Several philosophers and psychologists have characterized belief in conspiracy theories as a product of irrational reasoning. Proponents of conspiracy theories apparently resist revising their beliefs given disconfirming evidence and tend to believe in more than one conspiracy, even when the relevant beliefs are mutually inconsistent. In this paper, we bring leading views on conspiracy theoretic beliefs closer together by exploring their rationality under a probabilistic framework. We question the claim that the irrationality of conspiracy theoretic beliefs stems from an inadequate (...) response to disconfirming evidence and internal incoherence. Drawing analogies to Lakatosian research programs, we argue that maintaining a core conspiracy belief can be Bayes-rational when it is embedded in a network of auxiliary beliefs, which can be revised to protect the more central belief from disconfirmation. We propose that the (ir)rationality associated with conspiracy belief lies not in a flawed updating method, but in their failure to converge toward well-confirmed, stable belief networks in the long run. This approach not only reconciles previously disjointed views, but also points toward more specific hypotheses explaining why some agents may be prone to adopting beliefs in conspiracy theories. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of modelling inductive inference (Gold 1967) in dynamic epistemic logic (see e.g. van Ditmarsch et al. 2007). The general purpose is to propose a semantic basis for designing a modal logic for learning in the limit. First, we analyze a variety of epistemological notions involved in identification in the limit and match it with traditional epistemic and doxastic logic approaches. Then, we provide a comparison of learning by erasing (Lange et al. 1996) and iterated epistemic (...) update (Baltag and Moss 2004) as analyzed in dynamic epistemic logic. We show that finite identification can be modelled in dynamic epistemic logic, and that the elimination process of learning by erasing can be seen as iterated belief-revision modelled in dynamic doxastic logic. Finally, we propose viewing hypothesis spaces as temporal frames and discuss possible advantages of that perspective. (shrink)

Gutenbergs tryckteknik ledde till en medierevolution som förändrades Europa. I 1500-talets början spreds litteratur, grafik och vetenskap, men också nyhetsblad om katastrofer, pamfletter om invaderande turkar och religiösa stridsskrifter. Medan mycket ännu vägde blommade renässanshumanismen genom Erasmus av Rotterdam. Han stod bakom en femtedel av Europas böcker, och skulle ge framtiden ett viktigt arv. Nina Burton skriver om Erasmus och hans tid så att man känner sig vara med när han träffar konstnärerna och de intellektuella? Albrecht Dürer, Holbein d.y., (...) Paracelsus, Thomas More och Luther? lika väl som påvar, kejsare, pedagoger och rebeller. Genom honom möter man en hel epok. Vilken var Erasmus hemlighet? I sina brev klottrade han självporträtt med dubbla ansikten, och hans förmåga att se två sidor födde ett samtal bortom all fanatism? en dröm om ett gränslöst Europa, där kultur och vetenskap knöt nya samband. Men då religiösa strider började skaka världen fick han mäktiga fiender. Erasmus visade vilken roll litteraturen kan spela i en dramatisk tid som har många likheter med vår egen. (shrink)

Vibrant Death links philosophy and poetry-based, corpo-affectively grounded knowledge seeking. It offers a radically new materialist theory of death, critically moving the philosophical argument beyond Christian and secular-mechanistic understandings. The book's ethico-political figuration of vibrant death is shaped through a pluriversal conversation between Deleuzean philosophy, neo-vitalist materialism and the spiritual materialism of decolonial, queerfeminist poet and scholar Gloria Anzaldua. The book's posthuman deexceptionalizing of human death unfurls together with a collection of poetry, and autobiographical stories. They are analysed through the (...) lens of a posthuman, queerfeminist revision of the method of autophenomenography (phenomenological analysis of autobiographical material). Nina Lykke explores the speaking position of a mourning, queerfeminine "I", who contemplates the relationship with her dead beloved lesbian life partner. She reflects on her enactment of processes of co-becoming with the phenomenal and material traces of the deceased body, and the new assemblages with which it has merged through death's material metamorphoses: becoming-ashes through cremation, and becoming-mixed-with-algae-sand when the ashes were scattered across a seabed made of fiftyfive million-year-old, fossilized algae. It is argued that the mourning "I"'s intimate bodily empathizing (theorized as symphysizing) with her deceased, queermasculine beloved life partner facilitates the processes of vitalist-material and spiritual-material co-becoming, and the rethinking of death from a new and different perspective than that of the sovereign, philosophical subject. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists both ask questions about what the world is like. How do these fields interact with one another? How should they? Naturalism Beyond the Limits of Science investigates an approach to these questions called methodological naturalism. According to methodological naturalism, when coming up with theories about what the world is like, philosophers should, whenever possible, make use of the same methodology that is deployed by scientists. Although many contemporary philosophers have implicit commitments that lead straightforwardly to methodological naturalism, (...) few have a clear understanding of how widespread and disruptive methodological naturalism promises to be for the field. By way of a series of case studies involving laws of nature, composition, time and modality, and drawing on historical and contemporary scientific developments including the discovery of the neutrino, the introduction of dark energy, and the advent of relativity theory, this book demonstrates the ways in which scientists rely on extra-empirical reasoning and how that very same extra-empirical reasoning can yield surprising results when applied to philosophical debates. Along the way, Nina Emery's investigation illuminates the complex relationship between philosophy and the sciences, and makes the case that philosophers and scientists alike would benefit from a greater understanding of the connections between the two fields. (shrink)

In Rethinking Language Arts: Passion and Practice, Second Edition , author Nina Zaragoza uses the form of letters to her students to engage pre-service teachers in reevaluating teaching practices. Zaragoza discusses and explains the need for teachers to be decision-makers, reflective thinkers, political beings, and agents of social change in order to create a positive and inclusive classroom setting. This book is both a critical text that deconstructs the way language arts are traditionally taught in our schools as well (...) as a visionary text with clear, no-nonsense directions on how to provide much needed change in our schools. (shrink)

This review covers the content of reports and discussions at the 12th Kant Readings Conference held in April 2019 and organised by the research unit of the Academia Kantiana of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad. Traditionally, Kant Readings have been thematically universal, embracing all the areas of Kant’s legacy. This time the conference focused on practical philosophy, i.e. the historical grounds and modern significance of Kant’s ethical thought as compared to other philosophical projects of the Enlightenment era. Due (...) attention was paid to the reception of the ethics of Kant and the Enlightenment by philosophers in Russia and the West. Breakout groups discussed aspects of interconnection between the Enlightenment ethics and esthetics as well as interdisciplinary problems at the interface of philosophy of politics and philosophy of education, including ways to counter various forms of intellectual enslavement. The possibilities of applying Kant’s ethical principles were discussed in close connection with the interpretation of the latest trends in the development of science and technology. It was noted that the intellectual and social communication environment of today has much in common with that of the Enlightenment era, which makes the philosophical strategy proposed during that era amenable to adaptation and development. (shrink)

A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the true self and (...) identify features that distinguish people’s understanding of the true self from their understanding of the self more generally. In particular, we consider recent findings that the true self is perceived as positive and moral, and that this tendency is actor-observer invariant and cross-culturally stable. We then explore possible explanations for these findings and discuss their implications for a variety of issues in psychology. (shrink)

I present an argument for the view that laws ground their instances. I then outline two important consequences that follow if we accept the conclusion of this argument. First, the claim that laws ground their instances threatens to undermine a prominent recent attempt to make sense of the explanatory power of Humean laws by distinguishing between metaphysical and scientific explanation. And second, the claim that laws ground their instances gives rise to a novel argument against the view that grounding relations (...) are metaphysically necessary. (shrink)

This article gives a critique of the methodology of OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It is argued that PISA is invalidated by the fact that the methodology chosen does not constitute an adequate operationalisation of the question of inquiry. Therefore, contrary to the claims of PISA, PISA is not an assessment of the ‘knowledge and skills for life’ of students, but only of ‘knowledge and skills in assessment situations’. Even this latter form of assessment is not fully reliable, (...) however, because of problems at the level of concrete test items and because of an inherent confusion of relative and absolute evaluation. (shrink)

Environmental displacement is a global phenomenon affecting millions of people. Due to climate change and the corresponding sea-level rise, it is estimated that about eight million of indigenous people of Pacific Islands will be forced to settle elsewhere by 2050. This is one of many examples confirming the need to ascertain the legal status of environmental refugee in international law. The term ‘environmental refugee’ is controversially discussed and internationally not recognised. First, this article discusses the reasons for reluctance of international (...) organisations to accept this term. Second, noting the cold reception of this term at the regional and state levels, a discussion on whether fears associated with this term are based on solid arguments becomes pertinent. Third, this article outlines the possibility of granting refugee status under international law, especially under human rights and environmental law. Fourth, academic discourses will be examined as they play a crucial role in the conceptual development of ‘environmental refugee’ and, to some academics, the existing refugee definition already encompasses ‘environmental refugees’. Taking into account the developments of the environmental and human rights regime, this article concludes that time is ripe for international law to provide refugee status to environmentally displaced people. (shrink)

Using data obtained during a retrospective interview study of 30 women who had undergone genetic testing—BRCA1/2mutation searching—this paper describes how women, previously diagnosed with breast/ovarian cancer, perceive their role in generating genetic information about themselves and their families. It observes that when describing their motivations for undergoing DNA testing and their experiences of disclosing genetic information within the family these women provide care based ethical justifications for their actions. Finally, it argues that generating genetic information and disclosing this information to (...) kin raise different types of ethical issues. The implications of these findings for ethical debates about informed choice in the context of genetic testing are discussed. (shrink)

I argue against the common and influential view that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic. The problem with this view, I claim, is not that it conflicts with some antecedently plausible metaphysics of chance or that it fails to capture our everyday use of ‘chance’ and related terms, but rather that it is unstable. Any reason for adopting the position that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic is also a reason for adopting (...) a much stronger, and far less attractive, position. I suggest an alternative account, according to which chances are probabilities that play a certain explanatory role: they are probabilities that explain associated frequencies. 1 Introduction2 A Paradigm Case3 The Incompatibilist’s Criterion4 Against the Incompatibilist’s Criterion5 The Explanatory Criterion6 Conclusion. (shrink)

Durante la edad escolar, los sujetos van logrando una madurez sintáctica, evidenciada en el incremento de lacomplejidad estructural de los textos que producen. Diversas teorías han dado cuenta de dicha complejidad(Hunt, 1970; Katzenberger, 2004; Nir & Berman, 2010), sosteniendo que la misma está vinculada con eltipo de relaciones interclausulares dentro del texto. Asimismo, corroboran que dicha complejidad no sólo seincrementa con el nivel educativo, sino también está guiada por la modalidad discursiva. A partir de estapropuesta, el proyecto FONDECYT 1100600, se (...) planteó el objetivo de describir el desarrollo de la sintaxisoral, considerando otra perspectiva de la complejidad: la diversidad interclausular. Para ello, se aplicarondos tareas de elicitación (narración y explicación), a 250 estudiantes de kinder, 3º y 6º básico, Iº y IVº mediode Valparaíso y Santiago. Luego de ser transcritos y analizados, se reconocieron en los textos las relacionesinterclausulares y se estableció un índice de diversidad clausular, en el entendido de que a medida que seusaban más formas para relacionar las cláusulas, mayor sería la complejidad sintáctica de los mismos. Losresultados muestran un incremento de la diversidad clausular a medida que aumenta el nivel educativo, sinembargo, su significatividad se da sólo entre algunos niveles. Además, entre ambos tipos de textos no semanifiestan grandes diferencias, salvo en Kínder y en IVº Medio. Estos hallazgos permiten vislumbrar que lamadurez sintáctica implica tener mayor cantidad de estructuras gramaticales y utilizarlas estratégicamentepara construir un determinado texto. (shrink)

Carpendale & Lewis (C&L) provide a convincing argument for how children construct social understanding through social interaction. Certainly mothers are important in family interaction; however, sibling interaction may also be key in the process of developing social understanding. In particular, the highly affective and reciprocal dynamics of the sibling relationship in both positive and conflictual interaction may be critical.

The term cosmopolitan is increasingly used within different social, cultural and political settings, including academia, popular media and national politics. However those who invoke the cosmopolitan project rarely ask whose experience, understanding, or vision of cosmopolitanism is being described and for whose purposes? In response, this volume assembles contributors from different disciplines and theoretical backgrounds to examine cosmopolitanism's possibilities, aspirations and applications--as well as its tensions, contradictions, and discontents--so as to offer a critical commentary on the vital but often neglected (...) question: whose cosmopolitanism? The book investigates when, where, and how cosmopolitanism emerges as a contemporary social process, global aspiration or emancipatory political project and asks whether it can serve as a political or methodological framework for action in a world of conflict and difference. (shrink)

_Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable? The Screen Arts in the Digital Age_ Edited by Thomas Elsaesser and Kay Hoffmann Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998. ISBN: 90 5356 282 6 Hb; 90 5356 312 1 Pb 312 pp.

Jacques Derrida _Echographies de la television. Entretiens filmes_ Paris: Editions Galilee / Institut national de l'audiovisuel, 1996 ISBN: 2-7186-0480-8 187 pp.

We discuss Hintikka’s Thesis [Hintikka 1973] that there exist natural language sentences which require non–linear quantification to express their logical form.

This article offers a comprehensive review of Political Choreographies, Decolonial Theo-ries, Trans Bodies, the latest book, a volume edited by Marina Gržinić and Jovita Pristovšek in intensive collaboration with Nomusa Makhubu and Tjaša Kancler, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2023. This volume takes as its starting point the body as a structural signifier, which is conceptualized in seven chapters. Each of them addresses the question of movement, politics, revolt, action, etc., in a variety of ways to de-link ourselves (especially (...) us Whites) from colonial modernity as the organizing principle not only of capitalism but of a whole range of processes that emanate from modernity, i.e., forms of domination and oppression such as racism, sexism, Eurocentrism, and environmental destruction. What makes this book special, however, is not only the positions presented but also the way in which they are presented. Each conversation begins with a carefully selected starting point, linked to the interlocutor’s* work and accompanied by a rich citation system of references and additional information. This opens up the formation of epistemic counter-narratives that confront the violent history of capitalism and form possibilities for yet unidentified bodies, movements, politics, and political action as future potentialities. (shrink)

The article aims to map the contemporary techno-social networks, together with delineation of the algorithmic governmentality, computational unconscious, the epistemic structure of the Eurocentric matrix of power haunted by its own repetition of the constant abyss of horrors, only to search for gestures of resistance. Gestures of resistance, contrary to the false conviction of capitalist realism, can be found everywhere, including in Jordan Peele's Nope (2022). Through a variety of motifs, themes, and cultural and cinematic references, Peele creates a resistance (...) image, i.e., an image that resists the historical trajectory of the violence of the digital colonial matrix of knowledge. In particular with Nope, in which the history of racial violence is disentangled by evoking the relation between the entanglement of capital and epistemic violence embodied in an all-devouring predator UFO. But Nope is also about visualizing silenced histories. Indeed, to strive to capture UFO with the camera is to break away from modernity as a totalizing onto-epistemology and in this register generating a false universal subject of a Man. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to describe researchers', health-care providers' and other stakeholders' views of ethical review and research governance procedures. The study design involved qualitative semi-structured interviews. Participants included 60 individuals who either undertook research in the subspecialty of cancer genetics (n = 40) or were involved in biomedical research in other capacities (n = 20), e.g. research governance and oversight, patient support groups or research funding. While all interviewees observed that oversight is necessary to protect research participants, (...) ethical review and research governance (ERG) arrangements were described negatively throughout these interviews. Interviewees identified a number of problems with ERG, including: over-bureaucratization, over-standardization of information requirements for different types of research, a lack of standardization in the types of information required by different committees for the same research and a lack of consistency in different committees' responses. A number of solutions were proposed including streamlining application procedures and harmonizing committees' responses and information requirements. Recent reports suggest that ethical review procedures and research governance arrangements threaten the possibility of undertaking clinical research in the UK, hence the introduction of the Integrated Research Application System (IRAS) is long overdue. However, while IRAS may solve some of the problems identified by interviewees, it remains to be seen to what extent it will impact upon the very negative perceptions of ethics and research governance procedures reported here. (shrink)

In her paper, “The Non-Governing Conception of Laws,” Helen Beebee argues that it is not a conceptual truth that laws of nature govern, and thus that one need not insist on a metaphysical account of laws that makes sense of their governing role. I agree with the first point but not the second. Although it is not a conceptual truth, the fact that laws govern follows straightforwardly from an important (though under-appreciated) principle of scientific theory choice combined with a highly (...) plausible claim about the connection between scientific theory choice and theory choice in metaphysics. I present and defend this argument and then show how the resulting understanding of governance gives rise to an especially strong version of recent explanatory circularity arguments against Humeanism about laws of nature. Finally, I present three options for a further understanding of the governance relation that are compatible with my argument. (shrink)

Introduction. Artificial intelligence is a trend of NBIC-convergence and information technologies in particular. Since the 70s of the 20th century it has been a subject of intense debate in the scientific community. A direct indicator of the importance of the topic is the publication dynamics and the annual increase in the number of indexed articles. According to the statistics, Western social sciences are in the top five industry leaders. The purpose of the study is to analyze the Scopus database and (...) identify the key mythologems of the scientific discourse of social sciences (in the field of artificial intelligence). The latter go beyond the boundaries of research norms and standards and express non-reflective research intentions. Methods. The reference base of scientific arti- cles includes works published during the decade (2010—2020). Methods for detecting verbal mark- ers and content analysis were used. At the same time, the emphasis was mainly placed not on quan- titative, but on qualitative analytics as well. The basis for the choice of markers was the frequency of their use in abstracts (abstracts), headings (titles) and keywords. The selection of verbal markers was made in accordance with two conditionally desig- nated categories: «trends», or frequency engineering, technical and social and humanitarian terms, expressing the direction of research practic- es and «mythologemes», or elements of a second- ary semiotic system. Scientific novelty of the study. Scientific novelty is due to the specification of the research subject. In the West, the direction of the so-called «Tech- nological mythology», which focuses mainly on the discourses of art and ideological documents is being developed. The analytics of scientific content makes it possible to remove the existing research limitations of the subject and identify prospects for further study of modern mythology. Content analysis made it possible to identify some extreme- ly general formulations of technological mythologe- mes, which can be refined and concretized. Results. Following the results of the study, a de- scription of three metatrends was made — techno- logical, social and anthropological. All key directions within the boundaries of each trend are listed. At the same time, it is argued that the anthropotrend has a relatively smaller share in the discourse of Western social sciences. As a debatable aspect of the study, five scientific mythologemes were iden- tified and conditionally designated. Interpretations and characteristic examples of the functioning of each are offered. Conclusion. The technological trend is constituted by the data of technical sciences and engineering developments with a social orientation. Sociotrend is determined by the spectrum of technology application areas. The conclusion is made about the diffusion of two trends and the discourses serving these trends. Discursively, the technotrend serves to construct a strictly scientific discourse based not on abstract, but on specific and precise proposi- tions. Particular attention is paid to the discursive mainstream of «smartization», which is characteris- tic of the scientific content of the second decade of the 21st century. Emphasis is placed on the anthro- pological risks of extrapolating «smartization» to specialized practices. (shrink)

In the modern world, there is a growing interest in the problem of forming a person’s identity. The category of “identity,” despite the diversity of theoretical and empirical research, remains complex. The article is devoted to the study of transformations of the collective identity of Ukrainian citizens after the Revolution of Dignity, in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war in Eastern Ukraine. In the period from 2013 to 2019, there have been radical changes in many spheres of public life in (...) Ukraine. The Revolution of Dignity, the annexation of the Crimea, and the war in the Donbas all led to significant political, legal, and socio-economic and socio-cultural changes that contributed to the processes of the transformation of the collective identity of Ukrainian citizens. The aim of this article is to study the dynamics of the changes in the collective identity of Ukrainian citizens after the Revolution of Dignity through the prism of the integrative approach. (shrink)

The feature-matching approach pioneered by Amos Tversky remains a groundwork for psychological models of similarity and categorization but is rarely explicitly justified considering recent advances in thinking about cognition. While psychologists often view similarity as an unproblematic foundational concept that explains generalization and conceptual thought, long-standing philosophical problems challenging this assumption suggest that similarity derives from processes of higher-level cognition, including inference and conceptual thought. This paper addresses three specific challenges to Tversky’s approach: (i) the feature-selection problem, (ii) the problem (...) of cognitive implausibility, and (iii) the problem of unprincipled tweaking. It subsequently supports key insights from Tversky’s account based on recent developments in Bayesian modeling of cognition. A novel computational view of similarity as inference is proposed that addresses each challenge by considering the contrast class as constitutive of similarity and selecting for highly informative features. In so doing, this view illustrates the ongoing promise of the feature-matching approach in explaining perception, generalization and conceptual thought by grounding them in principles of probabilistic inference. (shrink)

Das Sterben wird längst nicht mehr verdrängt und verschwiegen, es gehört vielmehr zu den ausgiebig erörterten Themen unserer Zeit. Viele Debatten ranken sich um Sterbehilfe und um die Frage, was einen guten Tod ausmacht. Dabei scheinen wir uns bemerkenswert einig zu sein, dass gut stirbt, wer bis zuletzt er oder sie selbst bleibt. Wir wünschen uns, so die These dieses Buches, unseren 'eigenen Tod': ein Lebensende, wie es uns entspricht, ein authentisches Sterben. Dieses Ideal leitet in unterschiedlicher Weise die Palliativversorgung (...) und die Sterbehilfebewegung an. Doch Nina Streeck zeigt, dass sich das, was so erstrebenswert klingt, als anspruchsvoll entpuppt. Die Idee des 'eigenen Todes' droht sich in ihr Gegenteil zu verkehren: in einen Zwang zum authentischen Sterben."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The article attempts to answer the question concerning the possibility of reinterpreting tapas and locating it in the risk society. The authors, referring to Ulrich Beck’s concept, look for the ways out of the “kingdom of shadows”, possessed by a constant sense of threat, both in the global and local sphere. The article takes a cross-sectional look at tapas in old Indian literature, looking for possibilities of its contemporary implementation on non-Indian grounds, as a response to the deteriorating psycho-physical state (...) of 21st century society. (shrink)

What interests us here is the fact that Babel as a figure of confusion became almost the self-named epithet of 17th-century England. All the participants of the debate that took place during the revolution or the postbellum associated Babel with the conceptual chaos of the civil war. The lively “pamphlet war” then brought a pluralistic forum for public opinion in which all the confused languages of politics were equal. When all could read the Bible, everyone could read the story of (...) Babel in their own way. But nothing could reconcile those who read the divine right of kings in it with those who read the divine right of the people in it. In the 17th century, Babel was seen as a figure of discursive confusion, as the confusion was experienced in the form of fanatical languages of arguing sects. Liberalism, if the English-speaking world is acknowledged to be its cradle, constitutes an attempt to escape the impasse of the discursive Babel via the legalistic means of the state of law. According to Hobbes, the irreversible multitude of languages makes one ask what public order can reconcile nominalism in the sphere of political opinion with the social Diaspora of individuals released from the bonds of status or corporation. How to build a state while one Christian faith is disintegrating into many sects fighting each other? How to build a state in the chronic pluralism of the social world and multifaceted dissociation of the traditional community? This is why Babel as a figure of confusion provides the primary conceptual capacity for the liberal organization of the world. (shrink)

I argue against the common and influential view that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic. The problem with this view, I claim, is not that it conflicts with some antecedently plausible metaphysics of chance or that it fails to capture our everyday use of ‘chance’ and related terms, but rather that it is unstable. Any reason for adopting the position that non-trivial chances arise only when the fundamental laws are indeterministic is also a reason for adopting (...) a much stronger, and far less attractive, position. I suggest an alternative account, according to which chances are probabilities that play a certain explanatory role: they are probabilities that explain associated frequencies. (shrink)

Tempuutn Senarikng is one Indonesian mythical folklore telling the origins of humans in the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung tribal communities. This research aims to represent the cultural values in Tempuutn Senarikng. This study is qualitative research using an ethnographic approach and interactive model data analysis techniques. The results show that Tempuutn Senarikng contains cultural values of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung tribal communities explaining that (1) the nature of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people’s life is to try to avoid (...) being cursed by praying and performing ceremonial rituals. (2) The nature of the work of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung tribes is oriented to being a living. The work commonly carried out by the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung people is farming. (3) Human nature in space and time is oriented to the future so what they do now will also have an impact on the future. However, they do not forget the past as part of life lessons. Therefore, they always make offerings in the form of sacrificial animal blood and cooked food in every ceremony to be grateful for what they have obtained in life, to avoid disaster, and to facilitate all hopes. (4) The nature of human relations with nature is by always maintaining harmony. They always conduct various ceremonial activities to get rid of disturbing spirits from human life, and vice versa, they are always accompanied by good spirits. In other words, the folklore of Tempuutn Senarikng is the forerunner of the traditions and culture of the Dayak Benuaq and Tunjung tribal communities continuing to be undertaken to this day.Contribution: The article results can be used in scientific research in verbal literature, folklore, and ethnology fields. (shrink)

Some theories of quantum mechanical phenomena endorse wave function realism, according to which the physical space we inhabit is very different from the physical space we appear to inhabit. In this paper I explore an argument against wave function realism that appeals to a type of simplicity that, although often overlooked, plays a crucial role in scientific theory choice. The type of simplicity in question is simplicity of fit between the way a theory says the world is and the way (...) the world appears to be. This argument can be understood as one way of spelling out the so-called “incredulous stare objection” that is sometimes leveled against surprising metaphysical theories. (shrink)

There is a widespread notion, both within the sciences and among the general public, that mental deterioration can rob individuals of their identity. Yet there have been no systematic investigations of what types of cognitive damage lead people to appear to no longer be themselves. We measured perceived identity change in patients with three kinds of neurodegenerative disease: frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Structural equation models revealed that injury to the moral faculty plays the primary role in (...) identity discontinuity. Other cognitive deficits, including amnesia, have no measurable impact on identity persistence. Accordingly, frontotemporal dementia has the greatest effect on perceived identity, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has the least. We further demonstrated that perceived identity change fully mediates the impact of neurodegenerative disease on relationship deterioration between patient and caregiver. Our results mark a departure from theories that ground personal identity in memory, distinctiveness, dispositional emotion, or global mental function. (shrink)

In recent years, several countries have enacted guidelines and/or mandatory laws to increase the presence of women on the boards of companies. Through these regulatory interventions, the aim is to eradicate the social and labor grievances that women have traditionally experienced and which has relegated them to smaller-scale jobs. Nevertheless, and despite the advances achieved, the female representation in the boardroom remains far from the desired levels. In this context, it is now necessary to enhance the advantages of board gender (...) diversity from both ethical and economic points of view. This article examines the relation between board gender diversity and economic results in Spain: the second country in the world to legally require gender quotas in boardrooms and historically characterized by a minimal female participation in the workforce. Based on a sample of 125 non-financial firms listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2009, our findings show that in the period analyzed the increase of the number of women on boards was over 98 %. This suggests that compulsory legislation offers an efficient framework to execute the recommendation of Spanish codes of good governance by means of the increase in the number of women in the boards of firms. Furthermore, we find that the increase in the number of women on the boards is positively related to higher economic results. Therefore, both results suggest that gender diversity in boardrooms should be incremented, mandatory laws being a key factor to do so. (shrink)

Actualism is the view that only actually existing things exist. Presentism is the view that only presently existing things exist. In this paper, I argue that being an actualist without also being a presentist is not as easy as many philosophers seem to think. A common objection to presentism is that there is an unavoidable conflict between presentism and relativity theory. But actualists who do not wish to be presentists cannot point to this relativity objection alone to support their position. (...) Unless they have some antecedent reason for thinking that actualism is more plausible than presentism, anyone who is moved by the relativity objection to give up presentism should be moved by a related objection to give up actualism as well. If there is a reason to be an actualist without also being a presentist, it must go beyond the relativity objection to presentism. (shrink)