It has been claimed that Massimi’s recent perspectival approach to science sits in tension with a realist stance. I shall argue that this tension can be defused in the quantum context by recasting Massimi’s perspectivalism within a phenomenological framework. I shall begin by indicating how the different but complementary forms of the former are manifested in the distinction between certain so-called ‘-epistemic’ and ‘-ontic’ understandings of quantum mechanics, namely QBism and Relational Quantum Mechanics, respectively. A brief consideration of Dieks’ perspectivism (...) will then lead to a consideration of the much-maligned and typically dismissed role of the observer in the measurement process. This opens the door to London and Bauer’s presentation of a form of ‘phenomenological quantum perspectivalism’ that brings together Massimi’s two forms and explicitly eschews the ‘naïve’ realism that creates the above tension. I shall conclude with some reflections on how intersubjectivity can still be established within this framework, focusing in particular on how Massimi’s idea of ‘interlacing’ scientific perspectives can be accommodated, using the example of a ‘new cosmopolitanism’ that gave rise to Bose-Einstein statistics. (shrink)

In the only two articles on the topic of which I am aware, Chad Carlson and Scott Aikin have leveled three objections against fantasy sports—namely, that participation in fantasy sports elicits...

Plato Plato (427-347 BC) is surely the most famous of all philosophers. Little is known of his early life, except that he was born into a noble Athenian ...

Weinberg's 1972 work, in his description, had two purposes. The first was practical to bring together and assess the wealth of data provided over the previous decade while realizing that newer data would come in even as the book was being printed. He hoped the comprehensive picture would prepare the reader and himself to that new data as it emerged. The second was to produce a textbook about general relativity in which geometric ideas were not given a starring role for (...) (in his words) too great an emphasis on geometry can only obscure the deep connections between gravitation and the rest of physics. (shrink)

We investigate the question of whether one can characterize complexity classes in terms of efficient reducibility to the set of Kolmogorov-random strings . This question arises because and , and no larger complexity classes are known to be reducible to in this way. We show that this question cannot be posed without explicitly dealing with issues raised by the choice of universal machine in the definition of Kolmogorov complexity. What follows is a list of some of our main results.• Although (...) Kummer showed that, for every universal machine U there is a time bound t such that the halting problem is disjunctive truth-table reducible to in time t, there is no such time bound t that suffices for every universal machine U. We also show that, for some machines U, the disjunctive reduction can be computed in as little as doubly-exponential time.• Although for every universal machine U, there are very complex sets that are -reducible to , it is nonetheless true that . • Any decidable set that is polynomial-time monotone-truth-table reducible to is in .• Any decidable set that is polynomial-time truth-table reducible to via a reduction that asks at most f queries on inputs of size n lies in. (shrink)

La dirección de Nemesio Antúnez entre 1962 y 1964, y las administraciones que le siguieron en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), son un caso ejemplar de las dinámicas político-culturales desarrolladas durante la Guerra Fría. Este artículo analiza esta gestión museal desde la historia intelectual y la historia cultural, trabajando las redes de pensamiento que rodearon a Antúnez y la disquisición entre su programación y la influencia norteamericana en ese momento, atendiendo a cómo el MAC se involucró en la guerra (...) fría cultural. De esta manera se busca aportar al conocimiento de las tramas institucionales que se dieron entre la intelectualidad periférica y los centros metropolitanos durante uno de los periodos claves del siglo XX, presentando ciertos programas expositivos que respondieron al impulso de los EE. UU. de inserción ideológica. (shrink)

Narratives have traditionally been defined as stories about real or fictional events. Several studies have reported that children with Specific Language Impairment have problems in their narrative abilities, both at a comprehensive and productive level. However, most of these studies have been carried out in preschoolers or in children in the first years of schooling and it is unknown if these difficulties remain in subsequent years. The purpose of this research was to describe the narrative performance of a group of (...) 10-year-old children with SLI and typical development and compare it with the one they exhibited at age 5.18 students with a history of SLI and 23 with typical development participated in this research. Each participant carried out a retelling task of the text “The sheep and the alien”. Each text was transcribed and analyzed through the application of the narrative complexity index of Petersen, Gillam and Gillam, adapted by Crespo et al.. The results revealed that time has an effect on narrative complexity for most of the criteria studied in both groups. Secondly, that the differences observed between the DT and SLI groups at 5 years are not maintained at 10 years and that there is a moderating effect of the fixed factor on the within-subject factor in the Temporal Markers criterion of the ICN-A. The results are discussed in light of the proposals on the evolution of the SLI. (shrink)

Consciousness is one of the most significant scientific problems today. Renewed interest in the nature of consciousness - a phenomenon long considered not to be scientifically explorable, as well as increasingly widespread availability of multimodal functional brain imaging techniques (EEG, ERP, MEG, fMRI and PET), now offer the possibility of detailed, integrated exploration of the neural, behavioral, and computational correlates of consciousness. The present volume aims to confront the latest theoretical insights in the scientific study of human consciousness with the (...) most recent behavioral, neuroimaging, electrophysiological, pharmacological and neuropathological data on brain function in altered states of consciousness such as: brain death, coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, locked-in syndrome, dementia, epilepsy, schizophrenia, hysteria, general anesthesia, sleep, hypnosis, and hallucinations. The interest of this is threefold. First, patients with altered states of consciousness continue to represent a major clinical problem in terms of clinical assessment of consciousness and daily management. Second, the exploration of brain function in altered states of consciousness represents a unique lesional approach to the scientific study of consciousness and adds to the worldwide effort to identify the "neural correlate of consciousness". Third, new scientific insights in this field have major ethical and social implications regarding our care for these patients. (shrink)

La dirección de Nemesio Antúnez entre 1962 y 1964, y las administraciones que le siguieron en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), son un caso ejemplar de las dinámicas político-culturales desarrolladas durante la Guerra Fría. Este artículo analiza esta gestión museal desde la historia intelectual y la historia cultural, trabajando las redes de pensamiento que rodearon a Antúnez y la disquisición entre su programación y la influencia norteamericana en ese momento, atendiendo a cómo el MAC se involucró en la guerra (...) fría cultural. De esta manera se busca aportar al conocimiento de las tramas institucionales que se dieron entre la intelectualidad periférica y los centros metropolitanos durante uno de los periodos claves del siglo XX, presentando ciertos programas expositivos que respondieron al impulso de los EE. UU. de inserción ideológica. (shrink)

Las frutas y hortalizas han sido siempre noticia debido principalmente a sus propiedades beneficiosas para la salud. Sin embargo, cada vez más ocupan titulares debido a su implicación en toxiinfecciones alimentarias. Por este motivo, desde 2008, las frutas y hortalizas frescas son consideradas por muchos organismos internacionales como un alimento de riesgo. Uno de los principales problemas microbiológicos de las hortalizas de hojas son las bacte­rias entéricas que pueden adherirse rápidamente al tejido durante el cultivo, coexistir con las bacterias epífitas (...) y persistir por largos periodos de tiempo. La prevalencia de microorganismos patógenos en las frutas y hortalizas es baja y la cuantificación de las bac­terias patógenas o de microorganismos indicadores generalmente muestra niveles muy bajos, lo que no justificaría el elevado número de alertas microbiológicas asociadas a este tipo de productos. Sin embargo, existen dudas sobre si los recuentos obtenidos utilizan­do las técnicas convencionales son capaces de reflejar realmente todos los microorganismos presentes en el producto vegetal, así como en el agua de riego y en el suelo. Varios estudios han demos­trado que cuando las bacterias son sometidas a distintos factores de estrés entran en un estado temporal de baja actividad metabóli­ca en el cual las células pueden persistir durante largos periodos de tiempo sin división celular, llamado estado de latencia o viable pero no cultivable. La relevancia que el estado fisiológico de las bacterias puede tener en el desarrollo de toxiinfecciones alimenta­rias causadas por las frutas y hortalizas es un tema de gran interés que está atrayendo más y más la atención de los investigadores. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the internal structure of Gandhi's ethics as a way to determine opportunities for improving that system's ability to influence behavior. In this paper, the author aims to work under the idea that a system of ethics is a guide for social responsibility. -/- Design/methodology/approach – The data source is Gandhi's set of ethics as described by Naess. These simple (primarily quantitative) studies compare the concepts within the code of ethics, and (...) their relationships to one another. -/- Findings – Gandhi's ethics are robust at the 0.25 level (the scale is zero to one – zero is lowest). This is consistent with theories of the social sciences (that do not work well in practice). Gandhi's success might be ascribed to his leadership ability. -/- Research limitations/implications – Some suggest this approach is reductionist because of its superficial similarity to approaches of physical science. The implications for research are profound. First, this approach provides an objective method for comparing (and so, advancing) systems of ethics. Second, this paper suggests the opportunity to compare the internal structure of ethics with “external” aspects – the implementation of ethical systems. -/- Practical implications – By itself, Gandhi's system of ethics cannot be reliably applied in practice - it cannot be expected to change behavior more than any other system of ethics. This raises concerns about other ethical codes as well. The practical implications of the form of analysis presented in this paper are immense because it provides a way for practitioners to objectively compare two codes of ethics and determine which one will be more effective. -/- Originality/value – The approach documented in the paper has never been applied to the field of ethics. It is unique in that it addresses the “internal” structure of a system of ethics (compared to the “external”, or application, of ethical systems). (shrink)

Are liberalism and perfectionism compatible? In this study Steven Wall presents and defends a perfectionist account of political morality that takes issue with many currently fashionable liberal ideas but retains the strong liberal commitment to the ideal of personal autonomy. He begins by critically discussing the most influential version of anti-perfectionist liberalism, examining the main arguments that have been offered in its defence. He then clarifies the ideal of personal autonomy, presents an account of its value and shows that (...) a strong commitment to personal autonomy is fully compatible with an endorsement of perfectionist political action designed to promote valuable pursuits and discourage base ones. (shrink)

When creating theory to understand or implement change at the social and/or organizational level, it is generally accepted that part of the theory building process includes a process of abstraction. While the process of abstraction is well understood, it is not so well understood how abstractions “fit” together to enable the creation of better theory. Starting with a few simple ideas, this paper explores one way we work with abstractions. This exploration challenges the traditionally held importance of abstracting concepts from (...) experience. That traditional focus has been one-sided—pushing science toward the discovery of data without the balancing process that occurs with the integration of the data. Without such balance, the sciences have been pushed toward fragmentation. Instead, in the present paper, new emphasis is placed on the relationship between abstract concepts. Specifically, this paper suggests that a better theory is one that is constructed of concepts that exist on a similar level of abstraction. Suggestions are made for quantifying this claim and using the insights to enable scholars and practitioners to create more effective theory. (shrink)

A provocative argument that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the built environment. -/- Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached “the end of nature,” as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is there left to protect? In Thinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the (...) concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the “environment”—that is, the world that actually surrounds us, which is always a built world, the only one that we inhabit. We need to think not so much like a mountain (as Aldo Leopold urged) as like a mall. Shopping malls, too, are part of the environment and deserve as much serious consideration from environmental thinkers as do mountains. -/- Vogel argues provocatively that environmental philosophy, in its ethics, should no longer draw a distinction between the natural and the artificial and, in its politics, should abandon the idea that something beyond human practices (such as “nature”) can serve as a standard determining what those practices ought to be. The appeal to nature distinct from the built environment, he contends, may be not merely unhelpful to environmental thinking but in itself harmful to that thinking. The question for environmental philosophy is not “how can we save nature?” but rather “what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?”. (shrink)

Why do policies fail? How can we objectively choose the best policy from two (or more) competing alternatives? How can we create better policies? To answer these critical questions this book presents an innovative yet workable approach. Avoiding Policy Failure uses emerging metapolicy methodologies in case studies that compare successful policies with ones that have failed. Those studies investigate the systemic nature of each policy text to gain new insights into why policies fail. -/- In addition to providing intriguing directions (...) for research, this book also suggests a bold new standard for evaluating policies. While this method is broadly generalizable, specific examples are provided showing how to develop better Economic Policy, Military Policy, and Constitutional Organizations. This book shows scholars, researchers, and policy analysts how to develop more effective policies so that we may achieve our highest aspirations and avoid the horrendous failures of the past. (shrink)

Spinoza's Ethics is one of the most remarkable, important, and difficult books in the history of philosophy: a treatise simultaneously on metaphysics, knowledge, philosophical psychology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. It presents, in Spinoza's famous 'geometric method', his radical views on God, Nature, the human being, and happiness. In this wide-ranging 2006 introduction to the work, Steven Nadler explains the doctrines and arguments of the Ethics, and shows why Spinoza's endlessly fascinating ideas may have been so troubling to his (...) contemporaries, as well as why they are still highly relevant today. He also examines the philosophical background to Spinoza's thought and the dialogues in which Spinoza was engaged - with his contemporaries, with ancient thinkers, and with his Jewish rationalist forebears. His book is written for the student reader but will also be of interest to specialists in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

While examining the important role of imagination in making moral judgments, John Dewey and Moral Imagination focuses new attention on the relationship between American pragmatism and ethics. Steven Fesmire takes up threads of Dewey's thought that have been largely unexplored and elaborates pragmatism's distinctive contribution to understandings of moral experience, inquiry, and judgment. Building on two Deweyan notions—that moral character, belief, and reasoning are part of a social and historical context and that moral deliberation is an imaginative, dramatic rehearsal (...) of possibilities—Fesmire shows that moral imagination can be conceived as a process of aesthetic perception and artistic creativity. Fesmire's original readings of Dewey shed new light on the imaginative process, human emotional make-up and expression, and the nature of moral judgment. This original book presents a robust and distinctly pragmatic approach to ethics, politics, moral education, and moral conduct. [The downloadable sample is Chapter Seven, "The Moral Artist."]. (shrink)

This paper offers a realist critique of socialresearch on health inequalities. A conspectus of thefield of health inequalities research identifies twomain research approaches: the positivist quantitativesurvey and the interpretivist qualitative `casestudy'. We argue that both approaches suffer fromserious philosophical limitations. We suggest that aturn to realism offers a productive `third way' bothfor the development of health inequality research inparticular and for the social scientific understandingof the complexities of the social world in general.

In ancient times, when persuasion played the role of public force, eloquence was necessary. Of what use would it be today, when public force has replaced persuasion. One needs neither art nor metaphor to say such is my pleasure. Jean Jacques Rousseau.

When creating theory to understand or implement change at the social and/or organizational level, it is generally accepted that part of the theory building process includes a process of abstraction. While the process of abstraction is well understood, it is not so well understood how abstractions “fit” together to enable the creation of better theory. Starting with a few simple ideas, this paper explores one way we work with abstractions. This exploration challenges the traditionally held importance of abstracting concepts from (...) experience. That traditional focus has been one-sided—pushing science toward the discovery of data without the balancing process that occurs with the integration of the data. Without such balance, the sciences have been pushed toward fragmentation. Instead, in the present paper, new emphasis is placed on the relationship between abstract concepts. Specifically, this paper suggests that a better theory is one that is constructed of concepts that exist on a similar level of abstraction. Suggestions are made for quantifying this claim and using the insights to enable scholars and practitioners to create more effective theory. (shrink)

An introduction to and critique of the latest trends in critical theory.

Durante la edad escolar, los sujetos van logrando una madurez sintáctica, evidenciada en el incremento de lacomplejidad estructural de los textos que producen. Diversas teorías han dado cuenta de dicha complejidad(Hunt, 1970; Katzenberger, 2004; Nir & Berman, 2010), sosteniendo que la misma está vinculada con eltipo de relaciones interclausulares dentro del texto. Asimismo, corroboran que dicha complejidad no sólo seincrementa con el nivel educativo, sino también está guiada por la modalidad discursiva. A partir de estapropuesta, el proyecto FONDECYT 1100600, se (...) planteó el objetivo de describir el desarrollo de la sintaxisoral, considerando otra perspectiva de la complejidad: la diversidad interclausular. Para ello, se aplicarondos tareas de elicitación (narración y explicación), a 250 estudiantes de kinder, 3º y 6º básico, Iº y IVº mediode Valparaíso y Santiago. Luego de ser transcritos y analizados, se reconocieron en los textos las relacionesinterclausulares y se estableció un índice de diversidad clausular, en el entendido de que a medida que seusaban más formas para relacionar las cláusulas, mayor sería la complejidad sintáctica de los mismos. Losresultados muestran un incremento de la diversidad clausular a medida que aumenta el nivel educativo, sinembargo, su significatividad se da sólo entre algunos niveles. Además, entre ambos tipos de textos no semanifiestan grandes diferencias, salvo en Kínder y en IVº Medio. Estos hallazgos permiten vislumbrar que lamadurez sintáctica implica tener mayor cantidad de estructuras gramaticales y utilizarlas estratégicamentepara construir un determinado texto. (shrink)

La jurisdicción constitucional nació el 24 de febrero de 1803 en una desangelada sala en la planta baja del Capitolio cedida por el Congreso de los Estados Unidos al Tribunal Supremo cuando su presidente, el Chief Justice John Marshall hizo pública la sentencia en el caso Marbury v. Madison. En ella se establecía la revisión judicial de las leyes (y también de los actos del Gobierno, pero éste es otro tema) sacándosela de la manga de la toga como de una (...) chistera extraen un conejo los prestidigitadores, pues la Constitución del nuevo país, promulgada en 1787 y todavía vigente, no preveía expresamente tal competencia. (shrink)

Resumen: Este trabajo es un estudio de casos preliminar y cualitativo, que considera los intercambios dialógicos argumentativos, ante una tarea de dilema moral, de seis parejas de niños y niñas. El análisis de la información se fundamenta en dos enfoques, Visión General Analítica de la Pragmadialéctica, y el Argumentum Model of Topics de la Escuela de Lugano. El análisis de resultados indicó que todos los grupos son capaces de tomar una postura y defender su posición con al menos un argumento. (...) Sin embargo, a medida que los escolares crecen, van construyendo estructuras de argumentación mucho más elaboradas y aumentan la diversidad de loci utilizados. Se concluye que la VGA y el AMT han resultado ser herramientas útiles para describir el desarrollo argumentativo de los escolares a medida que ellos se hacen mayores. -/- Abstract (EN): This paper presents a preliminary and qualitative case study, which considers the argumentative dialogical exchanges, given in a moral dilemma task, of six pairs of boys and girls. The analysis of the information is based on two approaches, Analytical Overview of the Pragmadialectics, and the Argumentum Model of Topics of Lugano School. The results indicated that all groups are able to defend their position with at least one argument. However, as schoolchildren grow up, they build much more elaborate argumentation structures and increase the diversity of loci used. It is concluded that the AO and the AMT have proved to be useful tools to describe the argumentative development of schoolchildren as they get older. (shrink)

The distinction between presentism and eternalism is usually sought in some formula like ‘Only presently existing things exist’ or ‘Past, present, and future events are equally real’. I argue that ambiguities in the copula prevent these slogans from distinguishing significant opposed positions. I suggest in addition that one can find a series of significant distinctions if one takes spacetime structure into account. These presentisms and eternalisms are not contradictory. They are complementary elements of a complete naturalistic philosophy of time.

Social scientists have long examined the changing role of the individual, and the influence of individualism in social and economic arrangements as well as behavioral decisions. With respect to co-operative behavior among farmers, however, the ideology of individualism has been little theorized in terms of its relationship to the longstanding virtue of independence. This paper explores this relationship by combining analysis of historical literature on the agricultural cooperative movement with the accounts of contemporary English farmers. I show that the virtue (...) of independence is deployed to justify a variety of cooperative (formal and informal) and non-cooperative practices and that, despite apparently alternative interpretations, independence is most often conflated with individualistic premises. That conflation, I argue, leads farmers to see their neighbors as natural competitors: as those from whom which independence must be sought. This has the effect of masking the structural dependencies which farmers face (such as lenders and large purchasers) and limits the alternatives available to them to realize a view of independence that is maintained, rather than opposed, by interdependent collective action. Thus perceived, individualism is an ideological doctrine that succeeds by appealing to the virtue of independence, while simultaneously denying its actual realization. (shrink)

The story of one of the most important—and incendiary—books in Western history When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published—"godless," "full of abominations," "a book forged in hell... by the devil himself." Religious and secular authorities saw it as a threat to faith, social and political harmony, and everyday morality, and its author was almost universally regarded as a religious subversive and political radical who sought to spread atheism throughout Europe. (...) Yet Spinoza's book has contributed as much as the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine's Common Sense to modern liberal, secular, and democratic thinking. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired. It is not hard to see why Spinoza's Treatise was so important or so controversial, or why the uproar it caused is one of the most significant events in European intellectual history. In the book, Spinoza became the first to argue that the Bible is not literally the word of God but rather a work of human literature; that true religion has nothing to do with theology, liturgical ceremonies, or sectarian dogma; and that religious authorities should have no role in governing a modern state. He also denied the reality of miracles and divine providence, reinterpreted the nature of prophecy, and made an eloquent plea for toleration and democracy. A vivid story of incendiary ideas and vicious backlash, A Book Forged in Hell will interest anyone who is curious about the origin of some of our most cherished modern beliefs. (shrink)

These essays examine the philosophical, scientific, theological and religious themes and arguments of occasionalism, as well as its roots in medieval views on ...

This is the first detailed study to explore the little-understood notions of "knowing who someone is," "knowing a person's identity," and related locutions. It locates these notions within the context of a general theory of believing and a semantical theory of belief- and knowledge-ascriptions.The books's main contention is that what one knows, when one knows who someone is, is not normally an identity in the numerical sense of "a = b," but rather a certain sort of predication to know who (...) someone is is just to know that that person is F, where "F" is a predicate that is "important," in a technical sense defined by the authors, for the purposes determined by context. Their book offers a rigorous formal semantics for ascriptions of knowing and of knowing-who in particular, solving such well-known problems and paradoxes as Kripke's Puzzle, and Quines difficulties with de re belief, along the way.The authors apply their analysis to each of several important issues in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and ethical theory in which the previously unexamined notion of "knowing who" has loomed large-the mechanics of linguistic referring, the foundations of epistemic logic, problems of self-knowledge and self-regarding belief, universalizability and "Golden Rule" arguments in ethics, and moral "personalism" versus "impartialism."Stephen Boër is Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State University. William Lycan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina and author of Logical Form in Natural Language. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was one of the most important philosophers of all time; he was also arguably the most radical and controversial. This was the first complete biography of Spinoza in any language and is based on detailed archival research. More than simply recounting the story of Spinoza's life, the book takes the reader right into the heart of Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and, with Spinoza's exile from Judaism, right into the midst of the tumultuous political, social, intellectual (...) and religious world of the young Dutch Republic. Though the book will be an invaluable resource for philosophers, historians, and scholars of Jewish thought, it has been written for any member of the general reading public with a serious interest in philosophy, Jewish history, seventeenth-century European history, and the culture of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza: A Life has recently been awarded the Koret Jewish Book Award. (shrink)

Robotization is an increasingly pervasive feature of our lives. Robots with high degrees of autonomy may cause harm, yet in sufciently complex systems neither the robots nor the human developers may be candidates for moral blame. John Danaher has recently argued that this may lead to a retribution gap, where the human desire for retribution faces a lack of appropriate subjects for retributive blame. The potential social and moral implications of a retribution gap are considerable. I argue that the retributive (...) intuitions that feed into retribution gaps are best understood as deontological intuitions. I apply a debunking argument for deontological intuitions in order to show that retributive intuitions cannot be used to justify retributive punishment in cases of robot harm without clear candidates for blame. The fundamental moral question thus becomes what we ought to do with these retributive intuitions, given that they do not justify retribution. I draw a parallel from recent work on implicit biases to make a case for taking moral responsibility for retributive intuitions. In the same way that we can exert some form of control over our unwanted implicit biases, we can and should do so for unjustifed retributive intuitions in cases of robot harm. (shrink)

Seminari a càrrec del Dr. Steven Wall de la University of Arizona sobre l'Autonomia com una perfecció.

Among the many peculiarities of schizophrenics perhaps the most obvious is their tendency to say odd things. Indeed, for most clinicians, the hallmark of schizophrenia is “thought disorder”. Decades of clinical observations, experimental research, and linguistic analyses have produced many hypotheses about what, precisely, is wrong with schizophrenic speech and language. These hypotheses range from assertions that schizophrenics have peculiar word association hierarchies to the notion that schizophrenics are suffering from an intermittent form of aphasia. In this article, several popular (...) hypotheses are critically assessed. Work in the area turns out to be flawed by errors in experimental method, faulty observations, tautological reasoning, and theoretical models that ignore the complexities of both speech and language. This does not mean that schizophrenics are indistinguishable from nonschizophrenics. They are clearly deviant in many situations. Their problem, however, appears to be in processing information and in selective attention, not in language itself. (shrink)

`Fluid, readable and accessible ... I found the overall quality of the book to be excellent. It provides an overview of major (and preceding) developments in the field of science studies. It examines landmark works, authors, concepts and approaches ... I will certainly use this book as one of the course texts' Eileen Crist, Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society, Virginia Tech Science is at the heart of contemporary society and is therefore central to the social sciences. Yet science (...) studies has often encountered resistance from social scientists. This book attempts to remedy this by giving the most extensive, thorough and best argued account of the field and explaining to social scientists why science matters to them. This is a landmark book that demystifies science studies and successfully bridges the divide between social theory and the sociology of science. Illustrated with relevant, illuminating examples, it provides the ideal guide to science studies and social theory. (shrink)

Governments around the world have faced the challenge of how to respond to the recent outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease. Some have reacted by greatly restricting the freedom of citizens, while others have opted for less drastic policies. In this paper, I draw a parallel with vaccination ethics to conceptualize two distinct approaches to COVID-19 that I call altruistic and lockdown. Given that the individual measures necessary to limit the spread of the virus can in principle be achieved voluntarily (...) as well as through enforcement, the question arises of how much freedom governments ought to give citizens to adopt the required measures. I argue that an altruistic approach is preferable on moral grounds: it preserves important citizen freedoms, avoids a number of potential injustices, and gives people a much-needed sense of meaning in precarious times. (shrink)