El vertiginoso desarrollo de la tecnología en los últimos años nos ha llevado a una serie de conocimientos inconmensurables en las diversas áreas del saber, de manera particular en las ciencias básicas como la biología, la genética, la física, la química y en áreas como la informática, que nos muestran desarrollos sorprendentes. Lo anterior nos lleva a pensar en una relación triádica entre ciencia, tecnología y sociedad que no podemos desconocer por el impacto que generan. De esta triada surgen connotaciones (...) de diferentes órdenes que nos llevan al campo de la ética y particularmente de la bioética. (shrink)

This article is a review and reflection of the new elements of rights and laws, applied to the principle of justice and sovereignty, but above all in the demonstration that law as a science once again allows us to conceive that as a science it evolves and must be modified according to the new conducts that the State and society require, such is the case of the constitutional recognition that this type of rights have. In the last decades, human beings (...) have evidenced that the way in which they interact with nature is causing serious consequences to the ecosystems that compose it. In the past, these consequences were not yet evident and, therefore, the environmental awareness that exists today did not exist. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and reflect on certain conditions of this right in Ecuador. (shrink)

How do thought and language manage to be 'about' aspects of the world? J. Robert G. Williams investigates how representation arises out of a fundamentally non-representational world, showing the explanatory relations between the representational properties of language, of thought, and of perception and intention.

The foundations of law. The digest title, De diversis regulis iuris antiqui, and the general principles of law, by P. Stein. Equity in Chinese customary law, by W. Y. Tsao. Prolegomena to the theory and history of Jewish law, by H. Cohn. Juridical evolution and equity, by J.P. Brutau. Reflections on the sources of the law, by P. Lepaulle. The true nature and province of jurisprudence from the viewpoint of Indian philosophy, by M.J. Sethna. On the functions and aims of (...) the state, by G. Del Veccchio.--Concepts of jurisprudence. Legal language and reality, by K. Olivecrona. The logic of the reasonable as differentiated from the logic of the rational (human reason in the making and the interpretation of the law) by L. Recaséns-Siches. Some refections on status and freedom, by W.G. Friedmann. Law and power and their correlation, by M. Reale. The notion of canonical auctoritas with respect to statute, custom and usage, by B.F. Brown. Two theories of "the institution," by J. Stone. (shrink)

A new way to transpose the virtue epistemologist’s ‘knowledge = apt belief’ template to the collective level, as a thesis about group knowledge, is developed. In particular, it is shown how specifically judgmental belief can be realised at the collective level in a way that is structurally analogous, on a telic theory of epistemic normativity (e.g., Sosa 2020), to how it is realised at the individual level—viz., through a (collective) intentional attempt to get it right aptly (whether p) by alethically (...) affirming that p. An advantage of the proposal developed is that it is shown to be compatible with competing views—viz., joint acceptance accounts and social-distributive accounts—of how group members must interact in order to materially realise a group belief. I conclude by showing how the proposed judgment-focused collective (telic) virtue epistemology has important advantages over a rival version of collective virtue epistemology defended in recent work by Jesper Kallestrup (2016). (shrink)

Strange inversions occur when things work in ways that turn received wisdom upside down. Hume offered a strangely inverted story about causation, and Darwin, about apparent design. Dennett suggests that a strange inversion also occurs when we project our own reactive complexes outward, painting our world with elusive properties like cuteness, sweetness, blueness, sexiness, funniness, and more. Such properties strike us as experiential causes, but they are really effects—a kind of shorthand for whole sets of reactive dispositions rooted in the (...) nuts and bolts of human information processing. Understanding the nature and origins of that strange inversion, Dennett believes, is thus key to understanding the nature and origins of human experience itself. This paper examines this claim, paying special attention to recent formulations that link that strange inversion to the emerging vision of the brain as a Bayesian estimator, constantly seeking to predict the unfolding sensory barrage. (shrink)

The meta-problem is 'the problem of explaining why we think that there is a problem of consciousness' (Chalmers, 2018, p. 6). This presupposes that we think there is a problem in the first place. We challenge the breadth of this 'we', arguing that there is already sufficient empirical evidence to cast doubt on the claim. We then add to this body of evidence, presenting the results of a new cross-cultural study extending the work of Sytsma and Machery (2010).

Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy, and the Future of Knowing motivates and develops a new research programme in epistemology that is centred around the concept of epistemic autonomy.

A change in sense of self is an outcome commonly associated with Buddhist meditation. However, the sense of self is construed in multiple ways, and which changes in self-related processing are expected, intended, or possible through meditation is not well understood. In a qualitative study of meditation-related challenges, six discrete changes in sense of self were reported by Buddhist meditators: change in narrative self, loss of sense of ownership, loss of sense of agency, change in sense of embodiment, change in (...) self-other or self-world boundaries, and loss of sense of basic self. Changes in sense of self could be transient or enduring, positive or distressing, enhancing or impairing. These changes were also given varied appraisals, ranging from insights associated with Buddhist doctrines to psychopathologies such as depersonalization. In this study of practitioners reporting meditation-related challenges, more global changes in sense of self were associated with higher levels of impairment. These results have implications for both Buddhist meditation as well as mindfulness-based interventions. (shrink)

Here I reply to criticisms by Jeroen de Ridder and S. Kate Devitt to my "Collective (Telic) Virtue Epistemology".

Ukazał się kolejny, X tom Rocznika Edyty Stein. Trzeba o tym napisać nie tylko ze względu na jego zawartość. Z wydaniem tego jubileuszowego numeru został zamknięty okres, w którym redakcja Rocznika spoczywała w rękach J. S. de Murillo. Nowym naczelnym redaktorem jest od tego numeru Ul. Dobhan. W roku 1993 ukazał się I. tom Rocznika Edyty Stein, którego redakcja na zlecenie Zakonu Karmelitańskiego objął hiszpański karmelita J. S. de Murillo. Rocznik miał stanowić swego rodzaju „otwarte forum" dla współpracy (...) między filozofię i teologię, jak również pedagogikę i sztukę, nawiązujących do myśli i ducha Edyty Stein. Koncepcja Rocznika szła - jeśli można tak powiedzieć - „w szerokość", tak, aby próbować wgłębiać się w myśli Edyty Stein aż po granice możliwości. Ale co to właściwie znaczy? Czy na końcu takiego eksperymentu myślowego będziemy jeszcze mieć do czynienia z myślą Edyty Stein? Odpowiedzi na te istotne pytania i zamyślenia nad kształtem Rocznika doprowadziły do zmiany jego kierownictwa i tym samym do zmiany jego koncepcji. (shrink)

Ukazał się kolejny, X tom Rocznika Edyty Stein. Trzeba o tym napisać nie tylko ze względu na jego zawartość. Z wydaniem tego jubileuszowego numeru został zamknięty okres, w którym redakcja Rocznika spoczywała w rękach J. S. de Murillo. Nowym naczelnym redaktorem jest od tego numeru Ul. Dobhan. W roku 1993 ukazał się I. tom Rocznika Edyty Stein, którego redakcja na zlecenie Zakonu Karmelitańskiego objął hiszpański karmelita J. S. de Murillo. Rocznik miał stanowić swego rodzaju „otwarte forum" dla współpracy (...) między filozofię i teologię, jak również pedagogikę i sztukę, nawiązujących do myśli i ducha Edyty Stein. Koncepcja Rocznika szła - jeśli można tak powiedzieć - „w szerokość", tak, aby próbować wgłębiać się w myśli Edyty Stein aż po granice możliwości. Ale co to właściwie znaczy? Czy na końcu takiego eksperymentu myślowego będziemy jeszcze mieć do czynienia z myślą Edyty Stein? Odpowiedzi na te istotne pytania i zamyślenia nad kształtem Rocznika doprowadziły do zmiany jego kierownictwa i tym samym do zmiany jego koncepcji. (shrink)

Patriarchal institutions govern all aspects of women's lives: their minds, their bodies, and their souls. Additionally, they govern the ways in which women are perceived by others and the ways in which women perceive themselves. (Re) Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women's Experience, is a collection of essays on language, religion, war, sex trafficking, and medicine-the patriarchal structures that form the basis of western society and, thus, are in many ways inherently unjust. The essays illustrate the multitude of ways (...) that women have found to work within and without these structures to create justice. Traditional theories of justice cast it as a cardinal virtue, unbiased and impartial. The essays in this book, however, remove justice from the abstract and return it to the specific: most of the essays use personal narratives to highlight the connections all people share. The women discussed here are challenging the authority of existing patriarchal narratives by telling their versions, and, thus, calling attention to and challenging their own political and social realities. Reflecting a focus on global connectedness and interdisciplinarity, the writers of these essays aim not only to raise questions, but also to show ways in which women are creating new pathways for themselves. Only by exploring solutions will women reclaim justice. From L.A. to Zimbwabe, women have stories to tell about their experiences of justice in the inherently patriarchal institutions of Language, Religion, War, Sex Trafficking, and Medicine. This relevant and thought-provoking collection captures the trials that women across the world face and the hope they create through their courageous actions. Through both personal narrative and factual overview, these essays emphasize that as people committed to justice, women must not simply raise the questions, but they must also explore solutions in order to reclaim justice for themselves, their daughters, their sisters, and their mothers. Contributors: Yifat Bitton, Stephany Ryan Cate, Jo Scott-Coe, Susan Dewey, Carmela Epright, Carmen Faymonville, Adam Gaynor, Pauline Greenhill, Denise Handlarski, Alison Jobe, Marc J.W. de Jong, Jodie M. Lawston, Jody Lisberger, Kristy Maher, Susan Maloney, Mickias Musiyiwa, Ruben Murillo, Annemarie Profanter, Natalie Wilson, and J. Carter Wood. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that the notion of inclusion derived or evolved from the practices of mainstreaming or integrating students with disabilities into regular schools. Halting the practice of segregating children with disabilities was a progressive social movement. The value of this achievement is not in dispute. However, our charter as scholars and cultural vigilantes () is to always look for how we can improve things; to avoid stasis and complacency we must continue to ask, how can we do it (...) better? Thus, we must ask ourselves uncomfortable questions and develop a critical perspective that Foucault characterised as an ‘ethic of discomfort’ (, p. xxvi) by following the Nietzschean principle where one acts ‘counter to our time and thereby on our time... for the benefit of a time to come’ (Nietzsche, 1874, p. 60 in, p. xxvi). This paper begins with a fundamental question for those participating in inclusive education research and scholarship—when we talk of including, into what do we seek to include? (shrink)

Minimally, metaphysical realists hold that there exist some mind-independent entities. Metaphysical realists also hold that we can speak meaningfully or truthfully about mind-independent entities. Those who reject metaphysical realism deny one or more of these commitments. This Element aims to introduce the reader to the core commitments of metaphysical realism and to illustrate how these commitments have changed over time by surveying some of the main families of views that realism has been contrasted with: such as scepticism, idealism, and anti-realism.

Why is there a 'hard problem' of consciousness? Why do we seem unable to grasp intuitively that physical brain processes can be identical to experiences? Here I comment on the 'meta-problem' (Chalmers, 2018), based on previous ideas (Storm, 2014; 2018). In short: humans may be 'inborn dualists' ('neuroscepticism'), because evolution gave us two (types of) brain systems (or functional modes): one (Sp) for understanding relatively simple physical phenomena, and another (Sm) specialized for mental phenomena. Because Sp cannot deal with the (...) immense complexity of the brain processes underlying consciousness, it represents them as fundamentally different from nonmental physical phenomena (dualist intuition), using 'simulations' to produce 'Sm-type understanding'/predictions that seems radically different from 'Sp-type understanding'. (By analogy, different sensory modalities, handled by distinct brain systems, evoke qualitatively different experiences.) Brain systems for Sp representations of our brain processes never evolved, because they would be useless. When lacking a single 'template' matching different aspects of reality (objective vs. subjective = simulated), complementary 'models' are needed ('neuro-complementarity'), like the wave–particle duality in quantum mechanics. Thus, it seems plausible that Sp and Sm evolved because they were needed to cope with different challenges, and that 'problem intuitions' are side effects of these useful but different brain systems. (shrink)

The problem of finding a covariant expression for the distribution and conservation of gravitational energy-momentum dates to the 1910s. A suitably covariant infinite-component localization is displayed, reflecting Bergmann's realization that there are infinitely many gravitational energy-momenta. Initially use is made of a flat background metric (or rather, all of them) or connection, because the desired gauge invariance properties are obvious. Partial gauge-fixing then yields an appropriate covariant quantity without any background metric or connection; one version is the collection of pseudotensors (...) of a given type, such as the Einstein pseudotensor, in _every_ coordinate system. This solution to the gauge covariance problem is easily adapted to any pseudotensorial expression (Landau-Lifshitz, Goldberg, Papapetrou or the like) or to any tensorial expression built with a background metric or connection. Thus the specific functional form can be chosen on technical grounds such as relating to Noether's theorem and yielding expected values of conserved quantities in certain contexts and then rendered covariant using the procedure described here. The application to angular momentum localization is straightforward. Traditional objections to pseudotensors are based largely on the false assumption that there is only one gravitational energy rather than infinitely many. (shrink)

Semantic Scholar extracted view of "Animal Welfare and Rights: V. Zoos and Zoological Parks" by J. Dunlap et al.

This paper critically evaluates an objection to introspective arguments for human freedom found within Spinoza's Ethics. The objection-- which we call Spinoza's dream argument -- challenges the evidentiary value of a person's experience of her own freedom by pointing out that some choices made within dreams are experienced as no less free than choices made while awake despite the fact that choices made within dreams are not free. After reconstructing Spinoza's dream argument, we critically evaluate it, concluding ultimately that it (...) fails in two respects. First, we draw upon the results of an experiment we conducted that suggests that dreamt choices are not experienced as free to the same extent as choices made while awake. Second, we argue that there is no compelling justification for the claim that choices made within dreams are not free. (shrink)

Principles of expert deference say that you should align your credences with those of an expert. This expert could be your doctor, the objective chances, or your future self, after you've learnt something new. These kinds of principles face difficulties in cases in which you are uncertain of the truth-conditions of the thoughts in which you invest credence, as well as cases in which the thoughts have different truth-conditions for you and the expert. For instance, you shouldn't defer to your (...) doctor by aligning your credence in the de se thought 'I am sick' with the doctor's credence in that same de se thought. Here, I generalise principles of expert deference to handle these kinds of problem cases. (shrink)

John Corcoran ’s “Meanings of Implication” outlines and discusses 12 distinct uses of the term “implies” while also commenting on the ways in which these different notions of implication might be confused or conflated. Readers may take special note of Corcoran ’s analysis of Russell’s truth-functional account of “implication” and its historical function as logical consequence, as well as Corcoran ’s discussion of Bolzano’s previously obscure and rarely mentioned notion of “relative implication.”.

Michael Walzer is one of the world's most important political thinkers. In this book, Toby J. Reiner provides the most wide-ranging and up-to-date introduction to his work available. Examining Walzer's multivarious writings and work, Reiner develops an illuminating new interpretation of his thought that no political theorist can afford to miss.