Our reasoning evolved not for finding the truth, but for social bonding and convincing. This book highlights the consequences of these facts for scientific practice, and suggests how to correct the mistakes we still make.

Un vínculo necesario entre estética y socialización explica la profundidad sensible que debe construir todo cambio de paradigma y toda re-socialización. La democracia no funciona sin una apropiación individual y colectiva del sentir y de la producción de sentir. Es a partir entonces del trabajo artístico y de la instrospección y exteriorización de la dimensión sensible, que toda transformación puede ser aplicada. Se recorren parcialmente los pensamientos de Alain Badiou y Bernard Stiegler. A required link between aesthetic and socialization explains (...) the sensitive depth that all paradigm and re-socialization must build. Democracy does not work without an individual and collective ownership of feeling and feeling's production. It is from the artwork and the introspection and externalization of the sensitive dimension, that any transformation can be applied. The article covers partially the thoughts of Alain Badiou and Bernard Stiegler. (shrink)

Managers often encounter situations that require them to make decisions with ethical implications that affect the organization as well as the managers themselves. The issue we address in this study concerns whether the ethical consistency of managerial decisions is situation dependent. That is, are the decisions managers make ethically consistent when they are faced with different ethical situations? We hypothesize that managerial decisions will vary depending on the type of ethical situation they encounter. We also hypothesize that gender plays a (...) role in determining the ethical consistency of managerial decisions. Results of statistical analyses support our hypotheses. (shrink)

The central point of this essay is to demonstrate the incommensurability of ‘Darwinian fitness’ with the numeric values associated with reproductive rates used in population genetics. While sometimes both are called ‘fitness’, they are distinct concepts coming from distinct explanatory schemes. Further, we try to outline a possible answer to the following question: from the natural properties of organisms and a knowledge of their environment, can we construct an algorithm for a particular kind of organismic life-history pattern that itself will (...) allow us to predict whether a type in the population will increase or decrease relative to other types? Introduction Darwinian fitness Reproductive fitness and genetical models of evolution The models of reproductive fitness 4.1 The Standard Viability Model 4.2 Frequency-dependent selection 4.3 Fertility models 4.4 Overlapping generations Fitness as outcome 5.1 Fitness as actual increase in type 5.2 Fitness as expected increase in type 5.2.1 Expected increase within a generation 5.2.2 Expected increase between generations 5.2.3 Postponed reproductive fitness effects The book-keeping problem Conclusion. (shrink)

Andre Willis argues that although Hume is generally credited with being a “devastating critic” of religion, it is a mistake to view Hume solely in these terms or to present him as an “atheist.” This not only represents a failure to appreciate Hume’s “middle path” between “militant atheists and evangelical theists”, it denies us an opportunity to “enhance” our understanding and appreciation of the positive, constructive value of religion through a close study of Hume’s views. Willis’s study presents Hume (...) as committed to a “bifurcated approach to religion” that rests on the fundamental distinction between “false religion” and “true religion”. False religion, which includes Christianity, is a... (shrink)

The review by De Bie et al. (2023) provides an overview of the current ethical literature on artificial womb technology (AWT). Two characteristics stand out, and provide the basis for our commentar...

The use of virtual humans holds the potential for interactive, automated interaction in domains such as remote communication, customer service, or public announcements. For signed language users, signing avatars could potentially provide accessible content by sharing information in the signer's preferred or native language. As the development of signing avatars has gained traction in recent years, researchers have come up with many different methods of creating signing avatars. The resulting avatars vary widely in their appearance, the naturalness of their movements, (...) and facial expressions—all of which may potentially impact users' acceptance of the avatars. We designed a study to test the effects of these intrinsic properties of different signing avatars while also examining the extent to which people's own language experiences change their responses to signing avatars. We created video stimuli showing individual signs produced by a live human signer, an avatar made using computer-synthesized animation, and an avatar made using high-fidelity motion capture. We surveyed 191 American Sign Language users, including Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, and Hearing groups. Participants rated the three signers on multiple dimensions, which were then combined to form ratings of Attitudes, Impressions, Comprehension, and Naturalness. Analyses demonstrated that the Mocap avatar was rated significantly more positively than the CS avatar on all primary variables. Correlations revealed that signers who acquire sign language later in life are more accepting of and likely to have positive impressions of signing avatars. Finally, those who learned ASL earlier were more likely to give lower, more negative ratings to the CS avatar, but we did not see this association for the Mocap avatar or the Human signer. Together, these findings suggest that movement quality and appearance significantly impact users' ratings of signing avatars and show that signed language users with earlier age of ASL acquisition are the most sensitive to movement quality issues seen in computer-generated avatars. We suggest that future efforts to develop signing avatars consider retaining the fluid movement qualities integral to signed languages. (shrink)

One of Descartes’ greatest contributions to modern thought lies in his dualistic conception of mind and body. While the physical body in Descartes assumes a passive role in the ontological structure of reality, subject to mechanistic laws, the mind in Descartes, on the other hand, assumes an active role, as an organizing axis and producer of values and ideas, exercising a rational dominion over reality. physical reality. This dualistic Cartesian conception would generate important effects on the problem of mind-body interaction, (...) becoming the central theme debated by contemporary philosophy of mind. Contemporary theories of philosophy of mind seek to overcome this dualism, through neuroscience and cognitive psychology. These theories attempt to apply the reductionist scientific model to human mental phenomena and processes, describing them in non-mental, physical, and empirical terms. However, the reductionist project of these contemporary theories has not yet proved successful in explaining unobservable phenomena of the mind, such as consciousness, will and human subjectivity. (shrink)

Un día de verano en medio de un insólito vendaval murió mi madre. Fue una extraña tarde de junio de torrencial lluvia y abrumadores rayos. “Tiene poca lividez, pero está muerta”, dijo el médico luego de auscultarla, tomarle el pulso, mirarle el reflejo pupilar a la velocidad de la luz y concluir: “Muerte súbita. Feneció de un ataque al corazón”.

Pharmacological cognitive enhancements nontherapeutically improve cognitive functioning, though recent critics have challenged their use by claiming that cognitive success, aided by the use of cognitive enhancement, is less valuable than otherwise. We criticize two recent responses to this objection, due to Carter and Pritchard and Wang, and propose a different response on behalf of proponents of cognitive enhancement that is shown to be more promising.

Any plausibly just market exchange must balance two conflicting moral considerations: non-worseness (Wertheimer, 1999) and euvoluntariness (true voluntariness; Munger, 2011). We propose an analytical theory of just market exchange that partly resolves this conflict.

This is a review of Kazutaka Inamura's book "Justice and Reciprocity in Aristotle's Political Philosophy" (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Ever since its inception, the theory of evolution has been reified into an “-ism”: Darwinism. While biologists today tend to shy away from the term in their research, the term is still actively used in the broader academic and societal contexts. What exactly is Darwinism, and how precisely are its various uses and abuses related to the scientific theory of evolution? Some call for limiting the meaning of the term “Darwinism” to its scientific context; others call for its abolition; yet (...) others claim the term refers to a myth-like story. In this paper we propose a conceptually grounded overview of the term. We show how the scientific dimension of Darwinism feeds into, and is influenced by, guises of Darwinism as a methodology and as an ethically and politically charged “worldview”. The full meaning of Darwinism, as well as how this meaning has changed over time, can only be understood through the complex interaction between these three dimensions. (shrink)

A cultural icon of the fin de siècle, the New Woman was not one figure, but several. In the guise of a bicycling, cigarette-smoking Amazon, the New Woman romped through the pages of Punch and popular fiction; as a neurasthenic victim of social oppression, she suffered in the pages of New Woman novels such as Sarah Grand's hugely successful The Heavenly Twins. The New Woman in Fiction and Fact marks a radically new departure in nineteenth-century scholarship to explore the polyvocal (...) nature of the late Victorian debates around gender, motherhood, class, race and imperialism which converged in the name of the New Woman. (shrink)

ASD VIII, 1 publishes texts by Erasmus related to the Church Fathers: the Vitae of Jerome, John Chrysostom and Origen, the forgery ‘Cyprian’s _De duplici martyrio_, and the prefaces to the Fathers of the Church.

A Dutch medical student has the potentially more virulent Panton-Valentine leukocidin form of MRSA colonization yet shows no signs or symptoms of infection. More than a year ago, a routine MRSA screening of health care personnel providing care for MRSA-positive patients detected the colonization. Since then, the student has been treated intensively but unsuccessfully in an attempt to decolonize her. During this decolonization period, the medical student was barred from performing patient-related interventions, temporarily interrupting her medical residency. After initial treatment (...) with mupirocin nasal ointment and antibiotics proved ineffective, a more stringent hygiene regime was added that included hand, nose, hair, and body scrubbing with disinfecting soap. Additional precautions included simultaneous treatment of household members and disinfection of the family home. Despite these efforts, her MRSA status has remained positive. WIP guideline s bar any health care worker diagnosed with MRSA from performing patient-related interventions. Unable to complete the residency requirement of at least 1 year of patient care, the medical student was advised to pursue a career in another profession. (shrink)

A version of intuitionistic type theory is extended with opposite types, allowing a different formalization of negation and obtaining a paraconsistent type theory (⁠|$\textsf{PTT} $|⁠). The rules for opposite types in |$\textsf{PTT} $| are based on the rules of the so-called constructible falsity. A propositions-as-types correspondence between the many-sorted paraconsistent logic |$\textsf{PL}_\textsf{S} $| (a many-sorted extension of López-Escobar’s refutability calculus presented in natural deduction format) and |$\textsf{PTT} $| is proven. Moreover, a translation of |$\textsf{PTT} $| into intuitionistic type theory is (...) presented and some properties of |$\textsf{PTT} $| are discussed. (shrink)

Le rôle de David Hume dans la philosophie moderne, par A. L. Leroy.--The enlightenment of David Hume, by E. C. Mossner.--Hume and Jurieu: possible Calvinist origins of Hume's theory of belief, by R. H. Popkin.--Hume: philosopher or psychologist? A problem of exegesis, by T. E. Jessop.--L'astrazione nella filosofia di Hume, di M. Dal Pra.--Infinite divisibility in Hume's "Treatise," by A. Flew.--Note a "La rgola del gusto," di E. Migliorini.--Kant, Hamann-Jacobi and Schelling on Hume, by P. Merlan.--Bibliografia humiana dal 1937 al (...) 1966, di E. Ronchetti. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)