Right after our tragedy, my idea of forgiveness was to be free of this thing, – the anger, the pain, the absorption. It was totally personal. It was a survival tactic to leave this experience behind. It had nothing to do with the offender. The second level was realizing how the word forgiveness applies to the relationship between the victim and the offender. How it means accepting and working on that relationship after a murder. The latter is more complicated. Now (...) I think I see that forgiveness is more of integrating the experience into my life in a controlled way, rather than letting it go or escaping it. (shrink)

Both Aristotle and Kant note that the highest form of friendship enables individuals of good virtue to reveal themselves to one another. I argue that Aristotle and Kant emphasize complementary aspects of self-disclosure in friendship: whereas Kant acknowledges the inherent value of self-disclosure in friendship, Aristotle suggests that joint perception in friendship is instrumentally valuable in the acquisition of self-knowledge. I also argue that although Aristotle has a more developed account of friendship, Kant advances a superior account of self-disclosure in (...) friendship in his later remarks on friendship in the Metaphysical Principles of Virtue. (shrink)

This introduction to the thematic section of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science on “Artificial Intelligence and Religion: Recent Advances and Future Directions” outlines the five articles by dividing them into two groups: the three that analyze the impact of recent advances in subsymbolic artificial intelligence (AI) on religion and theology, and the two that explore theological concepts in symbolic AI environments. These five articles are five steps toward a strong, deep, and interdisciplinary dialogue between the research in religion and (...) the research in AI. (shrink)

Women use power in more prosocial ways than men and they also engage in more emotional labor. However, these two constructs have not been previously connected. We propose that gendered emotional labor practices and pressures result in gender differences in the prosocial use of power. We integrate the literature on emotional labor with research on the psychology of power to articulate three routes through which this happens. First, women may be more adept than men at the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes (...) entailed in emotional labor practices—a skill that they can apply at all hierarchical levels. Second, given women’s stronger internal motivation to perform emotional labor, they construe power in a more interdependent manner than men, which promotes a more prosocial use of power. As a result, female powerholders tend to behave in more prosocial ways. Third, when they have power, women encounter stronger external motivation to engage in emotional labor, which effectively constrains powerful women’s behaviors in a way that fosters a more prosocial use of power. We discuss how, by promoting prosocial behavior among powerholders, emotional labor can be beneficial for subordinates and organizations, while simultaneously creating costs for individual powerholders, which may reduce women’s likelihood of actually attaining and retaining power by making high-power roles less appealing, guiding women toward less prestigious and more precarious leadership roles, draining powerful women’s time and resources without equitable rewards, and making it difficult for women to legitimize their power in the eyes of subordinates. Thus, emotional labor practices can help explain the underrepresentation of women in top leadership positions. (shrink)

Does the recent publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks require a re-evaluation of his thought? In the present text we will deal with this question and reach the conclusion that a change of theoretical perspective on Heidegger’s work is indeed justified. The franker and less cautious style of the Black Notebooks puts in the foreground stances that were already known, but were previously relegated to the background: it becomes possible thereby to establish that Heidegger’s philosophical views host a significant lot of (...) unwarranted prejudices, which are incorporated in his picture of the ‘history of being’. We argue that in his process of radical questioning Heidegger progressively drops all available rational methods and epistemic criteria, and that this paves the way to the unwitting reception of personal prejudices in his theoretical frame: Heidegger knowingly abandons all the theoretical instruments that could enable him to discriminate between deeply felt prejudices and proper philosophical intuitions. We conclude our analysis by proposing some criticisms that should be acceptable also to scholars sympathetic with Heidegger’s thought. Heidegger’s vindication of an ‘erratic’ way of thinking, where the journey is more qualifying than the result, turns out to be incompatible with the assertiveness of the many unjustified claims disseminated across the Black Notebooks. Moreover, Heidegger wants to show the narrowness of an overwhelmingly dialectical and argumentative attitude, while his late style of thinking unwittingly discredits an alternative philosophical style, that widely appeals to a ‘principle of charity’ in the collaboration between author and reader. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 36 Heft: 2 Seiten: 286-304.

Several attempts have been made previously to provide a biological grounding for cognitive architectures by relating their components to the computations of specific brain circuits. Often, the architecture's action selection system is identified with the basal ganglia. However, this identification overlooks one of the most important features of the basal ganglia—the existence of a direct and an indirect pathway that compete against each other. This characteristic has important consequences in decision-making tasks, which are brought to light by Parkinson's disease as (...) well as genetic differences in dopamine receptors. This paper shows that a standard model of action selection in a cognitive architecture cannot replicate any of these findings, details an alternative solution that reconciles action selection in the architecture with the physiology of the basal ganglia, and extends the domain of application of cognitive architectures. The implication of this solution for other architectures and existing models are discussed. (shrink)

This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative study to understand how active adherence to the Christian faith influences the way SME owner-managers conceptualise their business practices. The study was based on in-depth interviews with 21 Christian SME owner-managers in Germany and the UK. Using a socio-psychological approach, the data analysis yielded a range of linguistic and conceptual resources that are peculiar to Christian discourse and that have the potential to influence business activity in rather distinctive ways. This paper (...) particularly focuses on those Christian concepts that could be regarded as distinct 'frames' for action. It outlines what effect these concepts had on the respondents and how they were related to business practices. The paper also discusses how this study could inform further research into the influence of other socio-cultural forms of identity on economic actors' conceptualisations of their own practice. (shrink)

How do religions and languages interact? This inquiry prompts us to explore not only various religious traditions and their respective languages but also the plurality of linguistic codes. When examined in relation to religious experiences, concepts, and identities, this linguistic plurality becomes interconnected, giving rise to a pluralism that taps into religious paths, practices, texts, stories, and encounters. Reflecting upon the interplay of languages within religious contexts takes us on a journey beyond Babel – a journey beyond a fragmented plurality (...) and toward a polyphonic and embodied unity. The chapters of the book Beyond Babel: Religion and Linguistic Pluralism illuminate different stages of this journey, spanning from the boundaries of language in religious contexts to novel forms of interreligious dialogue. The exploration encompasses translation between sacred and secular languages, as well as the intricate interconnections between religious and scientific codes, and it culminates in an exploration of religion within formal languages. (shrink)

Modeling law search and retrieval as prediction problems has recently emerged as a predominant approach in law intelligence. Focusing on the law article retrieval task, we present a deep learning framework named LamBERTa, which is designed for civil-law codes, and specifically trained on the Italian civil code. To our knowledge, this is the first study proposing an advanced approach to law article prediction for the Italian legal system based on a BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) learning framework, which has (...) recently attracted increased attention among deep learning approaches, showing outstanding effectiveness in several natural language processing and learning tasks. We define LamBERTa models by fine-tuning an Italian pre-trained BERT on the Italian civil code or its portions, for law article retrieval as a classification task. One key aspect of our LamBERTa framework is that we conceived it to address an extreme classification scenario, which is characterized by a high number of classes, the few-shot learning problem, and the lack of test query benchmarks for Italian legal prediction tasks. To solve such issues, we define different methods for the unsupervised labeling of the law articles, which can in principle be applied to any law article code system. We provide insights into the explainability and interpretability of our LamBERTa models, and we present an extensive experimental analysis over query sets of different type, for single-label as well as multi-label evaluation tasks. Empirical evidence has shown the effectiveness of LamBERTa, and also its superiority against widely used deep-learning text classifiers and a few-shot learner conceived for an attribute-aware prediction task. (shrink)

Simondon adopts some concepts of social psychology as ‘in group’ and ‘out group’, namely from Kurt Lewin and Gordon Allport, that allow him to describe the fundamental processes shaping the domain of collective individuation, and to challenge Bergson’s distinction between a ‘closed’ community and an ‘open’ society. Reconstructing Simondon’s sources is necessary to understand how he tries to provide an analysis of the social system without presupposing a given anthropology, but rather exploring different perspectives on the human/nature threshold through the (...) concept of transindividual. In his study of the social system Simondon progressively gives conceptual shape to the processes he calls transindividual thanks to the ontogenetic analysis of the phenomena of belief, work and language. In all these domains, a ‘basic community’ emerges just over the threshold of the biological group, where the structural ambivalence of all collective processes as simultaneously closed and open becomes clear. That is why Simondon does not present the concept of the transindividual as a solution to the epistemological problem of psychic and collective individuation, but rather as the ‘field’ in which a whole series of social, biological and technical dimensions can be made converge towards a science of anthropogenic processes. (shrink)

There is yet one more proposed solution to the argument from evil which merits attention. Though it does have elements in common with other proposed solutions in that it postulates a justifying end to account for the existence of all evil, it is different in that evil is viewed as nothing more than a polluting by-product of the proper functioning of the laws of nature in their industrious manufacture of the summum bonum. The unimpeded functioning of the laws of nature (...) is seen as necessary for the production and creation of a justifying (indiscernible) end and evil or suffering is merely a foreseen but unfortunate by-product of this natural machinery. The place and function of evil in this solution is what is novel: it is not a greatness-making property, nor is it a punishment or warning from on high, nor is its usefulness an aesthetic or contrasting one, nor is it the result of free will. Evil is admitted as just plain evil; it itself plays no role to serve the valuable end, which is precipitated by the unimpeded operation of natural laws upon the universe. Evil here is seen to play the same role that pollution might: it is a foreseen and unfortunate consequence of the means used to produce the coveted final product. -/- Professor Clement Dore, in his book entitled Theism,[1] introduces this solution in which evil itself plays no role to serve an enormously valuable end, yet is necessitated by this end. However, in order for the theist to be in a position to defend Dore's claim, a viable interpretation of the justifying, indiscernible end, must be proposed. To assess the validity of Dore's schema, four apparently exhaustive interpretations of the justifying end will be presented. It will be argued here that each of these possible interpretations is, in one respect or another, inadequate. The result is that the concept of the justifying, indiscernible end and its relation to Dore's overall schema lacks lucidity. In addition, other problems with this solution will be discussed in order to show that severe flaws exist in the solution as a whole. (shrink)

Anecdotal evidence has long lamented the status of social studies in elementary classrooms as observed by preservice teachers. As standardized testing has risen for mathematics and language arts, social studies has been pushed aside. In the aftermath of accountability legislation such as No Child Left Behind, research indicates that social studies is less visible in elementary classrooms due to an instructional focus on tested content areas (e.g. math, language arts, reading). In this study, approximately 90 elementary preservice teachers enrolled in (...) a social studies methods course responded to a survey and indicated the frequency and quality of lessons they observed over the course of a single semester. Findings report that preservice elementary teachers witnessed few, if any, lessons in social studies in the elementary classroom. Implications for teacher education are discussed. (shrink)

One challenge while learning scientific concepts is to select relevant information and to integrate different representations of the learning content into one coherent mental model. Virtual reality learning environments offer new possibilities to support learners and foster learning processes. Whether learning in VR is successful, however, depends to a large extent on the design of the VRLE and the learners themselves. Hence, adding supportive elements in VRLEs, such as annotations, might facilitate the learning process by guiding attention and supporting the (...) selection of relevant information. Additionally, the mapping of pictorial and verbal information is eased by these annotations. The beneficial effect of annotations is highly dependent on learners' intrinsic motivation as intrinsic motivation while learning also affects the information selection and visual search patterns. In our experimental study, we compared two conditions: learning in a VRLE with or without annotations. We measured the learning outcome on three different levels. Additionally, we investigated intrinsic motivation as a moderator for the effect of annotations on learning outcome. We found no significant main effect of annotations on learning outcome. The moderating effect of intrinsic motivation for annotations on the overall learning outcome was significant. Our results imply that learners are either intrinsically motivated or need additional support by annotations as these support the selection of relevant information in the VRLE and therefore enable them to learn successfully. Which type or quantity of annotations supports learning processes best needs to be explored in future research. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the issue of how our personal life is given to us in experience as a whole to be actively shaped and determined. I examine in detail Husserl’s analysis of the kind of experience responsible for this achievement, which he terms Überschau and which thus far has never been addressed by scholars of phenomenology. First, I locate Überschau in the context of self-determination and highlight the difference between the unthematic pre-givenness of life in the phenomenon of (...) self-awareness and the actual, i.e. thematic givenness of life in acts of Überschau. Second, I contextualize Husserl’s discovery of Überschau in his analyses of ethical life and the possibility of a universal epoché. I argue that for Husserl the very possibility of ethical life and of phenomenology itself rest on the totalizing apprehension of one’s life rendered possible by Überschau. In the third section I spell out the essential characteristics of Überschau by contrasting this peculiar kind of consciousness with reproductive forms of consciousness such as recollection and expectation, which otherwise might be easily conflated with Überschau. In section four I reply to a possible objection to the very possibility of Überschau based on the consideration of the infinitely open stream of time-consciousness. I argue that the possibility of Überschau is tightly connected with the egological nature of consciousness as understood by Husserl. The ego does not coincide with its own conscious acts and thus enjoys a special vantage point on the totality of its own life. To conclude, I advance a speculative suggestion about the phenomenological origin of Überschau in the structure of self-awareness. This opens up a variety of possible lines of research that would connect Husserl with philosophers such as Augustine or Heidegger who are more immediately associated with the issue of personal life and its unity or lack thereof. (shrink)

The search for spaces of cooperation between the methodology of natural sciences (cognitive sciences in particular) and the phenomenological approach has gained importance over time. However, it is necessary not to lose sight of the fact that Husserlian phenomenology was first and foremost characterized by a profound critique of ontological naturalism, a critique crucial for understanding the ethical sense of the phenomenological operation. To clarify this point, it is necessary to clarify the problematic role that naturalism has played - and (...) continues to play - on the ethical level, and the way in which phenomenological criticism is able to neutralize it. In the following pages we will first try to illustrate the impact of ontological naturalism on the contemporary ethical vision and then to show how the phenomenological perspective is best understandable as a way to reveal the blind spots of naturalism, to denounce its implicit reductionism, and to reopen an ethical perspective that the historical establishment of a naturalistic worldview had artificially closed. (shrink)

The exploration of metaphysical arguments in the symbolic AI environment provides clarification and raises unexpected questions about notions in philosophy of religion and theology. Recent attempts to apply automatic theorem prover technology to Anselm's ontological argument have led to a simplification of the argument. This computationally discovered simplification has given rise to logical observations. The article assesses one of these observations: the application of the diagonal method (in Cantor's version) to Anselm's argument. The evaluation of the applications of theorem provers (...) to metaphysical and theological arguments contributes to the following topics in philosophy of religion: the limits of natural theology, the relationship between religion and STEM, and theology's scientificity. (shrink)

The sense of agency is the experience of being the origin of a sensory consequence. This study investigates whether contextual beliefs modulate low-level sensorimotor processes which contribute to the emergence of the sense of agency. We looked at the influence of causal beliefs on ‘intentional binding’, a phenomenon which accompanies self-agency. Participants judged the onset-time of either an action or a sound which followed the action. They were induced to believe that the tone was either triggered by themselves or by (...) somebody else, although, in reality, the sound was always triggered by the participants. We found that intentional binding was stronger when participants believed that they triggered the tone, compared to when they believed that another person triggered the tone. These results suggest that high-level contextual information influences sensorimotor processes responsible for generating intentional binding. (shrink)

Current debates on collective intentionality focus on the cognitive capacities, attitudes, and mental states that enable individuals to take part in joint actions. It is typically assumed that collective intentionality is a capacity which is added to other, pre-existing, capacities of an individual and is exercised in cooperative activities like carrying a table or painting a house together. We call this the additive account because it portrays collective intentionality as a capacity that an individual possesses in addition to her capacity (...) for individual intentionality. We offer an alternative view according to which the primary entity to which collective intentionality has to be ascribed is not the human individual, but a “form of life.” As a feature of a form of life, collective intentionality is something more than the specific capacity exercised by an individual when she cooperates with others. Collective intentionality transforms all the capacities of the bearers of this specific form of life. We thus call our proposal the transformative account of collective intentionality. (shrink)

Open Innovation and Sustainability-Oriented Innovation are undoubtedly two of the most debated topics of the last decades, gaining the interest of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars all over the world. Even if they have been usually described as two independent research fields, there are some emblematic examples presenting interplay and synergy between these topics, represented either by the hybrid perspectives of Open Sustainable Innovation, that is, the Open Innovation approach acting as an enabler of Sustainability-Oriented Innovation, and Sustainable Open Innovation, which (...) instead analyzes how firms developing Sustainability-Oriented Innovation also adopt the Open Innovation approach. On the basis of these two perspectives and through a systematic literature review, this paper investigates the relationships between the Open Innovation and Sustainability-Oriented Innovation approaches and frames these relationships by developing an innovative framework, which highlights the main aspects characterizing the hybrid perspectives of Open Sustainable Innovation and Sustainable Open Innovation. The proposed framework highlights the Open Innovation practices and strategies enabling Sustainability-Oriented Innovation, as well as the contextual factors enabling both practices and strategies for Sustainability-Oriented Innovation. In addition, it shows how firms developing Sustainability-Oriented Innovation have a similar orientation toward the adoption of the Open Innovation approach both in terms of how they engage stakeholders, and the innovation capabilities they develop. Finally, a research agenda identifying the central issues and the key research gaps is offered for further development in future studies. (shrink)

This essay addresses issues concerningexplanation by exploring how explanatorystructures function within contemporarychemistry. Three examples are discussed:explanations of the behavior of gases using theideal gas law, explanations of trends inchemical properties using the periodic table,and explanations of molecular geometry usingdiagrammatic orbital schemes. In each case,the general explanatory structure, rather thanparticular explanations, occupies center stagein the analysis. It is argued that thisquasi-empirical investigation may be morefruitful than previous analyses that attempt toisolate the essential features of individualexplanations. There are two reasons for thisconclusion, (...) each discussed in some detail. First, the traditional analyses rely on highlyprecarious reasoning. Second, empiricallygrounded investigations provide a more naturalconnection to the core aim of analyses ofexplanation, namely to provide a rationale forthe widely expressed preference for explanatorytheories in science. (shrink)

Many arguments are affected by context sensitivity, because they include sentences that have different truth conditions in different contexts. Therefore, it is natural to think that a general criterion for evaluating arguments must take context sensitivity into account. One way to give substance to that thought is provided by the definition of validity offered by David Kaplan within his theory of indexicals. However, the route indicated by Kaplan is hindered by a problem whose importance is often underestimated. This paper explores (...) a different route, and outlines a definition of validity that does not run into that problem. Its moral is that Kaplan's definition is not the only plausible definition. This is not to say that the definition outlined is the only plausible definition or that it is correct in some absolute sense. There might be equally important problems with it that the paper does not take into account. But until such problems are found and brought up, the departure from Kaplan's route remains a viable option. (shrink)

This is the first complete critical commentary of Husserl s seminal work Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. Leading international scholars offer a close reading, examining arguments and phenomenological descriptions, connecting them to Husserl s earlier and later works, and engaging important secondary sources. The book will be invaluable reading for scholars and students of phenomenology and 20th century philosophy.".

Although leader role expectations appear to have become relatively more compatible with stereotypically feminine attributes like empathy, women continue to be highly underrepresented in leadership roles. We posit that one reason for this disparity is that, whereas stereotypically feminine traits are appreciated as nice “add-ons” for leaders, it is stereotypically masculine attributes that are valued as the defining qualities of the leader role, especially by men (who are often the gatekeepers to these roles). We assessed men’s and women’s idea of (...) a great leader with a focus on gendered attributes in two studies using different methodologies. In Study 1, we employed a novel paradigm in which participants were asked to design their “ideal leader” to examine the potential trade-off between leadership characteristics that were more stereotypically masculine (i.e., agency) and feminine (i.e., communality). Results showed that communality was valued in leaders only after meeting the more stereotypically masculine requirements of the role (i.e., competence and assertiveness), and that men in particular preferred leaders who were more competent (vs. communal), whereas women desired leaders who kept negative stereotypically masculine traits in check (e.g., arrogance). In Study 2, we conducted an experiment to examine men’s and women’s beliefs about the traits that would be important to help them personally succeed in a randomly assigned leader (vs. assistant) role, allowing us to draw a causal link between roles and trait importance. We found that both men and women viewed agentic traits as more important than communal traits to be a successful leader. Together, both studies make a valuable contribution to the social psychological literature on gender stereotyping and bias against female leaders and may illuminate the continued scarcity of women at the very top of organizations, broadly construed. (shrink)

Religions use linguistic and non-linguistic codes of meaning to express their contents: natural tongues, music, sculpture, poetry, rituals, practices... Also, religions provide the semantic context and the rules to produce, validate, and interpret their expressions: as such, religions can be considered languages. The Sophia Special Issue ‘Religions and Languages: A Polyphony of Faiths’ explores the multifaceted relationships of world religions with languages broadly construed, intended as other religious codes, natural tongues, artistic forms, digital media, and even science. Do natural languages (...) modify themselves in order to convey a divine message? How do artistic means of expression accommodate religious contents? What are the aspects of interaction between religions, technological advances, and scientific methods? The five contributions in this issue offer innovative, compelling, and engaging perspectives regarding this complex and fascinating issue. (shrink)

Clinical Ethics, Ahead of Print. ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to assess if a relationship existed between audiologists’ perceptions of moral distress, occupational wellbeing, and patient-practitioner orientation.DesignThe Moral Distress Thermometer, Health and Safety Executive Management Standards Indicator Tool and Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale was sent out to all audiologists registered with the professional body Audiology Australia.Study sample: A total of 43 audiologists completed the questionnaires.ResultsUsing a multiple linear regression model there was no evidence of a relationship between patient-practitioner orientation and (...) either moral distress or occupational wellbeing. However, an association between higher moral distress and lower occupational wellbeing was demonstrated. The occupational wellbeing subscales of ‘managerial support’, ‘peer support’, ‘relationships’, ‘role’, and ‘change’ were strongly associated with poorer scores on moral distress.ConclusionFor our sample of audiologists, ethical conflict appeared to be linked to reduced job satisfaction. There is a need to consider ways of providing supportive organisational structures in which ethical conflicts can be openly discussed and negotiated in order to improve occupational wellbeing in the profession. (shrink)

Belief, according to many philosophers, aims at truth. In this paper I discuss in what measure a pluralist conception of truth is compatible with this claim. In particular, I argue that if the idea is understood according to a teleological account, alethic pluralism can be adopted also in a strong form. I contend that while the teleological account of belief requires a generic concept of truth, it poses a few constraints on the property of truth. By contrast, at least a (...) moderate version of alethic pluralism is commanded by a normativist interpretation of the aim. (shrink)

In the films of the Alien franchise featuring Sigourney Weaver, Ripley's maternal instinct is an integral part of who she is as both survivor and protector—and as a destroyer, too. In Alien, Ripley's misplaced maternal instincts save her from the death‐by‐alien that is the fate of her crew mates as she hurries off in search of the ship's resident cat, Jones. When Ripley hears Jonesy's meow, she responds like a mother to a crying baby. Ridley Scott's Alien begins with an (...) image of near‐naked bodies in capsules, awakening from sleep, slightly dazed, slightly confused—intimating birth, or rebirth. In her theory, Stone harks back to the approach of psychoanalysis, claiming that each experience of motherhood repeats the mother's own infantile past and her own traumatic separation from the maternal body. In Alien: Resurrection, Ripley is reclaimed through a purposeful symbiosis of mother and child; human and alien; self and “other”. (shrink)

According to a traditional view, logical validity consists in necessary truth preservation. Such an account has been argued to carry an apparent commitment to a unique property of truth to be preserved from premises to conclusion. Recent discussions, however, have concluded that if the metaphor of truth preservation is carefully unpacked, no need for a unique property is there. All is needed is that certain structural relations among instantiations of truth properties hold. Against this view, we argue that a unique (...) general truth property is indeed required by logical validity. We first show that the unpacking should be correctly understood since it imposes constraints on the concept and the properties of truth. We then demonstrate that, under such constraints, a general property is not imposed by truth preservation but by another feature of validity: its uniformity. Finally, some options that could be attempted to resist this result are discussed, showing that (strong) truth pluralism and deflationism are affected in different ways. (shrink)