The problem of identity is central to epistemic transference. However, relative identity appears to be the only way to work out an epistemic useful notion of identity. Relative identity, on its part, is either parasitic on strict identity or not identity at all. If, on the contrary, we ought for a strict concept of identity capable of satisfying its requirements, we end up with a tautologic and epistemic worthless category. The paper provides an answer to this problem, which, while working (...) with a strict notion, shows how it might still serve epistemic purposes. In doing so, it shows how a formal reconstruction of our objectual world and the identities we refer to poses a workable model upon which our messy epistemic one acquires stability. The paper focuses primarily on the Geach-Quine discussion on identity. (shrink)

The present paper deals with the ontological status of numbers and considers Frege ́s proposal in Grundlagen upon the background of the Post-Kantian semantic turn in analytical philosophy. Through a more systematic study of his philosophical premises, it comes to unearth a first level paradox that would unset earlier still than it was exposed by Russell. It then studies an alternative path, that departin1g from Frege’s initial premises, drives to a conception of numbers as synthetic a priori in a more (...) Kantian sense. On this basis, it tentatively explores a possible derivation of basic logical rules on their behalf, suggesting a more rudimentary basis to inferential thinking, which supports reconsidering the difference between logical thinking and AI. Finally, it reflects upon the contributions of this approach to the problem of the a priori. (shrink)

In the face of the criticism raised against Habermas distinction between morality and ethics and its universalist foundation of morality, it is argued that the priority of moral objectives results constitutively out of the normative reflection structure of the thinking subject, on which depend both the life objectives and corresponding social order in the specific contexts, as well as the personal ones; expanding, thus, the frame of the structurally constitutive in practical reflection. Additionally, the persistence of the Kantian moral thinking (...) in the foundational architecture of ED is reconsidered. (shrink)

The paper attempts to conciliate the important distinction between what-is, or exists, and what-is-not _thereby supporting Russell’s existential analysis_ with some Meinongian insights. For this purpose, it surveys the varied inhabitants of the realm of ‘non-being’ and tries to clarify their diverse statuses. The position that results makes it possible to rescue them back in surprising but non-threatening form, leaving our ontology safe from contradiction.

Hare’s analysis of moral language have been either obviated in contemporary meta-ethical debates or straightforwardly sided with dated forms of humean noncognitivism. It is assumed that Hare´s conceptual analysis is subject to the same critique that threatens these last positions and is in the same way inadequate. I believe this misrepresents his position and distracts us from his more important contributions to the understanding of moral language. The present paper attempts to show that, even if some miss-adjustments in Hare’s position (...) favour these assumptions, a reformulation of his account may confront such critics posing a new understanding model of the relation between descriptive and evaluative aspects in the moral case that differs from both realist and humean non-cognitivist accounts. (shrink)

The paper offers an integrative interpretation of the different lines of thought Wittgenstein was inspecting in On Certainty and what he might have been looking for through them. It suggests that we may have been focusing our attention too strongly in the wrong place and comes to a new conclusion about where the real import of these reflections lies. This leads to an answer to the initially posed question of Foundationalism that revises the way in which there can be said (...) to be a grounding intention in On Certainty. (shrink)

This paper aspires to meet a philosophical challenge posed to the author to give treatment to what was seen as a particularly nice Meinongian case1; namely the case of Galician Meigas. However, through the playful footpaths of enchanted Galician Meigas, I rehabilitate some relevant discussion on the justification of belief formation and come to some poignant philosophical insights regarding the understanding of possibilities. I hope both the leading promoter of the challenge and, of course, other philosophical readers are satisfied with (...) the outcome. (shrink)

This article aims to defend the need to recognize the independent role of those cognitive abilities on whose behalf linguistic meaning is introduced from the proper institution of language. I call this capacity “private pattern recognition” (PPR) and argue that it plays an essential part not just in the instauration of linguistic meaning but also in other relevant cognitive phenomena such as artistic creation and understanding. Moreover, it is precisely the failure to separate both aspects that gives rise to important (...) perplexities associated with the underdetermination of meaning. The first part of the article makes a case for this thesis and addresses its compatibility with Wittgenstein's private language argument. It then focuses on the example of art to illustrate the differing roles of private pattern recognition and shared linguistic meaning. The second part of the article focuses on the paradox of resemblance (RP). It (i) considers the difficulties of Williamson's response, (ii) illustrates how they instead support the current thesis, (iii) attempts to delineate how the role of meaning should be understood, and (iv) briefly revisits the rule‐following paradox (RFP). (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to propose an alternative model to realist and non-cognitive explanations of the rule-guided use of thick ethical concepts and to examine the implications that may be drawn from this and similar cases for our general understanding of rule-following and the relation between criteria of application, truth and correctness. It addresses McDowell’s non-cognitivism critique and challenges his defence of the entanglement thesis for thick ethical concepts. Contrary to non-cognitivists, however, I propose to view the relation (...) between the two terms of the entanglement as resulting from the satisfaction of a previously applied moral function. This is what I call a ‘Three-Fold Model’. (shrink)

The paper attempts to conciliate the important distinction between what-is, or exists, and what-is-not, thereby supporting Russell’s existential analysis, with some Meinongian insights. For this purpose, it surveys the varied inhabitants of the realm of ‘non-being’ and tries to clarify their diverse statuses. The position that results makes it possible to rescue them back in surprising but non-threatening form, leaving our ontology safe from contradiction.

El objetivo más inmediato de este trabajo es considerar en qué medida las críticas que desde tales posiciones realistas se han hecho a la Ética del Discurso son acertadas.

This paper attempts to be a contribution to the epistemological project of explaining complex conceptual structures departing from more basic ones. The central thesis of the paper is that there are what I call “functionally structured concepts”, these are non-harmonic concepts in Dummett’s sense that might be legitimized if there is a function that justifies the tie between the inferential connection the concept allows us to trace. Proving this requires enhancing the russellian existential analysis of definite descriptions to apply to (...) functions and using this in proving the legitimacy of such concepts. The utility of the proposal is shown for the case of thick ethical terms and an attempt is made to use it in explaining the development of natural numbers. This last move could allow us to go one step lower in explaining the genesis of natural numbers while maintaining the notion of abstract numbers as higher order entities. (shrink)

Abstracts The aim of the paper is to propose an alternative model to realist and non-cognitive explanations of the rule-guided use of thick ethical concepts and to examine the implications that may be drawn from this and similar cases for our general understanding of rule-following and the relation between criteria of application, truth and correctness. It addresses McDowell’s non-cognitivism critique and challenges his defence of the entanglement thesis for thick ethical concepts. Contrary to non-cognitivists, however, I propose to view the (...) relation between the two terms of the entanglement as resulting from the satisfaction of a previously applied moral function. This is what I call a “Three-Fold Model”. (shrink)

Boghossian’s (2003) proposal to conditionalize concepts as a way to secure their legitimacy in disputable cases applies well, not just to pejoratives – on whose account Boghossian first proposed it – but also to thick ethical concepts. It actually has important advantages when dealing with some worries raised by the application of thick ethical terms, and the truth and facticity of corresponding statements. In this paper, I will try to show, however, that thick ethical concepts present a specific case, whose (...) analysis requires a somewhat different reconstruction from that which Boghossian offers. A proper account of thick ethical concepts should be able to explain how ‘evaluated’ and ‘evaluation’ are connected. (shrink)

While the implementation of digital technology in psychiatry appears promising, there is an urgent need to address the implications of the absence of ethical design in the early development of such technologies. Some authors have noted the gap between technology development and ethical analysis and have called for an upstream examination of the ethical issues raised by digital technologies. In this paper, we address this suggestion, particularly in relation to digital healthcare technologies for patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The introduction (...) of digital technologies in psychiatry offers a broad spectrum of diagnostic and treatment options tailored to the health needs and goals of patients’ care. These technologies include wearable devices, smartphone applications for high-immersive virtual realities, smart homes, telepsychiatry and messaging systems for patients in rural areas. The availability of these technologies could increase access to mental health services and improve the diagnostics of mental disorders.Additional Instruction AbstractIn this descriptive review, we systematize ethical concerns about digital technologies for mental health with a particular focus on individuals suffering from schizophrenia. There are many unsolved dilemmas and conflicts of interest in the implementation of these technologies, such as (1) the lack of evidence on efficacy and impact on self-perception; (2) the lack of clear standards for the safety of their daily implementation; (3) unclear roles of technology and a shift in the responsibilities of all parties; (4) no guarantee of data confidentiality; and (5) the lack of a user-centered design that meets the particular needs of patients with schizophrenia. mHealth can improve care in psychiatry and make mental healthcare services more efficient and personalized while destigmatizing mental health disorders. To ensure that these technologies will benefit people with mental health disorders, we need to heighten sensitivity to ethical issues among mental healthcare specialists, health policy makers, software developers, patients themselves and their proxies. Additionally, we need to develop frameworks for furthering sustainable development in the digital technologies industry and for the responsible usage of such technologies for patients with schizophrenia in the clinical setting. We suggest that digital technology in psychiatry, particularly for schizophrenia and other serious mental health disorders, should be integrated into treatment with professional supervision rather than as a self-treatment tool. (shrink)

This essay explores the return of the subject in the computational context, which I address as a digital subject. This digital subject encompasses a digital identifier, correlations in data or a data profile, moving between biological characteristics and symbolic expression. I focus on the processes through which digital subjects are constructed by matching, correlating, modelling, as well as how they become enactive. The ways of pulling data together into a digital subject is often presented as a logic of fact, where (...) data is equated with documentary evidence. Instead, I propose the notion of the distance in which digital subjects are produced. Indexicality comes from outside of data, whereas the regard for the thick distance becomes a mark of the form of knowledge. I conclude by arguing for a posthumanities approach that establishes the distance while allowing for different subjects to be called upon. (shrink)

The research is devoted to the problem of philosophically justifying rationality, which inevitably takes the form of a circular argument: to define what rationality is, we must refrain from referring to its criteria, which must be rationally defined beforehand. This epistemic circle is compared to the so-called “experimenter’s regress”. The experimenter’s regress involves reasoning in which judging the correctness of obtained scientific results can only be based on the correctness of the procedure of obtaining them and judging the correctness of (...) the procedure of obtaining them can only be done by relying on the obtained results. From the perspective of social researchers of science, the experimenter’s (and the theoretician’s) regress casts a shadow on traditional theories of rationality that take science as a model of rational knowledge. The research analyzes the experimenter’s regress in the context of virtuous and vicious circles. It is shown that the experimenter’s regress is overcome by turning to external factors. These factors are proposed to be interpreted in terms of extended rationality. By analyzing the experimenter’s regress, social epistemologists consciously or unconsciously rationalize these “external” factors and enrich the concept of rationality. This allows qualifying the circle described by rationality in defining itself as virtuous and the work of the epistemologist as a progressive activity, during which both epistemology and its subject undergo qualitative changes. (shrink)

Freedom to Believe is a powerful collection of philosophical and religious essays by a modern poet of distinction. It introduces a highly original and controversial thinker to the Western reader. Olga Sedakova's central philosophical thought lies in the notion of existential freedom in its association with the liberating power of the arts, especially poetry. These convictions place her firmly in the Russian and European classical cultural traditions, which, in turn, have deep roots in Christianity. Devoutly Orthodox yet fiercely independent (...) in her thinking, Sedakova's ecumenical humanism places her in opposition to both the "new left" and modern fundamentalism. Indeed, Sedakova's "conservatism" is more genuinely new than the so-called radicalism of the postmodernists, as she castigates "old totalitarianism" and new commercialism alike, in the name of a new cultural poetics and politics. (shrink)

The paper provides a commentary on B.G. Yudin's paper devoted to the relationship between technoscience and contemporary human enhancement technologies. In order to discuss these issues I address to T. Kuhn's conception of two traditions in the development of modern science. I show that technoscience belongs to the tradition that Kuhn calls the Baconian or ”experimental" sciences in contrast to the ”mathematical" sciences. I argue that technoscience creates an experimental environment for the study of a human being as an integral (...) part of this environment. (shrink)

The article focuses on the crucial changes that science as an established social institution and an epistemological enterprise is undergoing, the key one is the loss of its monopoly on the production of socially useful knowledge and gradual transformation into something new, which, due to institutional and cultural reasons, we continue to call ‘science’. We suppose that the most appropriate conceptualization of the new phenomenon, which is replacing science as an institution, is “technoscience”, since the technical component in scientific practices (...) has now taken a dominant position and technology production has become more important than fundamental knowledge. Technoscience has at least two sources: 1) capitalization of scientific activity that has led to classical science has been replaced with technoscience developing on first-priority funded applied research; 2) theorization and autonomy of the techno sphere, which have resulted in instrumentalization of all levels of knowledge production as well as in technological / symbolic construction of reality and tangled ontology of technoscientific objects. We discuss both of these sources, with particular attention being paid to such trends as epistemic strategies transformation, modified reality, social sciences and humanities conformation to technoscience norms, and knowledge bearers egalitarianization. A crucial transformation of both science itself and its position in society breaks inevitably a demarcation line that separates scientific knowledge from other types of knowledge while promotes the replacement of scientific theory with discourses. Apparently, in “technoscience” an ethos of its own is being formed, where interaction with the “external environment” (with other social spheres) is crucial. In this context, scientific activity is becoming more and more transepistemic, transinstitutional practice, and accordingly ceases to be guided by the classical scientific ethos determined by the goals and objectives of academic community itself. (shrink)

The steady growth of the number of DNA tests offered results in the discussion on the ethical aspects of these tests becoming increasingly lively and multifaceted. This text provides an overview of selected issues concerning the characteristics, protection and quality of the information acquired as a result of carrying out DNA tests. I discuss the salient points in the debates on the possibility to justify the so-called genetic exceptionalism, and the ways of specifying the scope of the principle of confidentiality (...) that protects the privacy of the information given by the subject. The final part of the article features the discussion on the importance of the possibility to use the information, acquired from these tests, in practice – for making decisions about the introduction of new kinds of tests for the clinical application. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 44, no. 1. © 2018 by Olga Zilberbourg 95 Olga Zilberbourg Helen More’s Suicide My retired colleague Marguerite called to tell me of Helen More’s suicide. “Of all the sad, ludicrous things people do to themselves!” She invited me over. “Thursday night, as usual. I could use the company of younger people.” It had been about a year since I’d first been invited to these (...) Thursdays —monthly literary and musical soirees Marguerite hosted in her living room. Helen had been a regular at Marguerite’s for several decades; the two women were close contemporaries and each a celebrity in her own field. Helen was scholar of the English Romantics at the same university where Marguerite had taught Flaubert, Zola, and Balzac, and where I was now a junior faculty member in the English department. I’d heard of Professor More long before I met her: she lectured at the university from the 1960s until being forced into retirement in 2006 ostensibly due to age. She had a reputation as a militant feminist who eagerly engaged in battles about appointments and promotions, and her politics could have had something to do with it. “Are they sure it was a suicide?” In person Helen was a quiet, reticent woman with a sly, sarcastic sense of humor, and the idea that she might’ve committed suicide seemed outlandish. Vague murder scenarios floated in my mind. A disgruntled student? A male professor, passed over for promotion years ago and blaming her for his career failure? 96 Olga Zilberbourg “Yes, quite. The details are unpleasant, but do you know what she wrote in her suicide note?” “Of course she left a note.” “She said, ‘Thanks for the trip. Love to all.’” I couldn’t help laughing. “Yet when you think that having written that, she took all those pills and put a plastic bag over her head,” Marguerite’s voice broke. “Anyway, it’s not a conversation to have over the telephone. Do come over.” On Thursday afternoon, having collected the student papers after the last exam of the semester, I took the subway down to Greenwich Village. Marguerite lived on a third floor walkup, in a wonderfully spacious and tall-ceilinged apartment that back in the 1970s she and her husband had converted from a pillow factory. Since her husband’s death ten years earlier, the apartment had slowly turned into a trap for Marguerite. She suffered from arthritis in her hands, shoulders, and knees, and walking up and down the stairs became a nearly impossible exercise. She ventured out once or twice a week with the assistance of a visiting nurse. The place could easily fetch three or four million dollars, and Marguerite could use the money. Yet she was reluctant to sell. “I’d rather go without bread than without my piano and my books,” she insisted. A feeling of reverence and trepidation caught my breath as I climbed the stairs to Marguerite’s apartment. One never knew what kind of celebrity of the arts or music world could show up on any given Thursday. In her lifetime, Marguerite had known everyone, from Sartre and de Beauvoir to Picasso and Chagall. In the last few years the circle of her acquaintances seemed to dwindle, and yet still world-renowned musicians, poets, playwrights sometimes appeared among the circle of her former colleagues and students. I rang the doorbell and waited for several minutes as Marguerite crept to the door. “I’m afraid you’re my only guest tonight,” she said through the door, struggling with the lock and the knob. Finally, she pushed the door open. “Several people cancelled because of the end of the semester, and then of course, there’s the funeral. But come in, come in—we’ll talk of that later.” Marguerite led me into the living room, heavily shaded from the street and dimly lit with two floor lamps. Decorated with musical instruments, piles of books on the floor and on the low tables, and bright Olga Zilberbourg 97 modernist watercolors on the walls, the room seemed to belong to a royal palace, a vast, untouchable space. Usually Helen or one of Marguerite ’s... (shrink)

Populations have different percents on different history realms regarding baths and fountains. A constant historical issue of such places is related with constant use and adore. Therefore we find ourselves in time where they where more used and ages where they where less used. On our paper we analyse from a sociological perspective the use of such spaces, mainly associated with social interaction and sociability. At the end of our paper, we are going to analyse both issues directly linked with (...) tourism perspective in terms of health and care on the so called “Postindustrial Society”. (shrink)

A rather variegated palette of modern functionalities of denominations both in the world as a whole, and in Ukraine, in particular, is determined by the urgent needs of society. Along with purely traditional religious and religious organizations, such functions that are called in time in one or another community are appearing or reviving. In Ukraine, today the actualization of such functions of the Churches that are most invited in the difficult conditions of external aggression and internal internal problems are being (...) observed. Among them, almost the first place was the function of patriotic education, which prompted scholars to pay special attention to this. The urgency of studying the role of the religious-church factor in patriotic education does not require long proof in the face of the heavy resistance of Ukraine to the bulk of the "Russian world", now not only information, spiritual and cultural, but also in the form of military aggression that has gained insidious forms of undeclared "hybrid warfare" ». (shrink)

The transfer of the governing seat of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to the capital of Ukraine, though not equal to the Church's exit to “Greater” Ukraine, but prompts an analysis of the respective possibilities of the heir to the baptism of Vladimir. This is what the Head of her Church calls her, emphasizing essentially the main motive behind the decision to move her residence. In his "Address on the Construction of the Temple of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in (...) Kiev." Lubomyr Husar stressed that the UGCC, as "part of the Kyiv root", is now free in a free state. There is now an opportunity "to return the heart of our Church to the capital city of Kyiv, from where it was born, from where it was removed by cruel circumstances.". (shrink)

This article examines the transformation of Dante’s image in post-Soviet scholarship. The author shows how Russian philologists Vladimir Bibikhin, Olga Sedakova, and Georgii Chistiakov introduced a new image of Dante to post-Soviet readers in fresh translations of his work, scholarly writings, and lecture courses that revealed previously obscured philosophical and theological dimensions of his texts. The post-Soviet reader came into contact with a more complex image of Dante than previously portrayed in official Soviet literary scholarship: Dante the philosopher, the (...) Christian humanist, the spiritual guide who calls upon individuals to embark upon a difficult but crucial existential journey. The author also shows how the unstable and transitional decade of the 1990s was a time of a particularly active study of Dante’s philosophical and poetic anthropology. Dante’s main themes (personal salvation, activism, living in tradition) resonated profoundly with intellectuals during the late Soviet and early post-Soviet years, which were marked by a special soteriological attitude and a belief that individuals and society not only can but must change. (shrink)

Under contract for the series Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. -/- The focus of this Element is Kant’s history of human reason: his teleological vision of the past development of our rational capacities from their very emergence until Kant’s own “age of Enlightenment”. One of the goals of this Element is to connect Kant’s speculative account of the very beginning of rationality – a topic which has thus far been largely neglected or at least under-studied in Kantian scholarship (...) – to his well-known theory of humankind’s progress. By doing so, I hope to elucidate Kant’s hopes with regard to reason’s future progress and his guidelines for how to achieve this progress by unifying them with his vision of reason’s past. Another goal of this Element is to bring more attention to Kant’s essay “Conjectural Beginning of Human History” (1786), where a large part of this account is presented, and to show that this “somewhat unusual” (Yovel 1989) text does not stand in conflict with Kant’s critical philosophy and is not merely tangentially related to it, but actually illuminates and complements certain aspects of Kant’s critical philosophy. -/- This Element is divided into three parts. Part 1 introduces Kant’s speculations about the transition our species underwent from non-rational animals into primitive, rational humans. It also shows how these speculations fit with Kant’s broader view of the development of humans’ reason, or of the species’ gradual process of learning how to make a mature (enlightened) use of reason. -/- Part 2 focuses on a text where the speculative account of the beginning of human history is presented in most detail: the “Conjectural Beginning of Human History”. I defend the exegetical importance of this essay for Kant’s practical philosophy by arguing that the claims Kant makes in it are not merely fictional or imaginative, but play a key role in his teleological view of the progression of human history. I also assess the contribution that Kant makes to the conjectural history genre through this essay and discuss how distinct it is from the most prominent and well-studied conjectural histories of the Enlightenment era. -/- Part 3 focuses on what Kant’s account of the history of reason tells us about his political and pedagogical guidelines for the continuance of humanity’s progress toward the fulfillment of its vocation and for the progress of any given individual. I also present and defend my understanding of what it means to think and act in an enlightened (or as Kant also calls it, a “pluralistic”) way, connecting this idea to the three maxims of good thinking, the public use of reason, and the role of interpersonal communication in advancing our rational capacities. (shrink)

The Jola are intensive wet-rice cultivators in the Lower Casamance region of Senegal. In this study, the author examines the reasons behind startling contrasts in the organization of agricultural tasks among three Jola communities located within a 45-kilometre radius from Ziguinchor. In Sambujat, situated in the non-Islamisized region south of the river, wet rice is a monocrop cultivated by both men and women. In Jipalom, in the Kajamutay region north of the river, Islam and cash cropping have been adopted; and (...) in Fatiya, in the so-called 'Mandingized' region of the Kalunay, social relations have become hierarchical and this has had profound effects on the cropping system and on the division of labour. The author examines the shift of power relations over time, and their effects on the way in which production has been organized by age and gender, kin and class. Larger issues dealt with are Islamization, women's labour and the introduction of cash cropping. A concluding section places the history of Jola labour relations within the context of the political economy of Senegal. (shrink)

In recent years, the biopharmaceutical industry has seen an increase in the development of so-called orphan drugs for the treatment of rare and neglected diseases. This increase has been spurred on by legislation in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere designed to promote orphan drug development. In this article, we examine the drivers of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in orphan drug markets and the extent to which biopharmaceutical firms engage in these activities with a strategic orientation. The unique context (...) of orphan drugs constitutes a research opportunity to test the applicability of existing theoretical perspectives on CSR and strategic CSR. Using Schwartz and Carroll’s (Bus Ethics Q, 13(4):503–530, 2003) three-domain approach to CSR and the literature on strategic CSR as a theoretical background, we employ a combination of semi-structured interviews and a quantitative website content analysis to study practices of biopharmaceutical firms in the United States and European Union. Our findings show that both US- and EU-based companies engaged in orphan drugs development perceive their involvement as a responsible business activity beyond the economic dimension of CSR. However, for the majority of these companies their CSR activities do not qualify as strategic according to the criteria established in the literature. We also find significant differences between larger and smaller firms in their use of CSR. Based on these findings, we make several suggestions regarding orphan drug legislation and other measures that might help firms exploit strategic CSR benefits. (shrink)

In order to block controversial predictions of 2D semantics (The Nesting Problem), Chalmers and Rabern (2014) propose adding an additional constriction called “the liveness constraint” in definitions of epistemic modals. Without this constraint, all scenario‐world pairs counterfactual to a scenario‐world pair considered as actual in a 2D matrix for a contingent a priori proposition ϕ appear problematic for 2D semantics. This is because, although it is false that ϕ in such pairs, it is a priori true that ϕ. I consider (...) two versions of 2D semantics, those with unstructured and structured intensions. I argue that the unstructured version of 2D semantics is over‐simplified and due to this, it has controversial predictions for counterfactual scenario‐world pairs – the definition of epistemic conceivability with the liveness constraint causes some contingent propositions to appear inconceivable in counterfactual scenario‐world pairs, while some other contingent propositions remain conceivable. In turn, the structured version of the 2D account of propositions has no explanation of how it is possible to possess purely qualitative knowledge without its being dependent on a particular individual or on a particular actual world. (shrink)

The article deals with the philosophical problem field of modern neuroethics. The general idea of the state of modern neuroethics is given and it is shown that research in this area encompasses both fundamental problems that classically belonged to the field of philosophy research (for example, such as the problem of psychophysical dualism, the physical bases of consciousness, freedom of will and its interrelation with brain activity) and problems with applied orientation, explicating the ethical-social and legal dimension of innovation development (...) in the field of neuroscience and actualizing the analysis of their social risks. It is shown that the development of neuro-ethics in the modern world became possible thanks to a special way of functioning of modern science, which was called the technology of science and to the development of the phenomenon of technological development ethification, which in practical terms was expressed in the study of the problem of the correspondence of the results of innovative scientific and technical projects to the interests of various social groups, their expectations and values, and also helped to determine the status of new technologies in relation to social reality. The article gives an idea of the existing normative field necessary for the development of neuro-ethics. On the basis of using the resource of discourse analysis of R. Harre, who singled out personal grammar (P-grammar), organism grammar (O-grammars) and molecular grammar (M-grammar), a philosophical analysis of such a problem of modern neuroethics as brain death was carried out. Also was given a structural description of new biotechnogenic identities of human being. The conclusion is drawn that the concept of brain death is an example of the conventional nature of scientific truth, the formation of which is influenced by various socio-cultural and economic factors. In the context of the development of neuroscience and the emergence of new methods of brain regeneration, it can be rethought. (shrink)

Author analyzes the phenomenon of commoditization of human body in the context of the scientific development. It is argued that since the start of the development of biotechnologies human body has become a very attractive object for economic «investments» in the majority of developed countries. Author considers some anthropological foundations of the body commodification problem and some classifications of the relationships between individuals, science and society. The following dimensions of these relationships are examined in the paper: 1) an opposition of (...) the individual and science; 2) an altruistic dimension; 3) a compensatory dimension. The “oppositional" dimension describes science as an institute that is not focused on the benefits of a certain person through the in- strumentalization and commoditization of corporality but is aimed to find the solution to some common social problems. Within the second (altruistic) dimension the individual seeks to make a contribution to the development of science and has no objection against the use of his biomaterials. A shady side of the altruistic dimension is the so-called “false altruism": a person is encouraged to donate biomaterials without any information about some possible risks and dangers for his health as well as about commercial interest of the researchers. The compensatory dimension comes from the material or moral damage compensation to the individual or his relatives for the use of his/her body (cells, substances, body parts) for biotechnological purposes. (shrink)

This article proposes a guideline to develop an ontology of software. The first section gives a brief introduction to the importance of such ontology as a possible conceptual grounding for the philosophy of software, philosophy of computing and philosophy of information. The second section presents the background of the scope of this article in terms of both a symbolic and materialistic approach to software. The third section deploys the basic guidelines with the expositions of the two dimensions of software: the (...) serial dimension and the structural dimension. The first dimension consists of three series, while the second in the exposition of the structure of any program. The fourth and last section will deal with a better understanding of what we can call the digital universe. (shrink)

Taking the example of the Basel carnival Fasnacht, the paper shows in what way ritual can maintain the impression of being traditional and unchanging, and yet be open to changes and innovations. As the basic conceptual framework we use the notion of liminality, which Victor Turner identified as the creative moment of ritual. In Fasnacht, this liminal dimension appears in two degrees. The carnival as such represents a reflexive liminal counterpart to the standard social structure, yet it is itself also (...) highly structured and bound by conservative traditional rules. As a reaction to this, there arises within Fasnacht a second-order liminality in the form of the so-called wild Fasnacht, which turns the official antistructural Fasnacht rules upside down once again, testing their validity. While the carnival structure offers a regulated opportunity for questioning everyday social behaviour, wild Fasnacht questions even this regulated manner of questioning as such, opening space for its reflection and modification. We use detailed examples to demonstrate how the subtle dialectics of structure and antistructure keeps the tradition of Basel’s Fasnacht alive and allows it to evolve without destroying its aura of traditionality. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that, under a specific set of circumstances, designing and employing certain kinds of virtual reality (VR) experiences can be unethical. After a general discussion of simulations and their ethical context, we begin our argu-ment by distinguishing between the experiences generated by different media (text, film, computer game simulation, and VR simulation), and argue that VR experiences offer an unprecedented degree of what we call “perspectival fidelity” that prior modes of simulation lack. Additionally, we argue that (...) when VR experiences couple this perspectival fidelity with what we call “context realism,” VR experiences have the ability to produce “virtually real experiences.” We claim that virtually real experiences generate ethical issues for VR technologies that are unique to the medium. Because subjects of these experiences treat them as if they were real, a higher degree of ethical scrutiny should be applied to any VR scenario with the potential to generate virtually real experiences. To mitigate this unique moral hazard, we propose and defend what we call “The Equivalence Principle.” This principle states that “if it would be wrong to allow subjects to have a certain experience in reality, then it would be wrong to allow subjects to have that experience in a virtually real setting.” We argue that such a principle, although limited in scope, should be part of the risk analysis conducted by any Institutional Review Boards, psychologists, empirically oriented philosophers, or game designers who are using VR technology in their work. (shrink)

This article criticizes what it calls perspectival thought experiments, which require subjects to mentally simulate a perspective before making judgments from within it. Examples include Judith Thomson's violinist analogy, Philippa Foot's trolley problem, and Bernard Williams's Jim case. The article argues that advances in the philosophical and psychological study of empathy suggest that the simulative capacities required by perspectival thought experiments are all but impossible. These thought experiments require agents to consciously simulate necessarily unconscious features of subjectivity. To complete these (...) experiments subjects must deploy theory-theoretical frameworks to predict what they think they would do. These outputs, however, systematically mislead subjects and are highly prone to error. They are of negligible probative value, and this bodes poorly for their continued use. The article ends with two suggestions. First, many thought experiments are not problematically perspectival. Second, it should be possible to carry out “in-their-shoes” perspectival thought experiments by off-loading simulations onto virtual environments into which philosophers place subjects. (shrink)

Introduction. Observing the production and consumer area of modern cinematography makes it possible to draw conclusions about the value dominants of modern society, to conduct its sociocultural analysis. Cinema, both auteur and mass, is a way of reflecting and modeling the society spiritual state and its analysis makes it possible to draw quite serious and justified philosophical and social conclusions. The film in a philosophical sense is ontologized by the dominant intention of the era. Such a dominant intention of modernity (...) is hedonism. Pleasure, enjoyment, happiness, according to the humanities, is the basic values of the 21st century society. Cinema is the most comprehensive reaction to the needs of hedonism, since hedonistic prerequisites are to some degree laid down in its technical (movement, photographic phenomenology) and social nature (art and entertainment). In this regard, it seems relevant to conduct a philosophical analysis of the ontological level of modern cinema. The aim of the study is to conduct a philosophical analysis of the ontological level of modern cinema; identify ontological models, variations and combinations of which provide its artistic diversity. Methods: the authors use the general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, the phenomenological method, since they identify the sensory intentions that underlie modern cinema. The authors also use the hermeneutic method, since they reveal the hidden meanings of the film, determined by the time and conditions of its creation, as well as the semiotic approach, which makes it possible to analyze the structural-semiotic whole of the film. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that the authors analyze films from philosophical aspects, and not just cultural studies, as is customary. In modern cinema, the authors look for a reflection of the “social soul”, identify those intentions that underlie modern cinema, both auteur and mass. This makes it possible to deduce a typology of film models that have not previously been applied to the analysis of the film process. Results. During the analysis, the authors developed a hedonistic-ontological typology of cinematic models, identified five generative models of cinema, four of which have a hedonistic orientation: an alimentary model that pleases the recipient by intensively stimulating his perceptual sphere; a parkour model that gives pleasure to light and unhindered movement, minimizing the severity and resistance of the environment; an arcade model that provides the viewer the pleasure of victory through virtual immersion in the ups and downs of the “action film”; a detective model that gives the viewer pleasure through the removal of cognitive uncertainty. The fifth model, tentatively called existential, should lead the viewer into a complex philosophical state of being-with-self-self, an experience of one’s own fulfillment, associated with the experience of suffering. However, due to the hedonistic orientations of modern culture, this model is not relevant in the first decades of the 21st century. Conclusions. Philosophical analysis of modern cinema has revealed that at the ontological level it is based on the philosophy of hedonism. Modern cinema delivers the following types of pleasures to the recipient: enjoyment of the flesh of the world, enjoyment of bodily freedom in motion, enjoyment of peace, cognitive enjoyment. (shrink)

We aim to generate a dilemma for virtual reality-based research that we motivate through an extended case study of Judith Thomson’s (1985) Bridge variant of the trolley problem. Though the problem we generate applies more broadly than the Bridge problem, we believe it makes a good exemplar of the kind of case we believe is problematic. First, we argue that simulations of these thought experiments run into a practicality horn that makes it practically impossible to produce them. These problems revolve (...) around concepts that we call “perspectival fidelity”and “context realism.” Moral dilemmas that include features present in the Bridge variant will, as a result, be practically impossible to simulate. We also argue that, should we be wrong about the practical impossibility of creating a VR simulation of Bridge, such a simulation must face an ethical horn which renders these simulations ethically impermissible to develop or use. For these reasons, we argue that it is virtually impossible to simulate the bridge problem (and other thought experiments with similar features) both practically and ethically in VR. (shrink)

This work studies an artistic way of narrating an exile without having to resort to direct words such as violence or crime. Max Aub, a Spanish exile in Mexico, published his personal magazine Sala de Espera in Aztec lands. In the section called “Zarzuela,” he compiled a series of short stories entitled Crímenes, which later, for its edition in book format, he called Crímenes ejemplares. The short stories are a series of humorous confessions about various types of murders narrated by (...) the "murderers," so that they seem real testimonies. Throughout the three editions of this book, during Aub's lifetime, the author incorporated a series of "clues" in the paratexts with the aim of referring to the social phenomena of the time, especially those related to the situation with the Franco regime, the Cold War —historical context of the time of Aub's exile in Mexico— and the events that would take place in Mexico and Paris in 1968. For example, this last nod to the violent events of that summer of 68 is represented with a painting that evokes the French gang Bonnot, dedicated to bank robberies to destabilize the economy of the richest. This is an example of how the writer related the fiction of the crimes to real events, in such a way that a kind of dilution between the real and the imaginary arises. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Se examina la estructura lógica de la antilogía como forma de pensamiento ejercida por los sofistas. Se sostiene que, si bien en los argumentos antilógicos se encuentran falacias de tipo no formal, al menos algunos de tales razonamientos no son falacias desde un punto de vista simbólico formal, sino que poseen estructuras que hoy se pueden reconstruir como esquemas con validez lógica. Se analizan específicamente dos lugares de argumentaciones sofistas: los denominados Discursos dobles, textos anónimos del IV AC, y (...) la obra principal de Gorgias. Se identifican en ellos 8 argumentos con estructura lógica válida. ABSTRACT: The basic structure of antilogic is examined as a way of thinking exercised by the Sophists. It is sustained that, although fallacies of the non-formal type may be found in antilogic arguments, they have structures that currently may be reconstructed as schemes of logical validity. Specifically, two examples of Sophist argumentation are analyzed: the so-called Double Discourses, anonymous texts from the 4th century b.c., and Gorgias' main works. Eight arguments of valid logical structure are identified in them. (shrink)

An individual's health, genetic, or environmental-exposure data, placed in an online repository, creates a valuable shared resource that can accelerate biomedical research and even open opportunities for crowd-sourcing discoveries by members of the public. But these data become “immortalized” in ways that may create lasting risk as well as benefit. Once shared on the Internet, the data are difficult or impossible to redact, and identities may be revealed by a process called data linkage, in which online data sets are matched (...) to each other. Reidentification, the process of associating an individual's name with data that were considered deidentified, poses risks such as insurance or employment discrimination, social stigma, and breach of the promises often made in informed-consent documents. At the same time, re-ID poses risks to researchers and indeed to the future of science, should re-ID end up undermining the trust and participation of potential research participants. The ethical challenges of online data sharing are heightened as so-called big data becomes an increasingly important research tool and driver of new research structures. Big data is shifting research to include large numbers of researchers and institutions as well as large numbers of participants providing diverse types of data, so the participants’ consent relationship is no longer with a person or even a research institution. In addition, consent is further transformed because big data analysis often begins with descriptive inquiry and generation of a hypothesis, and the research questions cannot be clearly defined at the outset and may be unforeseeable over the long term. In this article, we consider how expanded data sharing poses new challenges, illustrated by genomics and the transition to new models of consent. We draw on the experiences of participants in an open data platform—the Personal Genome Project—to allow study participants to contribute their voices to inform ethical consent practices and protocol reviews for big-data research. (shrink)

This study intends to contribute to the delimitation of selected offensive language categories based on an analysis of a corpus of contributions to discussion forums in Czech online national newspapers and news platforms called Czech Corpus of Offensive Language (CCOL). It endeavours to study three problematic areas (1) delimitation between the speech acts performed, (ii) lexical realisation of specific properties of the target and (iii) identification and categorisation of implicit offence (e.g. figurative semantic shifts) by exploring contextual cues for the (...) speech act identification, the keywords indicating the properties of the target and the types of semantic shifts in implicit expressions of offence. The findings indicate that annotation systems that do not use context information for the detection of offensive language may face problems with adequate interpretation of the language means under investigation. (shrink)

The twenty-first century presents a major challenge for civil engineering. The magnitude and future importance of some of the problems perceived by society are directly related to the field of the civil engineer, implying an inescapable burden of responsibility for a group whose technical soundness, rational approach and efficiency is highly valued and respected by the citizen. However, the substantial changes in society and in the way it perceives the problems that it considers important call for a thorough review of (...) our structures, both professional and educational; so that our profession, with its undeniable historical prestige, may modernize certain approaches and attitudes in order to continue to be a reliable instrument in the service of society, giving priority from an ethical standpoint to its actions in pursuit of the public good . It possesses important tools to facilitate this work (new technologies, the development of communications, the transmission of scientific thought.···); but there is nevertheless a need for deep reflection on the very essence of civil engineering: what we want it to be in the future, and the ability and willingness to take the lead at a time when society needs disinterested messages, technically supported, reasonably presented and dispassionately transmitted. (shrink)

La abducción ha desempeñado un papel principal en los enfoques filosóficos sobre la generación de nuevas hipótesis explicativas en las ciencias. Por su parte, desde el punto de vista de la ciencia cognitiva, el razonamiento basado en modelos es el principal instrumento para el pensamiento creativo en la ciencia. Esta segunda clase de razonamiento no se aplica a sentencias sino a objetos semánticos denominados modelos y no está determinada por reglas formales de inferencia. Este artículo sostiene la tesis de que (...) la abducción, en su papel de descubridora, se ve reforzada por la "abducción basada en modelos", figura que no ha sido suficientemente analizada en la literatura actual sobre el tema. Abductive reasoning has played a central role in philosophical accounts of generation of new explanatory hypotheses in science. On the other hand, cognitive scientists have considered model-based reasoning as a main instrument for creative thinking in science. This latter kind of reasoning is applied not to sentences but to semantic objects called models, and is not governed by formal rules of inference. This paper holds the thesis that abductive inference, in its discovery role, is reinforced by what can be characterized as "model-based abduction", a notion which has not yet been sufficiently analyzed in the literature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hispanic Utopian Studies and Activism as a PromptJulia Ramírez-Blanco (bio)In the last few years I have come to the Utopian Studies Societýs yearly conference as part of a smaller group, one that has its own parallel history in the left corner of the South of Europe and is networked mostly with Latin America. I am referring to the interdisciplinary research group Histopia, which has its base in Madrid́s Autónoma (...) University, is comprised of twenty-seven researchers from different institutions, and is coordinated by historian Juan Pro. As the name Histopia suggests, it was founded by historians. From the beginning there have been people from other fields, such as political science, architecture, cultural studies, and art history. The aim was always understanding utopianism beyond the study of texts, and centering research in everything that utopianism produces, such as social movements, political programs, and urban programs. In this sense, a premise was to understand utopias not as a footnote in history or a series of eccentric events, but as a guiding force that drives a [End Page 510] history. This placing of utopianism in history was clearly announced in the grouṕs website:Histopia seeks to go beyond the philological approach that predominates in Utopian Studies and to historicize the study of contemporary utopias and dystopias, showing how they respond to the contexts in which they arise, since they reflect the problems and frustrations of a society as well as the aspirations for change it contains, and the conditions of possibility that a particular cultural and emotional framework offers for developing them.1Together with this focus on history, which departs from the more text-centered traditions of an important part of utopian studies, the other main particularity of Histopia is its decentralizing of utopian studies towards the Spanish-speaking world. And to this end, the group also founded the Transatlantic Network for the Study of Utopias, which was created in 2015 to put in communication over 250 researchers, most of them from Latin America, but also from other places such as Australia or Japan.2The Spanish statés research funding programs have provided the bureaucratic framework and the material resources for the research group since 2015. Together with seminars, conferences, or workshops, the resulting publications have been linked with utopian literature, with dystopia, and with a focus on viewing history through the lens of utopia. One of the most recent endeavors has been a radically collective one, articulating a Dictionary of Utopian Places written by a multitude of authors.3 Histopia has also initiated several projects with schools, for the most part ongoing, and there have been many attempts to disseminate its work through radio and video projects. And since its founding, Histopia has tried reaching out beyond the Academy—an effort that is finally gaining success. In 2021 the international conference Intentional Communities: Concrete Utopias in History was extremely fruitful: we saw involved participation both in various interventions, and through activities such as streaming. Participants included people and organizations from social movements and from intentional communities.I want to argue here that the very formation of Histopia was a logical development from certain political triggers—and in particular, the so-called 15M Movement, a series of anti-austerity protests and direct-democracy initiatives that ignited antigovernment activism throughout Spain from 2011 on, culminating in the occupation of urban spaces (“encampments”) and in very large political assemblies. It is not just that the forces of activism were [End Page 511] reignited after 2011, and that its inheritors came together with the Histopia research group; the very existence of Histopia, I am arguing, can be read as a consequence of the 15M encampment and its aftermath.Prefigurative PracticesIn May 2011, following the example of the Arab world, Madrid’s Puerta del Sol was populated by a crowd armed with posters, slogans, and self-made banners. On the inhospitable ground of the square, anonymous persons erected an encampment so complex that it functioned as a miniature city, with spaces for preparing food, for nursery care, for rest, for legal consultation, for anti-racist and/or feminist activity. All work was voluntary, and materials were... (shrink)