This paper presents preliminary findings of the project [name omitted for anonymity]. This interdisciplinary project builds on Argumentation theory and developmental sociocultural psychology for the study of children’s argumentation. We reconstruct children’s inferences in adult-child and child-child dialogical interaction in conversation in different settings. We focus in particular on implicit premises using the Argumentum Model of Topics for the reconstruction of the inferential configuration of arguments. Our findings reveal that sources of misunderstandings are more often than not due to misalignments (...) of implicit premises between adults and children; these misalignments concern material premises rather than the inferential-procedural level. (shrink)

For each ordinal α it is given a model for Skala's set theory using the well-known cumulative type hierarchy.

IntroductionThe present study aimed to evaluate the effects of the Active Communication Education program on the social/emotional impacts of hearing loss in a group of older adults with a cochlear implant.DesignProspective cohort study design, with a “within-subject” control procedure.Study SampleTwenty adults over-65 post-lingually deafened CI users. All subjects were required to be native Italian speakers, to have normal cognitive level, have no significant psychiatric conditions and/or diagnosed incident dementia, and used CI for at least 9 months.Materials and MethodsTwenty participants were (...) assessed using the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly, the Geriatric Depression Scale, and the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale before, during, and after ACE program, with a one and 6-month follow up. The cognitive and audiological evaluation was carried out before commencing the ACE program.ResultsThe ACE program had a positive impact by reducing HL’s social/emotional effects. Participants benefited from a rehabilitative approach by improving multilevel skills: comprehension of audiological and hearing dimensions, acquisition of communicative, pragmatic and problem-solving strategies, and interaction and sharing of experiences with peers.ConclusionAlthough targeting the older adults with moderate HL, the ACE program also seemed to benefit older adult CI users. An improvement in social and emotional adaptation to hearing difficulties can, in turn, significantly promote optimal use of CI in the older adults, thereby possibly reducing the risk of losing motivation and engagement in device use and in rehabilitation protocols. (shrink)

El libro del profesor Tommaso Greco La legge della fiducia destaca por la originalidad y actualidad de su planteamiento, ya que representa un cambio de rumbo en los estudios sobre el significado de la legislación en la hora presente. Frente a la tendencia, predominante en los últimos años, de aludir a la crisis de la ley, el profesor Greco defiende la confianza en la ley, siempre que se trate de una ley merecedora de confianza. Tres son las razones (...) que hacen digna de confianza intelectual la propuesta teórico-jurídica que Tommaso Greco nos expone en su libro. La primera, hace referencia al pasado, Se trata de la vexata quaestio de si la ley debe basarse en el optimismo o en el pesimismo antropológico. La segunda se inscribe en el presente por su idoneidad para fortalecer la garantía de dos valores básicos que sustentan a las sociedades democráticas: la educación cívica y la seguridad jurídica. La tercera posee una vocación de futuro, ya que concierne al papel de la ley en la sociedad tecnológica y a las proyecciones de la Inteligencia Artificial en la producción legislativa. (shrink)

Giovanni Mercati, nella monografia sugli scritti e i codici d'Isidoro di Kiev, notava, nel Vat. gr. 138, manoscritto del sec. XI con le Vite di Plutarco, la presenza ripetuta di un titolo bilingue: «πλουτάϱχου παϱάλληλα/ plutarchi parallila». L'osservazione gli dava spunto per rilevare la comparsa di titoli bilingui in una serie di altri codici greci Vaticani (Vat. gr. 30, 81, 87, 191, 226, 1324, 1335, 2176, Urb. gr. 123), nonché in due latini (Vat. lat. 947 e Chis. H VI 179) (...) e in un Laurenziano (plut. 28, 13). A questo elenco lo stesso Mercati aggiungeva in seguito un altro codice della Vaticana, l'Urb. gr. 124. Le caratteristiche grafiche e ortografiche di questi titoli lo inducevano a postulare «la provenienza o l'esame di quei codici da parte di un solo individuo», e in particolare a riconoscervi uno studioso greco. (shrink)

In modern times, the philosophical and theological meaning of work acquires an urgency anticipated by the Marxistic materialism and the Christian spirituality, as witnessed by the Economic-philosophical Manuscripts of Karl Marx and the encyclical letter Laborems Exercens of John Paul II. But this preoccupation was already present in earlier times. In Greco-Roman history there were aulical preconceptions about the work of man 's hands, but there were also religious associations of workers where work was celebrated. The fact that God (...) incarnated in a carpenter made Him familiar with such work. The Church Fathers interpret the work of man 's hands as glorification of God, service to one's neighbor and perfection of self In 1127, during the intellectual and social revolution of the twelfth century, Hugh of Saint-Victor gave a philosophical statute to the mechanical arts in his Didascalicon. Saint Bernard, in De Diligendo Deo, identifies work with the flirts of the four degrees of that love which is the supreme law of the universe ordained for God, the supreme love. (shrink)

Section 1 articulates a genus-species claim: that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Equivalently: In cases of knowledge, S’s success in believing the truth is attributable to S’s ability. That idea is then applied to questions about the nature and value of knowledge. Section 2 asks what it would take to turn the genus-species claim into a proper theory of knowledge; that is, into informative, necessary and sufficient conditions. That question is raised in the context of an important (...) line of objection against even the genus-species claim; namely, that there is no way to understand the attribution relation so that it does all the work that it is supposed to do. Section 3 reviews several extant proposals for understanding the attribution relation, and argues that none of them are adequate for answering the objection. Section 4 proposes a different way of understanding the relation, and shows how the resulting view does resolve the objection. Section 5 completes the new account by proposing a way to understand intellectual abilities. Section 6 briefly addresses Barn Façade cases and lottery propositions. Section 7 briefly addresses a question about the scope of knowledge; in particular, it shows how the new view allows a neo-Moorean response to skepticism. (shrink)

This paper reviews two skeptical arguments and argues that a reliabilist framework is necessary to avoid them. The paper also argues that agent reliabilism, which makes the knower the seat of reliability, is the most plausible version of reliabilism.

In this paper I will present a puzzle about epistemic akrasia, and I will use that puzzle to motivate accepting some non-standard views about the nature of epistemological judgment. The puzzle is that while it seems obvious that epistemic akrasia must be irrational, the claim that epistemic akrasia is always irrational amounts to the claim that a certain sort of justified false belief—a justified false belief about what one ought to believe—is impossible. But justified false beliefs seem to be possible (...) in any domain, and it’s hard to see why beliefs about what one ought to believe should be an exception. I will argue that when we get clearer about what sort of psychological state epistemic akrasia is, we can resolve the puzzle in favor of the intuitive view that epistemic akrasia is always irrational. (shrink)

In its purpose of rethink the relation between truth and method, the philosophical hermeneutics recovers the philosophical problem of the comprehension, privileging as main reference the truth experience of art as an ontological occurrence, which singularity enlarges the knowledge building about the human reality and drives a critic to the methodological model of the scientific modern rationality. The aim of this work is to analyze the character of ontological opening of the art as a truth experience and human formation, considering (...) the nature of its declarative language and the way of being of its own unhide (aletheia). As an expression of finitude, how the art declaration, in its come-to-talk, is determinant for a formation hermeneutics? It is shown the explicit of the art’s updating declaration in its ontological truth character as an experience of game, symbol and party. It is highlighted the hermeneutical relation between the art and formation emphasizing the hermeneutical experience of art in its horizon of opening, dialogical iteration and growing of meaning questions about the human existential reality. (shrink)

v. 1 Dottrina del peccato originale. -- v. 2. Le nozioni di peccato e colpa.

In actuarial parlance, the price of an insurance policy is considered fair if customers bearing the same risk are charged the same price. The estimate of this fair amount hinges on the expected value obtained by weighting the different claims by their probability. We argue that, historically, this concept of actuarial fairness originates in an Aristotelian principle of justice in exchange (equality in risk). We will examine how this principle was formalized in the 16th century and shaped in life insurance (...) during the following two hundred years, in two different interpretations. The Domatian account of actuarial fairness relied on subjective uncertainty: An agreement on risk was fair if both parties were equally ignorant about the chances of an uncertain event. The objectivist version grounded any agreement on an objective risk estimate drawn from a mortality table. We will show how the objectivist approach collapsed in the market for life annuities during the 18th century, leaving open the question of why we still speak of actuarial fairness as if it were an objective expected value. (shrink)

Part One reviews some recent history of epistemology, focusing on ways in which the intellectual virtues have been invoked to solve specific epistemological problems. This part gives a sense of the contemporary landscape that has emerged and clarifies some of the disagreements among those who invoke the virtues in epistemology. Part Two explores some problems about knowledge in greater detail, and defends a externalist approach in virtue epistemology.

Moore's 'Proof of an External World' has evoked a variety of responses from philosophers, including bafflement, indignation and sympathetic reconstruction. I argue that Moore should be understood as following Thomas Reid on a variety of points, both epistemological and methodological. Moreover, Moore and Reid are exactly right on all of these points. Hence what I present is a defence of Moore's 'Proof', as well as an interpretation. Finally, I argue that the Reid-Moore position is useful for resolving an issue that (...) has recently received attention in epistemology, namely, how is it that one knows that one is not a brain in a vat? (shrink)

In section one the deontological (or responsibilist) conception of justification is discussed and explained. In section two, arguments are put forward in order to derive the most plausible version of perspectival internalism, or the position that epistemic justification is a function of factors internal to the believer's cognitive perspective. The two most common considerations put forward in favor of perspectival internalism are discussed. These are the responsibilist conception of justification, and the intuition that two believers with like beliefs and experiences (...) are equally justified in their like beliefs. In section three it is argued that perspectival internalism is false, and that in fact the position is not supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Section four explicates two other forms of internalism, which are rejected for reasons similar to those presented against perspectival internalism. In section five, an internalist theory of justification is defended which is supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Roughly stated, the position is that justified belief is belief which arises from the use of correct rules of reasoning. The idea of correctness is explicated, and the position is distinguished from others which are similar to it. (shrink)

The text analyses the new images produced by artificial neural networks such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) from the perspective of photography and, more specifically, cameraless photography. The images produced by GANs are located within the wider framework of the impact of machine learning technologies on contemporary visual culture and contemporary artistic practices. In the final section, the article focuses on the work of two artists who have explicity tackled the relations between GAN-generated images and the traditions of photography and (...) cameraless photography, with their multiple intertwinings of human and non-human agencies: Mario Klingemann and Grégory Chatonsky. (shrink)

Often presented as a new form of materialism, theories of media have been repeatedly fascinated by the idea of dematerialization—more precisely, by a vision of the history of technical media as a process teleologically oriented toward a future characterized by the overcoming of the weight, the opaqueness, and the resistance of materiality and by the advent of new, pervasive forms of instantaneous communication. Light, be it natural or artificial, has often played a key role in this historical narrative. With its (...) diffused presence, limitless plasticity, ultimate speed, ambiguous status between infinitely small particles and electromagnetic waves, and crucial role in the transmission of images and signals, light has often raised the question of the materiality of media itself, pointing to the possibility of immediacy—of an immediate, instantaneous, immaterial transmission. In this article I analyze the presence of this idea of dematerialization as the end point of media history in the writings of László Moholy-Nagy and Marshall McLuhan, whose thinking about media is centered on the assumption that light is the most fundamental medium, one that leads the entire range of technical media to gradually dematerialize and merge within the environment or even dissolve into the atmosphere. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta los resultados preliminares obtenidos en la conformación del Atlas Iberoamericano en Bioética que ha desarrollado el Centro Anáhuac de Desarrollo Estratégico en Bioética (CADEBI) respecto a la identificación y análisis de las instituciones de Bioética existentes en la Región. Se realizó una revisión documental a través de motores de búsqueda, bases de datos, redes sociales y otras fuentes. La información obtenida se agrupó en seis diferentes categorías de acuerdo con la estructura, objetivos y actividades que desarrollan. De (...) esta manera, se realizó un diagnóstico inicial con base en las fuentes documentales disponibles en la Web. Como parte de los resultados, se identificaron 157 instituciones en 25 países; así como la variación en la densidad institucional, concentrándose principalmente en España (29 instituciones), México (26 instituciones), Argentina (17 instituciones), Brasil (13 instituciones), Chile (11 instituciones) y Colombia (8 instituciones). Además, se resalta la importancia de las comisiones nacionales de bioética en el desarrollo institucional, señalando la relación entre el avance científico y tecnológico de los países y el desarrollo de la bioética. El texto concluye con la propuesta de crear un Observatorio de la Red Iberoamericana de Bioética para documentar y promover el intercambio institucional y científico en la Región, así como algunas recomendaciones derivadas del desarrollo de este trabajo. (shrink)

Epistemologists and philosophers of mind both ask questions about belief. Epistemologists ask normative questions about belief—which beliefs ought we to have? Philosophers of mind ask metaphysical questions about belief—what are beliefs, and what does it take to have them? While these issues might seem independent of one another, there is potential for an interesting sort of conflict: the epistemologist might think we ought to have beliefs that, according to the philosopher of mind, it is impossible to have. This essay argues (...) that this conflict does arise and that it creates problems for traditional skeptical views in epistemology. In particular, it argues that on certain popular views about the nature of belief, it is impossible to adopt the near-global agnosticism recommended by the skeptical epistemologist. On other plausible views, it is possible only in special circumstances, and this limitation undermines skeptical epistemological claims. The only views about the nature of belief on which there are no metaphysical hurdles to adopting the agnosticism recommended by the skeptic are views that face powerful objections—objections that are completely independent of antiskeptical epistemological considerations. (shrink)

O artigo explora as fontes históricas da lenda O riso de Demócrito e o pranto de Heráclito, com destaque para a antiguidade greco-romana e para a modernidade renascentista. É realizado um estudo genealógico da referida lenda, seguido da análise de três obras: as Cartas do Pseudo-Hipócrates (c. século I d.C.) e os discursos oratórios de Antônio Vieira (Le lacrime d'Eraclito) e de Girolamo Cattaneo (Il riso di Democrito) (1674). Diante da tirania da felicidade que se impõe nas sociedades contemporâneas, (...) o resgate desse construto cultural milenar serve como locus de reflexão sobre prudencialidade ética e condição humana. (shrink)

Sven Bernecker has raised questions about how agent reliabilism should adjudicate clairvoyance cases.1 Bernecker’s charge is that the view cannot accommodate internalist intuitions about such cases while remaining psychologically plausible. His more specific charge is that invoking the notion of cognitive integration does not help. This paper responds to Bernecker’s charges. In section 1 we clarify a version of agent reliabilism and Bernecker’s objections against it. In section 2 we say more about how the notion of cognitive integration helps to (...) adjudicate clairvoyance cases and other proposed counterexamples to reliabilism. The central idea is that cognitive integration underwrites a kind of belief ownership, which in turn underwrites the sort of responsibility for belief required for subjective justification. In section 3 we say more about what cognitive integration amounts to, drawing on some recent accounts of desire ownership from the literature on autonomy and moral responsibility. (shrink)

Sanford Goldberg has called our attention to an interesting problem: How is it that young children can learn from the testimony of their caregivers (their parents, teachers, and nannies, for example) even when the children themselves are undiscriminating consumers of testimony? Part One describes the importance and scope of the problem, showing that it generalizes beyond tots and their caregivers. Part Two considers and rejects several strategies for solving the problem, including Goldberg's own. Part Three defends a solution, positing a (...) previously unnoticed social dimension to knowledge. (shrink)

I present a straightforward objection to the view that what we know has epistemic probability 1: when combined with Bayesian decision theory, the view seems to entail implausible conclusions concerning rational choice. I consider and reject three responses. The first holds that the fault is with decision theory, rather than the view that knowledge has probability 1. The second two try to reconcile the claim that knowledge has probability 1 with decision theory by appealing to contextualism and sensitive invariantism, respectively. (...) I argue that each response fails, and that we can hold on to much of what was attractive in the responses while denying that what we know has probability 1. (shrink)

Recent literature in epistemology has focused on the following argument for skepticism (SA): I know that I have two hands only if I know that I am not a handless brain in a vat. But I don't know I am not a handless brain in a vat. Therefore, I don't know that I have two hands. Part I of this article reviews two responses to skepticism that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s: sensitivity theories and attributor contextualism. Part II considers (...) the more recent ‘neo-Moorean’ response to skepticism and its development in ‘safety’ theories of knowledge. Part III argues that the skeptical argument set out in SA is not of central importance. Specifically, SA is parasitic on skeptical reasoning that is more powerful and more fundamental than that displayed by SA itself. Finally, Part IV reviews a Pyrrhonian argument for skepticism that is not well captured by SA, and considers a promising strategy for responding to it. (shrink)

This paper sets out to explore the relation between social argumentation and inner debate by taking into account suggestions from argumentation studies and from social and discursive psychology. It develops Dascal’s (2005) claim that there are metonymical and structural relations between the two realms of debate by substantiating it with data taken from international migrants’ inner debates at moments of difficult decisions. The data are drawn from the experience of migrating mothers who have to decide whether to go back or (...) to remain in their host country (the UK). I show that others are present in migrants’ multivoiced decisions in two important senses: first, inner debates can be reconstructed as critical discussions (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1984). Second, the locus from analogy has the special function of allowing the comparison between the migrant’s experience and someone else’s experience. (shrink)

Background Neuroimaging and lesion studies suggested that the dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices mediate visual metacognitive awareness. The causal evidence provided by non-invasive brain stimulation, however, is inconsistent. -/- Objective/hypothesis Here we revisit a major figure discrimination experiment adding a new Kanizsa figure task trying to resolve whether bilateral continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) over these regions affects perceptual metacognition. Specifically, we tested whether subjective visibility ratings and/or metacognitive efficiency are lower when cTBS is applied to these two (...) regions in comparison to an active control region. -/- Methods A within-subjects design including three sessions spaced by one-week intervals was implemented. In each session, every participant was administered bilateral cTBS to either prefrontal, control or parietal cortices. Two concurrent tasks were performed, a real and an illusory figure task, stabilising objective performance with use of an adaptive staircase procedure. -/- Results When performing the replicated task, cTBS was found insufficient to disrupt neither visibility ratings nor metacognitive efficiency. However, with use of Kanizsa style illusory figures, cTBS over the dorsolateral prefrontal, but not over the posterior parietal cortex, was observed to significantly diminish metacognitive efficiency. -/- Conclusion(s) Real and illusory figure tasks demonstrated different cTBS effects. A possible explanation is the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the creation of expectations, which is necessary for efficient metacognition. Failure to replicate previous findings for the real figure task, however, cannot be said to support, conclusively, the notion that these brain regions have a causal role in metacognitive awareness. This inconsistent finding may result from certain limitations of our study, thereby suggesting the need for yet further investigation. (shrink)

The term ‘vitalism’ is most readily associated with a series of debates among 18th- and 19th-century biologists, and broadly with the claim that the explanation of living phenomena is not compatible with, or is not exhausted by, the principles of basic sciences like physics and chemistry. Scientists and philosophers have continued to address vitalism - mostly in order to reject it - well into the second half of the 20th century, in connection with classic concepts such as mechanism, reductionism, emergence, (...) complexity and artificial intelligence, and in connection with approaches such as information theory and cybernetics. This article problematizes and transforms the claim that vitalism is obsolete by evaluating it diachronically, in the spirit of the historian and philosopher of medicine, Georges Canguilhem. It discusses the contrast between classical vitalism and Canguilhem’s own claim that vitalism is ‘an imperative rather than a method and more of an ethical system, perhaps, than a theory’. At the same time, it argues that Canguilhem’s position cannot be reduced to a ‘polemical vitalism’ devoid of compromising references to reality or ontology. In relation to contemporary forms of engagement between social theory and biotechnoscience, Canguilhem’s vitalism continues to provide the critical corrective that is proper to its ‘vitality’. (shrink)

In the paper it is argued that bridging the digital divide may cause a new ethical and social dilemma. Using Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons, we show that an improper opening and enlargement of the digital environment (Infosphere) is likely to produce a Tragedy of the Digital Commons (TDC). In the course of the analysis, we explain why Adar and Huberman's previous use of Hardin's Tragedy to interpret certain recent phenomena in the Infosphere (especially peer-to-peer communication) may not be entirely (...) satisfactory. We then seek to provide an improved version of the TDC that avoids the possible shortcomings of their model. Next, we analyse some problems encountered by the application of classical ethics in the resolution of the TDC. In the conclusion, we outline the kind of work that will be required to develop an ethical approach that may bridge the digital divide but avoid the TDC. (shrink)

Esse texto é um escrito que, ao final, é um termo médio entre um Artigo e um Ensaio. O objetivo é expor nossa compreensão sobre o sentido d“o material” e as implicações onto(epistemo)lógicas desta concepção no pensamento de Karl Marx. Em plano geral, primeiramente, nosso texto discorre sobre o que nomeamos de “a questão primeira”, qual seja: o que é “o material” no interior e no contexto dos escritos de Marx? Para cumprir essa tarefa procedemos com leituras de textos marxianos (...) visando identificar, neles, passagens importantes aonde o conceito de “material” é pressuposto, citado ou implicado. No segundo momento do texto, afirmamos que os resultados das análises do sentido d“o material” nos possibilitam induzir e/ou deduzir que o materialismo de Marx é dialético. Por fim, apresentamos algumas conclusões que decorrem do aceite da validade e veracidade da tese de que Marx pensa dialeticamente, de que seu materialismo é dialético. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a relevant possibilities approach against a familiar kind of skepticism, and I argue that virtue epistemology can provide a theoretical grounding for the kind of solutions that is offered. In the section that follows I outline both the skeptical problems and the solution. In the remaining sections I develop the proposal in more detail. If my argument is sound then the paper also constitutes an argument in favor of virtue epistemology.

This paper provides a detailed analysis of how, according to Kant, the moral badness of some third parties’ actions can be established with certainty (by anyone, not only by the agent’s own conscience or by God). This account helps clarify why Kant affirms that some forms of wrongdoing (of which there are a “multitude of woeful examples”) can be demonstrated to be immoral, while excluding the possibility of proving the moral goodness of any action. The paper concludes by arguing that (...) the possible certainty of judgements imputing immorality to actions of others is not rational but rather moral. (shrink)