systems based on, and modifiable by, learning. During associative learning, new pathways relating stimuli and effects are formed within a highly integrated and continuously active nervous system. We argue that the memory traces left by such new stimulus-effect relations form dynamic, flexible, and varied global sensory (...) states, which we call categorizing sensory states . These CSSs acquired a function: they came to act as internal “evaluators” and led to positive and negative reinforcement of new behavior. They are therefore the simplest, distinct, first-person motivational states that an animal can have. They constitute what we call basic consciousness, and are the hallmark of animals that can experience. Since associative learning has been found in many invertebrate taxa that first appeared during the Cambrian era, we propose that the processes underlying basic consciousness are phylogenetically ancient, and that their emergence may have fueled the Cambrian explosion. (shrink)

This is the first of two papers in which we propose an evolutionary route for the transition from sensory processing to unlimited experiencing, or basic consciousness. We argue that although an evolutionary analysis does not provide a formal definition and set of sufficient conditions for consciousness, it can identify crucial factors and suggest what evolutionary changes enabled the transition. We believe that the raw material from which feelings were molded by natural selection was a global sensory state that we call (...) overall sensation, which is a by-product of the incessant activity of the highly interconnected nervous systems that characterize all neural animals. We argue that global sensory states generated limited experiencing once they became coupled to the simplest kinds of nervous-system-mediated learning, a coupling that occurred in the most ancient taxa of neural animals, which were similar to present-day cnidarians and ctenophores. In such animals, limited experiencing involves a small number of persistent global sensory states. These sensory states, however, do not have a function and do not act as motivational states. As we argue in the next paper, with the evolution of associative learning they evolved into systems that gave animals basic consciousness. (shrink)

Hegel’s philosophy had a decisive role in the development of Eugen Fink’s thought, by suggesting the conceptual means to elaborate a third phenomenological paradigm beyond Husserl and Heidegger. In particular, this applies to the cosmological ontology that Fink developed after World War II, aimed at overcoming metaphysics while combining ontology with the rigorous method of phenomenology and a cosmological interpretation of being. In this regard, Hegel appeared to Fink as the first Western philosopher who had conceived the ground of beings (...) without basing on ontic models, that is, as dynamical genesis of the structure of the world and human experience. The aim of the paper is to deepen Fink’s interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy and to show how (and to what extent) Hegel is not a metaphysical thinker in this perspective. What is Hegel’s conception of being? Fink’s work Sein und Mensch provides responses to this question. (shrink)

Today, the persistence of infantile attitudes into adulthood seems to have become a way of life associated with enjoyment and the renunciation of social obligations. Contemporary society, crossed by the emotional culture of Social Media, favors the example of parents who are friends with their children, of teachers who are enemies of their parents and of young people who are far from authority and traditional morality. Distances between parents and children and between teachers and pupils are eliminated. Today's adolescent is (...) represented with the image of Narcissus because within the affective family he grows up with the idea that success is the goal for achieving happiness and personal satisfaction. What future prospects can you imagine for young people? How to tackle adult frailty? The pedagogical debate could reflect on new educational systems that concern the affective and relational dimension of young people and the orientation skills of adults. By accepting the new needs of young people, adults could carry out that progressive process of affectivity, the acceptance of new educational, affective and relational functions. (shrink)

The introduction of Linear Logic extends the Curry-Howard Isomorphism to intensional aspects of the typed functional programming. In particular, every formula of Linear Logic tells whether the term it is a type for, can be either erased/duplicated or not, during a computation. So, Linear Logic can be seen as a model of a computational environment with an explicit control about the management of resources.This paper introduces a typed functional language Λ! and a categorical model for it.The terms of Λ! encode (...) a version of natural deduction for Intuitionistic Linear Logic such that linear and non linear assumptions are managed multiplicatively and additively, respectively. Correspondingly, the terms of Λ! are built out of two disjoint sets of variables. Moreover, the λ-abstractions of Λ! bind variables and patterns. The use of two different kinds of variables and the patterns allow a very compact definition of the one-step operational semantics of Λ!, unlike all other extensions of Curry-Howard Isomorphism to Intuitionistic Linear Logic. The language Λ! is Church-Rosser and enjoys both Strong Normalizability and Subject Reduction.The categorical model induces operational equivalences like, for example, a set of extensional equivalences.The paper presents also an untyped version of Λ! and a type assignment for it, using formulas of Linear Logic as types. The type assignment inherits from Λ! all the good computational properties and enjoys also the Principal-Type Property. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility research has focused often on the business returns of corporate social initiatives but less on their possible social returns. We study an actual company–consumer partnership CSR initiative promoting ecologically correct and conscious consumption of bottled mineral water. We conduct a survey on adult consumers to test the hypotheses that consumer skepticism toward the company–consumer partnership CSR initiative and the moral emotion of elevation mediate the relationship between company CSR motives perceived by consumers and consumer behavioral responses following (...) this CSR initiative. Favorable consumer behavioral responses, in turn, relate positively to consumer support of other green products. The results provide scholars and managers with means of improving their understanding and handling of company–consumer partnership CSR initiatives. (shrink)

The scientific study of consciousness or subjective experiencing is a rapidly expanding research program engaging philosophers of mind, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neurobiologists, evolutionary biologists and biosemioticians. Here we outline an evolutionary approach that we have developed over the last two decades, focusing on the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to minimally conscious, subjectively experiencing organisms. We propose that the evolution of subjective experiencing was driven by the evolution of learning and we identify an open-ended, representational, generative and recursive form of associative (...) learning, which we call Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL), as an evolutionary transition marker of minimal consciousness. This evolutionary marker provides evidence that the evolutionary transition to consciousness has gone to completion and allows reverse-engineering from this learning capacity to the system that enables it – making possible the construction of a toy model of UAL. The model allows us to identify some of the key processes and structures that constitute minimal consciousness, points its taxonomic distribution and the ecological context in which it first emerged, highlights its function and suggests a framework for exploring developmental and evolutionary modifications of consciousness. We point to ways of experimentally testing the relationship between UAL and consciousness in human and in non-human animals and discuss the theoretical and ethical implications of our approach. The framework we offer allows the exploration of the evolutionary changes in agency, value systems, selective processes and goals that were involved in the transition to subjective experiencing from a perspective that resonates with the approaches of bio-semioticians. (shrink)

The basic thesis of this paper is that communication is a fundamental activity of all human practices and that identity is constructed with the help of communication. Defining identity cannot be explained and understood exclusively from the standpoint of philosophy, sociology, political science or psychology. Given that the Latin root of the word communication, communio, refers to community, we can say that communication as a science best covers the relationships that people establish within the community such as schools, families, work (...) environment, social networks and forums. The activity of communication is the establishment of a community, i.e., sociability. To communicate means to unite something - to bring one?s actions into harmony with the community and with social life. In that sense, communication is in its essence a transition from the individual to the collective. In addition, any specific form of communication depends on the wider cultural and socio-political environment in which modern people operate. This paper aims to explore the impact of technology on individual identity, to answer questions about whether robots can have the same characteristics as personalities, and whether, and in what way, machines have an impact on people. The reason for asking such questions is the decision of the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament to pass a law that will grant autonomous robots the status of?electronic personalities?. (shrink)

The historical investigation of the patterns of secularization entails the analysis of a complex dimension with a variety of different levels: religious, mental, intellectual, cultural, social, and political. The great divisions within Christianity produced in the second millennium would give birth to many different religious Europes and to many different ways of living among Christians. If secularization meant turning from the sky to worldly affairs, secularization meant the separation of the Christian religions and churches from the political and institutional practices (...) that brought about new ways of thinking about the sacred. In this context, multidisciplinary research analyzes great continuities, but also breaking points, strong points but also weak ones, from which historical societies have suffered. (shrink)

As long as we care about suffering in the world, says political philosopher Simona Forti, we are compelled to inquire into the question of evil. But is the concept of evil still useful in a postmodern landscape where absolute values have been leveled and relativized by a historicist perspective? Given our current unwillingness to judge others, what signposts remain to guide our ethical behavior? Surveying the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western philosophical debates on evil, Forti concludes that it is time (...) to leave behind what she calls "the Dostoevsky paradigm": the dualistic vision of an omnipotent monster pitted against absolute, helpless victims. No longer capable of grasping the normalization of evil in today's world—whose structures of power have been transformed—this paradigm has exhausted its explanatory force. In its place, Forti offers a different genealogy of the relationship between evil and power, one that finally calls into question power's recurrent link to transgression. At the center of contemporary evil she posits the passive attitude towards rule-following, the need for normalcy, and the desire for obedience nurtured by our contemporary mass democracies. In our times, she contends, evil must be explored in tandem with our stubborn desire to stay alive at all costs as much as with our deep need for recognition: the new modern absolutes. A courageous book, New Demons extends an original, inspiring call to ethical living in a biopolitical age. (shrink)

A demographic revolution is taking place in Europe and worldwide. According to World Health Organization estimates, the number of people aged 60 and over is growing faster than any other age group. This change in the population structure affects disease patterns and is deemed to cause an increase in the demands on healthcare systems. This raises concerns about the ethics of healthcare delivery . What criteria should direct healthcare distribution? Is it right to meet the demands of an ageing population, (...) to the detriment of the younger strata of population? a. (shrink)

A new trend in the production technology of solid biof uels has appeared. There is a wide consensus that most solid biofuels will be produced according to the new production methods within a few years. Numerous samples were manufactured from agro-residues according to conventional methods as well as new methods. Robust analyses that reviewed the hygienic, environmental, financial and ethical aspects were performed. The hygienic and environmental aspect was assessed by robust chemical and technical analyses. The financial aspect was assessed (...) by energy cost breakdown. The ethical point of view was built on the above stated findings, the survey questionnaire and critical discussion with the literature. It is concluded that the new production methods are significantly favourable from both the hygienic and environmental points of view. Financial indicators do not allow the expressing of any preference. Regarding the ethical aspect, it is concluded that the new methods are beneficial in terms of environmental responsibility. However, it showed that most of the customers that took part in the survey are price oriented and therefore they tend to prefer the cheaper—conventional alternative. In the long term it can be assumed that expansion of the new technology and competition among manufacturers will reduce the costs. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 55-78.