This comparative analysis of multiple variants of the aesthetics of simulacrum as equal and autonomous participants in the postmodern polylogue presents a principle of creation of a 'third reality', which unites foreign and Russian elements. Making an artifact out of an artifact leads to a theory of artistic relativism. This type of simulacra give artistic cross-cultural results with an additional aesthetic effect representing fragments of a postmodern mosaic culture.

Friendship is not often associated with citizenship, politics or civil society – and yet this contribution proposes that civic friendship may be worth consideration as an expression of peacemaking and peacebuilding: the dynamic interplay between our ‘social’ and ‘individual’ selves working towards peace and countering violence. This theological consideration of friendship deals with the interaction between individuality and sociability in the work and thought of a theologian who was deeply interested in such interplay and which may therefore be helpful in (...) theological reflection on friendship. This contribution draws on two theologians who were involved in higher education themselves – the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, who served as rector of the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the South African theologian Russel Botman, who served as rector of Stellenbosch University – from whom we may learn about friendship. (shrink)

Philosophers have studied geometry since ancient times. Geometrical knowledge has often played the role of a laboratory for the philosopher's conceptual experiments dedicated to the ideation of powerful theories of knowledge. Lorenzo Magnani's new book Philosophy and Geometry illustrates the rich intrigue of this fascinating story of human knowledge, providing a new analysis of the ideas of many scholars (including Plato, Proclus, Kant, and Poincaré), and discussing conventionalist and neopositivist perspectives and the problem of the origins of geometry. The (...) book also ties together the concerns of philosophers of science and cognitive scientists, showing, for example, the connections between geometrical reasoning and cognition as well as the results of recent logical and computational models of geometrical reasoning. All the topics are dealt with using a novel combination of both historical and contemporary perspectives. Philosophy and Geometry is a valuable contribution to the renaissance of research in the field. (shrink)

The naturalization of logic aims at a revision of mainstream logic. In this article, I contend it is an urgent task to be completed. This new project will permit a new collaboration between logic and cognitive science. This can be accomplished doing for logic what many decades ago Quine and other philosophers undertook in the case of epistemology. First of all, this article analyzes how the naturalization can be achieved thanks to some insights provided by the recent John Woods’ book (...) Errors of Reasoning: Naturalizing the Logic of Inference; important concepts that regard a naturalized logic are synthetically analyzed: errors, paradigm creep, third-way reasoning, consequence-having and consequence drawing, agent based reasoning. The article also takes advantage of my own studies, which are aimed both at exculpating the negative fallacious character of abduction and at illustrating the EC-model of it, I have recently proposed. Aiming at encouraging the project of naturalization of logic, the article specifically recommends the increase of logical research on abduction, and emphasizes how current philosophical and logical research on human inferences is indebted towards Charles Sanders Peirce, a philosopher whose importance and modernity are too often underestimated. The final part of the article will introduce an analysis of the importance of the so-called optimization of situatedness, a concept that is necessary to understand that maximization of “abducibility”, which characterizes modern science. (shrink)

This article aims at commenting in a novel way on the concept of political correctness, by showing that, even if adopting a politically-correct behavior aims at promoting a precise moral outcome, violence can be still perpetrated, despite good intentions. To afford in a novel way the problem of political correctness, I will adopt a theoretical strategy that adheres to moral stoicism, the problem of “silence”, the “fascist state of the mind” and the concept of “overmorality”, which I have introduced in (...) my book Understanding Violence. The Intertwining of Morality, Religion, and Violence: A Philosophical Stance. I will demonstrate that political correctness certainly obeys the stoic moral rule, which teaches us that we have to diminish conflicts and, so, the potential for derived violence, by avoiding to pronounce words and expressions that can be offensive and so conflict making. Unfortunately, political correctness often increases the so-called already widespread overmorality, typical of our era, and postulates too many minor moral values to be attributed to individuals and groups, which must be respected. Therefore, engaging in political correctness obscures more serious issues regarding social, political and economic life, committing a sin of abstractness and idealization. At the same time, by discouraging the use of words and expressions, the intrinsic overmoralization at work creates potential new conflicts and potential derived violence. (shrink)

Many important concepts of the calculus are difficult to grasp, and they may appear epistemologically unjustified. For example, how does a real function appear in “small” neighborhoods of its points? How does it appear at infinity? Diagrams allow us to overcome the difficulty in constructing representations of mathematical critical situations and objects. For example, they actually reveal the behavior of a real function not “close to” a point but “in” the point. We are interested in our research in the diagrams (...) which play an optical role –microscopes and “microscopes within microscopes”, telescopes, windows, a mirror role, and an unveiling role. In this paper we describe some examples of optical diagrams as a particular kind of epistemic mediator able to perform the explanatory abductive task of providing a better understanding of the calculus, through a non-standard model of analysis. We also maintain they can be used in many other different epistemological and cognitive situations. (shrink)

This paper investigates the formation and propagation of wavefunction `branches' through the process of entanglement with the environment. While this process is a consequence of unitary dynamics, and hence significant to many if not all approaches to quantum theory, it plays a central role in many recent articulations of the Everett or `many worlds' interpretation. A highly idealized model of a locally interacting system and environment is described, and investigated in several situations in which branching occurs, including those involving Bell (...) inequality violating correlations; we illustrate how any non-locality is compatible with the locality of the dynamics. Although branching is particularly important for many worlds quantum theory, we take a neutral stance here, simply tracing out the consequences of a unitary dynamics. The overall goals are to provide a simple concrete realization of the quantum physics of branch formation, and especially to emphasise the compatibility of branching with relativity; the paper is intended to illuminate matters both for foundational work, and for the application of quantum theory to non-isolated systems. (shrink)

In view of recent studies that identified certain interest groups as potential whistleblowers, we propose an integrative conceptual framework to examine whistleblower behavior by whistleblower type. The framework, dubbed the whistleblowing triangle, is modeled on the fraud triangle and is comprised of three factors that condition the act of whistleblowing: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. For a rich examination, we use a qualitative research framework to analyze 11 whistleblowing cases of corporate financial statement fraud in Canada that were publicly denounced between (...) 1995 and 2012. Our analysis indicates that whistleblowers are not only insiders but also outsiders [financial analysts, auditing firms, journalists, politicians, customers, and investors]. It also suggests that a dynamic relation may exist between whistleblowers. In addition, our findings show that most whistleblowers opt for external channels when they fail to receive an adequate response from management, seek media exposure, are interested in financial benefits resulting from the act of whistleblowing, or are interested in protecting their investment. Lastly, we propose categorizing whistleblowers into four conceptual types: protective, skeptical, role-prescribed, and self-interested. (shrink)

Ce texte est tiré de la thèse de doctorat de Nadia Taïbi, présentée à l'Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, le 29 octobre 2007, sous la direction de Jean-Jacques Wunenburger : L'expérience ouvrière de Simone Weil. La philosophie au travail, pp. 28-33. N'ayant pas pu joindre Nadia Taïbi pour lui demander son autorisation, nous espérons qu'elle ne nous en tiendra pas rigueur. 1.1.2. La pensée comme résistance L'expérience de la vie d'usine telle que Simone Weil la traduit nous paraît (...) révéler ce qu'il faut - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced its intent to strengthen enforcement of legal protections for health care providers' conscience rights. It proposed regulations that would give the DHHS Office of Civil Rights greater authority to ensure that recipients of federal funding comply with federal conscience laws. This recent development creates an opportunity for scholars and policy‐makers to revisit the perennial debate about whether and how law should protect health care providers' rights of conscience. Arguments (...) about who should be protected, what actions should be protected, and whether there should be any limitations on the exercise of conscience rights have brought us no closer to a resolution. However, there is one remaining avenue for analysis that has, surprisingly, received very little attention—the question of how providers are protected, and from what consequences. Existing U.S. conscience laws immunize health care providers from a wide range of adverse consequences—including civil liability, criminal prosecution, administrative penalties, adverse action by employers, and discrimination by private actors, among others. However, academic and public policy debates rarely acknowledge the breadth of these protections. It is essential to disentangle this network of possible protections. (shrink)

It is usually held that representative government is not strictly democratic, since it does not allow the people themselves to directly make decisions. But here, taking as her guide Thomas Paine’s subversive view that “Athens, by representation, would have surpassed her own democracy,” Nadia Urbinati challenges this accepted wisdom, arguing that political representation deserves to be regarded as a fully legitimate mode of democratic decision making—and not just a pragmatic second choice when direct democracy is not possible. As Urbinati (...) shows, the idea that representation is incompatible with democracy stems from our modern concept of sovereignty, which identifies politics with a decision maker’s direct physical presence and the immediate act of the will. She goes on to contend that a democratic theory of representation can and should go beyond these identifications. Political representation, she demonstrates, is ultimately grounded in a continuum of influence and power created by political judgment, as well as the way presence through ideas and speech links society with representative institutions. Deftly integrating the ideas of such thinkers as Rousseau, Kant, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Paine, and the Marquis de Condorcet with her own, Urbinati constructs a thought-provoking alternative vision of democracy. (shrink)

In her book Abductive Reasoning Atocha Aliseda stresses the attention to the logical models of abduction, centering on the semantic tableaux as a method for extending and improving both the whole cognitive/philosophical view on it and on other more restricted logical approaches. I will describe the importance of increasing logical knowledge on abduction also taking advantage of some ideas coming from the so-called distributed cognition where logical models are seen as forms of cognitive externalizations of preexistent in-formal human reasoning performances.

In an article published recently in this journal, one of us reconstructed how in 1899 J. J. Thomson, after having measured the mass-to-charge ratio of the corpuscle , achieved a measurement of its charge and consequently an estimate of its mass, obtaining in this manner ‘direct proof of the existence of particles smaller than the hydrogen atom’. In this paper, starting with an analysis of Zeeman's first measurements on the widening of spectral lines in a magnetic field, we show that (...) the existence of masses smaller than the atom was already a matter of discussion in early 1897, and that a qualitative estimate of the mass of the electron was made even before Thomson's measurements in 1899. In this process an important role was played by a research programme on the structure of matter carried out by Stoney in the latter part of the nineteenth century. This had in many aspects anticipated Zeeman's experimental observations, and its conclusions were in part formalized in the so-called Larmor theorem. (shrink)

Consumer-targeted sleep tracking applications (STA) that run on mobile devices (e.g., smartphones) promise to be useful tools for the individual user. Assisted by built-in and/or external sensors, these apps can analyze sleep data and generate assessment reports for the user on their sleep duration and quality. However, STA also raise ethical questions, for example, on the autonomy of the sleeping person, or potential effects on third parties. Nevertheless, a specific ethical analysis of the use of these technologies is still missing (...) so far. The aim of the current analysis is to identify the characteristics of sleep tracking apps and to explore the specific ethical aspects associated with this form of self-tracking. Firstly, the field of mobile health applications was screened for STA to explore their typical functions and target user groups. Secondly, an ethical analysis was conducted focusing on the three ethical dimensions: (1) medicalization, (2) vulnerability, and (3) relationality. The analysis indicates that these three normative dimensions are decisive for assessing STA and that the ethical profile of this technology varies greatly depending on the respective user group. As the three dimensions medicalization, vulnerability, and relationality play a distinguishing role in the use of STA, they should be especially addressed in responsible development and implementation of STA. In addition, the analysis helps to evaluate the use of STA, in terms of different risks for specific user groups, the sensitive contexts of usage, and potential interference with the intimacy of third parties. (shrink)

Résumé La situation interculturelle des jeunes issus de familles d’origine nord-africaine installées en France pose les problèmes de l’identité et des liens qui unissent les membres de la fratrie. À travers l’expérience d’une psychothérapie familiale et quelques résultats d’une étude menée sur les stratégies identitaires utilisées par les jeunes nés de parents nord-africains, l’article témoigne des différences qui existent dans la gestion des apports culturels entre les garçons et les filles dans les familles maghrébines, de l’importance de la fratrie comme (...) espace de médiation potentiel et des liens fraternels à mobiliser dans les dispositifs thérapeutiques familiaux. La création d’un dispositif de soin prenant en compte des approches diachroniques et synchroniques a ainsi permis d’appréhender et de dénouer les conflits dans la fratrie confrontée à la complexité des situations interculturelles. (shrink)

Résumé La situation interculturelle des jeunes issus de familles d’origine nord-africaine installées en France pose les problèmes de l’identité et des liens qui unissent les membres de la fratrie. À travers l’expérience d’une psychothérapie familiale et quelques résultats d’une étude menée sur les stratégies identitaires utilisées par les jeunes nés de parents nord-africains, l’article témoigne des différences qui existent dans la gestion des apports culturels entre les garçons et les filles dans les familles maghrébines, de l’importance de la fratrie comme (...) espace de médiation potentiel et des liens fraternels à mobiliser dans les dispositifs thérapeutiques familiaux. La création d’un dispositif de soin prenant en compte des approches diachroniques et synchroniques a ainsi permis d’appréhender et de dénouer les conflits dans la fratrie confrontée à la complexité des situations interculturelles. (shrink)

Recent work has shown that preschool-aged children and adults understand freedom of choice regardless of culture, but that adults across cultures differ in perceiving social obligations as constraints on action. To investigate the development of these cultural differences and universalities, we interviewed school-aged children (4–11) in Nepal and the United States regarding beliefs about people's freedom of choice and constraint to follow preferences, perform impossible acts, and break social obligations. Children across cultures and ages universally endorsed the choice to follow (...) preferences but not to perform impossible acts. Age and culture effects also emerged: Young children in both cultures viewed social obligations as constraints on action, but American children did so less as they aged. These findings suggest that while basic notions of free choice are universal, recognitions of social obligations as constraints on action may be culturally learned. (shrink)

Redirecting attention to Mill as a political thinker, Nadia Urbinati argues that this claim misrepresents Mill's thinking.

Se realizó un diagnóstico de la autonomía biótica en pacientes oncológicos, evidenciando que la mayoría no conocen, y no comprenden la carta de CI afectando la autonomía bioética. Ante esta problemática este proyecto crea dos cuadernillos uno para niños y uno para adultos. Estos cuadernillos parten y responden al reconocimiento de la condición del paciente, sus afectaciones cognitivas y emocionales, su nivel de escolaridad y su nivel de comprensión lectora. Los cuadernillos centrados en estrategias de comprensión lectora, incluyen actividades dialógicas (...) y de reconocimiento emocional para apoyar los procesos de comprensión del CI. (shrink)

This article conceptualizes corporate accountability under international law and introduces an analytical framework translating corporate accountability into seven core elements. Using this analytical framework, it then systematically assesses four models that could be used in a future business and human rights treaty: the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights model, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights model, the progressive model, and the transformative model. It aims to contribute to the BHR treaty negotiation process by clarifying different options (...) and possible trade-offs between them, while taking into account political realities. Ultimately, the article argues in favour of the BHR treaty embracing a progressive model of corporate accountability, which combines ambitious development of international law with realistic prospects of state support. (shrink)

This article takes a look at our responses to the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon from the “micro” – or grassroots – level. Specifically, it examines how our attitudes and approaches, as responders, affect the lived experience of others during this extraordinarily sensitive time of displacement. Three areas of reflection are discussed: the reductionist approach to identity, the pathologizing of those who go through suffering, and finally the exploration of a biblical understanding of integration, by looking at the parable of (...) the workers in the vineyard. In such a dynamic, restorative, and Christ-like community, both those “workers” who arrived early and those who arrived late are equally valued. (shrink)

Recent work suggests a strong connection between intuitions regarding our own free will and our moral behavior. We investigate the origins of this link by asking whether preschool-aged children construe their own moral actions as freely chosen. We gave children the option to make three moral/social choices (avoiding harm to another, following a rule, and following peer behavior) and then asked them to retrospect as to whether they were free to have done otherwise. When given the choice to act (either (...) morally or immorally), children avoided harm and abided by rules, but they endorsed their freedom to have done otherwise. When choice was restricted by adult instruction, children did not endorse their free choice and indicated feeling constrained by moral obligation in their explanatory responses. These results suggest that children believe that their moral actions afford free will, but this belief is dependent on their experience of choice. (shrink)

Die deutschen Richtlinien zur Lebertransplantation sehen vor, dass Patient*innen mit alkoholbedingten Lebererkrankungen in der Regel eine sechsmonatige Karenz nachweisen müssen, bevor sie auf die Warteliste für eine Lebertransplantation aufgenommen werden können. Die international weit verbreitete Karenzregel wurde von Beginn an sehr kritisch diskutiert, da hiermit Patient*innen eine wirksame und potentiell lebensrettende Therapie zumindest vorübergehend vorenthalten wird. Sie kommt in der Praxis einer Eingrenzung der Indikation zur Lebertransplantation gleich. Aus der medizinischen Fachliteratur lassen sich vier Interpretationsrahmen rekonstruieren, die mittels Herausstellung bestimmter (...) Aspekte eine jeweils unterschiedliche Wahrnehmung und Konzeptualisierung der sechsmonatigen Karenzregel begründen. Diese sprachlich vermittelten Deutungsmuster werden von Akteur*innen zur Eingrenzung der Indikation zur Lebertransplantation genutzt. Innerhalb dieser Interpretationsrahmen wird die sechsmonatige Karenzzeit jeweils 1) als diagnostisches Werkzeug zur Bestimmung der Regenerationsfähigkeit der Leber, 2) als prognostisches Werkzeug zur Bestimmung der Erfolgsaussichten einer Transplantation, bzw. 3) zur Bestimmung des Trinkverhaltens nach Transplantation dargestellt. In einem weiteren Rahmen wird die Karenzregel 4) als Ausdruck einer Verpflichtung zur Vermeidung von gesundheitsschädlichem Verhalten interpretiert. Aus diesen vier Interpretationsrahmen ergeben sich unterschiedliche ethische Fragestellungen, die eine systematische ethische Beurteilung der Karenzregel ermöglichen. In den ersten drei Interpretationsrahmen wird wiederum selbst die Frage nach der medizinischen Indiziertheit der Karenzregel aufgeworfen. (shrink)

BackgroundThe German guidelines for liver transplantation stipulate that every patient with alcohol-related liver disease needs to prove evidence of a 6-month abstinence period before they can be admitted to the waiting list for liver transplantation. This internationally widespread abstinence rule has been criticised as it prevents patients at least temporarily from receiving an effective and potentially life-saving therapy. This poses the question of how this abstinence rule is depicted and justified by transplantation professionals.ArgumentsIn case of the 6‑month abstinence rule, guidelines (...) are used as a tool for rationing health care. Four frames of interpretation can be reconstructed from the ethical and medical literature. Each linguistically mediated frame offers a different representation of the 6‑month abstinence rule. According to these different framings, the 6‑month waiting period is depicted (1) as a diagnostic tool to determine the regenerative capacity of the liver, (2) as a prognostic tool to determine the prospects of success of a transplantation, and (3) to determine the drinking behaviour after transplantation. In a further context, the abstinence rule (4) is interpreted as an expression of an obligation to avoid behaviour harmful to health.ConclusionThese four frames provide linguistically mediated patterns of interpretation that are used by different actors to limit the indication for liver transplantation. They give rise to different ethical questions that allow a systematic ethical assessment of the 6‑month abstinence rule. (shrink)

When individual patients' medical decisions contribute to population-level trends, physicians may struggle with how to promote justice while maintaining respect for patient autonomy. This article argues that this tension might be resolved by using the informed consent conversation as an opportunity to position patients as societal stewards.

Embedding ethics modules within computer science courses has become a popular response to the growing recognition that CS programs need to better equip their students to navigate the ethical dimensions of computing technologies like AI, machine learning, and big data analytics. However, the popularity of this approach has outpaced the evidence of its positive outcomes. To help close that gap, this empirical study reports positive results from Northeastern’s program that embeds values analysis modules into CS courses. The resulting data suggest (...) that such modules have a positive effect on students’ moral attitudes and that students leave the modules believing they are more prepared to navigate the ethical dimensions they’ll likely face in their eventual careers. Importantly, these gains were accomplished at an institution without a philosophy doctoral program, suggesting this strategy can be effectively employed by a wider range of institutions than many have thought. (shrink)

The human genome is commonly regarded as a ‘natural’ connection between all human beings, as it has been handed down to us by our predecessors. As such, it is believed to represent common heritage of humanity, e.g. a resource of outstanding value that should be the object of special protection and international concern. Some critics argue that germline manipulation would disrupt this natural heritage and that we have a duty to preserve the integrity of the human germline. However, a closer (...) look reveals that the concept of common heritage of humanity does not necessarily imply the impermissibility of germline manipulation. If it is restricted to the prevention of severe diseases, germline manipulation does not represent a threat to the unity and identity of the human species, even though this would create a new form of relationship between human beings, namely that between a designer and a genetically designed person. (shrink)

This article traces the development of the theory and practice of what is known as ‘community of inquiry’ as an ideal of classroom praxis. The concept has ancient and uncertain origins, but was seized upon as a form of pedagogy by the originators of the Philosophy for Children program in the 1970s. Its location at the intersection of the discourses of argumentation theory, communications theory, semiotics, systems theory, dialogue theory, learning theory and group psychodynamics makes of it a rich site (...) for the dialogue between theory and practice in education. This article is an exploration of those intersections, and a prospectus of its possible role in the formation and reformulation of school curriculum. It will be argued here that, when formulated as community of philosophical inquiry in particular, it offers the possibility of ‘philosophising’ the school curriculum in general, by extending the concept-work that doing philosophy entails to all of the disciplines. The article begins with an attempt at an operational definition of the term as, move to an analysis of its dynamics, offers an example of its use in a mathematics classroom, and finishes with a schematic view of its whole-curriculum and whole-school possibilities. (shrink)

In a number of very influential publications, Epstein and Hoover (among other authors) have recently argued that a thoroughly micro-foundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. However, as we show in this article, this metaphysical/social ontological approach to the debate fails to resolve the status of micro-foundations in the practice of economic modelling. To overcome this, we argue that endogenizing a model—that is, providing micro-foundations for it—correlates with making that model more complex. Specifically, we show that models with (...) more micro-foundations tend to have more parameters or variables. This matters, as there are well-established methodological reasons for preferring models with fewer parameters or variables—ceteris paribus. We therefore conclude that, from a practice-based point of view, micro-foundations are only defensible to the extent that they significantly improve the ability of the relevant model to fit the data of interest. In this way, we arrive at a practice-based, methodological reconceptualization of the debate surrounding the need for micro-foundations in economics. (shrink)

Le décryptage du génome humain autorise désormais une manipulation du vivant humain. Mû par un souci de perfection, l'homme exploite aujourd'hui ce qui participe à son essence même, son génome. La diversité intraspécifique humaine s'en trouve perturbée, la vulnérabilité génétique augmentée. Le droit se trouve donc investi d'un rôle : préserver la nature humaine. Dès lors, faut-il penser d'autres voies pour prémunir notre humanité contre les risques d'une manipulation irréfléchie de notre génome.