Drawing on many areas of expertise, from paleontology to psychology, Tomasello offers a plausible, evolutionary story abouthow our ancestors are likely to have developed cooperative behaviors and collaborative lifeways in order to survive and thrive.He also claims that this narrative explains why they would have begun to think in characteristically cooperative and moral ways,developing a “we is greater than me” [we>me] psychological orientation. Do the arguments offered support this extra claim? Thisarticle suggests that they do not. It seeks to alleviate (...) this shortcoming by drawing upon some conceptual resources offered bySartre’s Theory of Practical Ensembles. The centerpiece of the article consists of a detailed analysis of Sartre’s account of the genesisof the “group-in-fusion,” seeking to show that the genesis of a we-way of thinking in a group made up of many requires themediation of what Sartre calls a “third party” (le tiers). After closely examining Sartre’s treatment of the “third party” in theapocalyptic genesis of the “group-in-fusion,” I evaluate the success of this notion in resolving those questions that Tomasello’saccount raises while, at the same time, addressing the ontological question concerning the nature of the individual-grouprelation, in a way that suggests new and significant alternatives to standard dilemmas in contemporary social philosophy. (shrink)

Humans are social beings. However, we are not alone in the realm of social reality; we share this space with diverse entities, including more than just animals. The term "social" has recently been applied to describe the collective behaviors of microorganisms and plants, as well as interactions among parts and groups of organisms. Therefore, there is a need to develop a framework that enables the study of social phenomena in a clearer and less restrictive manner. In this thesis, I lay (...) the groundwork for such a framework by describing the basic building blocks of social systems and their implications in the study of social behavior. This project necessitates breaking down disciplinary boundaries between the biological, cognitive, and social sciences to provide a more comprehensive perspective on the social phenomenon. In Part I, I review recent proposals that describe social systems based on interactions. I argue that these models can be extended to other interactive systems beyond animals, questioning the limits of the standard view of social systems. Also, by challenging an argument that supports a gap between humans and nature, I advocate for a broader understanding of social reality that includes both human and nonhuman beings. In Part II, I present a new framework for studying social systems consisting of three fundamental building blocks: interactions, relationships, and social units. I argue that interactions are vital components of social systems, highlighting their dynamic and entwined nature. Relationships, arising from distinctive patterns of interactions sensitive to the identity of the individuals, play a crucial role in these systems and encompass both objective and subjective components. Lastly, I develop an account of social units as cognitively autonomous individuals, drawing on biogenic approaches to cognition. Thus, I propose that a social system emerges when cognitively autonomous individuals (social units) engage in repeated interactions and form relationships. In Part III, I apply this framework to two entities that are subjects of contemporary debate: groups and plants. I argue that both groups and plants are potential social units. Specifically, plants interact repeatedly and demonstrate the ability to differentiate between individuals, providing evidence of their capacity to form social relationships. This framework serves as a guide for studying the social behavior of these entities and offers valuable insights into their interactive systems. Overall, this expanded framework establishes connections between social phenomena across different taxa and levels of organization, facilitating comparative investigations. It introduces new perspectives on social behavior, encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, and broadens our understanding of multi-species interactions. (shrink)

Fichte wie auch später Sartre gewinnen vergleichbare Resultate auf der theoretischen Ebene hinsichtlich der ethischen Fundierung der Intersubjektivität im Selbstbewusstsein. Die Rolle der Ästhetik wird von beiden Denkern aufgrund ethischer Implikationen so bestimmt, dass sie die durch sie bestimmte Intersubjektivität auf praktischer Ebene zum Vorschein bringt. Die Ästhetik stellt bei beiden Autoren nicht einen Selbstzweck dar, sondern spielt eine herausragende Rolle für die Bildung der Menschen. Sartre wie auch Fichte brauchen die Ästhetik, um die Ethik zu fundieren. Während Sartre ein (...) unmittelbar lebensbezogenes ästhetisches Denken hat, in dem er ethische Aspekte in seiner Literatur anhand konkreter Beispiele verarbeitet, geht es Fichte in seinen Ausführungen zur Ästhetik vornehmlich um die Frage nach der Bedingung der Möglichkeit des ästhetischen Bewusstseins und darum, dieses als Voraussetzung des ethischen Bewusstseins zu bestimmen. Sartres Ethik offenbart sich vor allem in seinem ästhetischen Schaffen. Dem ästhetischen Moment in Sartres Ethik kommt die zentrale Aufgabe für die Entwicklung des ethischen Individualismus des Menschen und der gesamten Menschheit zu. Die Analogie zu Fichtes transzendentalkritischem Idealismus liegt in der Fundierungsrolle der Ästhetik für die Ethik in beiden philosophischen Konzeptionen, woraus eine aussagefähige Ethik in Sartres Existenzphilosophie resultiert. So zeigt sich In Sartres Literatur der direkte Wechselbezug zwischen praktischer Ethik und produktiver Ästhetik. Die Funktion der Ästhetik wird von Sartre dadurch bestimmt, dass in seinem Konzept mittels der Ästhetik die Vermittlung zwischen theoretischer und praktischer Vernunft geleistet wird. (shrink)

In late February and early March 2020, Italy became the European epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite increasingly stringent containment measures enforced by the government, the health system faced an enormous pressure, and extraordinary efforts were made in order to increase overall hospital beds’ availability and especially ICU capacity. Nevertheless, the hardest-hit hospitals in Northern Italy experienced a shortage of ICU beds and resources that led to hard allocating choices. At the beginning of March 2020, the Italian Society of Anesthesia, (...) Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care issued recommendations aimed at supporting physicians in prioritizing patients when the number of critically ill patients overwhelm the capacity of ICUs. One motivating concern for the SIAARTI guidance was that, if no balanced and consistent allocation procedures were applied to prioritize patients, there would be a concrete risk for unfair choices, and that the prevalent “first come, first served” principle would lead to many avoidable deaths. Among the drivers of decision for admission to ICUs, age, comorbidities, and preexisting functional status were included. The recommendations were criticized as ageist and potentially discriminatory against elderly patients. Looking forward to the next steps, the Italian experience can be relevant to other parts of the world that are yet to see a significant surge of COVID-19: the need for transparent triage criteria and commonly shared values give the Italian recommendations even greater legitimacy. (shrink)

This paper describes a practice innovation: the addition of formal weekly discussions of patients with prolonged PICU stay to reduce healthcare providers’ moral distress and decrease length of stay for patients with life-threatening illnesses. We evaluated the innovation using a pre/post intervention design measuring provider moral distress and comparing patient outcomes using retrospective historical controls. Physicians and nurses on staff in our pediatric intensive care unit in a quaternary care children's hospital participated in the evaluation. There were 60 patients in (...) the interventional group and 66 patients in the historical control group. We evaluated the impact of weekly meetings to establish goals of care for patients with longer than 10 days length of stay in the ICU for a year. Moral distress was measured intermittently and reported moral distress thermometer scores fluctuated. "Clinical situations" represented the most frequent contributing factor to moral distress. Post intervention, overall moral distress scores, measured on the moral distress scale revised, were lower for respondents in all categories, and on three specific items. Patient outcomes before and after PEACE intervention showed a statistically significant decrease in PRISM indexed LOS, a statistically significant increase in both code status changes DNR, and in-hospital death, with no change in patient 30 or 365 day mortality. The addition of a clinical ethicist and senior intensivist to weekly inter-professional team meetings facilitated difficult conversations regarding realistic goals of care. The study demonstrated that the PEACE intervention had a positive impact on some factors that contribute to moral distress and can shorten PICU length of stay for some patients. (shrink)

El presente artículo hace una lectura de la obra dramatúrgica Bandada de pájaros: segundo ensayo sobre la memoria (2016) de Jorgelina Cerritos (San Salvador, 1974) desde una perspectiva tanatopolítica. Se indaga acerca del poder que ejerce el Estado salvadoreño en la vida de la ciudadanía, representada por personajes que, desprovistos de su categoría de persona, ven interrumpidos todos sus derechos. Estos sujetos son miembros de una comunidad que se convierten en una amenaza potencial a suprimir por parte del Estado. Además, (...) se analiza la vulnerabilidad de la mujer ante el aparato bélico heteropatriarcal y las posibilidades del teatro como espacio para la construcción de una memoria que restituya el recuerdo y la identidad de los miles de desaparecidos durante la guerra civil salvadoreña. (shrink)

This article focuses on Pola Negri, one of the most iconic stars of the silent era, and concentrates on her performance and image in the Hollywood film Hotel Imperial. Asses...

The book is an accurate and accessible introduction to the complex and dynamic field of transitional and post-conflict justice, providing an overview of its recurring concepts and debated issues. Particular attention is reserved to how these concepts and issues have been addressed, both theoretically and literally, by lawyers, policy-makers, international bodies, and other actors informing the practice. By presenting significant, if undeniably disputable, alternatives to mainstream theories and past methods of addressing past injustice and (re)building a democratic state, the work (...) aims to illustrate some foundational themes of transitional justice that have emerged from a diverse set of discussions. The author's position thus arrives from a careful analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of answers to the question: how, after a traumatic social experience, is justice restored? (shrink)

Oftentimes, reality seems to us a chaos that we try to control with our theories. This article starts from the antithetic standpoint, inspired by Antonio Rosmini’s works: reality is intelligible, and originates our thinking. From this perspective, any research that tries to reach the truth is determined by the real, not the contrary. Moreover, interdisciplinarity, far from being a solipsistic enterprise, aims at achieving truth and guaranteeing scientific advancement. Here, we analyze the distinctive character of Rosminian encyclopedism and his principles (...) for preventing human errors. We then clarify why it is impossible to achieve perfection, and why such an impossibility is not problematic for the interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

Coordination between speakers in dialogue requires balancing repetition and change, the old and the new. Interlocutors tend to reuse established forms, relying on communicative precedents. Yet linguistic interaction also necessitates adaptation to changing contexts or dynamic tasks, which might favor abandoning existing precedents in favor of better communicative alternatives. We explored this tension using a maze game task in which individual participants and interacting pairs had to describe figures and their positions in one of two possible maze types: a regular (...) maze, in which the grid‐like structure of the maze is highlighted, and an irregular maze, in which specific parts of the maze are salient. Participants repeated this task several times. Both individuals and interacting pairs were affected by the different maze layouts, initially using more idiosyncratic description schemes for irregular mazes and more systematic schemes for regular mazes. Interacting pairs, but not individuals, abandoned their unsystematic initial descriptions in favor of a more systematic approach, which was better adapted for repeated interaction. Our results show communicative conventions are initially shaped by context, but interaction opens up the possibility for change if better alternatives are available. (shrink)

Considering Rosmini’s political works in comparison with his metaphysical and anthropological essays, and starting from Rosmini's project of a code of law that, in the author’s opinion, can guarantee fundamental human rights, this article discusses the concept of justice between citizens and outsiders. Its first part is an analysis of Rosmini’s juridical fundaments, which takes into account also some objections historically moved against it. Its second part examines some specific cases of conflicts between outsiders and the members of civil society, (...) as considered by the Roveretan philosopher. (shrink)

Moral distress is a well-documented phenomenon for health care providers (HCPs). Exploring HCPs’ perceptions of participation in moral distress interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods enhances understanding of intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe the impact of a two-phased intervention on participants’ moral distress. Using a cross-over design, the project aimed to determine if the intervention would decrease moral distress, enhance moral agency, and improve perceptions about the work environment. We used quantitative instruments and (...) explored participants’ perceptions of the intervention using semi-structured interviews. Participants were from inpatient settings, within three major hospitals of a large, urban healthcare system in the Midwest, United States. Participants included nurses (80.6%) and other clinical care providers. Using generalized linear mixed modeling we assessed the change in each of the outcome variables over time controlling for groups. Interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed. The written narratives were coded into themes. The change in scores on study instruments trended in the desired direction however did not meet statistical significance. Qualitative interviews revealed that intervention effectiveness was derived from a combination of learning benefits, psychological benefits, and building community that promoted moral agency. Findings demonstrate a clear link between moral distress and moral agency and suggest that Facilitated Ethics Conversations can enhance the work environment. Findings provide insight for developing evidenced-based approaches to address moral distress of hospital nurses. (shrink)

The rise of the idea of the Anthropocene is promoting multiple reflections on its meaning. As we consider entering this new geological epoch, we realize the pervasiveness of humankind’s deconstruction and reconstruction of the Earth, in both geophysical and discursive terms. As the body of the Earth is marked and reshaped, so is its idea. From a hostile territory to be subjugated and exploited through sovereign commands, the Earth is now reframed as a vulnerable domain in need of protection. The (...) mode of sovereignty, which has accompanied human and legal history and practice during modernity and its project of mastery, is no longer useful. Humanity’s control of the Earth is being reimagined and reconfigured along biopolitical coordinates of thought and action. Biopolitics shifts the focus of power, changes its modalities of interventions, and rearticulates its legitimacy on the idea of taking responsibility for the Earth, for nature. A biopolitical re-orientation of law captures the fundamental aim of caring for nature, of fostering its vital possibilities and of enhancing its productive potential. Yet, biopolitics engulfs nature in its entirety under its framework of control, where protection and subjugation, vulnerability and productivity, life and death are constantly entangled in a reciprocal and inevitable relation of indistinguishability. Sovereignty becomes thus a key modality of biopolitical intervention, when nature is recalcitrant, wild, spontaneous, unpredictable, violent, dangerous. Biopolitics, thus, remains caught in an undecidable dilemma, where in order to protect the Earth, it must subjugate it; to save it, it must condemn it. In this respect, biopolitics remains utterly modern, or as argued by Roberto Esposito, modernity has always been biopolitical, insofar as modernity has emerged as a framework for the protection of life against life’s own excesses. But how can we escape the biopolitical reframing and enframing of the Earth and its total subsumption under its matrix of control? How can we rethink the encounter between law and nature without remaining entangled in the aporetic dilemma of biopolitics? An aesthetics of wonder may offer a way. (shrink)

Many published instruments for assessing adolescent adjustment can be implemented in the school context. However, most of them fail to include a comprehensive and positive theoretical perspective of adolescent development and, even when they do, priority is often given to the clinical perspective, or problems with ecological validity and cost-effectiveness emerge. The Magallanes Adaptation Scale is a 90-item Likert-instrument designed for Spanish-speaking adolescents in order to screen several adjustment areas from a holistic and positive perspective of development. Although some evidence (...) of its psychometric robustness has been tested, no confirmatory analysis of its structure has been published. This paper analyzes the items and the factor structure (exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, using the split-half method) of the scales. Participants were 948 Spanish adolescents (49.84% girls) aged between 11 and 17 and stratified sampled. Thirty-six items were removed from the item analysis. The results of the exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors, excluding mother’s adaptation. Several models were tested during the confirmatory factor analyses, with a 24-item second-order four-factor solution being found to have the best adjustment indicators. The short version proposed in this paper can constitute a helpful tool with screening purposes to help school teachers to assess students’ overall development beyond mere academic performance, although further validity research is needed. (shrink)

El objetivo de este texto es investigar sobre los posibles puntos de encuentro entre la psicoterapia existencial, un paradigma psicológico arraigado en las filosofías de la existencia, y el posicionamiento del profesor Marino Pérez Álvarez, quien se define a sí mismo como conductista radical, respecto a su manera de entender la existencia humana y el modelo más adecuado de psicoterapia. Para ello se proponen seis puntos de encuentro: necesidad de una fundamentación filosófica para la psicología, crítica al cientificismo y al (...) modelo médico, interpretación de los trastornos mentales como problemas de la vida cotidiana, recuperación del paciente como protagonista de la terapia, crítica a la psicología positiva y crítica al dualismo cartesiano. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo intentará contribuir a la discusión teórica y filosófica política sobre la emancipación y la democracia en base a la producción intelectual reciente de Étienne Balibar y Jacques Rancière. Las nociones con las que ambos autores acompañan la idea de emancipación, por una parte, iluminan sobre otros modos posibles de pensar la política, las luchas y la transformación, y, por otra parte, permiten re-significar la filosofía y la política, así como la inclusión de la igualdad radical entre los (...) seres hablantes en el centro de la disputa teórica y política.This article will attempt to contribute to the theoretical and philosophical political discussion on emancipation and democracy based on the recent intellectual production of Étienne Balibar and Jacques Rancière. The notions with which both authors accompany the idea of emancipation, on the one hand, illuminate on other possible ways of thinking about politics, struggles and transformation, and, on the other hand, allow us to re-signify philosophy and politics, thus as the inclusion of radical equality between speaking beings at the center of the theoretical and political dispute. (shrink)

This study aims to evaluate the effects of an innovative mind-body practice named the brain wave modulation technique on stress, anxiety, global distress, and affect. The technique was administered online through a web-based video conferencing platform. The intervention started on week four of the first quarantine in Italy, for a duration of 4 weeks and ended before lockdown measures were loosened. 310 people participated in the study, mean age 28.73 years old, 77.8% women. Of these, about half were randomly assigned (...) to the experimental group and the other half served as controls. Participants completed online psychological tests before and after the intervention. 266 people completed the post-intervention tests. Consistent with our hypothesis, the study’s findings indicate a reduction in the levels of stress, anxiety, global distress, and negative affect in the experimental group, compared to the control group. Moreover, the experimental group also showed higher levels of positive affect, compared to controls after the intervention. The present findings add to the current literature in suggesting that the BWM-T reduced stress not only when administered face-to face but also when administered online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, we also noted that the BWM-T has an effect on anxiety, global distress, and affect, which we had not investigated in previous studies. (shrink)

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in young adults has increased dramatically in recent decades. The unhealthy eating habits that develop at this time can often lead to negative health consequences in the future. It is therefore important to learn about self-regulation and self-control strategies and help young adults to have healthy eating behaviours. This study aims to present an Italian version of the Tempest Self-Regulation Questionnaire for Eating adapted for young adults. The instrument assesses self-regulation and self-control strategies to (...) counteract the desire and temptation to eat unhealthy food and to choose healthy foods. A total of 645 students took part in the study. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported the six first-order factors model concerning specific self-regulation strategies and a higher-order structure of the TESQ-E [χ2 = 336.480, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.95; RMSEA = 0.04; SRMR = 0.04]: three correlated second-order factors and one-third-order factor. The results also confirmed the strong measurement invariance of the TESQ-E across gender. To have reliable comparisons across males and females, the latent mean differences tests were performed on the six specific self-regulation strategies. The analysis showed that females appear to prefer strategies that directly address the goal by expressing explicit intentions or plans to eat in a healthy way. Convergence validity was tested through correlations with Eating-Self-Efficacy Brief Scale, Emotional Eating Scale, Scale of Attitudes towards Healthy Eating, and Body Mass Index. In conclusion, the TESQ-E appears to be a psychometrically sound questionnaire that can be effectively used with young adults to measure self-regulation strategies in eating in order to plan personalised interventions for the prevention and control of the metabolic syndrome, and to reduce a wide range of diet-related diseases. (shrink)

The target article undermines the existence of a shared unitary numerical format, illustrating a variety of representations. The / dichotomy does not capture their specific features. These representations are with respect to the sensory modality of the stimulus, and independent of its specific notation, with a main role of spatial codes, both related and unrelated to the mental number line.

Given a space in an elementary submodel M of H, define XM to be X∩M with the topology generated by . It is established, using anti-large-cardinals assumptions, that if XM is compact and its regular open algebra is isomorphic to that of a continuous image of some power of the two-point discrete space, then X=XM. Assuming in addition, the result holds for any compact XM satisfying the countable chain condition.

Although the literature on corporate social responsibility has discussed the scope and meaning of CSR extensively, confusion still exists regarding how to define the concept. One controversial issue deals with the changing legal status of CSR. Based on a review of CSR definitions and meta-studies on CSR definitions, we find that the majority of definitions leans toward voluntary CSR. However, some recent regulatory amendments toward mandatory CSR have called into question the established idea of CSR as merely a managerial tool (...) of self-regulation. In this paper, we juxtapose the evolution of CSR in India against the scholarly literature discussing voluntary-versus-mandatory CSR to understand the recent shift toward a new conceptualization of CSR as a form of co-regulation that includes elements of both voluntary and mandatory regulation. The Indian Companies Act 2013 is a remarkable example in that it replaced an older version from 1956, taking a bold step toward the integration of voluntary and mandatory aspects in the application of CSR. We present practical implications of the Indian case for businesses and discuss implications for CSR theory development; we particularly consider the evolution of the business and society relationship from a voluntary soft law approach to CSR to an increasingly hard law approach and transitory hybrid forms in-between like soft–hard law and hard–soft law. (shrink)

Some recent uses of artificial intelligence for facial recognition, evaluating resumes, and sorting photographs by subject matter have revealed troubling disparities in performance or impact based on the demographic traits of subject populations. These disparities raise pressing questions about how using artificial intelligence can work to promote justice or entrench injustice. Political theorists and philosophers have developed nuanced vocabularies and theoretical frameworks for understanding and adjudicating disputes about what justice requires and what constitutes injustice. The interdisciplinary community committed to understanding (...) and conscientiously using big data could benefit from this work. Thus, in the spirit of encouraging cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration, this piece examines contemporary scholarship in political theory and philosophy to illustrate some of the vocabularies and frameworks political theorists and philosophers have developed for thinking about justice and injustice. It then draws on these frameworks to illuminate how the use of artificial intelligence can implicate questions of justice, with a focus on institutional discrimination, structural injustice, and epistemic injustice. Ultimately, the piece argues that the use of artificial intelligence—far from representing a decision to take power out of human hands—represents a novel way of harnessing human power, making questions of justice central to its conscientious undertaking. (shrink)

After the establishment of the independent Slovak Republic, legal and institutional ground rules were set for providing asylum to foreigners present on the territory of the Slovak Republic. The national legislation of the last twenty years was adopted in compliance with international treaties and the European Union instruments covering asylum matters. In the field of asylum policy, the Slovak Republic complies with its traditional pillars and supports new forms of protection following the new challenges faced by the international community. The (...) currently valid Asylum Act regulates the international protection of aliens in the Slovak Republic, by defining the conditions and procedures related to granting asylum and provision of subsidiary protection and temporary shelter. The Asylum Act also covers the rights and obligations of different categories of persons, stay in asylum facilities and, partially, the integration of persons that are granted asylum. This article describes and analyses the development of the Slovak asylum legal framework and the concept of asylum policy. Furthermore, it looks at different protection statuses granted to foreigners and finally deals with the refugee migration trends in the Slovak Republic. (shrink)

The U.S. relations to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are since the end of the Cold War revolving around achieving a state of nuclear free Korean peninsula. As non-proliferation is a long term of American foreign policy, relations to North Korea could be categorized primarily under this umbrella. However, the issue of North Korean political system also plays role as it belongs to the other important, more normative category of U.S. foreign policy which is the protection of human rights and (...) spreading of democracy and liberal values. In addition, the North Korean issue influences U.S. relations and interests in broader region of Northeast Asia, its bilateral alliances with South Korea and Japan as well as sensitive and complex relations to People’s Republic of China. As the current administration of president Donald J. Trump published its National security strategy and was fully occupied with the situation on Korean peninsula in its first year, the aim of the paper is to analyse the changes in evolution of U.S. North Korean policy under last three administrations, look at the different strategies adopted in order to achieve the same aim, the denuclearization. The paper does not provide a thorough analysis, neither looks at all documents adopted and presented in the U.S. or within the U.N. It more focuses on the general principles of particular strategies, most significant events in mutual relations as recorded by involved governmental officials and also weaknesses of these strategies as none has achieved desirable result. In conclusion, several options for current administration are drawn, however all of them require significant compromises and could be accompanied with series of setbacks dangerous for regional stability and U.S. position in the region. (shrink)