This article analyses the ethical aspects of multistakeholder recommendation systems (RSs). Following the most common approach in the literature, we assume a consequentialist framework to introduce the main concepts of multistakeholder recommendation. We then consider three research questions: who are the stakeholders in a RS? How are their interests taken into account when formulating a recommendation? And, what is the scientific paradigm underlying RSs? Our main finding is that multistakeholder RSs (MRSs) are designed and theorised, methodologically, according to neoclassical welfare (...) economics. We consider and reply to some methodological objections to MRSs on this basis, concluding that the multistakeholder approach offers the resources to understand the normative social dimension of RSs. (shrink)

There is a fundamental tension in many sports: human sex is not binary, but there are only two categories in which people can compete: male and female. Over the past 10 years, the International Association of Athletics Federations regulations have been at the centre of two notable legal disputes. The Court of Arbitration for Sport reached two contradictory rulings: in the first case, the IAAF regulations for the eligibility of athletes to compete in the female category were suspended on grounds (...) of "discrimination against the female category"; in the latter, the regulations were reaffirmed on grounds that although discriminatory, they are necessary to maintain a "level playing field" and to “protect” the female category. Although Semenya’s case has paved the way for questioning existing gender norms in sport, a new stable norm has yet to emerge from her case. The pharmacological solution put forward by IAAF to the tension between fairness and inclusivity of bodies non-conforming to two sexes is not, however, the only possible solution/resolution to the case, as I aim to show in this paper. Here I present some reflections on this topic and suggest how CAS should approach the case if it hopes to resolve it. (shrink)

The situation caused by the 2019 coronavirus disease has been representing a great source of concern and a challenge to the psychological well-being of many individuals around the world. For couples in particular, this extraordinary rise in concern, combined with the stress posed by the virus containment measures, such as prolonged cohabitation and lack of support networks, may have increased the likelihood of couple problems. At the same time, however, COVID-19 concerns may have been a stimulus to activate couples’ stress (...) management processes. A couple’s resource, which may have an important role in dealing with COVID-19 concerns and stress, is dyadic coping, i.e., the process through which partners face stress together. Drawing on a sample of 1,823 Italian individuals involved in a couple relationship, the current study tested a serial mediation model in which concerns about COVID-19 predicted psychological well-being, through both explicit stress communication and perceived partner dyadic coping responses. In addition, the study explored whether this dyadic coping process functioned the same way in satisfied and dissatisfied couples. Results showed that concerns about the situation related to COVID-19 significantly threatened individuals’ psychological well-being. However, these concerns positively predicted explicit stress communication, which in turn positively predicted perceived partner’s dyadic coping responses, which finally positively predicted psychological well-being. In addition, in the group of dissatisfied individuals, the association between explicit stress communication and perceived partners’ dyadic coping responses was not significant. The present study adds to the research on couples’ coping by testing for the first time the whole theoretical model of dyadic coping and does so during a global emergency situation. The study also suggests key components of preventive interventions for individuals in couples. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by a puzzling observation made when conducting a case study of ProCredit, a well-known social bank. The HR practices that this social enterprise adopted to cultivate mission identification were unfavorably impacting its retention rate. Building on prior research and our analysis of the case, we argue the need for SEs to embrace HRM systems that are both mission-identification proactive and employee-retention preemptive. It theorizes that these HRM systems should be attuned to the labor market conditions that (...) frame how SEs develop and sustain Person-Organization fit. Attuned HRM systems are adapted to labor market conditions and tuned to support SEs’ adeptness to operate against the grain of country and industry norms. (shrink)

In recent years, aggressive and conservative nationalistic forces have been growing stronger worldwide (Rydgren 2018). Increased random terrorist attacks are now occurring in sites previously thoug...

The first part of this paper will provide a reconstruction of Francis Bacon’s interpretation of Academic scepticism, Pyrrhonism, and Dogmatism, and its sources throughout his large corpus. It shall also analyze Bacon’s approach against the background of his intellectual milieu, looking particularly at Renaissance readings of scepticism as developed by Guillaume Salluste du Bartas, Pierre de la Primaudaye, Fulke Greville, and John Davies. It shall show that although Bacon made more references to Academic than to Pyrrhonian Scepticism, like most of (...) his contemporaries, he often misrepresented and mixed the doctrinal components of both currents. The second part of the paper shall offer a complete chronological survey of Bacon’s assessment of scepticism throughout his writings. Following the lead of previous studies by other scholars, I shall support the view that, while he approved of the state of doubt and the suspension of judgment as a provisional necessary stage in the pursuit of knowledge, he rejected the notion of acatalepsia. To this received reading, I shall add the suggestion that Bacon’s criticism of acatalepsia ultimately depends on his view of the historical conditions that surround human nature. I deal with this last point in the third part of the paper, where I shall argue that Bacon’s evaluation of scepticism relied on his adoption of a Protestant and Augustinian view of human nature that informed his overall interpretation of the history of humanity and nature, including the sceptical schools. (shrink)

What kind of thing do you believe when you believe that you are in a certain place, that it is a certain time, and that you are a certain individual? What happens if you get lost, or lose track of the time? Can you ever be unsure of your own identity? These are the kind of questions considered in my thesis. Beliefs about where, when and who you are are what are called in the literature de se, or self-locating beliefs. (...) This thesis examines how we can represent de se beliefs, and how we can reason about de se uncertainty. In the first part of the thesis, I present and motivate a specific account of the content of de se belief, based on the one given by David Lewis. On this account, the content of de se beliefs are centred propositions. I defend this view against a rival account, put forward by Robert Stalnaker, according to whom the content of de se beliefs are ordinary propositions. In the second part of the thesis, I explore how we can reason probabilistically about de se uncertainty. I start by defining probabilities over centred propositions, and investigate what probabilities mean in this context. As it turns out, all the main interpretations of probability can be extended to centred propositions. The only trouble seems to arise for the Bayesian principle of updating via conditionalization. After giving a diagnosis of the problem, I offer a solution by formulating a natural extension of conditionalization, which I argue preserves the essential features of Bayesian reasoning. In the final chapter, I apply my view and show that it leads to a natural resolution of a puzzle that is generally taken to be a test case for any account of centred updating. (shrink)

Hybride der Romantik: Frankenstein, Olimpia und das künstliche Leben. Dieser Beitrag untersucht Vorstellungen über die Möglichkeit der Erzeugung künstlicher Lebewesen in der Zeit der Romantik und die damit verbundenen Ängste am Beispiel zweier fiktionaler Texte: Mary Shelleys Frankenstein und Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmanns Sandmann. Dr. Franksteins Monster und Dr. Spalanzanis Automat verkörpern – auf unterschiedliche Weise – die Möglichkeit einer Wendung wissenschaftlicher Produkte und insbesondere künstlicher Hybride ins Monströse. Ihre Geschichten thematisieren das Grauen, das vom drohenden Kontrollverlust ausgeht und als (...) der modernen Wissenschaft innewohnende Gefahr selbst nach der Zerstörung der monströsen Kreaturen bestehen bleibt. Der Begriff des Unheimlichen, von Ernst Jentsch und Sigmund Freud mit Bezug auf Hoffmanns Sandmann formuliert und 1970 von dem japanischen Robotiker Masahiro Mori als Phänomen „des unheimlichen Tals“ (Uncanny Valley) weiterentwickelt, erlaubt weitere Einblicke in die Frage nach künstlichen Lebewesen und ihre Interaktion mit Menschen. Summary: Hybrids of the Romantic: Frankenstein, Olimpia, and Artificial Life. This essay analyzes fantasies and fears related to the possible creation of artificial humans in two influential pieces of Romantic literature, namely E.T.A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Both the automaton Olimpia and Dr. Frankenstein's monster are hybrid creatures. These dystopian figures represent the Romantic fear of the loss of control over the outcome of human endeavour, they symbolize the dangers immanent in modern science and technology. As hybrids, Olimpia and Frankenstein's monster are capable of breaking apparently unpenetrable boundaries, such as those between human and non‐human, and between life and death. As such, these creatures become “unheimlich” (uncanny), a critical term developed by Ernst Jentsch and Sigmund Freud, who directly referred to Hoffmann's Sandman. The term “uncanny” was further developed by the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in the 1970s. Mori's investigation of human responses to androids (“Uncanny Valley”), shows the persistence of doubts and fears surrounding artificial humans far beyond the Romantic times, and opens new questions related to the issues of creation, reproduction, hybrids, hubris and gender. (shrink)

In The Explanatory Dispensability of Idealizations, Sam Baron suggests a possible strategy enabling the indispensability argument to break the symmetry between mathematical claims and idealization assumptions in scientific models. Baron’s distinction between mathematical and non-mathematical idealization, I claim, is in need of a more compelling criterion, because in scientific models idealization assumptions are expressed through mathematical claims. In this paper I argue that this mutual dependence of idealization and mathematics cannot be read in terms of symmetry and that Baron’s non-causal (...) notion of mathematical difference-making is not effective in justifying any symmetry-breaking between mathematics and idealization. The function of making a difference that Baron attributes to mathematics cannot be referred to physical facts, but to the features of quantities, such as step lengths or time intervals taken into account in the models. It appears, indeed, that it does not follow from Baron’s argument that idealizations do not help to carry the explanatory load at least for two reasons: mathematics is not independent of idealizations in modelling and idealizations help mathematics to carry the explanatory load of a model in different degrees. (shrink)

Modulating connectivity measures in EEG-based neurofeedback studies is assumed to be a promising therapeutic and training tool. However, little is known so far about its effects and trainability. In the present study, we investigated the effects of up- and down-regulating SMR coherence by means of neurofeedback training on EEG activity and memory functions. Twenty adults performed 10 neurofeedback training sessions in which half of them tried to increase EEG coherence between Cz and CPz in the SMR frequency range, while the (...) other half tried to down-regulate coherence. Up-regulation of SMR coherence led to between- and within-session changes in EEG coherence. SMR power increased across neurofeedback training sessions but not within training sessions. Cross-over training effects on baseline EEG measures were also observed in this group. Up-regulation of SMR coherence was also associated with improvements in memory functions when comparing pre- and post-test results. Participants were not able to down-regulate SMR coherence. This group did not show any changes in baseline EEG measures or memory functions comparing pre- and post-test. Our results provide insights in the trainability and effects of connectivity-based neurofeedback training and indications for its practical application. (shrink)

The exact nature of the relation between science and Scripture in the thought of Francis Bacon is a well-studied but controversial field. In this paper, it is shown that Bacon, though convinced that there exists no enmity between the book of God's wisdom and the book of God's power, usually tries to separate knowledge acquired by reason from knowledge acquired by faith. In his exposition of the principle of the conservation of matter, however, Bacon seems to find himself constrained to (...) invoke Scriptural truths in a manner that he usually disapproves of. In order to establish this principle, which is so essential to his overall scientific program, he appeals both to the Bible and Greek mythology in a way that points to certain conceptual tensions within his natural philosophy. (shrink)

COVID-19 has hit a world in which social protection schemes are increasingly augmented with digital measures. Digital identity schemes are especially being adopted to match citizens’ data with social protection entitlements, enabling authentication through demographic and, increasingly, biometric data at the point of access. In this commentary, I discuss three sets of implications that COVID-19 has yielded on digital social protection, whose central trade-off – increasing the probabilities of accurate user identification, at the cost of greater exclusions – has become (...) even more problematic during the crisis. I argue that three forms of data injustice – legal, informational and design-related, previously identified in datafied social protection schemes, will need to be monitored in the post-pandemic scenario. I finally observe that the crisis exposes the long-term need to place digitality within social protection schemes that expand user entitlements rather than constraining them. Implications of such reflections are drawn for the study of data-based social welfare interventions. (shrink)

The relation between the Greek and Judeo-Christian traditions is "the great problem" of Western philosophy, according to Emmanuel Levinas. In this book Brian Schroeder, Silvia Benso, and an international group of philosophers address the relationship between Levinas and the world of ancient thought. In addition to philosophy, themes touching on religion, mythology, metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, ethics, and politics are also explored. The volume as a whole provides a unified and extended discussion of how an engagement between Levinas and thinkers (...) from the ancient tradition works to enrich understandings of both. This book opens new pathways in ancient and modern philosophical studies as it illuminates new interpretations of Levinas' ethics and his social and political philosophy. (shrink)

This article aims to enhance social technology as a resource that induces education and well-being in maternal and child health, more specifically in contexts of social vulnerability. This is an action research, with social technology characteristics, developed between July/2022 and December/2023, with 17 women (pregnant and postpartum women) from a vulnerable community in the central region of Rio Grande do Sul. Based on education in health and in an interprofessional approach, the social technology developed and called “Endowing lives” is the (...) result of demands previously identified, discussed and implemented with the research participants and local health professionals. The social technology developed expanded interprofessional possibilities, promoted preventive health measures and contributed to the empowerment of pregnant and postpartum women in decision-making. (shrink)

This paper will address the nineteenth-century reception of Bacon as an exponent of materialism in Joseph de Maistre and Karl Marx. I will argue that Bacon’s philosophy is “quasi-materialist.” The materialist components of his philosophy were noticed by de Maistre and Marx, who, in addition, pointed out a Baconian materialist heritage. Their construction of Bacon’s figure as the leader of a materialist lineage ascribed to his philosophy a revolutionary import that was contrary to Bacon’s actual leanings. This contrast shows how (...) different the contexts were within which materialism was conceived and valued across the centuries, and how far philosophical and scientific discourses may be transformed by their receptions, to the point that in many cases they could hardly be embraced by the authors of these discourses. (shrink)

Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a “long” early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffering from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to “freak occurrences” like Mary Toft’s supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the early eighteenth-century (Todd (...) 1995). But the term itself has a rich semantic history, coming from the Latin verb monstrare (itself deriving from monere, to remind, warn, advise), “to show,” from which we also get words like “monitor,” “admonish,” “monument” and “premonition”; hence there are proverbs like, in French, le monstre est ce qui montre, difficult to render in English: “the monsters is that which shows.” Scholars have discussed how this “monstrative” dimension of the monster is in fact twofold: on the one hand, and most awkwardly, the monster is an individual who is “pointed at,” who is shown; on the other hand, the monster is a sign, a portent, an omen, and in that sense “shows us” something (on the complex semantic history of the term across Indo-European languages see Ochsner 2005). The latter dimension persists in naturalized form in the early modern period when authors like Bacon, Fontenelle or William Hunter insist that monsters (or anomalies) can show us something of the workings of Nature. (shrink)

This paper examines the views of Joseph-Márie Degérando and Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann about empiricism, and the scope and limits of experience as well as its relation to reason and its role in the attainment of true knowledge. While Degérando adopted the “philosophy of experience” and Tennemann advocated Kant’s critical philosophy, both authors blamed each other for the same mistake: if Degérando considered that, despite all appearances to the contrary, critical philosophy fell into empiricism, Tennemann judged that the philosophy of experience (...) was nothing but pure and simple empiricism. Degérando’s and Tennemann’s discrepancies involved not only a discussion of “nomenclatures” and of the role and limits of experience in knowing, but also an epistemological and ideological commitment to the pacification of the intellectual field in the aftermath of the French Revolution. In this line, Degérando’s alignment with the philosophy of experience attempted to distance himself from the politically dangerous sensualism attributed to the idéologie. But, unlike his countryman Charles Villers, he did not want to replace the sensualism by critical philosophy. His opposition to philosophical novelty (which he associated with political revolution) led him to praise only the “eclectic” spirit of Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

From the rising number of hackerspaces to an increase in hardware start-ups, maker culture is envisioned as an enabler of the next industrial revolution—a source of unhindered technological innovation, a revamp of broken economies and educational systems. Drawing from long-term ethnographic research, this article examines how China’s makers demarcate Chinese manufacturing as a site of expertise in implementing this vision. China’s makers demonstrate that the future of making—if to materialize in the ways currently envisioned by writers, politicians, and scholars of (...) the global tech industry—rests on taking seriously the technological and cultural fabrics of professional making outside familiar information technology innovation hubs like Silicon Valley: making-do, mass production, and reuse. I trace back to China’s first hackerspace, documenting how a collective of makers began to move away from appropriating Western concepts of openness toward promoting China as source for knowledge, creativity, and innovation. This article demonstrates that when China’s makers set up open hardware businesses and articulate a unique culture of “hacking with Chinese characteristics,” they draw boundaries between the professional making they saw embodied in Chinese industrial production and the hobbyist making embodied in Western histories and cultures of hacking. In so doing, they position China as site of both technological and cultural expertise, intervening in dominant conceptions of computing that split manufacturing and innovation along geographical lines. This article contributes to critical scholarship of innovation and making cultures, technological expertise, and authorship. (shrink)

Francis Bacon's position on the existence of void and its nature has been mostly studied with regard to his views on the atom. This approach is undoubtedly right, but it disregards further topics related to Bacon's account of void, namely the world system and the transmutation of bodies. Consequently, a more comprehensive study of Bacon's view on vacuum seems desirable where all the contexts are taken into account. To address this desideratum, the present paper examines Bacon's different views on vacuum (...) drawing attention to the various contexts of the discussion. It also gives an evaluation of the arguments put forward in support of his positions. The first section presents a reconstruction of Bacon's consecutive positions and the reasons for his changes of mind. The second section lists the experimental facts traditionally cited in debates about vacuum and Bacon's interpretation of these. The final section evaluates the role that these experimental facts played in Bacon's arguments. As a result, it is shown that Bacon fits entirely into the general pattern of the early seventeenth century. Empirical arguments by themselves had little value for solving the question of the void; it was also necessary to have a formerly established theory. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays, dealing with one of the most interesting topics in the history of ideas, particularly in the history of theories of visual perception: the question posed by Wil...

How can we be certain that another creature is a conscious being? One path is to rely on introspective reports we can grasp in communication or observation of their behavior. Another path is to infer mentality and consciousness by means of markers tied to their intentional behavior, that is, agency. In this paper we will argue that even if agency is a marker of consciousness in several normal instances (paradigmatically, for mature and healthy human beings), it is not a good (...) marker in several pathological instances, such as the blindsight case, the vegetative state, the akinetic mutism and the locked-in syndrome. If we are right, this can be of great utility in neuroethics; for those kinds of disorders of consciousness are not, after all, instances of complete absence of consciousness. (shrink)

The Ethics of the New Eugenics, edited by Calum MacKellar and Christopher Bechtel ,An introductory “Note on the Text” states: “The research on which this book is based was commissioned by the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. It is the result of the collective work of many individuals at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. Initial drafting and subsequent editing was the work of Calum MacKellar and Christopher Bechtel, as agreed to by the Ethics Committee of the Scottish Council on (...) Human Bioethics. They were appointed principal editors by the Council.” is a useful introductory reference book for those interested in the use of genetic technologies to improve the human species. MacKellar is the director of research for the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics and a visiting professor of bioethics at St. Mary’s University College London, and Bechtel is a research fellow at the SCHB. The Scottish Council on Bioethics commissioned and supported research for this volume. .. (shrink)

Everything is connected, from galaxies to the smallest particles in our bodies. We need an interpretation of reality that allows us to see the whole as well as the Whole. This new view is a holistic spirituality that experiences God in the whole of life. It is necessary to make an effort to abandon elements that contaminate global life, because they originate in an anthropology of power-submission, man-woman, human-nature, consumption-participation, exploitation-cooperation… that justifies the exploitation of nature and of human beings. (...) We need to move from the devouring anthropocentrism we live in to a life-centred worldview. This article reflects on reality as an organic whole, the body of God. Reality is a creative, collective, dynamic and diverse ‘body’ that we must care for with equity and eco-justice. Our actions must be oriented towards the practice of God’s justice in the bodies and lives of women. Thus, we will recover the balance of this world. (shrink)

Dopo l'affermazione nietzschiana per cui “non ci sono fatti ma solo interpretazioni” la filosofia giunge alla fase del postmoderno, difesa da Gianni Vattimo, in cui dialettica ed ermeneutica rendono “debole” il concetto di verità. Il suo allievo Maurizio Ferraris critica la visone del suo maestro col tentativo di instaurare un nuovo realismo, volendo riportare in auge un concetto di verità, che escluda da esso tutte le verità di tipo epistemologico e religiose. L’analisi e lo studio dell’attacco al postmoderno di Ferraris (...) che qui viene fatto mostra che sia nel pensiero del primo autore, con la difesa delle verità “soggettive”, sia nel secondo, che difende le verità “oggettive”, il concetto di verità resta slegato dalla morale, e che non avendo contenuti epistemologici su cui fondarsi non giunge all’effettivo ritorno di una nozione “forte” di verità. (shrink)

La pregunta inicial relacionada con este artículo es: ¿cómo el arte ha ido asimilando los procedimientos lógicos de los algoritmos computacionales? Nuestra hipótesis es que estamos siendo entrenados por procedimientos lógicos que conforman, informan y forman nuestro pensamiento, tales como simulaciones, modelos, patrones, códigos y conjuntos de códigos, algoritmos, dispositivos, interfaces, y estos son el núcleo de lo que llamamos de «pensamiento conformado». Es importante resaltar que al decir que un pensamiento está conformado no se limita a formas, aspectos físicos, (...) expresiones de patrones, sino que es un conjunto de hábitos o costumbres comunes y socialmente definidos, determinados por la sociedad, comunidad o grupo. Por lo tanto, el pensamiento conformado provoca cambios significativos e impulsa nuestro pensamiento, lenguaje y, en consecuencia, nuestro comportamiento. El objetivo es comprender cómo la lógica de los algoritmos, especialmente de la inteligencia artificial, que están presentes en los modelos conceptuales y perceptuales de las obras de arte actuales, puede generar un desmembramiento estético. La premisa es que la comprensión de los procedimientos tecnológicos aumenta las posibilidades creativas y el potencial expresivo de los proyectos de arte. Esto se verá reflejado de alguna manera en la experiencia estética, porque, cambiando conceptos y técnicas, también cambian el pensamiento y las formas de acción y, en consecuencia, los procesos creativos y los resultados estéticos. Este es el resultado de un estudio que busca comprender cómo estos procedimientos afectan los sistemas sensoriales y cognitivos, cómo nuestra mente procesa esta información y consecuentemente interactuamos en el mundo. Nuestro punto de vista es que los artistas tienen el papel crítico no solo de aplicar estos principios lógicos en sus obras de arte, sino también de intervenir en estos procesos de manera disconforme. (shrink)

Although chemotherapy is one of the most common treatments for cancer, it can be only partially successful. Drug resistance is the main cause of the failure of chemotherapy. In this work, we present a mathematical model to study the impact of both intrinsic and acquired resistances on chemotherapy effectiveness. Our simulations show that intrinsic resistance could be as dangerous as acquired resistance. In particular, our simulations suggest that tumors composed by even a small fraction of intrinsically resistant cells may lead (...) to an unsuccessful therapy very quickly. Our results emphasize the importance of monitoring both intrinsic and acquired resistances during treatment in order to succeed and the importance of doing more experimental and genetic research in order to develop a pretreatment clinical test to avoid intrinsic resistance. (shrink)

The analogy between virtue and crafts is the core of Socratic ethics, whose fundamental principle is that virtue is a kind of knowledge similar to technical skills. Moral knowledge, however, is on a superior level and is different from other crafts since it concerns the ends of human action. This article aims to show that the main purpose of Laches, Charmides, Lesser Hippias and Protagoras is to bring out this distinction. More specifically, all the four dialogues follow a similar pattern, (...) i.e. they lead to the conclusion that virtue is moral knowledge by means of preliminary argumentations which consider the opposite view, supposing that it consists in technical knowledge. Thus we are shown the difficulties arising if we fail to distinguish moral knowledge, before the dialogue reaches its positive conclusion. (shrink)