En este artículo realizamos un relevamiento exhaustivo de las publicaciones de Médicos por la Verdad, uno de los principales grupos antivacunas de Latinoamérica, en la red social Twitter durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Clasificamos sus tipos de razonamiento y el contenido de sus mensajes y mostramos que las propuestas existentes de análisis de discursos anticientíficos no pueden aplicarse a este caso particular. Proponemos, en consecuencia, una nueva categorización y su aplicación focalizada en las herramientas disponibles para comunicadores de la ciencia, (...) por un lado, y público no especializado, por el otro. (shrink)

En este trabajo, se propone una clasificación epistemológica teórica para el discurso astrológico a partir de evidencia empírica a fin de abordar el problema de cómo determinar específicamente qué es lo que lo hace ilegítimo. A partir de esta clasificación, se diseñó una intervención didáctica, enmarcada en el enfoque de Enseñanza de las Ciencias Naturales en Contexto (ECNC), con el objetivo de fomentar, en estudiantes de nivel secundario, la capacidad de distinguir enunciados cognoscitivamente ilegítimos -por infalsables o por falsos- respecto (...) de aquellos que pueden constituir genuino conocimiento científico. La secuencia didáctica se implementó con un grupo de 51 estudiantes de 14 a 17 años. Se evaluó su impacto por comparación entre un pretest y un postest. Los resultados mostraron que su capacidad de discernimiento entre enunciados falsables y no falsables se incrementó apreciablemente. (shrink)

In this article, we tackle the phenomenon of what seems to be a misunderstanding between science education theory and philosophy of science−one which does not seem to have received any attention in the literature. While there seems to be a consensus within the realm of science education on limiting or altogether denying the explanatory role of scientific laws (particularly in contrast with “theories”), none of the canonical models of scientific explanation (covering law, statistical relevance, unification, mechanistic-causal, pragmatic) lends any support (...) to this view of laws. We will reconstruct three different versions of this demotion of laws (i.e., laws are merely descriptive; laws are explanatory only of singular events, not of laws; laws are explanatory but only in a “superficial” way), propose possible grounds for them and illustrate why these perspectives pose a conceptual challenge as they contrast with epistemological approaches to the problem of explanation. We will also suggest the potential negative outcomes that would arise from science teachers adopting these approaches in the classroom when aiming to assist students in moving beyond mere description and towards explanation. (shrink)

In this article, we try to argue, against McIntyre’s proposal in How to talk to a science denier, that there is a relevant difference between various forms of science denialism. Specifically, we contend that there is a significant distinction to be made between those forms of denialism which deny the existence of an expert consensus (the model of which is the strategy of the tobacco companies in the 1950s) and those which deny the probatory value of such expert consensus (on (...) the basis, e.g., of conspiracy theories involving scientists). While McIntyre and others advocate for the value of communicating consensus as an effective and perfectly rational strategy against those forms of denialism which deceivingly deny the existence of scientific agreement, we argue that this approach becomes question-begging against those which deny its probatory value. Accordingly, then, we object to McIntyre’s characterization that “all science denial is basically the same” and suggest a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon. (shrink)

In recent years, several strategies have been proposed to tackle social controversies about topics in which science is settled, among which one of the most influential is that of Elizabeth Anderson, who argues that any lay person with access to the Internet and basic education can reliably assess the acceptability of various claims involving expert knowledge. In particular, the author shows that this procedure can be successfully applied to the case of anthropogenic global warming. In this article we will try (...) to argue why, even if we concede that Anderson's proposal is satisfactory in that particular case, it fails to generalize when applied to other controversies. In this article, we illustrate it with the cases of flat-Eartherism and anti-vaxxerism. (shrink)

It does not seem particularly daring to say that one objective of science education is to enable students to understand different phenomena in the world in their mutual relationship. This is roughly equivalent to promoting knowledge of scientific explanations, which involve resorting to regular relationships between certain phenomena and which, certainly, is different from knowledge of this or that type of event taken in isolation. In this text, we will draw attention to two opposing tendencies that, however, tend towards the (...) common result of hindering the achievement of such an objective. On the one hand, we find characterizations of scientific explanation that assimilate it to argumentation and, therefore, lose sight of what specifically makes explanations explanatory; that is, they ask too little of a scientific explanation. On the other hand, those that consider paradigmatic cases of scientific explanation −such as those achieved by subsuming phenomena such as tides to Newton's laws− do not really constitute explanations but merely descriptions; it is about asking too much of an explanation here. We will therefore point out that a greater attention to the elaborations provided by the philosophy of science about the notion of explanation is crucial to better serve educational purposes. (shrink)

AimUnderstanding interrelations between the factors predicting students’ aggressive behavior is a priority for bullying-prevention programs. Our study explores two possible mechanisms linking school disciplinary structure and students’ aggression. We test students’ moral disengagement and bullying by teachers as mediational pathways from school authoritative discipline to students’ aggressive behavior.MethodsWe used a regionally representative sample of 213 schools that participated in a school climate survey in Kaluga Oblast (a federal subject of Russia) in 2019. The analytical sample contained the anonymous responses of (...) 16,809 students from grades 6–9 (12–15 years old); 51% of the respondents were girls. The analytical procedure consisted of structural equation modeling (SEM), which was implemented in Mplus 8.7.ResultsThe mediation model fit the data well, suggesting that the clarity and fairness of school rules negatively predicted peer aggression, while student moral disengagement and bullying by teachers independently and partially mediated this association.ConclusionWe confirm that authoritative school climate, characterized by a clear and fair disciplinary structure, is associated with a decrease in bullying. Novel result is the evidence for mediating mechanisms and the influence of teachers’ aggression on students’ behavior. Prevention programs designed to increase the fairness and consistency of school rules, eliminate bullying and humiliation from teachers, and decrease students’ moral disengagement may reduce violence and victimization at school. (shrink)

In the age of Anthropocene, can aesthetics propose a not prevaricating behavioural model towards nature, leading to a new conception of humanity based on our being moved by nature? In this article, we will try to answer this question, exploring how some exponents of contemporary Environmental Aesthetics have examined the significance of human emotional responses to nature. Starting from the assumption that Kant defines the sublime as a motion of the soul, we wonder how aesthetics can reinterpret this concept to (...) affirm not human superiority over nature but his being part of it. To do so, we will turn our attention not only to some exponents of Environmental Aesthetics but also to Schopenhauer's concept of the sublime and the thought of Arne Næss, the father of the Deep Ecology movement. (shrink)

Loneliness is more complex and multi-faceted than it may appear at first glance. Most of the characterizations that we have of loneliness in the extant literature tend to focus on the absence of other people and on the social, mental, and physical distress that can be caused by this type of absence. Although the experience of absence may be a fundamental and encompassing aspect of loneliness, loneliness may also reflect a deeper, more complex experience. This paper integrates data from a (...) qualitative study on the phenomenology of loneliness with philosophical theories on the self. It argues that there is a connection between the experience of absence and the impossibility to appear in the world and that this may consequentially lead to the disruption of self-experience. (shrink)

O advento da sociedade em rede promoveu mudanças significativas na experiência-com-o-mundo. Observa-se nos últimos anos a crescente toxidade no ambiente informacional, marcado tanto pela vivência tóxica da informação que circula legalmente nas redes sociais como por informações que intoxicam os indivíduos e grupos. O objetivo é discutir, em tempos de pós-verdade e da sociedade non-stop, o aspecto tóxico da informação, que ao tornar o ambiente informacional tóxico, adoece indivíduos e também as sociedades democráticas, ao esmaecer a empatia para com os (...) demais e de pôr em risco a própria ideia de democracia e de vida partilhada de modo democrático. A proposta é discutir a intoxicação pela informação não pelo excesso (infoxicação), mas pelo que nomeio informação tóxica, i.e., o aspecto tóxico da informação e de ambiente informacional tóxico tendo como referência os discursos de ódio. Para tanto serão consideradas a desconstrução de experiências de estados democráticos mediante o crescimento da circulação de discursos de ódio e de discursos de ódio fascistas; o crescimento da desinformação; o crescimento da circulação de notícias fraudulentas (Fake news) e de notícias falsas (por exemplo, as não endossadas pelos saberes científicos, como o terraplanismo, a ideia da supremacia branca); os robots e os algoritmos. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe uma discussão sobre jornalismo e subjetividade a partir de uma argumentação que considera que, embora o discurso hegemônico sobre a instituição se construa a partir do ideal da objetividade, de um texto constituído apenas pelos fatos e cujo autor deixa de ser sujeito para assumir a identidade de jornalista, a subjetividade foi sempre constituidora do texto jornalístico. Assim, pensando a partir dos estudos culturais o jornalismo como uma instituição social com formas, valores e funções conformados historicamente, e (...) os sujeitos como indivíduos que se reconhecem a partir de uma ampla rede de relações de poder, de tradições culturais, de representações de identidades, argumentamos que, em um contexto cada vez maior de centralidade dos sujeitos na cultura contemporânea, os discursos sobre si tem sido uma forte tendência também no jornalismo. (shrink)

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is an idiographic approach to qualitative research. It is widely used in psychologically-informed studies which aim to understand the meaning and context of specific experiences. In this paper, we provide some background and introduction to the principles and processes underpinning IPA research. We extend this via a practical example, reporting on selected analyses from a study which explores the phenomenology and meaning of loneliness, through interviews conducted with a group of religious women. Through our observations on (...) the complex role of absence for loneliness, we show that IPA can be a powerful tool for exploring and understanding the meaning of salient experiences. We reflect on the significance of the results for advancing theories of loneliness; and on the capacity of the IPA approach to provide researchers with an important and useful phenomenological perspective, through its emphasis on context, and its commitment to integrating convergent and divergent claims. (shrink)

Although early‐life adversity has been associated with negative consequences during adulthood, growing evidence shows that such adversity can also lead to subsequent stress resilience and positive fitness outcomes. Telomere dynamics are relevant in this context because of the link with developmental conditions and longevity. However, few studies have assessed whether the effects of early‐life adversity on developmental telomere dynamics may relate to adult telomere dynamics. We propose that the potential links between early‐life adversity and adult telomere dynamics could be driven (...) by developmental constraints (the Constraint hypothesis), by the nature/severity of developmental adversity (the Resilience hypothesis), or by developmental‐mediated changes in individual life‐history strategies (the Pace of Life hypothesis). We discuss these non‐mutually exclusive hypotheses, explore future research directions, and propose specific studies to test these hypotheses. Our article aims to expand our understanding of the evolutionary role of developmental conditions on adult telomere dynamics, stress resilience and ageing. (shrink)

This article wants to investigate the logic of mimicry and their communicative function in animal life adopting an aesthetical perspective. The relationship between appearance and not-appearance, between the act of making itself visible and the act of disguising itself, is investigated starting from the morphological thought of the Swiss biologist Adolf Portmann, in a continuous dialogue with great thinkers of past and actual time – Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Hannah Arendt and Roger Caillois – and with the artistic illustrations of the (...) American painter Abbott Thayer, concerned with the laws of color camouflage. This productive relationship among biology, aesthetics and artistic practice allows us to show that the sphere of the skin, far from being "superficial" and meaningless, is the privileged point of view for a true semiotics of the visible. (shrink)

Vivemos nos desdobramentos daquilo que Manuel Castells (2005) nomeou de Sociedade em Rede, em cujo cerne estão as Tecnologias de Informação (TIs). Ele indicou as características-chave do novo cenário que diagnosticou, a saber, são tecnologias que agem sobre a própria informação e que também introduziram a lógica das redes; que promovem a convergência tecnológica e, por conseguinte, um sistema altamente integrado de aparatos técnicos; e que acentuadamente penetram pelos diferentes processos e âmbitos sociais. De lá para cá testemunhamos grandes e (...) rápidos saltos tecnológicos bem como o adensamento das transformações na dinâmica econômico-política organizacional e institucional e na construção das vidas humanas e não-humanas no planeta. Essas mudanças alcançaram não apenas modos informais de aprendizagem, mas também a educação formal. O objetivo desse artigo é discutir aspectos atuais da plataformização educacional presentes na educação básica brasileira, tendo como referência o ensino de Filosofia no Ensino Médio. Para tanto será desenvolvida reflexão sobre a plataformização educacional, fenômeno que diz respeito ao modelo de negócios presente na atual fase do capitalismo e que utiliza as plataformas sustentadas pela IA e também a constante extração de dados de quem transita pelas infovias do ciberespaço; sobre o que nomeamos como Escola do Cansaço, em diálogo com o conceito de Sociedade do Cansaço desenvolvido por Byung Chul Han; e sobre algumas implicações decorrentes que já se fazem presentes na administração do trabalho docente, na realização do trabalho docente e nas relações de ensino-aprendizagem. (shrink)

A key question in the theory of migration and in public debates on immigration policies is when migration can be said to be voluntary and when, conversely, it should be seen as nonvoluntary. In a previous article, we tried to answer this crucial question by providing a list of conditions we view as sufficient for migration to be considered nonvoluntary. According to our account, one condition that makes migration nonvoluntary is when people migrate because they lack acceptable alternatives to doing (...) so. In this article, we take the opportunity to further explore and clarify this crucial condition. More specifically, we focus on two main sets of questions. First, we ask whether migration is always voluntary when it serves goals that are voluntarily chosen, and whether those who decide to migrate voluntarily but only have the option of choosing among a limited set of dangerous, harmful, or illegal means for doing so, can be said to be forced to choose those means. Second, we ask whether what counts as “nonacceptable” alternatives should also include cases in which people could have their needs and fundamental rights met, but at the cost of betraying their moral principles or conceptions of the good. (shrink)

Public deliberation has been defended as a rational and noncoercive way to overcome paradoxical results from democratic voting, by promoting consensus on the available alternatives on the political agenda. Some critics have argued that full consensus is too demanding and inimical to pluralism and have pointed out that single-peakedness, a much less stringent condition, is sufficient to overcome voting paradoxes. According to these accounts, deliberation can induce single-peakedness through the creation of a ‘meta-agreement’, that is, agreement on the dimension according (...) to which the issues at stake are ‘conceptualized’. We argue here that once all the conditions needed for deliberation to bring about single-peakedness through meta-agreement are unpacked and made explicit, meta-agreement turns out to be a highly demanding condition, and one that is very inhospitable to pluralism. (shrink)

This chapter sides with those who believe that a right to stay should be counted among fundamental human rights. However, it also acknowledges that there are good reasons for objecting to the most popular justifications of the right to stay, which are based on the assumption that people have valuable ties to their community of residence and that people’s life plans are located where they live. In response to these qualms, this chapter argues that the best way to make sense (...) of the right to stay is to conceive it as belonging to the category of “control rights”; these are the rights that protect people’s control over their own bodies and personal space, which is an essential condition for personhood and human dignity. This account of the right to stay can overcome the most pressing objections to its recognition as a fundamental human right. (shrink)

The objective of this chapter is to introduce some of the views that have been put forward in almost 20 years of research on diagrammatic proofs in the philosophy of mathematical practice. In Sect. 1, some contextual elements will be presented on the reasons why diagrammatic proofs have attracted so much philosophical attention in the past years. In Sect. 2, the “first wave” in the research on diagrammatic proofs based on the analysis of case studies will be described: this is (...) how it started. In Sect. 3, the “second wave,” which is calling for “big pictures” and divides into two different strategies, will be discussed: this is where it is going. In Sect. 4, some conclusions will be drawn. (shrink)

This article describes the methods involved in building a diachronic multilingual corpus devoted to Fine Arts, beginning with G. Vasari's Lives of the most excellent Italian architects, sculptors and painters (1568) as the fundamental source text in the field of Art History. Attention is given to automatic pre-alignment, the special proofreading protocol and segmentation rules developed to allow multilingual and/or diachronic alignment of multiple texts, and the difficulties inherent in annotating a multilingual database. A case study is offered, comparing the (...) term “tondo” and its variants (e.g. “mezzo tondo”, “di tondo rilievo”) in Italian with their translations in English (De Vere 1912-15) and French (Leclanché 1839, Chastel 1981, Luciani 2002, Powell 2007). These later translations contain a greater variety of both lexicalized counterparts such as “medallion” or “lunette” as well as paraphrases, used to disambiguate and distinguish the various meanings of “tondo”, thus demonstrating how artistic vocabulary, which was still developing in 16th c. Italian, through its transmission to other languages, became more diversified and stable over time. (shrink)

El objetivo general de este texto es plantear una aproximación al concepto de género desde la crítica inmanente a la ideología propuesta por Rahel Jaeggi y considerando algunas de las contribuciones de Sally Haslanger en relación a los desafíos y tareas de la Teoría crítica. Sostengo que la crítica inmanente es una buena propuesta metodológica que permite abordar y clarificar patologías sociales en el mundo contemporáneo. En vistas de este objetivo, hago dialogar la metodología y consideraciones normativas de la crítica (...) inmanente con el análisis antropológico del concepto de género presentado en los trabajos de Joan Scott y Marta Lamas. (shrink)

In the following pages I will outline the main biographical data and the intellectual activity of two of the major protagonists of the debate on the mechanistisches Weltbild within the Frankfurt “Institut fur Sozialforschung” in the thirties. I have included a selected bibliography of Grossmann's and Borkenau's works, and refer to titles with abbreviations [H.G.…] and [F.B.…].

Equal respect for persons is often appealed to as the grounding principle of democratic rule. I argue here that if it needs to account for the specific content of democratic political rights, it must be understood as respect for people as competent political decision-makers. However, the claim that respect is due to people as a response to their actual equal competence leads to a conflation of democratic legitimacy and substantive justice, resting on implausible factual assumptions and making it impossible to (...) advocate the effective equalization of political capabilities. Therefore, I suggest that the principle of equal respect should be decoupled from such a claim and be rephrased as simply prescribing that people be treated or publicly recognized as equally competent. I defend this interpretation against the publicity objection, according to which this take on the principle implies insincerity and therefore cannot serve as a public justification for democratic authority. (shrink)

Discutir a potencialidade imagem em movimento no ensino de Filosofia e a compreensão do filme como discurso significante, conjugando as experiências desenvolvidas em pesquisas e sala de aula. Apresentar também recortes de disciplina ministrada que utilizou textos filosóficos e episódio de StarTrek Deep Space Nine. O filme é entendido como texto fílmico, um objeto em cuja materialidade estão inscritos diferentes códigos da linguagem cinematográfica, e como documento informacional, que comporta diferentes níveis de informações que necessitam ser reconhecidas e trabalhadas, a (...) fim de que o uso pedagógico seja satisfatório. Assim, para além do entretenimento, o texto fílmico tem a possibilidade de ser usado como recurso pedagógico e de análise social. Observa-se como constitutivos do universo Trek os filmes realizados para o cinema e as séries televisivas. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to take into account the functioning of representational cognitive tools, and in particular of notations and visualizations in mathematics. In order to explain their functioning, formulas in algebra and logic and diagrams in topology will be presented as case studies and the notion of manipulative imagination as proposed in previous work will be discussed. To better characterize the analysis, the notions of material anchor and representational affordance will be introduced.

There have been recurrent reports of fragilities in the Brazilian health system, especially in public institutions. In this commentary, I argue that moral distress in nursing in Brazil can still be considered an innovative and important subject of study. I also highlight the relevance of engaging educational institutions in the development of policies about environmental sustainability. It is relevant to continue studying moral distress in nursing and in health care generally in order to contribute to the transformation of reality by (...) confronting the multiple common situations in the work environment that are recognized by many as morally problematic because they infringe upon the rights of people, patients, and health care professionals and are an affront to environmental health. (shrink)

This introduction aims to familiarize readers with basic dimensions of variation among pictorial and diagrammatic representations, as we understand them, in order to serve as a backdrop to the articles in this volume. Instead of trying to canvas the vast range of representational kinds, we focus on a few important axes of difference, and a small handful of illustrative examples. We begin in Section 1 with background: the distinction between pictures and diagrams, the concept of systems of representation, and that (...) of the properties of usage associated with signs. In Section 2 we illustrate these ideas with a case study of diagrammatic representation: the evolution from Euler diagrams to Venn diagrams. Section 3 is correspondingly devoted to pictorial representation, illustrated by the comparison between parallel and linear perspective drawing. We conclude with open questions, and then briefly summarize the articles to follow. (shrink)

In pluralistic deliberative settings, where people come from different cultural and social backgrounds, sharing personal experiences and narratives in the first person is often advocated as a preferential means to bridge the informational and motivational gap between members of different social groups. Whatever the epistemic merits of personal storytelling in democratic deliberation may be, the request for transparency and disclosure of people’s private experiences that this practice entails may be objectionable on moral grounds, because it disrespects people as agents who (...) have practical authority over their own lives. Having people disclose their personal stories in public can humiliate them, reify them and abridge their personal liberties. What is worse, these harms are especially likely to be inflicted upon members of marginalised or disadvantaged minorities. For deliberativists, this should be a matter of concern because respect for people as agents is arguably one of the founding principles of democratic deliberation. (shrink)

Guided by a phenomenological perspective, this paper aims to account for the existence of a corporeal consciousness—something that clinicians should take into account, not merely in the case of physical pathologies but especially in the case of mental disorders. Firstly, I will highlight three cases: schizophrenia, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. Then, I will show how these cases correspond to three different kinds of bodily existence: disembodiment (in the case of schizophrenia), chrematization (in melancholic depression), and dyssynchrony (in the autism (...) spectrum disorder). Finally, I will argue for the importance of an “expressive common environment” between the patient and the clinician, who are two distinct, embodied conscious subjects resonating with one another. In this view, the primary goal of the therapeutic process seems to develop a shared understanding of the patient’s life-world, which finds its main expression through the disrupted body. (shrink)

Authentic human life is the open-ended dialogue. Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to head, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his whole life: with his eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit, with his whole body and deeds. He invests his entire self in discourse, and this discourse enters into the dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium. (Bahktin, (...) 1984, p. 283)... (shrink)