There are two possible realist defense strategies against the pessimistic meta-induction and Laudan’s meta-modus tollens: the selective strategy, claiming that discarded theories are partially true, and the discontinuity strategy, denying that pessimism about past theories can be extended to current ones. A radical version of discontinuity realism is proposed by Gerald Doppelt: rather than discriminating between true and false components within theories, he holds that superseded theories cannot be shown to be even partially true, while present best theories are demonstrably (...) completely true. I argue that this position, running counter both the cumulativity of science and fallibilism, is untenable; it cannot account for the success of past theories, nor for the failures of current theories, and rather than shutting the door to the pessimistic historical objections it opens it wide. The best strategy, instead, joins the selective idea there was both some truth and some falsity in discarded theories, like in current ones, with the moderate discontinuity idea that the truth rate in present best theories is much greater than in past ones. (shrink)

The contrast between the past-future symmetry of mechanical theories and the time-arrow observed in the behaviour of real complex systems doesn’t have nowadays a fully satisfactory explanation. If one confides in the Laplace-dream that everything be exactly and completely describable by the known mechanical differential equations, the whole experimental evidence of the irreversibility of real complex processes can only be interpreted as an illusion due to the limits of human brain and shortness of human history. In this work it is (...) surmised that in the description of real events it would be more reasonable to renounce exactness and completeness of mechanical differential equations, assuming that also further effects exist in nature, governed by different kinds of rules, in spite of being so weak to be directly unobservable in single motions. This surmise can explain not only the time-arrow, but also why, in particular cases, it can happen that approximate and/or statistical models represent an improvement of mechanical theories instead of an approximation: this happened for Boltzmann gas-model and also for the famous work of Max Planck on blackbody-radiation. And it also appears as a more promising “working hypothesis”, stimulating and guiding us to learn more about limits and origin of the basic equations, and also about the nature of chance and the meaning of probability, which is nowadays not clear in spite of the fundamental role it plays in physics. Particularly that kind of probability which gives the connection between quantum–mechanical differential equations and observable events. (shrink)

L'autore parte dall'analisi dei problemi etici espressi nei linguaggi della poesia, della tragedia e della storiografia, per passare poi alla lettura delle maggiori opere del pensiero antico, fornendo di ognuna puntuali introduzioni. Un'attenzione particolare, alla fine di ogni capitolo, è dedicata all'eredità moderna e al significato attuale dei problemi dell'etica antica, proponendo in modo esplicito un collegamento fra ricostruzione storica e discussione teorica contemporanea.

A discussion concerning whether to conceive Artificial Intelligence systems as responsible moral entities, also known as “artificial moral agents”, has been going on for some time. In this regard, we argue that the notion of “moral agency” is to be attributed only to humans based on their autonomy and sentience, which AI systems lack. We analyze human responsibility in the presence of AI systems in terms of meaningful control and due diligence and argue against fully automated systems in medicine. With (...) this perspective in mind, we focus on the use of AI-based diagnostic systems and shed light on the complex networks of persons, organizations and artifacts that come to be when AI systems are designed, developed, and used in medicine. We then discuss relational criteria of judgment in support of the attribution of responsibility to humans when adverse events are caused or induced by errors in AI systems. (shrink)

Background The perception of organ donation and brain death among Syrian population has not been previously explored. The goal of this study is to evaluate the attitude and knowledge of organ donation among Syrians and the willingness of this population to donate their organs. Methods We conducted a survey-based cross-sectional study in four hospitals in Aleppo, Syria in November 2019. Patient demographic, awareness of brain death; and attitude toward organ donation were collected and analyzed. Results A total of 350 individuals (...) were invited to participate in the survey among whom 303 agreed to participate in the study. The majority of our participants heard about organ donation with television, social media, and the internet being the most common sources of information. When assessing knowledge about brain death, only 40% answered 3 or more questions correctly. Fifty-eight percent of respondents agreed with the idea of organ donation and 183 would like to donate their organs one day. The leading motivation to organ donation was the desire to help, while the most common reason to refuse donation was the refusal to disfigure a dead body by removing an organ. Religious reasons were cited as motivation for organ donation by 43% of participants, and a reason for refusing to donate organs by 24%. Most respondents were unaware of the laws and legislations related to organ donation in Syria. When asked if religion and law were encouraging organ donation, 76% of respondents would donate their organs. Although more positive attitude was found in those with better brain death knowledge, this did not translate into more willingness to donate organs in this group of participants. Conclusions The promotion of organ donations from deceased donors is a necessity given the rising shortage of organs. The information provided by this study could help policy makers build future strategies to promote deceased organ donation programs and overcome current obstacles preventing such initiatives from achieving their goals. (shrink)

Criticisms à la Laudan can block the “no miracles” argument for the (approximate) truth of whole theories. Realists have thus retrenched, arguing that at least the individual claims deployed in the derivation of novel predictions should be considered (approximately) true. But for Lyons (2002) there are historical counterexamples even to this weaker “deployment” realism: he lists a number of novel predictions supposedly derived from (radically) false claims. But if so, those successes would seem unexplainable, even by Lyons’ “modest surrealism” or (...) other surrogates to realism. In fact, I argue, some of those predictions were an easy guess, or independently probable in the light of available evidence; hence, they are no counterexamples to deployment realism, for the no miracles argument wouldn’t apply to them. In other instances, pace Lyon, the prediction was actually false, and could be reinterpreted as true only by interpreting as true also the claim from which it was derived; or again, a false claim was employed in the derivation of a true prediction, but inessentially, the essential role being played by a weaker true claim. But as soon as the paradoxical air of such historical cases is explained away in any of these manners, they cease to represent counterexamples to deployment realism. If, as I suggest, all of them can be dealt with by these strategies, a theoretical claim can still be assumed to be true if it is crucial in deriving an improbable novel prediction. (shrink)

The currently most plausible version of scientific realism is probably “deployment” realism, based on various contributions in the recent literature, and worked out as a unitary account in Psillos. According to it we can believe in the at least partial truth of theories, because that is the best explanation of their predictive success, and discarded theories which had novel predictive success had nonetheless some true parts, those necessary to derive their novel predictions. According to Doppelt this account cannot withstand the (...) antirealist objections based on the “pessimistic meta-induction” and Laudan’s historical counterexamples. Moreover it is incomplete, as it purports to explain the predictive success of theories, but overlooks the necessity to explain also their explanatory success. Accordingly, he proposes a new version of realism, presented as the best explanation of both predictive and explanatory success, and committed only to the truth of best current theories, not of the discarded ones. Here I argue that Doppelt has not shown that deployment realism as it stands cannot solve the problems raised by the history of science, explaining explanatory success does not add much to explaining novel predictive success, and a realism confined to current theories is implausible, and actually the easiest prey to the pessimistic meta-induction argument. (shrink)

RESUMO: O presente artigo tem por objetivo investigar a recepção do Tratado Teológico-Político de Espinosa, bem como sua crítica da religião pelo Marquês de Sade, numa obra bastante peculiar e que desafia todas as tentativas de classificação: La Philosophie dans le Boudoir. Em seu "Quinto Diálogo", Sade insere um texto intitulado "Franceses, mais um esforço se quereis ser Republicanos". Através do emprego desse artifício metalinguístico - um livro dentro de um livro - a política é agora introduzida na alcova e (...) o leitor se dá conta de que a instrução de Eugénie não é meramente sexual, mas também uma educação filosófica e política. Por meio de sua crítica ao Cristianismo, na primeira seção do texto, Sade argumenta que a tirania e a superstição religiosa são âmbitos intimamente relacionados, e a teologia é um dos principais alicerces do poder político. ABSTRACT: This article aims to investigate the interpretation by the Marquis de Sade of Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise. Sade's interpretation appears in a very peculiar work which defies all rigid attempts of classification: La Philosophie dans le Boudoir. In the "Fifth Dialogue", Sade inserts a pamphlet entitled "Yet another effort, Frenchmen, if you would become Republicans". Through the employment of a metalinguistic device - a book inside a book - politics is now introduced into the boudoir, and the reader becomes aware that Eugénie's education is not merely sexual, but also philosophical and political. Through his critique of Christianity in the first section of the pamphlet, Sade argues that tyranny and religious superstition are closely related and that theology is one of the main foundations of political power. (shrink)

In the early 1250’s, Albert the Great wrote the De mineralibus to establish a mineralogical science based on Aristotelian epistemology. In the first instance, the Dominican master undertakes to clarify the proximal material and efficient causes of minerals. In his analysis, the examination of material causes proceeds through the evaluation of the Peripatetic and Arabic mineralogy, while the study of the efficient causes leads Albert to align the formative process of the mineral substances with the processes of the generation of (...) animals and plants. Here the physiological role of heat acting upon moisture is crucial in the context of matter acquiring form. In contrast with the mineralogical tradition, Albert assigns the role of the efficient cause of stones and metals to heat, thus laying the foundation for a general theory of the process of generation. With respect to every degree of being, heat, on the one hand, is the active quality of matter, being able to act upon the elements; on the other hand, it conveys all the natural formative principles required for the formation of a substance. (shrink)

Neste artigo, discute-se algumas das contribuições de Hannah Arendt para a reflexão acerca do fenômeno da desobediência civil. Inicialmente, interroga-se em que medida a contestação civil pode ser identificada com a objeção de consciência. Discutir essa questão permite compreender o desenvolvimento da argumentação de Arendt que visa ressaltar o sentido político dos atos de desobediência civil em oposição à caracterização negativa deste fenômeno, defendida por juristas, na tentativa de incluir pelo direito ações extralegais de contestação. Com efeito, essa leitura jurídica, (...) que se baseia na ideia de que a contestação tem por fundamento a moralidade de consciência, negligencia determinados aspectos que são fundamentais para a compreensão da desobediência civil segundo a perspectiva de Arendt, sobretudo seu caráter público, o compartilhamento de um interesse ativo no mundo e, por fim, a não-violência. Em um segundo momento, explicita-se a influência da tradição filosófica na maneira típica de se compreender a desobediência civil, sendo Sócrates e Henry Thoreau elencados por Arendt como seus interlocutores neste debate. Com esse percurso argumentativo, pretende-se mostrar alguns potencias do ensaio de Arendt que contribuem para reatualizar a discussão sobre o papel político central do ato de divergir publicamente. (shrink)

Graphs are among the most frequently used structures in Computer Science. Some of the properties that must be checked in many applications are connectivity, acyclicity and the Eulerian and Hamiltonian properties. In this work, we analyze how we can express these four properties with modal logics. This involves two issues: whether each of the modal languages under consideration has enough expressive power to describe these properties and how complex it is to use these logics to actually test whether a given (...) graph has some desired property. First, we show that these properties are not definable in a basic modal logic or in any bisimulation-invariant extension of it, like the modal μ-calculus. We then show that it is possible to express some of the above properties in a basic hybrid logic. Unfortunately, the Hamiltonian and Eulerian properties still cannot be efficiently checked. In a second attempt, we propose an extension of CTL* with nominals and show that the Hamiltonian property can be more efficiently checked in this logic than in the previous one. In a third attempt, we extend the basic hybrid logic with the ↓ operator and show that we can check the Hamiltonian property with optimal complexity in this logic. Finally, we tackle the Eulerian property in two different ways. First, we develop a generic method to express edge-related properties in hybrid logics and use it to express the Eulerian property. Second, we express a necessary and sufficient condition for the Eulerian property to hold using a graded modal logic. (shrink)

This is an attempt to sort out what is it that makes many of us uncomfortable with the perdurantist solution to the problem of change. Lewis argues that only perdurantism can reconcile change with persistence over time, while neither presentism nor endurantism can. So, first, I defend the endurantist solution to the problem of change, by arguing that what is relative to time are not properties, but their possession. Second, I explore the anti-perdurantist strategy of arguing that Lewis cannot solve (...) the problem of change, for he cannot account for how some properties are possessed by objects in time. However, I argue that this strategy fails, for if by saying that objects in time can have properties ‘timelessly’ we mean “at no particular time” and “tenselessly”, only objects outside time can have properties in that way; but if we mean “for all the time they exist”, or “essentially”, perdurantists can account for this. Finally, I argue that actually perdurantism cannot solve the problem, but for different reasons: for either it sweeps the problem under the carpet, denying change, and in general subverting our conceptual scheme in a dangerous way, or it becomes equivalent to the endurantist picture that properties are had at times. Nor perdurantism is justified by the Relativity Theory or the B-theory of time, because while endurantism is certainly comfortable with presentism, it need not be committed to it; and even if it were, presentism need not be refuted by the Relativity Theory. (shrink)

In conversation with Marilyn Strathern’s work on kinship and especially on metaphors of intellectual and reproductive creativity, this paper provides an analysis of plagiarism not as a violation of intellectual property but of the kinship relationships between author, work, and readers. It also analyzes the role of figures of kidnapped slaves and children in the genealogy of the modern concept of plagiarism.

La innovación está hoy en el centro de las políticas que los países de América Latina aplican para impulsar el desarrollo y la equidad. En este trabajo se afirma que hubo una traslación mimética de políticas e instrumentos creados en economías en las que existe una fuerte demanda de nuevos conocimientos a contextos económicos en los que tal demanda es muy escasa o nula y la sociedad tiene un amplio sector de su población con necesidades básicas insatisfechas. Se afirma que (...) una consecuencia de ello es que fueron asimiladas a las tradicionales políticas de ciencia y tecnología fortaleciendo, paradójicamente, el viejo modelo lineal al que se denostaba. Se establece además la necesidad de revisar el concepto de innovación y sus consecuencias en el plano de la equidad. Se afirma que la dinámica de la innovación puede allanar el camino a la equidad social, pero para que ello sea posible probablemente se requieran nuevos desarrollos teóricos y marcos conceptuales. (shrink)

The hermeneutical model of illusion, just as that of projection, has always been part of the psychoanalytic views of religion. The author presents a brief critical summary on this subject, and underlines that in relational psychoanalysis, the concept of illusion refers not to religion as such, but to the subjective experiences of desire and relatedness, that is, the source of the desire for God in man. Because of personal conflicts and their outcome, besides illusions one encounters also in such experiences, (...) disillusion, disappointment, and even delusion. The author, while challenging the views of many scholars taking part in this debate: a) maintains that psychoanalytic interpretation is not concerned with the question of religious truth but with the formation and transformation of the process of believing; b) calls for special attention to the fact when speaking of religious representation, the focus is on the process rather than on the objects represented; c) raises his criticism at the often used expression, "unconscious representation of God", because according to him, religion gives a name to the object of desire only when placed at the conscious and cultural level. Coherent with his basic distinction between conscious religious behaviour and the deep psychological pre-conditions, the author underlines the differences between the unconscious processes of desire and the religious concepts, particularly, between the representation of God and the concept of God; between the parental imagos and the transcendent God; and between the capacity to "believe in anything at all" and religious faith. The author concludes that in the illusion model, it is suggested that as part of religious maturity, one could construct the representation of God as something that is deeply connected with primary objects, while at the same time, assuming the capacity to take the necessary distance from personal desires and projections. (shrink)

Standard equilibrium economic models focus on interdependencies. This text develops a theory which is based on disequilibria. The model proposed is a heuristic tool that makes it possible to explore these disequilibria in relation to Western economies.