Europe and the European Union are now on the agenda, and there are heated discussions concerning both monetary and social unification. Ralf Dahrendorf, a Euroskeptic, has recently pointed out that “The worst part of the European Union is the deadly boredom surrounding most of the issues with which it deals.” The endless technical questions tackled by experts and interest groups are important and unavoidable, but they concern only those occasionally affected by them. Rarely is the fundamental question ever posed: “What (...) is the real reason why we are seeking European Union?”1For their part, philosophers have rediscovered an old theme:…. (shrink)

How can we capture the intuitive distinction between lying and misleading? According to a traditional view, the difference boils down to whether the speaker is saying (as opposed to implying) something that they believe to be false. This view is subject to known objections; to overcome them, an alternative view has emerged. For the alternative view, what matters is whether the speaker can consistently deny that they are committed to knowing the relevant proposition. We point out serious flaws for this (...) alternative view, and sketch a simpler alternative that incorporates key insights of the traditional view. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)

Besides indicating the fundamental themes of the various contributions that come together in this monographic section, the purpose of this introduction is to recall the main features of the Hobbesian concept of power, starting from the belief that Hobbes’ philosophy is above all a phi-losophy of power. Based on a radical materialistic ontology, the Hobbesian semantics of power takes on different variations in the particular discursive fields it crosses, which in turn significantly influence its movement. The double dependence on the (...) authority of the sovereign and on the opinion of the people ultimately highlights the aporetic character of the Hobbesian notion of power. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine how organizations’ impression management evolves in response to rising stakeholder pressures regarding organizations’ corporate responsibility initiatives. We conducted a comparative case study analysis over a period of 13 years for two organizations—Exxon and BP—that took extreme initial stances on climate change. We found that as stakeholder pressures rose, their IM tactics unfolded in four phases: advocating the initial stance, sensegiving to clarify the initial stance, image repairing, and adjusting the stance. Taken together, our analysis of (...) IM over these four phases provides three key insights about the evolution of IM in the face of rising pressures. First, when faced with stakeholder pressures, it seems that organizations do not immediately resort to conforming but tend to give in gradually when pressures increase and start to come from relatively powerful stakeholders. Second, evolution of IM seems to be characterized by path dependence, i.e., even as organizations’ positions evolve, they continue to show their conviction in their initial positions and try to convey that their subsequent positions flow logically from the previous ones. Finally, IM involves navigation between symbolism and substance, and companies tend to strive toward harmonizing their symbolic and substantive actions as stakeholder pressure increases. (shrink)

Inadequate pain control, especially in older adults, remains a significant issue when caring for this population. Older adults, many of whom experience multiple acute and chronic conditions, are especially vulnerable to having their pain seriously underassessed and inadequately treated. Nurses have an ethical obligation to appropriately treat patients’ pain. To fulfill their ethical obligation to relieve pain in older patients, nurses often need to advocate on their behalf. This article provides an overview of the persistent problem of undertreated pain in (...) older adults and explores how nurses can meet this ethical duty through the application of Beauchamp and Childress’ three principles of beneficence. (shrink)

This compelling book contains a comprehensive analytical treatment of the theory of production in a long-period framework. Although the authors take a 'Classical' approach to their subject, the scope of investigation and methods employed should interest all economic theorists. Professors Kurz and Salvadori explore economic systems that are characterised by a particular kind of primary input in the production process, such as different kinds of labour and natural resources. These systems and the corresponding prices can be understood to reflect characteristic (...) features of a capitalist market economy in an ideal way: they express the pure logic of the relationship between value and distribution in an economic system. Specific chapters deal with prices and income distribution, economic growth, joint production, fixed capital, scarce natural resources, and heterogeneous labour. The historical origins of the concepts used are also discussed in considerable detail. (shrink)

COVID-19 has revealed that science needs to learn how to better deal with the irreducible uncertainty that comes with global systemic risks as well as with the social responsibility of science towards the public good. Further developing the epistemological principles of new theories and experimental practices, alternative investigative pathways and communication, and diverse voices can be an important contribution of history and philosophy of science and of science studies to ongoing transformations of the scientific enterprise.

In this thought-provoking book, well known economists Kurz and Salvadori cover original findings and new vistas on old problems. They cover: alternative interpretations of classical economists new growth theory the relationship between Sraffian theory and Von Neumann the treatment of capital in neoclassical long-period theory. Incorporating cutting-edge research and new work, this book will be of great interest to those working in the field of the history of economic thought.

Previously published as special issues of _The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought_ and _The Review of Political Economy_, this volume contains the papers devoted to the life and work of Piero Sraffa. Sraffa was a leading intellectual of the twentieth century. He was brought to Cambridge by John Maynard Keynes and had an important impact on the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He received the golden medal Söderström of the Swedish Academy of Sciences for his edition of David Ricardo's (...) _Works and Correspondence_ and he is the author of _Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities_, one of the most often cited book in economics. Using hitherto unpublished material from Sraffa's literary heritage kept at Trinity College, Cambridge, the papers throw new light on the intellectual development of the young Sraffa and correct several of the received views on him and his contribution. Themes covered concern his: objectivism rediscovery and reformulation of the classical theory of value and distribution criticism of Alfred Marshall's analysis relationship with his Cambridge colleagues and friends biography around the time when he left Italy for the UK friendship with Wittgenstein and his impact on the latter's thinking. (shrink)

The current study highlights individual differences in the joint articulation strategies used by novices practicing a hip-hop dance movement, the wave. Twelve young adults, all naive regarding hip-hop dance performance, practized the wave in 120 trials separated into four blocks with the order of internal or external attentional focus counterbalanced across subjects. Various kinematic analyses were analyzed to capture performance success while exploiting the observed individual differences in order to establish the reliability of the proposed performance indicators. An external focus (...) of attention marginally facilitated the smooth transfer of a wave motion across neighboring limb segments as characterized by a constant propagation speed combined with large wave amplitudes. Systematic correlations between the success indicators were found, exemplifying the various degrees of joint articulation that novices prove capable of during an initial practicing session to try and perform a novel complex motor task. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

A conflict of interest is a situation in which a person has competing loyalties or interests that make it difficult to fulfil his or her duties impartially. Conflict of interest is not categorically improper in itself but requires proper management. A SCOPUS literature search was performed for publications on the efficacy/safety of Phospho-Di-Esterase Inhibitors for treating erectile dysfunction. A categorization tool was used to review and classify the publications as supportive/not-supportive for the discussed active ingredient and reporting or not reporting (...) a COI for that specific drug or for the remaining PDEIs. Multivariable binary logistic regression was performed. In the 419 selected records the prevalence of supportive opinions was higher when a COI for the index label was declared. The CoOpCaT showed good internal consistency, discriminative validity and intra/inter-rater agreement. The strongest predictor for a supportive opinion was the total number of financial COIs for the index label. A mild protective effect of the total number of financial COIs for any competitor label was noted. Financial COIs have frequently been associated with bias, and the measures currently adopted to restrain it lack effectiveness. Some evidence for monitoring and/or compensating this bias is reported here, but the ultimate solution remains distant. (shrink)

We provide a retrospective of 25 years of the International Conference on AI and Law, which was first held in 1987. Fifty papers have been selected from the thirteen conferences and each of them is described in a short subsection individually written by one of the 24 authors. These subsections attempt to place the paper discussed in the context of the development of AI and Law, while often offering some personal reactions and reflections. As a whole, the subsections build into (...) a history of the last quarter century of the field, and provide some insights into where it has come from, where it is now, and where it might go. (shrink)

This paper comments on a paper by Chris Fuchs. Both papers are to appear in "New Directions in the Philosophy of Science", eds. M. C. Galavotti, S. Hartmann, M. Weber, W. Gonzalez, D. Dieks and T. Uebel. This paper presents some mild criticisms of Fuchs's views, some based on the EPR and Wigner's friend scenarios, and some based on the quantum theory of measurement. A few alternative suggestions for implementing a subjectivist interpretation of probability in quantum mechanics conclude the paper.

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

Compared to our understanding of positive prediction error signals occurring due to unexpected reward outcomes, less is known about the neural circuitry in humans that drives negative prediction errors during omission of expected rewards. While classical learning theories such as Rescorla–Wagner or temporal difference learning suggest that both types of prediction errors result from a simple subtraction, there has been recent evidence suggesting that different brain regions provide input to dopamine neurons which contributes to specific components of this prediction error (...) computation. Here, we focus on the brain regions responding to negative prediction error signals, which has been well-established in animal studies to involve a distinct pathway through the lateral habenula. We examine the activity of this pathway in humans, using a conditioned inhibition paradigm with high-resolution functional MRI. First, participants learned to associate a sensory stimulus with reward delivery. Then, reward delivery was omitted whenever this stimulus was presented simultaneously with a different sensory stimulus, the conditioned inhibitor. Both reward presentation and the reward-predictive cue activated midbrain dopamine regions, insula and orbitofrontal cortex. While we found significant activity at an uncorrected threshold for the CI in the habenula, consistent with our predictions, it did not survive correction for multiple comparisons and awaits further replication. Additionally, the pallidum and putamen regions of the basal ganglia showed modulations of activity for the inhibitor that did not survive the corrected threshold. (shrink)

"Siamo come lucciole che hanno disimparato a illuminare e che prima si sono messe a girare attorno alla lanterna magica dell'ideale ascetico e ora attorno alle insegne pubblicitarie al neon. Lucciole che hanno scordato d’avere una potenzialità di orientatività preziosa nel proprio sistema affettivo" (G. Cusinato, La totalità incompiuta, Milano 2008, 314). Che cos'è una persona? Come si costituisce concretamente l'identità personale? Che rapporto c'è fra identità personale e identità psichica? C'è coincidenza fra persona e homo sapiens? La persona è (...) ancora oggi, nonostante tutto, al centro del dibattito filosofico, sociologico, giuridico e bioetico, eppure la sua dimensione sembra sfuggire continuamente alle reti concettuali e alle categorie epistemologiche della scienza. In questo lavoro si propone una fenomenologia della persona a partire dal confronto con la teoria dei sistemi autopoietici di Maturana e Varela e dei sistemi sociali di Luhmann, mettendo in luce che la persona non può essere considerata un sistema autopoietico. La persona si delinea piuttosto come un sistema excentrico che si costituisce mediante l'esecuzione dell'atto. Questa prospettiva viene esplorata attraverso un dialogo serrato con l'antropologia filosofica tedesca, la stessa che all'inizio del Novecento mette in luce che l'uomo non ha un'essenza precostituita e proprio per questo necessita di un processo di Bildung. L'antropologia filosofica di Scheler e Plessner nasce nella Germania degli anni Venti in un periodo ancora fluido in cui l'eclissi delle tradizionali concezioni dell'uomo non aveva ancora lasciato il posto alla cristallizzazione totalitaria dell'uomo di massa che si sarebbe imposta negli anni Trenta. (shrink)

Il cinquantennio a cavallo tra '200 e '300 rappresenta il periodo più stimolante e creativo per la riflessione sul rapporto tra necessità e contingenza e tra intelletto e volontà. L'A. analizza la difesa compiuta da Giovanni della tesi scotista sulla contingenza della fruizione beatifica, ossia sulla possibilità che il beato, in presenza della stessa essenza divina, possa mantenere la propria capacità di scelta, al punto tale da poter essere in grado di non abbandonarsi all'amore verso di Dio. Prima di analizzare (...) in modo più dettagliato il pensiero del Reading, l'A. passa in rassegna le posizioni di Duns Scoto, Roberto Cowton, Riccardo di Conington, Guglielmo d'Occam, Pietro Aureolo che, in terra francese, diversamente da Francesco di Meyronnes e Giovanni di Bassoles, non aderì alla tesi scotista della contingenza della fruizione. All'interno di questo programma teorico Reading si oppone innanzitutto ai teologi inglesi che, legati a posizioni tradizionali, sostenevano la necessità in via come in patria della fruizione del sommo bene colto come concetto o contemplato come essenza. In appendice vien pubblicata l'ed. della sesta quaestio della prima distinctio del Commento alle Sentenze di Giovanni Reading basata sul ms. Firenze, B.N.C., Conv. Soppr. D IV 95. (shrink)

The similarity of documents in a large database of published Fractals articles was examined for redundancy. Three different text matching techniques were used on published Abstracts to identify redundancy candidates, and predictions were verified by reading full text versions of the redundancy candidate articles. A small fraction of the total articles in the database was judged to be redundant. This was viewed as a lower limit, because it excluded cases where the concepts remained the same, but the text was altered (...) substantially. Far more pervasive than redundant publications were publications that did not violate the letter of redundancy but rather violated the spirit of redundancy. There appeared to be widespread publication maximization strategies. Studies that resulted in one comprehensive paper decades ago now result in multiple papers that focus on one major problem, but are differentiated by parameter ranges, or other stratifying variables. This ‘paper inflation’ is due in large part to the increasing use of metrics (publications, patents, citations, etc) to evaluate research performance, and the researchers’ motivation to maximize the metrics. (shrink)

The similarity of documents in a large database of published Fractals articles was examined for redundancy. Three different text matching techniques were used on publisheds to identify redundancy candidates, and predictions were verified by reading full text versions of the redundancy candidate articles. A small fraction of the total articles in the database was judged to be redundant. This was viewed as a lower limit, because it excluded cases where the concepts remained the same, but the text was altered substantially.Far (...) more pervasive than redundant publications were publications that did not violate the letter of redundancy but rather violated the spirit of redundancy. There appeared to be widespread publication maximization strategies. Studies that resulted in one comprehensive paper decades ago now result in multiple papers that focus on one major problem, but are differentiated by parameter ranges, or other stratifying variables. This ‘paper inflation’ is due in large part to the increasing use of metrics (publications, patents, citations, etc) to evaluate research performance, and the researchers’ motivation to maximize the metrics. (shrink)

The similarity of documents in a large database of published Fractals articles was examined for redundancy. Three different text matching techniques were used on published Abstracts to identify redundancy candidates, and predictions were verified by reading full text versions of the redundancy candidate articles. A small fraction of the total articles in the database was judged to be redundant. This was viewed as a lower limit, because it excluded cases where the concepts remained the same, but the text was altered (...) substantially.Far more pervasive than redundant publications were publications that did not violate the letter of redundancy but rather violated the spirit of redundancy. There appeared to be widespread publication maximization strategies. Studies that resulted in one comprehensive paper decades ago now result in multiple papers that focus on one major problem, but are differentiated by parameter ranges, or other stratifying variables. This ‘paper inflation’ is due in large part to the increasing use of metrics (publications, patents, citations, etc) to evaluate research performance, and the researchers’ motivation to maximize the metrics. (shrink)

La Bible a pénétré de maintes manières dans la culture des pays de langue anglaise. Du Robinson Crusoé qui enchante la classe moyenne du début du 18e siècle aux hymnes méthodistes, des luttes ouvrières du 19e siècle à la culture pop et aux revendications féministes de la fin du 20e, des colons du Mayflower au discours politique des États-Unis d’aujourd’hui, les générations qui se succèdent et les diverses classes sociales empruntent à la Bible ses messages et ses images, son style (...) et son vocabulaire. Face à cette continuité et cette diversité, une question se pose: instrumentalise-t-on le texte biblique à des fins qui lui sont étrangères? Face aux convictions culturelles et aux modèles reçus de comportement social, le laisse-t-on, au contraire, agir comme un défi, une source d’inspiration inattendue? (shrink)

Participatory and collaborative approaches in sustainability science and public health research contribute to co-producing evidence that can support interventions by involving diverse societal actors that range from individual citizens to entire communities. However, existing philosophical accounts of evidence are not adequate to deal with the kind of evidence generated and used in such approaches. In this paper, we present an account of evidence as clues for action through participatory and collaborative research inspired by philosopher Susan Haack’s theory of evidence. Differently (...) from most accounts of evidence for use in policies and interventions, our account combines action-oriented (the how) and actors-oriented (the who) considerations. We build on Haack’s theory and on the analysis of examples of participatory and collaborative research in sustainability science and public health research to flesh out six procedural criteria for the generation and mobilization of evidence in and from participatory research. Action-oriented criteria invite to look at evidence from a (a) foundherentist, (b) gradational and (c) quasi-holistic perspective. Actors-oriented criteria point out that evidence generation and utilization are (d) social, (e) personal, and (f) embedded. We suggest that these criteria may reinforce participatory and collaborative approaches to evidence co-production when addressing complex problems in sustainability science and public health allowing for the generation of a kind of practical objectivity. (shrink)