Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies (...) of Biology, and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. (shrink)

We track and analyze the re-situation of scientific knowledge in the field of human population genomics ancestry studies. We understand re-situation as a process of accommodating the direct or indirect transfer of objects of knowledge from one site/situation to other sites/situations. Our take on the concept borrows from Mary S. Morgan’s work on facts traveling while expanding it to include other objects of knowledge such as models, data, software, findings, and visualizations. We structure a specific case study by tracking the (...) re-situation of these objects between three research projects studying human population diversity reported in three articles in Science, Genome Research and PLoS Genetics between 2002 and 2005. We characterize these three engagements as a unit of analysis, a “skirmish,” in order to compare: the divergence of interests in how life-scientists answer similar research questions and to track the challenging transformation of workflows in research laboratories as these scientific objects are re-situated individually or in bundles. Our analysis of the case study shows that an accurate understanding of re-situation requires tracking the whole bundle of objects in a project because they interact in particular key ways. The absence or dismissal of these interactions opens the door to unforeseen trade-offs, misunderstandings and misrepresentations about research design and workflow and what these say about the questions asked and the findings produced. (shrink)

We study notions of independence appropriate for a stability theory of metric abstract elementary classes (for short, MAECs). We build on previous notions used in the discrete case, and adapt definitions to the metric case. In particular, we study notions that behave well under superstability‐like assumptions. Also, under uniqueness of limit models, we study domination, orthogonality and parallelism of Galois types in MAECs.

This paper is an enquiry into the philosophical fault-line that leads from mechanicism to posthumanism. I focus on a central aspect of posthumanism: the erosion of the distinction between organism and machine, nature and art, and the biological and engineering sciences. I claim that this shift can be placed in the seventeenth century, in Descartes’s biology. The Cartesian fusion of the natural and technological opened the door to distinctly posthuman understandings of the living body, its relation to technological extensions, and (...) the possibility of its drastic alteration. Descartes’s mechanicism demanded a reconceptualization of bodily boundaries, organismic unity, natural finality, causation, and bio/technological instrumentality; all of which Descartes boldly theorized in terms of the wondrous technologies of his day. This radical proposal obscured the possibility of thinking the human as ontologically unique, or as having an ideal unity. This paper will examine the posthuman ramifications of these aspects of Descartes’s philosophy. (shrink)

Explanation and understanding are intimately connected notions, but the nature of that connection has generally not been considered a topic worthy of serious philosophical investigation. Most authors have avoided making reference to the notion of understanding in their accounts of explanation because they fear that any mention of the epistemic states of the individuals involved compromises the objectivity of explanation. Understanding is a pragmatic notion, they argue, and pragmatics should be kept at a safe distance from the universal features of (...) explanation. My main contention in this dissertation is that there is a sense in which it is meaningful and useful to talk about objective understanding, and that to characterize this notion it is necessary to formulate an account of objective explanation that makes reference to the beliefs and epistemic goals of the participants in a cognitive enterprise. ;My account of explanation is based on the belief-doubt model of inquiry first proposed by Peirce. Using the tools provided by decision theory, and the models of belief revision developed by Isaac Levi and by Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson, I analyze the objective and pragmatic conditions that a piece of information must fulfill to be both explanatory and epistemically useful to an inquiring agent. The objective basis for an explanation is provided by the relation of probabilistic relevance that the fact described by the explanans bares to the fact described by the explanandum. But an explanation is much more than its foundation. As an epistemological notion, a potential explanation can only be a bona fide explanation if it becomes part of inquiry, that is, if an agent or a group of agents can see any value in it for their cognitive purposes. I provide a way to evaluate an explanation in terms of its credibility, its content, and its explanatory value. I argue that although an objective measure of the credibility and content of an explanation can be established, in many cases a complete determination of its explanatory value will ultimately depend on the interests and goals of the individual inquirers. (shrink)

In this article I argue that anti-perfectionist liberals can accept nudging in certain areas: in particular, they can accept nudges aimed at helping people to discharge their nonenforceable duties, and to secure personal autonomy. I claim that nudging is not disrespectful since it does not involve a comparative negative judgment on people’s ability to pursue their plans, and that the judgments that motivate nudging are compatible with treating citizens as free and equal. I also claim that despite being sometimes manipulative, (...) nudging is easy to resist and so it can be employed to pursue legitimate goals. (shrink)

Yuk Hui refers to cosmotechnics as the deep interweaving of human action and technology as shaped by diverse moral universes. In this article, I pit two views of cosmotechnics against each other. I...

If there is no inner model with ω many strong cardinals, then there is a set forcing extension of the universe with a projective well-ordering of the reals.

Since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources, environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions. This situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities. Within this context, environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues. Moreover, environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a (...) firm's competitiveness. However, the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms' results has been inconclusive and contradictory. In this study, we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm's marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results. Data were obtained through a survey sent to Spanish manufacturing firms. The results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms' operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results. Moreover, environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation. Thus, this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm's competitiveness while reducing environmental impact. (shrink)

Rips et al. claim that the principles underlying the structure of natural numbers cannot be inferred from interactions with the physical world. However, in their target article they failed to consider an important source of interaction: finger counting. Here, we show that finger counting satisfies all the conditions required for allowing the concept of numbers to emerge from sensorimotor experience through a bottom-up process.

In this essay, I deal with the problem of the attribution of psychological predicates to non-human animals. The first section illustrates three research topics where it has become scientifically legitimate to explain the conduct of non-human animals by means of the attribution of psychological predicates. The second section discusses several philosophical objections to the legitimacy of such attributions provided by central thinkers from the last decades. I try to show that these objections —which are related among other questions to the (...) holism of the mental, the indeterminacy of the attributions, and the strangeness of animal concepts— can be alleviated. In the third section, I propose to adopt a literalist view of the attributions in the sense articulated by Figdor. At the same time, I argue that one must draw limits to the conceptual change forwarded by her literalist view, taking into account holistic considerations and the fact that the psychological concepts must retain their core notes. (shrink)

The idea of inclusive collective decision-making is important in establishing democratic legitimacy, but it fails when citizens are excluded. Stated-preference methods of valuation, which are commonly used in economics, have been criticised because the principle of willingness to pay may exclude low-income earners who do not have the capacity to pay. Deliberative valuation has been advocated as a way to overcome this problem, but deliberation may also be exclusive. In this review, two deliberative valuation frameworks are compared. The first is (...) grounded on the idea of rational discourse that emphasises argument at the expense of other communicative strategies. It seeks to secure inclusion through procedural rules and prerequisites, but fails to address the underlying democratic limitation of argumentation. The second does not rely on the distinction between rational and rhetorical speech, and therefore admits alternative forms of communication. This approach recognises differences in the communicative capacities and practices of those who take part in deliberation, and so is better equipped to improve, though not to guarantee, inclusion. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a serious, yet widespread type of research misconduct, and is often neglected in developing countries. Despite its far-reaching implications, plagiarism is poorly acknowledged and discussed in the academic setting, and insufficient evidence exists in Latin America and developing countries to inform the development of preventive strategies. In this context, we present a longitudinal case study of seven instances of plagiarism and cheating arising in four consecutive classes of an Epidemiology Masters program in Lima, Peru, and describes the implementation (...) and outcomes of a multifaceted, “zero-tolerance” policy aimed at introducing research integrity. Two cases involved cheating in graded assignments, and five cases correspond to plagiarism in the thesis protocol. Cases revealed poor awareness of high tolerance to plagiarism, poor academic performance, and widespread writing deficiencies, compensated with patchwriting and copy-pasting. Depending on the events’ severity, penalties included course failure and separation from the program. Students at fault did not engage in further plagiarism. Between 2011 and 2013, the Masters program sequentially introduced a preventive policy consisting of: intensified research integrity and scientific writing education, a stepwise, cumulative writing process; honor codes; active search for plagiarism in all academic products; and a “zero-tolerance” policy in response to documented cases. No cases were detected in 2014. In conclusion, plagiarism seems to be widespread in resource-limited settings and a greater response with educational and zero-tolerance components is needed to prevent it. (shrink)

This paper presents key elements of Paolo Prodi´s historiagraphic theory that allow us to include him in the contemporary debate on the rol of religion and morality within democratic societies. The text is developed in three moments. First, we will briefly describe the aforementioned debate. Second, we will present the theorical elements found in Prodi’s works which are more relevant for the topic discussed. Finally, we will offer some critical comments in order to present what, for us, is still an (...) open discussion. (shrink)

There is a growing awareness that there are many subtle forms of exclusion and partiality that affect the correct workings of a judicial system. The concept of epistemic injustice, introduced by the philosopher Miranda Fricker, is a useful conceptual tool to understand forms of judicial partiality that often go undetected. In this paper, we present Fricker’s original theory and some of the applications of the concept of epistemic injustice in legal processes. In particular, we want to show that the seed (...) planted by Fricker has flourished into a rich field of study in which the concept is used to analyze many different phenomena in law, not always following the original characterization provided by her. This has led to a distinction between what we will call the narrow version of the concept, which is closer to Fricker’s original account, and the wider version of epistemic injustice, which is a more controversial notion because it is always on the verge of morphing into other well-known concepts like sexism, racial discrimination, oppression, silencing, and gaslighting. We will show that the value of the narrow version is mostly theoretical, and that in order to use the concept of epistemic injustice one must adopt a more liberal understanding of it. (shrink)

In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López reassembles Lukács’s philosophy of praxis on a Hegelian basis, as a conceptual-historical totality, both defending him and proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique that raises problems for Marxian philosophy as a whole.

The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of Philosophy within the works written by Wittgenstein if we take into account the ambivalent sense of the term phármakon. Thus, it will be outlined a contest of paradoxes between, on the one hand, healthiness, sanity, and the adaptable confidence produced by western rationality materialized into objective science, and, on the other hand, sickness, insanity, the world of perplexities, and the realm of desire and death, essential to philosophical thought. Bearing (...) in mind last Wittgenstein’s approaches, we will understand the Tractatus both critical to the deficiencies of western Reason and imprisoned within them. But the “enchanting” power of western Reason, conducting to identify rationality and scientificity in that work, will be conjured in the last Wittgenstein through the opening of plural realms of rationality and of discourses. In this way, philosophical questions will be rescued from silence and absurdity. (shrink)

One of the strongest defences of free speech holds that autonomy requires the protection of speech. In this paper I examine five conditions that autonomy must satisfy. I survey recent research in social psychology regarding automatic behaviour, and a challenge to autonomy is articulated. I argue that a plausible strategy for neutralising some of the autonomy-threatening automatic responses consists in avoiding the exposure to the environmental features that trigger them. If this is so, we can good autonomy-based pro tanto reasons (...) for controlling exposure to certain forms of speech. (shrink)

El trabajo insiste en la necesidad de flexibilizar el concepto general de experiencia, acudiendo a una "razón ampliada" . La idea de creación, por su parte, acentuando la diferencia en la continuidad, muestra que, junto a la dificultad, se da también una peculiar posibilidad de la experiencia religiosa, y posibilita su verificabilidad en una lógica concreta, atenta a su dación específica. Eso transforma el concepto de revelación, que se hace "ofrecimiento mayéutico" y abre la posibilidad del dialogo, tanto con la (...) cultura como de las religiones entre sí. (shrink)

In this paper, using a multilevel approach, we defend the positive role of natural selection in the generation of organismal form. Despite the currently widespread opinion that natural selection only plays a negative role in the evolution of form, we argue, in contrast, that the Darwinian factor is a crucial (but not exclusive) factor in morphological organization. Analyzing some classic arguments, we propose incorporating the notion of ‘downward causation’ into the concept of ‘natural selection.’ In our opinion, this kind of (...) causation is fundamental to the operation of selection as a creative evolutionary process. (shrink)

In this article I respond to Yuk Hui by revisiting the crossroads in the philosophy of technology as represented by the philosophies of Stiegler and Ihde. Whereas Hui proposes the concept of cosmotechnics as an integrating perspective, I conceive of the crossroads in other terms, namely from the perspective of substantivism. I characterize our present situation, what a philosophy of technology should address and then examine Hui’s notion of cosmotechnics from this alternative perspective. My main concern is to show future (...) paths of development for cosmotechnical thought. (shrink)

For millennia it has been discussed whether literature appropriately can or should be used in education for a moral purpose. Taking as a premise that it can actually be educative and not merely moralising, we tackle the case made against such use, based on the claim that it would be perverting the aesthetic nature of literature as a form of art, as it would be instrumentalised. Given that this claim is based on a dichotomy between an aesthetically educative approach and (...) a morally educative approach to literature, we examine how warranted such a formulation of this dichotomy is. We argue that, at least on some occasions, those two educative approaches to literature—the aesthetic and the moral—can actually be mutually reinforcing in such a way that aesthetic appreciation will suffer if the moral is not deeply examined with both mind and heart, and vice versa. This does not mean, however, that this relation of mutual contribution will always obtain in a neat way. It may actually be the case that just in a few cases, and only if carried out in a pedagogically appropriate manner, it will be correct to use literature with a morally educative purpose. (shrink)

Inside the interdisciplinary field of Jurilinguistics, the main research has been carried out on state languages like English, French, German or Spanish. However, there is a new reality in today´s world, namely the existence of minority languages that have arisen to an official status as sub-state languages for the law and a limited range of branches of the law to be the own way to express themselves. The jurilinguistical point of view of this new reality requires a new approach to (...) it, mainly focused on both a general framework and the situation of each language. This is the reason for a first attempt to formulate a jurilinguistical general framework and a methodological approach to this new field in combination with the study of a particular case language, the Basque language, in order to describe its characters as a sub-state tool for expressing the Basque law and bijuralism, in accordance with its status as an official language in the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarrese Community, both in the Kingdom of Spain. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and medicine in antiquity has been extensively discussed by commentators and scholars. The objective of this article was to determine if it is possible to assert that the Hippocratic treatise De prisca Medicina is a criticism directed at Philolaus and, if possible, in what terms it could be stated. With this in mind, the work concentrates on the characterization of the position of the opponent of the author of said treatise in DM § 1. 15-21. Particular (...) emphasis will be placed on the terms “hypothesis” and “principle”. Thus, from four possible proposed interpretations of the first of these terms, namely: a proposition postulated but not affirmed sharply, a proposition whose veracity is supposed, a proposition that must be proved, and an object put to discussion or a purpose, the criticisms that could be at stake in DM in each of these will be outlined and then contrasted with the doctrine of the Pythagorean philosopher that can be reconstructed from the fragments attributed to him as authentic, as well as some testimonies about his medical and epistemological approaches. Finally, it was stated by way of conclusion that the Hippocratic treatise that is thematized in it can be, in various ways, conceived as a criticism of Philolaus. However, it is necessary to emphasize that this inquisition on this subject is not intended to be conclusive; rather, it seeks to provide relevant elements to this debate. (shrink)

A long series of conversations interweaving mathematical, historical and philosophical aspects of categoricity in model theory took place between the author and Saharon Shelah in 2016 and 2017. In this excerpt of that long conversation, we explore the relationship between explicit and implicit aspects of categoricity. We also discuss the connection with definability issues.

If the bounded proper forcing axiom BPFA holds and ω 1 = ${\mathrm{\omega }}_{1}^{\mathrm{L}}$ , then there is a lightface ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{3}^{1}$ well-ordering of the reals. The argument combines a well-ordering due to Caicedo-Veličković with an absoluteness result for models of MA in the spirit of "David's trick." We also present a general coding scheme that allows us to show that BPFA is equiconsistent with R being lightface ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{4}^{1}$ , for many "consistently locally certified" relations R on $\mathrm{\mathbb{R}}$ . (...) This is accomplished through a use of David's trick and a coding through the ∑ 2 stable ordinals of L. (shrink)

Abstract In The Descent of Man (1879), Charles Darwin proposed a speculative evolutionary explanation of extended benevolence—a human sympathetic capacity that extends to all nations, races, and even to all sentient beings. This essay draws on twenty-first century social science to show that Darwin’s explanation is correct in its broad outlines. Extended benevolence is manifested in institutions such as legal human rights and democracy, in behaviors such as social movements for human rights and the protection of nonhuman animals, and in (...) normative attitudes such as emancipative values and a commitment to promote the rights or welfare of animals. These phenomena can be substantially explained by cultural evolutionary forces that trace back to three components of what Darwin called the human “moral sense”: (1) sympathy, (2) our disposition to follow community rules or norms, and (3) our capacity to make normative judgments. Extended benevolence likely emerged with “workarounds,” including political ideologies, that established an inclusive sympathetic concern for sentient life. It likely became as widespread as it is now due to recently arisen socio-economic conditions that have created more opportunities for people to have contact with and take the perspective of a broader cross-section of humanity, as well as other species. (shrink)