We propose a new approach for tracing value change. Value change may lead to a mismatch between current value priorities in society and the values for which technologies were designed in the past, such as energy technologies based on fossil fuels, which were developed when sustainability was not considered a very important value. Better anticipating value change is essential to avoid a lack of social acceptance and moral acceptability of technologies. While value change can be studied historically and qualitatively, we (...) propose a more quantitative approach that uses large text corpora. It uses probabilistic topic models, which allow us to trace values that are latent. We demonstrate the approach for five types of value change in technology. Our approach is useful for testing hypotheses about value change, such as verifying whether value change has occurred and identifying patterns of value change. The approach can be used to trace value change for various technologies and text corpora, including scientific articles, newspaper articles, and policy documents. (shrink)

O livro almeja ser representativo nos principais debates contemporâneos, oferecendo uma visão panorâmica sobre o campo na atualidade e permitindo-se aprofundar em algumas discussões selecionadas.O ambiente não pode ser reduzido ao “meio ambiente”, à natureza não humana. Ele não é meramente algo que “nos envolve”, um envoltório: o ambiente somos também nós, seres humanos, histórica e culturalmente situados. Quanto aos territórios, eles se estabelecem em íntima conexão com os ambientes em suas dimensões paisagística e material, quer sejam os processos geoecológicos, (...) quer sejam as formas e as dinâmicas socialmente produzidas. Analisar os territórios significa examinar como, a cada momento, os ambientes, seus recursos e significados são disputados e viram objeto de conflitos.O público-alvo principal são os estudantes dos últimos anos da graduação, além daqueles em nível de pós-graduação, de todas as áreas que lidam com problemas e conflitos ambientais. Afora os pesquisadores iniciantes e os jovens universitários em geral, porém, podemos presumir que profissionais experientes também poderão tirar proveito do material de diversos capítulos. É razoável, por fim, nutrir a expectativa de que muito do que este livro contém possa (retro)alimentar o ativismo ambiental crítico e a prática de combater as iniquidades e as distorções que se acumulam em nossas sociedades, principalmente as muitas situações de flagrante injustiça ambiental. (shrink)

In a single volume intended for philosophy students of all levels as well as their teachers, this reader provides modern, accurate translations of the texts necessary for a careful study of most aspects of Aristotle's philosophy. Professor Ackrill has drawn on his broad experience of teaching graduate classes in selecting the texts, and his choice reflects issues of current philosophical interest as well as the perennial themes. Only recent translations which achieve a high level of accuracy have been chosen: the (...) aim is to place the reader without Greek, as nearly as possible, in the position of a reader of Greek. As an aid to study, a valuable guide to the key topics covered is also suppied, giving references to works or passages contained in the reader, an indication of their interrelation, and a currnet bibliography. (shrink)

The definition of acedia presents unique conceptual problems among the eight Evagrian logismoi. Its descriptions are so complex and varied as to render the concept seemingly incoherent. This article argues that the conceptual unity of acedia has been obscured by the translation of Evagrian logismoi into the ‘deadly sins’ tradition, resulting in a category error. Acedia is more properly understood, not as a psychological state or a sin, but rather as an array of demonic temptations with the unifying end-goal of (...) interrupting the anchoritic ideal of sustained contemplation. (shrink)

A. Either God can create a stone which He cannot lift, or He cannot create a stone which He cannot lift. If God can create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent. If God cannot create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent. Therefore, God is not omnipotent.In a paper published in Analysis I tried to show that any attempt to find something wrong with all arguments of the general form of A (...) above, any attempt to resolve the “paradox,” must fail, that the reason these attempts must fail is that at least some arguments of this form are essentially sound, and that the only thing which makes these arguments seem paradoxical, their conclusion to the effect that God is not omnipotent, is, like at least some versions of the arguments to this conclusion, quite correct. (shrink)

This essay applies to the morality of lying and other deception a sketch of a kind of virtues-based, input-driven, role-centered, patient-focused, ethical theory. Among the questions treated are: What is wrong with lying? Is it always and intrinsically immoral? Can it be correct, as some have vigorously maintained, that lying is morally wrong in some circumstances where other forms of deliberate dissimulation are not? If so, how can that be? And how can it be that lying to someone is immoral (...) when other, harsher ways of treating her are permissible? The essay examines several responses to the first question, and suggests that lying violates morality as an excessive departure from the role-derived virtues of charity and justice: the liar wills another person the evil of false belief precisely in the proposition for which the speaker offers her assurance and takes special responsibility in asserting. So conceived, lying is an especially egregious form of treachery and degrading manipulation of another person. Appeal is then made to the gravity inherent in lying so conceived to suggest ways of answering the other questions which would support the traditional Augustinian claim that lying is inherently impermissible and ineligible in circumstances where other forms of deliberate deception may not be, and even in situations where violent attack may be permissible.At the end, a taxonomy of more and less rigorist positions of lying is offered. A tentative proposal is made that, while consistent with the traditional Augustinian rigorist position that Iving is always immoral, nevertheless has some features that may slightly soften that view’s practical application. The proposed view does this in a way similar to that in which allowing moral dilemmas may soften it, for allowing dilemmas means there may be cases where an act of a type always immoral may still be more eligible than any alternative. However, it is maintained that the view here proposed need not countenance genuine dilemmas. (shrink)

The ArgumentA brief review of the Merton thesis shows that its restriction to England is arbitrary. An example from the historiography of modern physics suggests the possible payoff of an ecumenical Merton thesis and the means to explore it. A summary of the careers of men who practiced science literally in the church – men who built meridian lines in Italian cathedrals – indicates the range of social support of astronomical studies by Catholic institutions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

We are witnessing at present a substantial efflorescence of the view that there are and must necessarily be fundamental differences between the methods—and especially the types of explanation—appropriate to the social sciences on the one hand and those appropriate to the natural sciences on the other. New and ever more subtle arguments seeking to re-establish a Geisteswissenschaften vs. Naturwissenschaften distinction are flowing from scholarly presses in ever greater volume. The works cited in footnote one are a mere sample just of (...) recent books which, while diverse to the point of contradiction in some respects, have as their common underlying theme the defense of such a methodological duality. (shrink)

This paper criticizes the thesis that intending to do something is reducible to some combination of beliefs and desires. Against Audi's recent formulation of such a view I offer as counterexample a case wherein an agent who wants and expects to V has not yet decided whether to V and hence does not yet intend to. I try to show that whereas belief that one will V is not necessary for intending to V, as illustrated in cases of desperate attempts (...) to V, one cannot intend to V without preferring to V (rather than not V) and thus one cannot intend to V without, in some sense, wanting to V (at least wanting it in preference to not V-ing). The connection of one's intentions with one's objectives, attempts, plans, and hopes is briefly treated, and some influential work by Davidson is criticized. (shrink)

This paper critically examines a formal argument against deducing ‘ought’-judgments from ‘is’-judgments, an argument suggested by a literal reading of a famous passage in Hume'sTreatise of Human Nature. According to this argument, judgments of the two kinds have different logical structures (i.e., their subjects are differently related to their predicates) and this difference disallows cross-categorical deductive inferences. I draw on Fregean accounts of the ‘is’- copula and on syntactical interpretations of ‘ought’-judgments that have become standard in deontic logic to argue (...) that twentieth century work in philosophical grammar and logic casts doubt on all three of the argument's premises. (shrink)