One of the most prominent ethical concerns regarding emerging neurotechnologies is mental privacy. This is the idea that we should have control over access to our neural data and to the information about our mental processes and states that can be obtained by analyzing it. A key issue is whether this information needs more stringent protection than other kinds of personal information. I will articulate and support the view, underlying recent regulatory frameworks, that mental privacy requires a special treatment (...) because of its relation to relevant aspects of personal identity. It has been suggested that this approach could be supported by the idea that mental privacy constitutes a fundamental psychological dimension of privacy. The connection between this psychological view of privacy and identity can be traced back to Irwin Altman’s idea that privacy is an interpersonal boundary regulation process. However, it is not clear whether this notion of privacy can be associated with a conception of identity that is relevant in contemporary neuroethics. I will suggest that the narrative and relational approach to identity, a prominent view in recent ethical discussions of neurotechnology, lines up with key aspects of Altman’s proposal. I suggest that if mental privacy is an essential component of identity, the latter could be affected by technological mind-reading. (shrink)

It has been argued that the approximate number system (ANS) constitutes a problem for the grounded approach to cognition because it implies that some conceptual tasks are performed by non-perceptual systems. The ANS is considered non-perceptual mainly because it processes stimuli from different modalities. Jones (2015) has recently argued that this system has many features (such as being modular) which are characteristic of sensory systems. Additionally, he affirms that traditional sensory systems also process inputs from different modalities. This suggests that (...) the ANS is a perceptual system and therefore it is not problematic for the grounded view. In this paper, I defend the amodal approach to the ANS against these two arguments. In the first place, perceptual systems do not possess the properties attributed to the ANS and therefore these properties do not imply that the ANS is perceptual. In the second place, I will propose that a sensory system only needs to be dedicated to process modality-specific information, which is consistent with responding to inputs from different modalities. I argue that the cross-modal responses exhibited by traditional sensory systems are consistent with modality-specific information whereas some responses exhibited by the ANS are not. (shrink)

In his doctoral dissertation, O. Chateaubriand favored Dedekind’s analysis of the notion of number; whereas in Logical Forms, he favors a fregean approach to the topic. My aim in this paper is to examine the kind of logicism he defends. Three aspects will be considered: the concept of analysis; the universality of arithmetical properties and their definability; the irreducibility of arithmetical objects.

I defend that Cartesian passions are a function—in fact, the only function—of the mind-body union responsible for guiding us in the pursuit of our (natural) perfection, a perfection that we increase by joining goods that our nature deems to be so. This view is in conflict, on one hand, with those (a majority) who have emphasized either the epistemic or survival role of our passions and, on the other and more precisely, with a recent proposal according to which Cartesian passions (...) should not be even seen as guides for happiness. Against the latter, I will attempt to show that passions perform a guiding function (1) by discriminating what is “important” for us regarding the increase of our natural perfection (which includes informing the soul about the current state of perfection both of the body and of the mind-body union); and (2) by disposing us to act (which includes proposing to the will possible ways of action to increase or maintain our perfection). Our passions are, thus, both informative and motivational. Making explicit their informative role will require, negatively, showing that this does not mean they are reliable and, positively, undertaking a study—largely absent among commentaries—of their specific intentionality. (shrink)

BackgroundEverybody has the right to decide whether to receive specific medical treatment or not and to provide their free, prior and informed consent to do so. As dementia progresses, people with Alzheimer’s dementia (PwAD) can lose their capacity to provide informed consent to complex medical treatment. When the capacity to consent is lost, the autonomy of the affected person can only be guaranteed when an interpretable and valid advance directive exists. Advance directives are not yet common in Germany, and their (...) validity is often questionable. Once the dementia diagnosis has been made, it is assumed to be too late to write an advance directive. One approach used to support the completion of advance directives is ‘Respecting Choices’®—an internationally recognised, evidence-based model of Advance Care Planning (ACP), which, until now, has not been evaluated for the target group of PwAD. This study’s aims include (a) to investigate the proportion of valid advance directives in a memory clinic population of persons with suspected AD, (b) to determine the predictors of valid advance directives, and (c) to examine whether the offer of ACP can increase the proportion of valid advance directives in PwAD.MethodWe intend to recruit at leastN = 250 participants from two memory clinics in 50 consecutive weeks. Of these, the first 25 weeks constitute the baseline phase (no offer of ACP), the following 25 weeks constitute the intervention phase (offer of ACP). The existence and validity of an advance directive will be assessed twice (before and after the memory clinic appointment). Moreover, potential predictors of valid advance directives are assessed.DiscussionThe results of this study will enhance the development of consent procedures for advance directives of PwAD based on the ACP/Respecting Choices (R) approach. Therefore, this project contributes towards increasing the autonomy and inclusion of PwAD and the widespread acceptance of valid advance directives in PwAD.Trial RegistrationDRKS, DRKS00026691, registered 15th of October 2021,https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00026691. (shrink)

This paper investigates the role that universities play in supporting social entrepreneurs (SEs) across their ecosystem. Adopting the resource-based view (RBV) approach, we argue that universities attract, mobilize, and deploy multiple resources that benefit SEs through four main mechanisms (i.e., teaching, research, outreach, and the development of partnerships). We use a qualitative approach of 62 semi-structured interviews and 8 focus groups in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia. Our contribution shows that employing different resources and engaging in supportive activities of universities towards (...) SEs facilitate the development of university capabilities, such as an increased reputation, development of leadership skills for students and staff, and wider access to ecosystem resources that support other university activities related to teaching, research, and community outreach. The role that partnerships play in the development of these capabilities is fundamental, thanks to the different strategic alliances and mobilization of resources between universities and other actors while supporting SEs. This study contributes to our understanding of the role universities can play to intensify the nature of supportive ecosystems for SEs. This contribution is relevant not only to academics but also to practitioners, as this will shed light on the building, development, and scaling of a supportive ecosystem for SEs. (shrink)

It has been argued that neural data are an especially sensitive kind of personal information that could be used to undermine the control we should have over access to our mental states, and therefore need a stronger legal protection than other kinds of personal data. The Morningside Group, a global consortium of interdisciplinary experts advocating for the ethical use of neurotechnology, suggests achieving this by treating legally ND as a body organ. Although the proposal is currently shaping ND-related policies, it (...) is not clear what its conceptual and legal basis is. Treating legally something as something else requires some kind of analogical reasoning, which is not provided by the authors of the proposal. In this paper, I will try to fill this gap by addressing ontological issues related to neurocognitive processes. The substantial differences between ND and body organs or organic tissue cast doubt on the idea that the former should be covered by bodily integrity. Crucially, ND are not constituted by organic material. Nevertheless, I argue that the ND of a subject s are analogous to neurocognitive properties of her brain. I claim that s’ ND are a ‘medium independent’ property that can be characterized as natural semantic personal information about her brain and that s’ brain not only instantiates this property but also has an exclusive ontological relationship with it: This information constitutes a domain that is unique to her neurocognitive architecture. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo estudia los Elementos de Filosofía (EdF), dictados por Andrés Bello a Juan Alemparte en Santiago de Chile hacia los años 1840-1843 y conservados actualmente en una copia manuscrita. Se muestra que los EdF corresponden a un esbozo preliminar de las materias abordadas por Bello tanto en las entregas del periódico El Crepúsculo como en su obra póstuma Filosofía del Entendimiento. Por ello, se plantea que estas lecciones manuscritas constituyen un testimonio exclusivo de las clases particulares del maestro (...) venezolano en Santiago del siglo XIX y exhiben, además, un estadio de maduración temprano de ideas que llegarán a ser gravitantes en su obra magna. Se espera que este material represente un insumo para futuras pesquisas en torno a las percepciones en general, y desde la perspectiva del pensador caraqueño en particular. Abstract: The article examines the Elements of Philosophy, taught by Andrés Bello to Juan Alemparte in Santiago de Chile around 1840-1843 and currently preserved in a manuscript copy. It is shown that the Elements of Philosophy correspond to a preliminary outline of the matters addressed by Bello both in the newspaper El Crepúsculo and in his posthumous work Philosophy of the Understanding. For this reason, it is proposed that these manuscript notes constitute an exclusive testimony of the private lessons of the Venezuelan Master in Santiago of the 19th century and exhibit a stage of early maturation of ideas that will become gravitational in his magnum opus. It is expected that this material represents an input for future research on perceptions in general, and from the perspective of the thinker from Caracas in particular. (shrink)

In matters of governance, is believing subject to ethical standards? If so, what are the criteria how relevant are they in our personal and political culture today? The really important matters in politics and governance necessitate a confidence that our beliefs will lead dependably to predictable and verifiable outcomes. Accordingly, it is unethical to hold a belief that is founded on insufficient evidence or based on hearsay or blind acceptance. In this paper, we demonstrate that the pragmatist concept of (...) truth best meets this standard for ethically held belief in matters of politics and governance. Currently, these standards are abused by the gaslighting and distortion characteristics of the often social media driven ‘misinformation society’. The legitimacy and trust in our institutions and leadership that is requisite for good governance is challenged thereby, threatening the viability of our republic. (shrink)

My concern in this paper is what, in Art and Illusion, Gombrich calls "the riddle of style". This is the problem of why people at different times and in different cultures have depicted objects in very different ways. An adequate solution to this problem will comprise an explanation of why depiction has a history. The problem seems intractable because of three common assumptions about the history of depiction that, while independently plausible, are inconsistent. First, we assume that this history (...) is a history of realism. Artists from a wide range of cultures and ages seem to have shared the common goal of capturing the visual appearances of the objects they depicted. Secondly, we assume that depictive styles differ from context to context in part because of features internal to the contexts in which they emerged. Finally, we are loathe to accept the claim that differences of style necessarily result from differences in technical capacity. However, these assumptions are in conflict. If artists throughout history sought to capture the appearances of the things they depicted and did not differ markedly in their technical capacities, then surely the pictures each produced should not depend on features internal to the contexts in which they emerged and should instead look more alike. -/- I argue that the history of style is not, in its entirety, a history of realism. Throughout history, pictures have been used to inform viewers about a wide variety of things other than their objects' appearances. Investigating the purposes for which pictures were used in particular historical and cultural contexts will help us to understand why certain styles were appropriate to those contexts. Nevertheless, it will not help us to understand why certain styles were appropriate to just one among a number of contexts in which pictures were used for a single purpose. To understand this, we need to know what cognitive environment was shared by the members of the relevant community. This will enable us to understand why, given the purpose for which pictures were used in that community, a certain style was more informative than another. In addition to cataloguing stylistic changes, therefore, the historian of art has two further tasks: to investigate both the various purposes for which pictures have been used and the cognitive environments of those who used them. (shrink)

In the context of transgender health, most people are not comfortable with allowing a twelve‐year‐old child with gender dysphoria to elect to undergo gender reassignment surgery. The likelihood is too high that the child would be unable to fully comprehend the scope of a decision that carries significant, permanent consequences, particularly because the decision to surgically change gender is based upon a conception of gender that can fluctuate during adolescent years. Conversely, however, most people would not contend that this fluidity (...) is reason to wholly deny certain medical care such as hormonal treatments to transgender youth, a demographic with extremely high rates of violent behavior, self‐harm, and suicide. This paper will explore ethical considerations to this emerging debate of what therapeutic options should be offered to transgender children and adolescents.Pediatric endocrinologists have been treating gender dysphoric adolescents with puberty‐suppressing drugs and, to a lesser extent, with cross‐sex hormone therapies for more than twenty years. Clinicians and thought leaders have mentioned ethical components of this emerging practice in the few cohort studies and clinical review articles about the subject. However, ethics have generally been a secondary consideration in the medical academic literature. In this paper, I will provide a brief overview of the practice, summarize the current research on hormone treatment for transgender minors, and provide an ethical analysis of the practice. (shrink)

For more than a decade, American lawyers have bewailed the ethical crisis in their profession, wringing their hands about its bad image. But their response has been limited to spending money on public relations, mandating education, and endlessly revising ethical rules. In this book, Richard Abel will argue that these measures will do little or nothing to solve the problems illustrated by the six disciplinary case studies featured in this book unless the legal monopoly enjoyed by attorneys (...) in the U.S. is drastically contracted. Richard Abel examines some of the most common ethical complaints made about lawyers in Lawyers in the Dock. Using detailed records of disciplinary proceedings, he describes the actions surrounding certain cases based on three of the most common complaints: neglecting the client by failing to pursue cases diligently; overcharging of clients by mystifying billing practices; and betraying adversaries and courts out of excessive loyalty to clients or causes. In this book, Richard Abel will argue that these measures will do little or nothing to solve the problems exposed by his six disciplinary case studies unless structural changes are made to the legal monopoly in order to restore the public trust in lawyers. Lawyers in the Dock is essential reading for lawyers, law students, and potential clients who wish to restore trust and professional responsibility in the legal profession. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur held the conference on attention at Rennes, on the 2nd of March 1939, before the Philosophical Circle of the West. At the time, Ricœur, aged 26, was a teacher of philosophy at Lorient, in the south of Brittany. The text published here, which is available in the Paris Archives, is Ricœur’s extended version of this conference. His careful analysis of attention is impressive in its phenomenological emphasis: from the first lines, he draws relations between attention and perception, considering (...) their intentional character, and continues by distinguishing attention from anticipation, preperception and waiting. A particular concern is given to the relation between attention and temporal duration – a question that will be reworked later in his philosophy of the will. After questioning how attention implies the notion of truth (not without reminding the contributions of Descartes, Thomas, Malebranche and Berkeley), he concludes by meditating upon the relation between attention and liberty. (shrink)

This paper analyses some current jurisprudential and conceptual issues in evidence and procedure from the perspective of a computational legal theory. It introduces a specific investigative device, Trojans operated by police during crime investigation, and analyses whether current formal approaches to legal reasoning can be modified in such a way that the software code underlying this device can represent the relevant legal constraints that should govern its operation. We will argue that traditional formalist theories of legal reasoning are typically (...) restricted to reasoning within a system, and incapable therefore of making the notion of “legal system” sufficiently explicit. We discuss possibilities to expand on these approaches and identify the necessary elements of a computational theory of legal reasoning in an age of porous borders.Resumen:En este ensayo se analizan algunos tópicos conceptuales y filosóficos de actualidad sobre el procedimiento y las pruebas desde la óptica de una teoría del derecho computacional. En él se presenta un mecanismo específico de investigación, relativo a los “troyanos” operados por la policía durante la investigación de delitos, y analiza si los enfoques formales contemporáneos sobre el razonamiento jurídico pueden ser modificados de tal modo que el código de sofware que subyace a este mecanismo puede representar las limitaciones jurídicas relevantes que deberían regir su operación. Los autores sostienen que las teorías formalistas tradicionales del razonamiento jurídico se limitan por lo general al razonamiento dentro de un sistema y, por lo tanto, son incapaces de hacer la noción de “sistema jurídico” suficientemente explícita. Asimismo, se discuten las posibilidades de ampliar estos enfoques e identificar los elementos necesarios de una teoría computacional del razonamiento jurídico en una era de fronteras porosas. (shrink)

We study the Iterated Bilateral Reciprocity game in which the need for help arises randomly. Players are heterogeneous with respect to ‘neediness’ i.e. probability of needing help. We find bounds on the amount of heterogeneity which can be tolerated for cooperation (all players help when asked to help) to be sustainable in a collectivity. We introduce the notion of Generalised Reciprocity. Individuals make a costly first move to benefit another under the reasonable expectation that either the other or somebody else (...) will reciprocate. We hope that these tentative attempts at extending Axelrod’s seminal work on cooperation will inspire future efforts in the field of organisational culture and social theory more generally. (shrink)

Hypotheticals, conditionals, and their connecting relation, implication, dramatically changed their meanings during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century. Modern logicians ordinarily do not distinguish between the terms hypothetical and conditional. Yet in the late nineteenth century their meanings were quite different, their ties to the implication relation either were unclear, or the implication relation was used exclusively as a logical operator. I will trace the development of implication as an inference operator from these earlier notions into (...) the first third of the twentieth century using as the starting point the ideas primarily of R. Whately and W. Hamilton before discussing the work of the transitional logicians, A. De Morgan and G. Boole on these topics. Then we discuss the relevant views of four prominent but relatively unknown nineteenth century British logicians, W.E. Johnson, J.N. Keynes, E.E.C. Jones, and H. MacColl, as well as those of the more influential logicians, W.S. Jevons and J. Venn, closing with a section on ‘implication as inference’ where we explore some key ideas of B. Russell and sketch the work of D. Hilbert, P. Hertz, and G. Gentzen who together are responsible for the development of the modern ideas related to the subjects of this paper. (shrink)

A vernacular fifteenth-century sermon tells us, in order to warn of the threats to spiritual welfare posed by dance, that cyclic motion and centering of sensory impressions – amongst them intimate conversation – are essential elements of dance. When blending out the parenesis, implicit poetics of medieval dance can be distilled from that sermon. The way how these essential elements of dance are used for generating disruptions within literary plots will be demonstrated in three literary texts dating from the (...) thirteenth to the fifteenth century: Disruptions in connection with dance occur when contrary concepts of motion clash with each other, for example the linearity of the chivalrous way through the Other World with the cyclicity of round dances. ‚Der Württemberger‘, however, collides two contrary concepts of time which can be paraphrased as spatial metaphors, namely the linearity of earthly life which collides with the cyclicity of eternal damnation, a collision symbolized by the expulsion of life out of the dance of the death. Finally in ‚Ritter Sociabilis‘, dance generates a virtual space which subverts the courtly society. The protagonists of all these texts differently manage to resolve disruptions, namely by redemption, by repentance, or by continuing disruptions which they have caused themselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Now?Mike AbellThe cry broke the church’s uncomfortable silence. It actually was more of a moan than a cry. It was deeper, coming from her core. I’d heard it only once before and knew it as a sound caused by a loss that will never be recovered. No one in the church had to turn to discover its source. We all knew the mother had entered to say (...) goodbye to her 19–month–old son.We watched as the now composed mother, along side her husband, followed the small casket—a family rendered incomplete. As they passed our pew, my wife clutched my arm and we wept tears of sympathy, guilt and fear.Just 15 months earlier our now, 2–and ½–year–old son, Jun, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor not dissimilar from the child in the casket. The tumor has a different name, but it’s equally complicated, and comparably rare and aggressive.Over nine months, Jun endured two craniotomies, three rounds of induction chemo, three rounds of high dose chemo with stem cell rescue, 28 days of proton radiation, a sub–dural shunt placement, a port placed and removed, a broviac placed and removed and many, many blood and [End Page 16] platelet transfusions. As of his last scan, there was no evidence of tumor.Jun has now been out of treatment for six months. His hair has grown back. He’s stronger. The meals have stopped arriving. And we no longer are the recipients of sad eyes at playgrounds and restaurants.In many ways we have returned to a somewhat normal life. If you didn’t know Jun was in remission for a brain tumor, you wouldn’t know. Despite all this, cancer still strangles us with fear.Brain tumors often come back. Too often. We’ve heard a few different numbers on the likelihood. And while we’ve never paid too much attention to statistics, they are too scary to ignore. Especially knowing that should it recur, there is no cure. This is our day–to–day reality.A lot of our time is spent analyzing, over analyzing and obsessing. We watch him closely. Every time he stumbles, coughs, or sleeps fifteen minutes longer than normal, we wonder if it’s something more. I’ve called our oncologist about a 99–degree temperature. Something I wouldn’t have done during treatment (I usually waited to 100). I’ve questioned whether hiccups are a sign of recurrence. Admittedly, I’ve even Googled that last one just to be sure.All the anxiety builds the closer you get to an MRI date. My son has scans every three months so I’m beginning to recognize the cycle. It starts a couple weeks out. Normally it begins as a twinge the moment the date is set. But each day it grows, occupying more and more of my mind. This is not to say, I don’t think about it everyday. I do. But the thoughts become more paranoid and frequent. Worst–case scenarios play out. It’s different from the time during treatment. We always had the comfort of knowing that there is still more treatment.By the time we reach MRI day, bring Jun back to the machine room, watch the anesthesiologist put him under, and leave him to be scanned for the next two and half hours, I feel close to nauseas. In my mind, at this point, someone knows. I know they may be a technician and are not necessarily trained to read an MRI. But they know. They’ve seen it before.There usually is a waiting period between the time of the scan and the time you can meet with your oncologist or someone else qualified to read and interpret the scan. I do whatever I can to make that window as narrow as possible. I leave radiology with a disc in hand and head directly to the clinic to pass it off. I’ve heard of people waiting days for an appointment. That’s not an option for me. There would be no eating, no sleeping, and no resting heart rate without knowing. Fortunately, our oncologist is... (shrink)

This book presents the author's reflections on the "pagan" cardinal virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and practical wisdom as depicted by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Casey sees these virtues as pagan because they "are undeniably worldly..., include an element of self-regard, and... rely on material conditions for their fulfillment". Christian virtue, by contrast, centers on the next world, emphasizes humility, and is independent of the vagaries of fortune because it depends wholly on having good will.

BackgroundThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the reformed guardianship law in Germany, require that persons with a disability, including people with dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (PwAD), are supported in making self-determined decisions. This support is achieved through communication. While content-related communication is a deficit of PwAD, relational aspects of communication are a resource. Research in supported decision-making (SDM) has investigated the effectiveness of different content-related support strategies for PwAD but has only succeeded in improving understanding, (...) which, although one criterion of capacity to consent, is not sufficient to ensure overall capacity to consent. The aim of the ‘spatial intervention study’ of the DECIDE project is to examine an innovative resource-oriented SDM approach that focuses on relational aspects. We hypothesise that talking to PwAD in their familiar home setting (as opposed to a clinical setting) will reduce the complexity of the decision-making process and enhance overall capacity to consent. MethodsPeople with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease will be recruited from two memory clinics (N = 80). We will use a randomised crossover design to investigate the intervention effect of the decision-making place on capacity to consent. Besides reasoning capacity, which is part of overall capacity to consent and will be the primary outcome, various secondary outcomes (e.g., other aspects of capacity to consent, subjective task complexity, decisional conflict) and suspected moderating or mediating variables (e.g., meaning of home, demographic characteristics) will be assessed.DiscussionThe results of the study will be used to develop a new SDM strategy that is based on relational resources for PwAD. If a change in location achieves the anticipated improvement in capacity to consent, future research should focus on implementing this SDM strategy in a cost-effective manner in clinical practice.Trial registration: DRKS00030799. (shrink)

I am grateful to Catharine Abell and Gregory Currie for their incisive and productive commentaries on Apt Imaginings. In what follows, I will try to respond to.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:FROM CAIN AND ABEL TO ESAU AND JACOB Angel Barahona UniversidadComplutense, Madrid The theme of twins or of enemy brothers is one which fascinates anthropologists owing to its frequency, the beauty of its mythopoetic settings, and its social significance. The theme always appears in relation to fratricidal violence, and is always linked to myths offoundation or origin. Clyde Kluckhohn in his book about brothers "born in immediate sequence" (...) reminds us that the death of one of them brings with it a momentary peace, the foundation ofa new social order. Thus it is not the fact ofbeing twins, or antagonistic brotherhood per se which is the key to the stories, but violence: Twins are impure in the same way that a warrior steeped in carnage is impure, or an incestuous couple, or a menstruating woman. All forms of violence lead back to violence. We overlook this fact because the primitive concept of a link between the loss ofdistinctions and violence is strange to us; butwe need only consider the calamities primitive people associate with twins to perceive the logic of this concept. Deadly epidemics can result from contact with twins, as can mysterious illnesses mat cause sterility in women and animals. Even more significant to us is the role oftwins in provoking discord among neighbors, a fatal collapse of ritual, the transgression of interdictions—in sort, their part in instigating asacrificial crisis....Behindthe image oftwins lurks the baleful aspectofthesacred, perceived as a disparate but formidableunified force. (Girard 1977, 58) All the mythological, literaryand historical accounts oftwinswhichwe have involve bloody conflict: Eteocles and Polyneices, Romulus and Remus, Richard the Lion Heart and John Lackland, and so on. To a 2 Angel Barahona surprising extent even the development of the different stories is similar. When Polynices departs from Thebes leaving his sister there, hoping to reign through her, he takes with him his fraternal conflict as if it were an attribute of his being. Wherever he goes his brother appears to him, and will oppose him to the death. When an oracle announced to Adrastrus that his two daughters would marry, respectively, a lion and a wild boar, animals which are different in their appearance but identical in their violence, it was presaging fraternal conflict. In Euripides' The Suppliant Women, the king tells how he came upon his sons-in-law. At his door, one night, Polynices and Tideus, both reduced to poverty, were quarreling furiously over possession ofa camp bed. Their brotherhood by virtue ofmarriage with two sisters brings them within the fraternalcategory, likeOedipus and Creon, orDionysus and Pentheus, rival cousins. A plot of land or a kingdom, a woman or an object, the status of firstborn or an unjust inheritance, all give pretexts for conflict. We cannot avoid conflict when desires converge on the same object. It is difficult for the brothers to be aware of their symmetry, their reciprocity, the intense violence which is hidden behind their brotherhood,—an awareness which might spare them their confrontations—because they never occupy the same positions atthe same time. The reciprocity is real, but it is the sum of non-reciprocal moments. The antagonists occupy the same positions in time, but successively, not simultaneously. The same acts and the same sentiments appear in cyclical alternation, but the brothers cannot directly observe their own reciprocity, and thus their identical nature, because they seem to be differentiated by the role which each one plays. Cain and Abel There are many stories ofconfrontations between brothers in Scripture, including those related to the rights of the first born. From Genesis 4,5 onwards we see how these are an interminable source ofconflicts. The first example, Cain and Abel: "And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell" anticipates the themes ofthe blessing and the looking at the face. And we can observe the games of symmetry with the language: "the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but forCain and his offering he had no regard." Cain and Abel are presented as an agriculturalist and as a shepherd respectively, two forms ofsocial life. In this quarrel... (shrink)

This article aims to investigate the extent to which Abel’s insertion in the debate on scepticism and naturalism in the Anglophone philosophical tradition, especially in the historical Strawson-Stroud debate on the success of transcendental arguments in response to the sceptical challenge, allows the creation of a conceptual scheme which refuses both the conventionalist and the naturalist position in regard to our conceptual schemas, while at the same time seeking to differentiate itself from the apriorism of the Kantian tradition. Although (...) I acknowledge that interpretationism offers a new solution to the issues involved in this debate, I argue that this solution is unable to deliver everything it promises. This new conceptual space is not determined enough to pacify scepticism. I conclude by suggesting that the attempt to reconcile Nietzsche and Wittgenstein introduces instability in Abel’s interpretation. The reformist impulse of Nietzsche’s philosophy rests on the results of a preliminary naturalistic stage (genealogical inquiry) which neither Wittgenstein nor Abel seems willing to incorporate into their philosophies. (shrink)

Based on his Inclosure Schema and the Principle of Uniform Solution (PUS), Priest has argued that Curry’s paradox belongs to a different family of paradoxes than the Liar. Pleitz (2015, The Logica Yearbook 2014, pp. 233–248) argued that Curry’s paradox shares the same structure as the other paradoxes and proposed a scheme of which the Inclosure Schema is a particular case and he criticizes Priest’s position by pointing out that applying the PUS implies the use of a paraconsistent logic that (...) does not validate Contraction, but that this can hardly seen as uniform. In this paper, we will develop some further reasons to defend Pleitz’ thesis that Curry’s paradox belongs to the same family as the rest of the self-referential paradoxes & using the idea that conditionals are generalized negations. However, we will not follow Pleitz in considering doubtful that there is a uniform solution for the paradoxes in a paraconsistent spirit. We will argue that the paraconsistent strategies can be seen as special cases of the strategy of restricting Detachment and that the latter uniformly blocks all the connective-involving self-referential paradoxes, including Curry’s. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the French philosopher and historian of science Abel Rey played a more influential role in the formative phase of the Vienna Circle than hitherto supposed. On the whole, it will be argued that Rey's contribution had political impact. His interpretation of "modern physics" in 1907 in the face of the alleged "bankruptcy of science" should be appreciated as a masterpiece of applied enlightenment thought. As such, it was especially paradigmatic (...) for Philipp Frank's "positivist" defense of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics against the irrationalist tendencies of the 1920s and 1930s. (shrink)

Abel Botelho, escreveu um conjunto de cinco romances naturalistas, incluindo Patologia Social. Nas suas obras, a cidade de Lisboa é representada através dos seus aspectos sociais, históricos e políticos. Nesse sentido, este artigo analisa as descrições da cidade de Londres, enfatizando seus aspectos decadentes revelados pelas caminhadas noturnas de Elvira, Mário e Isabel, personagens do O Barão de Lavos, O Livro de Alda e Fatal dilema. Em seguida, focará nos aspectos inovadores ou nas formas afirmativas dos personagens tirados em (...) uma avenida chamada Avenida. Abel Botelho wrote a set of five naturalistic novels, among them Patologia Social. In his works, the city of Lisbon is represented through its social, historical, and political aspects. In that sense, this article analyses the descriptions of the city of Lisbon by emphasizing its decadent aspects revealed through the nocturnal walks of Elvira, Mário, and Isabel, who are characters from O barão de Lavos, O Livro de Alda, Fatal dilema. Then, he will focus on the innovative aspects of the affirmative forms of the characters taken in a boulevard called Avenida. (shrink)

Although the family is the safest environment for each member, sometimes violence and abuse can come from the family members. Violence causes family relationships to deteriorate as in all other relationships among people. Sibling violence, as a form of domestic violence, can sometimes have dire consequences that can result in family breakup, death or long-term loss of one of the siblings. In this study, sibling violence, which has the potential to harm family relations in such a way, will be (...) discussed in the context of two stories in the Qurʾān. It is aimed to contribute to other disciplines that study on this subject by examining the attitude of Islam against this violence, which affects the family, and the solutions of the Qur’ān to sibling violence. These stories in the Qur’ān are the story of Prophet Adam’s two sons who narrate an incident of violence that result in the brother killing his brother, and the story of Prophet Joseph and his brothers who narrate the sibling violence resulting in long-term loss. Both stories provide clues to the prevention of violence in the light of the causes of sibling violence and the behavior of the victim sibling in the development of events. In addition, because of the fact that these stories have taken place in the family of the prophets, they give people the message that sibling violence can happen in any family.Summary: Because of the social nature of the mankind, it must live in structured societies. Family is the medium for him where he is born, raised, socializes and prepares for his future life. It is normal sentiments of love, mercy and tolerance which dominate in a family. But despite this, it is possible for a family member to be a transgressor against another family member’s rights. Emotions like jealousy and hostility can cause violence between siblings. Psychologists generally attribute the source of this kind of violence to the parents’ failure to show equal love and affection to all children. While this is an important cause for violence among the siblings, craving for attention and acceptance from society, trying to achieve material and sensual superiority and desire for social success can incite feelings of envy among the siblings. While feelings of jealousy is unproblematic when its intensity can be considered normal, it can cause psychological imbalance if it increases to the level beyond manageable limits. If the latter case occurs, this produces a state of mind where a sibling becomes capable of committing every act of transgression to another sibling, which is the most important cause for the violence among siblings.Archetypical stories of Cain and Abel, and Prophet Joseph in the Qur’ān provide some clues pertaining to recognition and prevention of violence among the siblings. In these two parables, the real reason for envy does not lie in the other sibling. According to the Qur’ān, the true reason for this envy is attributed exclusively to the transgressor. In the parable of Cain and Abel, source of the problem between the siblings is the sacrificial offering to Allah. While the offering of Abel was accepted, Cain’s was not. Cain felt jealous and threatened his brother with death. Facing with his brother’s threat, Abel stayed firm and peaceful, said to his brother that if he were to attack him, he will not retaliate even for self-defence. He reminded Cain that his envy and anger was not due to him, Abel. Abel reminded Cain that the act that Cain was contemplating was a great sin in Allah’s eyes and that it is punishable by eternal hellfire. Cain, despite these warnings, went on to implement his intention of murder successfully.When we inspect the parable we can see that Abel was free from any guilt on his part for his brother’s envy which is the source of his transgression. His sacrifice was accepted because Abel was among the pious and this doesn’t harm or effect negatively Cain in anyway. Therefore the main cause for the jealousy of Cain is his unworthiness in the eyes of Allah, in reality, the reason is solely Cain himself. Therefore it is totally unfair when Cain put the blame on his brother Abel. By the way of this example, the Qur’ān reminds mankind not to blame others for his problems and to take responsibility. Envy, which is the main reason for violence among siblings, will cloud judgment and prevent clear thinking. In the parable of Cain and Abel, the Qur’ān recommends not to taunt the already jealous sibling by way of words and actions and instead, encourages warning against the grave consequences of evil intentions both in this world and in the hereafter. In the parable of Prophet Joseph, because of jealousy of their father from Joseph, bigger brothers of Joseph planned to kill him but they give up on the idea of killing him and instead they dumped him in a well. Later on in the parable, some merchant finds Joseph and brings him to Egypt. There, Joseph becomes a high ranking statesman and meets with his older brothers. Because of the famine, older brothers are in need of Joseph for food and asks him for it, without knowing that the person they are asking from is their little brother, Joseph. Although Joseph faces with his brothers on a superior position his behavior exemplifies the best course of action to end violence among the siblings. In order to remove animosity and callousness from his brothers’ heart, the gradual plan that Joseph had implemented is a great example for healing the wounds that violence among the siblings can cause. It is unreasonable to expect all the animosity and jealousy that brothers of Joseph held for years to go away completely in a moment. Prophet Joseph did not remind his brothers of their crime, on the contrary he was very generous to them. He brought their father and their brother Benjamin to Egypt and in front of them Prophet Joseph forgave his older brothers for the crimes they had committed against him. In this way, Prophet Joseph prevented his brothers potentially denying every transgression they did if he were to confront them in their first meeting, and made them ready to accept their evil deeds.Parables of Cain and Abel and Prophet Joseph are important for recognizing that envy can destroy the mercy that the siblings innately have for each other. It is understood from the parables that envy must be controlled and violence can’t be realized under any circumstances. It is clear from these parables that violence is never a solution for the jealousy among the siblings. A positive and viable solution would be for Cain to seek Allah’s approval instead of killing Abel and for brothers of Joseph this would be to earn their father’s love and respect. Introspection and analysis regarding possible reasons for jealousy and trying to resolve them and striving to be a better human, sibling, or child is a solution prescribed by the Qur’ān. Also, importance of speaking in a soft tone with the person who is experiencing intense jealousy, avoiding provocative language and behavior and trying every possible way to set this person straight is emphasized. The Qur’ān reminds us through these two parables that the human nature is prone to evil suggestions from the satan and for this reason humans need generous and benevolent help from others in order to clear themselves from these evil temptations. (shrink)

Taking a cue from Slavoj Zizek’s reading of the Qur’anic tale of the two sons of Adam, Abel and Cain, this paper examines an overlooked erotic layer of meaning archived in the key Qur’anic term for sacrifice; it also explores the nexus of eroticism and sacrifice in this tale. At the beginning of this text the Qur’an announces that the “truth” of this story will be told. However, that truth turns out to be the symbolic absence of the (...) truth, allowing for a range of interpretive possibilities. I will argue that in the Qur’anic narrative of Cain and Abel the “shame/penis” of the murdered brother is the site of the archive, and interpretive possibilities are conditioned by the function of the master-signifier, the phallus alluded to in the text by the presence of the penis. (shrink)

Genesis 4: [1] Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” [2] Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. [3] In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. [4] But Abel brought fat portions from (...) some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, [5] but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. [6] Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? [7] If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” [8] Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. [9] Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” [10] The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. [11] Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brot her’s blood from your hand. [12] When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”. (shrink)

We are going to analyse the issue of alterity in the philosophy of Miguel de Unamuno through the study of Abel Sánchez. In this nivola, Unamuno examines the concept of envy and establishes the bases of a theory of alterity based on the specular relationship with the other, which it is constituted by the scarcities of the one who looks. We will also look at what are the philosophical premises of this narration, in which way it is linked (...) with the organic philosophy of Unamuno, and what its relationship with the theatre piece El Otro is, released more than a decade after but of a quite similar subject. Finally, we will outline a possible theory of the alterity by Unamuno that it is formulated through the fraternity and altruistic help. (shrink)

While scientific inquiry crucially relies on the extraction of patterns from data, we still have a far from perfect understanding of the metaphysics of patterns—and, in particular, of what makes a pattern real. In this paper we derive a criterion of real-patternhood from the notion of conditional Kolmogorov complexity. The resulting account belongs to the philosophical tradition, initiated by Dennett :27–51, 1991), that links real-patternhood to data compressibility, but is simpler and formally more perspicuous than other proposals previously defended in (...) the literature. It also successfully enforces a non-redundancy principle, suggested by Ladyman and Ross, that aims to exclude from real-patternhood those patterns that can be ignored without loss of information about the target dataset, and which their own account fails to enforce. (shrink)

Abstract:I defend that the distinctive object of our aesthetic evaluation of films is the full emotional experience, taken as a unified whole, that we go through as we watch a film and that I call the viewer's film emotional life. The aesthetic value itself—the positive quality we perceive in the experience of having had a certain film emotional life—is in the significance we experience in that film emotional life insofar as it contributes to the discovery and the exploration of the (...) viewer's human and individual emotional nature. I finally suggest that the explanation of the positive felt quality of such experience is in the progress it represents regarding our resourcefulness as emotional subjects toward the realization of our individual ideal of life. (shrink)

The debate between the amodal and the grounded views of cognition seems to be stuck. Their only substantial disagreement is about the vehicle or format of concepts. Amodal theorists reject the grounded claim that concepts are couched in the same modality-specific format as representations in sensory systems. The problem is that there is no clear characterization of format or its neural correlate. In order to make the disagreement empirically meaningful and move forward in the discussion we need a neurocognitive criterion (...) for representational format. I argue that efficient coding models in computational neuroscience can be used to characterize modal codes: These are codes which satisfy special informational demands imposed by sensory tasks. Additionally, I examine recent studies on neural coding and argue that although they do not provide conclusive evidence for either the grounded or the amodal views, they can be used to determine what predictions these approaches can make and what experimental and theoretical developments would be required to settle the debate. (shrink)

This textbook is a flexible and affordable collection of classic and contemporary primary sources in philosophy. The readings cover seven basic topics of Western Philosophy. The selections are long enough to present a self-contained argument but not so lengthy that students lose track of the main point. The book includes a glossary and an appendix on logic and argumentation.

Lewis Carroll: Logic Charles L. Dodgson, 1832-1898, was a British mathematician, logician, and the author of the ‘Alice’ books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. His fame derives principally from his literary works, but in the twentieth century some of his mathematical … Continue reading Lewis Carroll: Logic →.

Lewis Carroll: Logic Charles L. Dodgson, 1832-1898, was a British mathematician, logician, and the author of the ‘Alice’ books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. His fame derives principally from his literary works, but in the twentieth century some of his mathematical … Continue reading Lewis Carroll: Logic →.

I defend Christopher Peacocke's and Robert Hopkins's experienced resemblance accounts of depiction against criticisms put forward by Gavin McIntosh in a recent article in this journal. I argue that, while there may be reasons for rejecting Peacocke's and Hopkins's accounts, McIntosh fails to provide any.

The paper introduces a special issue of the journal Philosophical Problems in Science (ZFN) on the topic of the nature and norms of scientific explanation.

I argue that our everyday evaluations of architecture are primarily evaluations of spaces and, in particular, of their inhabitability— that is, whether they serve or can serve to the realization of our individual ideal of life. Inhabitability is not only a functional criterion but an aesthetic one as well. It is aesthetic insofar as the evaluations about inhabitability include evaluations about the quality of the experience of actually doing something in —or simply occupying—a particular space. This aesthetic aspect of our (...) everyday evaluations explains, on one hand, the distinctive features of our everyday preferences for some architectonic spaces over others—namely, their very personal nature; their noticeable value in our daily lives; their inseparability from the activities we plan to realize in those spaces; and the importance of the spaces which are contiguous to the one we are evaluating. And on the other, it both reveals architecture’s significance for the quality of our daily life and serves as a guide for us to choose spaces that improve that quality. (shrink)

John Venn and Charles L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) created systems of logic diagrams capable of representing classes (sets) and their relations in the form of propositions. Each is a proof method for syllogisms, and Carroll's is a sound and complete system. For a large number of sets, Carroll diagrams are easier to draw because of their self-similarity and algorithmic construction. This regularity makes it easier to locate and thereby to erase cells corresponding with classes destroyed by the premises of an (...) argument, a particularly difficult task in Venn diagrams for more than four sets. Carroll diagrams can represent existential propositions easily, so they are capable of clearly representing more complex problems than Venn's system can. Finally, both Carroll and Venn diagrams are maximal, in the sense that no additional logic information like inclusive disjunctions is able to be represented by them. Carroll's logic diagrams and logic trees constitute his visual logic system. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza los aspectos fundamentales de la teoría del conocimiento expuestos en el curso dictado por fray Juan de Fuica (OFM), en 1689, en el Colegio San Diego de Alcalá (Santiago de Chile). Presentamos primero una breve descripción de los Comentarios filosóficos del fraile, volumen en el que se incluyen los Comentarios Acerca del alma sobre el que centraremos nuestro estudio. Luego, analizamos la doctrina del conocimiento ad mentem Scoti expuesta en este manuscrito inédito, testimonio exclusivo de la enseñanza (...) filosófica de la época. El principal aporte de este trabajo es visibilizar parte del patrimonio filosófico colonial del país, lo que permitirá futuras investigaciones en esta área de la disciplina. (shrink)

El artículo ofrece, en un inicio, algunos aspectos biográficos novedosos de la vida de Manuel Antonio Talavera, un teólogo paraguayo y abogado de la Real Audiencia que enseñó filosofía en Chile a finales del siglo XVIII. Luego, se presenta la transcripción de parte del curso de filosofía natural (De corporibus coelestibus) preparado para los alumnos del Real Convictorio Carolino de Santiago de Chile. Hasta ahora, Talavera es conocido sobre todo como el primer cronista de la Independencia de Chile. Por ello, (...) hacemos público por primera vez de manera íntegra un trabajo suyo relativo a su actividad docente en aulas santiaguinas, con lo que descubrimos también su condición de filósofo en Chile durante el fin del período colonial. (shrink)