‘Social auditing’ is everywhere. An increasing number of companies – and also public and voluntary sector organisations – are trying to assess their social performance systematically. Shell, BP and General Motors are among them. How are they doing it? What impact do NGOs and civil society organisations have on this process? Do they have a privileged place in social audits? This article looks at these questions, and sets out a framework for understanding social audits and civil society. Examples are drawn (...) particularly from the recent Camelot social audit . Camelot plc is the operator of the UK national lottery. (shrink)

‘Social auditing’ is everywhere. An increasing number of companies – and also public and voluntary sector organisations – are trying to assess their social performance systematically. Shell, BP and General Motors are among them. How are they doing it? What impact do NGOs and civil society organisations have on this process? Do they have a privileged place in social audits? This article looks at these questions, and sets out a framework for understanding social audits and civil society. Examples are drawn (...) particularly from the recent Camelot social audit (‘Camelot and Social Responsibility’, Social Report 1999). Camelot plc is the operator of the UK national lottery. (shrink)

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The purpose of this paper is to provide a constructive criticism of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards. After pointing out a number of benefits and limitations in the effectiveness of CSR standards, both from a theoretical point of view and in the light of empirical evidence, we formulate and discuss a Paradox of CSR standards: despite being well-intended, CSR standards can favor the emergence of a thoughtless, blind and blinkered mindset which is counterproductive of their aim of enhancing the social (...) responsibility of the organization. We analyze three problems that might underlie the Paradox—namely the problem of deceptive measurements; the problem of responsibility erosion and the problem of blinkered culture. We apply the philosophical tradition of American Pragmatism to reflect on these issues in relation to different types of existing standards, and conclude by suggesting a number of considerations that could help both CSR standards developers and users to address the Paradox. (shrink)

AimWe aimed to investigate whether the 12-item Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) constitutes a valid and reliable measure of social support for the general adult Australian population.MethodsData were from Australia’s National Survey of Adult Oral Health 2004–2006 and included 3899 participants aged 18 years old and over. The psychometric properties were evaluated with Bayesian confirmatory factor analysis. One-, two-, and three-factor (Significant Other, Family and Friends) structures were tested. Model fit was assessed with the posterior predictivep-value (PPPχ2), Bayesian (...) root mean square error of approximation (BRMSEA), and Bayesian comparative fit index (BCFI). Dimensionality was tested by comparing competing factorial structures with the Bayes factor (BF). Reliability was evaluated with the Bayesian ΩH. Convergent validity was investigated with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and discriminant validity with the Perceived Dental Control scale (PDC-3).ResultsThe theoretical three-factor model (Significant Other, Family, and Friends) provided a good fit to the data [PPPχ2< 0.001, BRMSEA = 0.089-95% credible interval (CrI) (0.088, 0.089); BCFI = 0.963-95% CrI (0.963, 0.964)]. The BF provided decisive support for the three-factor structure in relation to the other structures. The SO [BΩH= 0.95 - 95% CrI (0.90, 0.99)], FA (BΩH= 0.92 - 95% CrI (0.87, 0.97), and FR (BΩH= 0.92 - 95% CrI (0.88, 0.97)] subscales displayed excellent reliability. The MSPSS displayed initial evidence of convergent and discriminant validity.ConclusionThe MSPSS demonstrated good psychometric properties and excellent reliability in a large Australian sample. This instrument can be applied in national surveys and provide evidence of the role of social support in the Australian population. (shrink)

Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. We review the most well-known application of this kind, known as the 'gauge argument' or 'gauge principle', discuss its difficulties, and then reconstruct the gauge argument (...) as a valid theorem in quantum theory. We then present what we take to be a better and more general gauge argument, based on Noether's second theorem in classical Lagrangian field theory, and argue that this provides a more appropriate framework for understanding how gauge symmetry helps to constrain the dynamics of physical theories. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has reflected a growing interest in issues about the value of knowledge and the values informing epistemic appraisal. Is knowledge more valuable that merely true belief or even justified true belief? Is truth the central value informing epistemic appraisal or do other values enter the picture? Epistemic Value is a collection of previously unpublished articles on such issues by leading philosophers in the field. It will stimulate discussion of the nature of knowledge and of directions that might be (...) taken by the theory of knowledge. The contributors are Jason Baehr, Michael Brady, Berit Brogaard, Michael DePaul, Pascal Engel, Catherine Elgin, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Stephen Grimm, Ward Jones, Martin Kusch, Jonathan Kvanvig, Michael Lynch, Erik Olsson, Wayne Riggs and Matthew Weiner. (shrink)

Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?

In this paper, we propose Kripke-style models for the logics of evidence and truth LETJ and LETF. These logics extend, respectively, Nelson’s logic N4 and the logic of first-degree entailment with a classicality operator ∘ that recovers classical logic for formulas in its scope. According to the intended interpretation here proposed, these models represent a database that receives information as time passes, and such information can be positive, negative, non-reliable, or reliable, while a formula ∘A means that the information about (...) A, either positive or negative, is reliable. This proposal is in line with the interpretation of N4 and FDE as information-based logics, but adds to the four scenarios expressed by them two new scenarios: reliable information for the truth and for the falsity of a given proposition. (shrink)

The eliminative view of gauge degrees of freedom—the view that they arise solely from descriptive redundancy and are therefore eliminable from the theory—is a lively topic of debate in the philosophy of physics. Recent work attempts to leverage properties of the QCD $$\theta _{\text {YM}}$$ θ YM -term to provide a novel argument against the eliminative view. The argument is based on the claim that the QCD $$\theta _{\text {YM}}$$ θ YM -term changes under “large” gauge transformations. Here we review (...) geometrical propositions about fiber bundles that unequivocally falsify these claims: the $$\theta _{\text {YM}}$$ θ YM -term encodes topological features of the fiber bundle used to represent gauge degrees of freedom, but it is fully gauge-invariant. Nonetheless, within the essentially classical viewpoint pursued here, the physical role of the $$\theta _{\text {YM}}$$ θ YM -term shows the physical importance of bundle topology (or superpositions thereof) and thus counts against (a naive) eliminativism. (shrink)

This dictionary, the first dedicated to the work of Gilles Deleuze, offers an in-depth and lucid introduction to one of the most influential figures in continental philosophy. It defines and contextualizes more than 150 terms relating to Deleuze's philosophy, including "becoming," "body without organs," "deterritorialization," "difference," "repetition," and "rhizome." The entries also explore Deleuze's intellectual influences and the ways in which his ideas have shaped philosophy, feminism, cinema studies, postcolonial theory, geography, and cultural studies. More than just defining and describing (...) specific terms, the dictionary elaborates on Deleuze's ideas to reveal the varied applications of his philosophy. The contributors, who include some of the most prominent Deleuze scholars, bring their expert knowledge and critical opinion to bear on the entries. Their work provides a range of theoretical, historical, and aesthetic contexts for anyone interested in Deleuzian thought. Contributors include: Ronald Bogue, University of Georgia; Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University; Claire Colebrook, University of Edinburgh; Tom Conley, Harvard University; Eugene Holland, Ohio State University; Tamsin Lorraine, Swarthmore College; Paul Patton, University of New South Wales; Kenneth Surin, Duke University; Alberto Toscano, Goldsmiths College. (shrink)

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time is a concise and accessible survey of the history of philosophical and scientific developments in understanding time and our experience of time. It discusses prominent ideas about the nature of time, plus many subsidiary puzzles about time, from the classical period through the present.

Not all symmetries are on a par. For instance, within Newtonian mechanics, we seem to have a good grasp on the empirical significance of boosts, by applying it to subsystems. This is exemplified by the thought experiment known as Galileo’s ship: the inertial state of motion of a ship is immaterial to how events unfold in the cabin, but is registered in the values of relational quantities such as the distance and velocity of the ship relative to the shore. But (...) the significance of gauge symmetries seems less clear. For example, can gauge transformations in Yang-Mills theory—taken as mere descriptive redundancy—exhibit a similar relational empirical significance as the boosts of Galileo’s ship? This question has been debated in the last fifteen years in philosophy of physics. I will argue that the answer is ‘yes’, but only for a finite subset of gauge transformations, and under special conditions. Under those conditions, we can mathematically identify empirical significance with a failure of supervenience: the state of the Universe is not uniquely determined by the intrinsic state of its isolated subsystems. Empirical significance is therefore encoded in those relations between subsystems that stand apart from their intrinsic states. (shrink)

An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past. -/- The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie explains that these scientists are “methodological omnivores,” with a variety of (...) strategies and techniques at their disposal, and that this gives us every reason to be optimistic about their capacity to uncover truths about prehistory. Creative and opportunistic paleontologists, for example, discovered and described a new species of prehistoric duck-billed platypus from a single fossilized tooth. Examining the complex reasoning processes of historical science, Currie also considers philosophical and scientific reflection on the relationship between past and present, the nature of evidence, contingency, and scientific progress. -/- Currie draws on varied examples from across the historical sciences, from Mayan ritual sacrifice to giant Mesozoic fleas to Mars's mysterious watery past, to develop an account of the nature of, and resources available to, historical science. He presents two major case studies: the emerging explanation of sauropod size, and the “snowball earth” hypothesis that accounts for signs of glaciation in Neoproterozoic tropics. He develops the Ripple Model of Evidence to analyze “unlucky circumstances” in scientific investigation; examines and refutes arguments for pessimism about the capacity of the historical sciences, defending the role of analogy and arguing that simulations have an experiment-like function. Currie argues for a creative, open-ended approach, “empirically grounded” speculation. (shrink)

Local gauge theories are in a complicated relationship with boundaries. Whereas fixing the gauge can often shave off unwanted redundancies, the coupling of different bounded regions requires the use of gauge-variant elements. Therefore, coupling is inimical to gauge-fixing, as usually understood. This resistance to gauge-fixing has led some to declare the coupling of subsystems to be the \textit{raison d'\^etre} of gauge \cite{RovelliGauge2013}. Indeed, while gauge-fixing is entirely unproblematic for a single region without boundary, it introduces arbitrary boundary conditions on the (...) gauge degrees of freedom themselves---these conditions lack a physical interpretation when they are not functionals of the original fields. Such arbitrary boundary choices creep into the calculation of charges through Noether's second theorem, muddling the assignment of physical charges to local gauge symmetries. The confusion brewn by gauge at boundaries is well-known, and must be contended with both conceptually and technically. It may seem natural to replace the arbitrary boundary choice with new degrees of freedom, for using such a device we resolve some of these confusions while leaving no gauge-dependence on the computation of Noether charges \cite{DonnellyFreidel}. But, concretely, such boundary degrees of freedom are rather arbitrary---they have no relation to the original field-content of the field theory. How should we conceive of them? Here I will explicate the problems mentioned above and illustrate a possible resolution: in a recent series of papers \cite{GomesRiello2016, GomesRiello2018, GomesHopfRiello} the notion of a connection-form was put forward and implemented in the field-space of gauge theories. Using this tool, a modified version of symplectic geometry---here called `horizontal'---is possible. Independently of boundary conditions, this formalism bestows to each region a physically salient, relational notion of charge: the horizontal Noether charge. Meanwhile, as required, the connection-form mediates an irenic composition of regions, one compatible with the attribution of horizontal Noether charges to each region. Thes aims of this paper are to highlight the boundary issues in the treatment of gauge, and to discuss how gauge theory may be conceptually clarified in light of a resolution to these issues. (shrink)

Aesthetics is thought of as not only a theory of art or beauty, but also includes sensibility, experience, judgment, and relationships. This paper is a study of Bernard Stiegler’s notion of Aesthetic War (stasis) and symbolic misery. Symbolic violence is ensued through a loss of individuation and participation in the creation of symbols. As a struggle between market values against spirit values human life and consciousness within neoliberal hyperindustrial society has become calculable, which prevents people from creating affective and meaningful (...) attachments to symbols in relation to our retentional apparatuses, technology and memory. Such tension can be thought of as a dissonance between overlapping domains of social life, private and public. New Media is a reflection of aesthetic dissonance, an experience such as being bored and entertained at the same time, between antagonistic experiences, values, and behavior. Moreover, new media is at once a medium of customizing aesthetic experience individually as well as the threat and practice of prioritizing calculability and modeling of consumer behavior in favor of capitalistic effectiveness, which results in the simultaneous categorization of an individual as a data point, putting those who do not fit an algorithm’s premises at a disadvantage. (shrink)

Historical sciences like paleontology and archaeology have uncovered unimagined, remarkable and mysterious worlds in the deep past. How should we understand the success of these sciences? What is the relationship between knowledge and history? In Scientific Knowledge and the Deep Past: History Matters, Adrian Currie examines recent paleontological work on the great changes that occurred during the Cretaceous period - the emergence of flowering plants, the splitting of the mega-continent Gondwana, and the eventual fall of the dinosaurs - to (...) analyse the knowledge of historical scientists, and to reflect upon the nature of history. He argues that distinctively historical processes are 'peculiar': they have the capacity to generate their own highly specific dynamics and rules. This peculiarity, Currie argues, also explains the historian's interest in narratives and stories: the contingency, complexity and peculiarity of the past demands a narrative treatment. Overall, Currie argues that history matters for knowledge. (shrink)

The character of computational modelling of cognition depends on an underlying theory of representation. Classical cognitive science has exploited the syntax/semantics theory of representation that derives from logic. But this has had the consequence that the kind of psychological explanation supported by classical cognitive science is " _conceptualist_: " psychological phenomena are modelled in terms of relations that hold between concepts, and between the sensors/effectors and concepts. This kind of explanation is inappropriate for the Proper Treatment of Connectionism.

After a brief introduction to issues that plague the realization of a theory of quantum gravity, I suggest that the main one concerns defining superpositions of causal structures. This leads me to a distinction between time and space, to a further degree than that present in the canonical approach to general relativity. With this distinction, one can make sense of superpositions as interference between alternative paths in the relational configuration space of the entire Universe. But the full use of relationalism (...) brings us to a timeless picture of Nature, as it does in the canonical approach. After a discussion of Parmenides and the Eleatics' rejection of time, I show that there is middle ground between their view of absolute timelessness and a view of physics taking place in timeless configuration space. In this middle ground, even though change does not fundamentally exist, the illusion of change can be recovered in a way not permitted by Parmenides. It is recovered through a particular density distribution over configuration space which gives rise to 'records'. Incidentally, this distribution seems to have the potential to dissolve further aspects of the measurement problem that can still be argued to haunt the application of decoherence to Many-Worlds quantum mechanics. I end with a discussion indicating that the conflict between the conclusions of this paper and our view of the continuity of the self may still intuitively bother us. Nonetheless, those conclusions should be no more challenging to our intuition than Derek Parfit's thought experiments on the subject. (shrink)

This volume is a wide-ranging examination of denial and ideological denialism. It offers a readable overview of the psychology and social science of bias, self-deception, and denial, and examines the role of ideological denialism in conflicts over science and public policy, politics, and culture.

John Scottus Eriugena (d. ca. 877) is regarded as the most important philosopher and theologian in the Latin West from the death of Boethius until the thirteenth century. He incorporated his understanding of Latin sources, Ambrose, Augustine, Boethius and Greek sources, including the Cappadocian Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Maximus Confessor, into a metaphysics structured on Aristotle's Categories, from which he developed Christian Neoplatonist theology that continues to stimulate 21st-century theologians. This collection of essays provides an overview of the latest scholarship on (...) various aspects of Eriugena's thought and writings, including his Irish background, his use of Greek theologians, his Scripture hermeneutics, his understanding of Aristotelian logic, Christology, and the impact he had on contemporary and later theological traditions. Contributors: David Albertson, Joel Barstad, John Contreni, Christophe Erismann, John Gavin, Adrian Guiu, Michael Harrington, Catherine Kavanagh, A. Kijewska, Stephen Lahey, Elena Lloyd-Sidle, Bernard McGinn, Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi, Dermot Moran, Giulio D'Onofrio, Willemien Otten, and Alfred Siewers. (shrink)

This volume will be an essential resource for anyone working in the central areas of philosophy, and the starting point for future research in this fascinating ...

Since communication and expression are central aspects of music performance it is important to develop a systematic pedagogy of teaching children and teenagers expressiveness. Although research has been growing in this area a comprehensive literature review that unifies the different approaches to teaching young musicians expressiveness has been lacking. Therefore, the aim of this article is to provide an overview of literature related to teaching and learning of expressiveness from music psychology and music education research in order to build a (...) new theoretical framework for teaching and learning expressive music performance in instrumental music lessons with children and teenagers. The article will start with a brief discussion of interpretation and expression in music performance, before providing an overview of studies that investigated teaching and learning of performance expression in instrumental music education with adults and children. On the foundation of this research a theoretical framework for dialogic teaching and learning of expressive music performance will be proposed and the rationale explained. Dialogic teaching can be useful for scaffolding young musicians’ learning of expressivity as open questions can stimulate thinking about the interpretation and may serve to connect musical ideas to the embodied experience of the learner. A “toolkit” for teaching and learning of expressiveness will be presented for practical application in music lessons. In addition, a theoretical model will be proposed to further our understanding of teaching and learning of expressive music performance as a multifaceted and interactive process that is embedded in the context of tutors’ and learners’ experiences and environment. Finally, implications of this framework and suggestions for future research will be discussed. (shrink)

Through a theoretical examination of the preventive turn in criminal law and justice which has gained momentum in Anglo-American criminal justice systems since the late-twentieth century, The Preventive Turn in Criminal Law demonstrates how recent transformations in criminal law and justiceare intrinsically related to and embedded in the way liberal society and liberal law have been imagined, developed, and conditioned by its social, political, and historical context. Henrique Carvalho identifies a tension between the idea of punishment as an expression of (...) individual justice, andprevention as a manifestation of the need for security and the promotion of welfare. Tracing this tension back to an intrinsic ambivalence within the modern conception of individual liberty, which is both repressed and preserved by liberal conceptions of responsibility and punishment, Carvalhoproves that as long as this ambivalence remains unexamined, liberal law has the potential to both promote and undermine individual justice.Engaging with the dominant contemporary literature on criminal law, prevention, risk, security, and criminalisation, this volume deploys a theoretical perspective developed through a critical analysis of both classical and contemporary works of social and political theory. The book reveals that thepervasiveness of prevention in 21st century criminal justice systems represents not only the consequence of new and unprecedented features of contemporary politics and society, but also the manifestation of essential aspects of the liberal legal and political tradition. (shrink)

Political ecologists--the theorists of the Green movement--assert that if we do not fundamentally change the way in which our society makes use of nature, then we will destroy the physical basis of our social existence within the foreseeable future. In the light of this insight, this book is concerned to unearth the foundations of our cultural attitudes towards nature and to start the process of building philosophical foundations that could provide the basis of a sustainable relationship between society and the (...) environment. The objective is to provide a critique and reorientation of social theory at the level of epistemology and to question the nature of rationality; the role of ideology and assumptions about human nature which underpin conventional academic social theory. The heart of the analysis comprises a critique of the core values of the Enlightenment that have shaped modern Western thought: Science; Progress and Individualism. To political ecology these represent fundamental problem concepts and the intention of this book is to broaden and deepen our understanding of existing social processes particularly those identified as the 'post-modern' condition of aimless consumerism in relation to environmental issues. The analysis includes sketches of concepts and practices with which political ecology might transcend these values and shows how transformed attitudes can contribute towards solving environmental problems. This is a challenging and original synthesis of philosophy and theory directed towards the greatest issue of our time. It will be essential reading for everyone concerned with the future of the planet. (shrink)

Ciencia y lógica de mundos posibles indaga en un aspecto negativo de la visión positivista de la historia del pensamiento. Según esta interpretación, determinante dentro del pensamiento contemporáneo, existe una oposición irredimible entre la metodología del conocimiento científico y la metafísica. El estudio de los supuestos ontológicos de la epistemología aristotélica y de la nueva metodología galileana evidencia, sin embargo, que históricamente la ciencia moderna no nace en oposición a la metafísica, sino que surge a partir de una concepción metafísica (...) determinada. Resulta imposible comprender a fondo el fenómeno de la revolución galileana sin tener en cuenta los aportes lógicos de pensadores medievales que tuvieron una actitud crítica frente a las implicaciones ontológicas de la epistemología aristotélica. Con el advenimiento del idealismo trascendental - a diferencia de Descartes, Leibniz o Newton - la filosofía se separa de la ciencia experimental. Esto se debe a que con Kant la filosofía se aleja de la postura filosófica de los origenes de la ciencia moderna, y retorna a una concepción de la naturaleza en cierto modo similar a la aristotélica. Así mismo, la interpretación propuesta en el manifiesto del Círculo de Viena con respecto a algunas de las revoluciones científicas de los siglos XIX y XX, supone que la ciencia moderna se ha desarrollado en la dirección señalada por la concepción metafísica del mundo que se encuentra en el origen de la revolución galileana. (shrink)

"This book does nothing less than to set new standards in combining philosophical with political theology.

There remains no consensus among social scientists as to how to measure and understand forms of information deprivation such as misinformation. Machine learning and statistical analyses of information deprivation typically contain problematic operationalizations which are too often biased towards epistemic elites' conceptions that can undermine their empirical adequacy. A mature science of information deprivation should include considerable citizen involvement that is sensitive to the value-ladenness of information quality and that doing so may improve the predictive and explanatory power of extant (...) models. (shrink)

This text represents our first attempting to offer a Metaphysic model to interpret the late modernity (which emerges in the middle of the 18th century and goes along until the end of the IIWW) through the concept of Teleontology. Thus, Teleontology means the procedure of the spirit of the late modern age to shift its paradigms from ontology (an investigation about the being as being, in which existence means an attribute) to teleology, in which essence must be conquered and revealed (...) in the final of a progressive process. Instead of Being, Man became the main object of this investigation; the question of the being as being has given way as to an enlightened concept of being-man (never reached) as also to the task to achieve this in order to satisfy what reason designed to human species. However, as this project of achieving the concept of Being-Man advanced, its true nature became clear: a unilateral and arbitrary colonial expansion, which forced everyone to follow Teleontological paradigms. Teleontology can demonstrate that Greek-Christian metaphysics means a particular element (never universal) submitted to a specific culture and, in this case, expresses the structure of Eurocentric thought that became global by way of the expanding of capitalism/colonialism. Specifically, in this text, we propose to investigate: 1 - what is Teleontology; 2 - what are its objects; 3 - what are its origins. (shrink)

This article aims to rethink the meaning of “nature” and the human in Plato, more specifically through some examples contained in the _Phaedrus_, a rare dialogue further away from the city. Phaedrus and Socrates leave Athens on a path outside the walls, past the Ilisus stream and the breeze of the woods, and end up sitting in the shadows of trees full of singing cicadas. What is the meaning of this scenario in the construction o the text? Is it possible (...) to learn from oak trees or insects? The philosophizing of this dialogue passes through the coolness of the shadows of the trees in the hot summer noon. This sensuous topography through the text reveals the writer Plato wary of the enveloping meaning of the living drama between Phaedrus and Socrates. The audience and participation of natural elements, trees and cicadas in the dialogue reveals an involvement of the discourse with the surrounding atmosphere, a special concern of Socrates in his palinode and in his final prayer to Pan. In this dialogue, more than distinct and removed from nature, we think the human being (and reason) immersed in it - in an attempt to integrate a mythological and dialogical search between river, rock, plants, animals, humans, gods and demigods. The image of an overly rationalist and humanist Plato finds in this text a perspective of an inspired writer, a hybrid poet and philosopher, with a mission to restore language and the city to animal and cosmic life. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, by combining eliminativist and fictionalist approaches toward the sub-personal representational posits of predictive processing, we arrive at an empirically robust and yet metaphysically innocuous cognitive scientific framework. I begin the paper by providing a non-representational account of the five key posits of predictive processing. Then, I motivate a fictionalist approach toward the remaining indispensable representational posits of predictive processing, and explain how representation can play an epistemologically indispensable role within predictive processing explanations without thereby (...) requiring that representation metaphysically exists. Finally, I outline four consequences of accepting this approach and explain why they are beneficial: we arrive at a victory for metaphysical eliminativism in the ‘representation wars’; my account fits with extant empirical practice; my account provides guidance for future research; and, my account provides the beginnings of a response to Mark Sprevak’s IBE problem for fictionalist approaches toward sub-personal representation. (shrink)

A FUNÇÃO SOCIAL DA POSSE COMO PARÂMETRO PARA TRATAMENTO DOS CONFLITOS FUNDIÁRIOS URBANOS.

We review three broadly geometrodynamical---and in part, Machian or relational---projects, from the perspective of spacetime functionalism. We show how all three are examples of functionalist reduction of the type that was advocated by D. Lewis, and nowadays goes by the label `the Canberra Plan’. The projects are: the recovery of geometrodynamics by Hojman et al. ; the programme of Schuller and collaborators to deduce a metric from the physics of matter fields; the deduction of the ADM Hamiltonian by Gomes and (...) Shyam. We end by drawing a positive corollary about shape dynamics: namely, it has a good rationale for the Hamiltonian it postulates. (shrink)

We argue that narratives are central to the success of historical reconstruction. Narrative explanation involves tracing causal trajectories across time. The construction of narrative, then, often involves postulating relatively speculative causal connections between comparatively well-established events. But speculation is not always idle or harmful: it also aids in overcoming local underdetermination by forming scaffolds from which new evidence becomes relevant. Moreover, as our understanding of the past’s causal milieus become richer, the constraints on narrative plausibility become increasingly strict: a narrative’s (...) admissibility does not turn on mere logical consistency with background data. Finally, narrative explanation and explanation generated by simple, formal models complement one another. Where models often achieve isolation and precision at the cost of simplification and abstraction, narratives can track complex changes in a trajectory over time at the cost of simplicity and precision. In combination both allow us to understand and explain highly complex historical sequences. (shrink)

The Humean conception of the self consists in the belief-desire model of motivation and the utility-maximizing model of rationality. This conception has dominated Western thought in philosophy and the social sciences ever since Hobbes’ initial formulation in Leviathan and Hume’s elaboration in the Treatise of Human Nature. Bentham, Freud, Ramsey, Skinner, Allais, von Neumann and Morgenstern and others have added further refinements that have brought it to a high degree of formal sophistication. Late twentieth century moral philosophers such as Rawls, (...) Brandt, Frankfurt, Nagel and Williams have taken it for granted, and have made use of it to supply metaethical foundations for a wide variety of normative moral theories. But the Humean conception of the self also leads to seemingly insoluble problems about moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification. Can it be made to work? (shrink)

Coincidenţa contrariilor reprezintă un punct esenţial în gândirea umanităţii, echivalând, în cele din urmă, cu dorinţa omului de a aduna într-un tot unitar pe cele ce se opun în univers. Această preocupare a stat la baza scrierilor unor gânditori importanţi, între care se numără Sfântul Dionisie Areopagitul, Meister Eckhart, Nicolaus Cusanus sau Mircea Eliade. Deşi au scris în perioade de timp diferite şi au aparţinut unor tradiţii diferite, operele lor stau mărturie faptului că motivul coincidentia oppositorum a fost şi continuă (...) să fie o constantă în viaţa omului în dorinţa acestuia de a atinge Absolutul. (shrink)