Nowadays and worldwide, the attention is focused on coronavirus disease, and its consequences on mental health are yet to be fully understood. It is important to capture differences in anxiety levels among populations, groups, and the gender-related variation. Therefore, the present study had two main purposes: to characterize the levels of state anxiety and trait anxiety by examining gender-related, sleep-related, and physical activity-related variations in a nonrepresentative sample of the Portuguese population during the first weeks of lockdown; and to explore (...) the possible relationship between trait anxiety and state anxiety and the possible role of gender as a moderator. This cross-sectional study comprised 1,332 Portuguese adults recruited online during COVID-19 outbreak measures. Participants answered to sociodemographic data and the Portuguese version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Gender differences were found in both state anxiety and trait anxiety with females presenting higher values. People reporting doing more physical activity than usual during COVID-19 lockdown presented lower levels of state anxiety. People reporting more satisfaction with the quality of sleep presented lower levels of both state anxiety and trait anxiety. Variation associated with the physical activity level was significantly different among groups in both state anxiety and trait anxiety. When analyzing in more detail separating the levels of physical activity, participants performing moderate and high physical activity showed lower values of state and trait anxiety compared to participants with low physical activity. Participants performing high physical activity also showed lower values of state anxiety compared to participants performing moderate physical activity. Higher levels of trait anxiety were related to higher levels of state anxiety, but this association was not moderated by gender. Interventions aiming to support people psychologically during this outbreak should consider anxiety as well as gender and possible behavioral changes in sleep and physical activity, for example. Health professionals should not only consider the anxiety related to the situation we are living but also address trait anxiety to help overcome COVID-19 psychological consequences. (shrink)

This study explored the associations between physical activity anxiety levels, and the perception of satisfaction of basic psychological needs, during Coronavirus Disease 2019 lockdown. Thus, 1,404 participants ranging from 18 to 89 years old completed a questionnaire in the period between 1st and 15th April 2021. The survey included sociodemographic data and the following validated instruments: the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, the Basic Need General Satisfaction Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed to examine variation in (...) anxiety levels and BPN satisfaction according to PA category. Spearman’s Rho correlations coefficients were used to determine the association between anxiety levels and psychological needs. Individuals presenting a higher level of PA revealed lower levels of anxiety-state. Differences between elements from different levels of PA were found for the autonomy, competence, and relatedness psychological needs, suggesting that those who feel their BPN as more satisfied have higher levels of PA. The study found statistically significant correlations between anxiety-state and the satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These findings support the importance that PA has in the anxiety levels during social isolation, emphasizing the importance of multidisciplinary teams in an individual-based approach. (shrink)

The connections between Adam Smith and Catholic Social Teaching raise several questions. The principle of subsidiarity adopted in CST, according to which higher associations should not replace subordinate organizations on what the latter can do, seems to be in line with the idea that governmental intervention in the market sphere should be restricted to the minimum required, in line with what is typically seen as Smith’s view. But the principle of the common good would also recommend intervention from political authorities (...) in order to ensure that the common good is achieved. Here I shall argue that this question must be addressed taking into account another principle of CST, the principle of solidarity, and also the basic principle of CST, regarding human dignity. To do so, it is necessary to understand how the various principles of CST spring from the notion of imago Dei in CST, which is behind the notion of human dignity. This leads to a relational conception of human beings which can be fruitfully articulated with Smith’s moral philosophy and political economy. (shrink)

In this article I draw upon the social ontologies developed by John Searle, Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer and Tony Lawson in order to distinguish between power and leadership. To do so, I distinguish the different organizing principles behind natural phenomena, collective phenomena and institutional phenomena, and argue that an understanding of those different organizing principles is essential to a clearer conceptualization of power and leadership. Natural power and cultural power, as I argue, depend upon the organizing principles of natural phenomena, (...) and differ depending on whether those organizing principles have been transformed by humans, in which case it becomes cultural power, or not, in which case it simply is natural power. Leadership emerges with the ability of making other humans share mental states through collective intentionality. Institutional power, in contrast, is connected to the creation of a deontology of rights and obligations that provide what Searle calls desire-independent reasons for action. (shrink)

Rom Harré criticizes critical realism for ascribing causal powers to social structures, arguing that it is human individuals, and not social structures, that possess causal powers, and that a false conception of structural causation undermines the emancipatory potential of critical realism. I argue that an interpretation of the category of process as the spatio-temporalization of the category of structure, which underpins much evolutionary theory, provides the conceptual tools to explain how the critical realist transformational model of social activity can escape (...) from Harré’s criticism, leading to a general conception of social development within which various types of evolutionary processes can be identified as particular cases. I then argue that Tony Lawson’s PVRS model provides an evolutionary perspective that enables the conceptualization of coercive power as selective pressure. (shrink)

Educational policy and social sciences researchers have been studying dishonest behaviors among students for a long time. In this bibliometric study we examine the extant literature on academic dishonesty until 2017. We also analyze the specific case of the literature on plagiarism since it is arguably one of the most common academic dishonest behavior. We aim at identifying the intellectual structure of the field of academic dishonesty and plagiarism. Results show that Donald L. McCabe and Richard L. Marsh appear as (...) the most productive authors. Furthermore, Whitley, 235–274, 1998) “Factors associated with cheating among college students: A review”, and Pennycook, 201–230, 1996), entitled “Borrowing others’ words: Text, ownership, memory, and plagiarism” are the most cited publications on academic dishonesty and on plagiarism, respectively. Additionally, a strong connection between the McCabe and Treviño articles emerged from the co-citation analysis on academic dishonesty, and also a strong relationship between Pennycook, 201–230, 1996) and Pecorari, 317–345, 2003), suggesting that these articles are strongly connected. Results suggest that these are the most influential authors and articles of the field. (shrink)

The notion of fitness is usually equated to reproductive success. However, this actualist approach presents some difficulties, mainly the explanatory circularity problem, which have lead philosophers of biology to offer alternative definitions in which fitness and reproductive success are distinguished. In this paper, we argue that none of these alternatives is satisfactory and, inspired by Mumford and Anjum’s dispositional theory of causation, we offer a definition of fitness as a causal dispositional property. We argue that, under this framework, the distinctiveness (...) that biologists usually attribute to fitness—namely, the fact that fitness is something different from both the physical traits of an organism and the number of offspring it leaves—can be explained, and the main problems associated with the concept of fitness can be solved. Firstly, we introduce Mumford and Anjum's dispositional theory of causation and present our definition of fitness as a causal disposition. We explain in detail each of the elements involved in our definition, namely: the relationship between fitness and the functional dispositions that compose it, the emergent character of fitness, and the context-sensitivity of fitness. Finally, we explain how fitness and realized fitness, as well as expected and realized fitness are distinguished in our approach to fitness as a causal disposition. (shrink)

This book symposium comprises a précis of Nuno Venturinha’s Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology together with four critical commentaries on different aspects of the book by Marcelo Carvalho, João Vergílio Gallerani Cuter, Marcos Silva and Darlei Dall’Agnol, and the author’s replies.

Boffa non-well-founded set theory allows for several distinct sets equal to their respective singletons, the so-called ‘Quine atoms’. Rieger contends that this theory cannot be a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. He argues that, even after granting that there are non-well-founded sets, ‘the extensional nature of sets’ precludes numerically distinct Quine atoms. In this paper we uncover important similarities between Rieger’s argument and how non-rigid structures are conceived within mathematical structuralism. This opens the way for an objection against Rieger, whilst (...) affording the theoretical resources for a defence of Boffa set theory as a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. (shrink)

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Entre os muitos textos em que Leibniz introduz e apresenta o princípio de razão suficiente está, como se sabe, o do parágrafo 7 dos Princípios da Natureza e da Graça. O texto diz: "Jusqu'icy nous n'avons parlé qu'en simples Physiciens: maintenant il faut s'elever à la Metaphysique, en nous servant du Grand Principe, peu employé communement, qui porte que rien ne se fait sans raison suffisante, c'est à dire que rien n'arrive, sans qu'il soit possible à celuy qui connoitroit assés (...) les choses, de rendre une Raison qui suffise pour determiner, pourquoy il en est ainsi, et non pas autrement. Ce principe posé, la premiere question qu'on a droit de faire, sera, Pourquoy il y a plustôt quelque chose que rien? Car le rien est plus simple et plus facile que quelque chose. De plus, supposé que des choses doivent exister, il faut qu'on puisse rendre raison, pourquoy elles doivent exister ainsi, et non autrement" (LEIBNIZ, 1978a, 602). O texto é evidentemente muito denso e inclui uma enorme multiplicidade de aspectos que deveriam ser analisados, por exemplo, o pouco uso que se faz de um princípio que, todavia, está sempre presente em tudo o que pensamos e fazemos; o facto de ter de haver uma razão para haver algo e para haver o que há; o facto de o nada ser mais fácil do que o ente; que se entende, afinal, por razão, que é que queremos dizer quando dizemos que há razão para qualquer coisa; que é que a noção de suficiência acrescenta (ou não acrescenta) à noção de razão (isto é, uma razão insuficiente é, nalgum sentido do termo, ainda uma razão?), etc. O problema é, aliás, bem actual. D. Parfit, em On What Matters, escreve logo na primeira página do primeiro capítulo: "It is hard to explain the concept of reason, or what the phrase 'a reason' means. Facts give us reasons, we might say, when they count in favour of our having some attitude, or our acting in some way. But 'counts in favour of' means roughly 'gives a reason for'. Like some other fundamental concepts (…), the concept of a reason is indefinable in the sense that it cannot be helpfully explained merely by using words"(PARFIT, 2011, p. 31). Ou seja, não é claro a que é que corresponde a noção de razão, e apesar de Parfit ignorar tranquilamente o que a tradição pensou sobre o assunto, pode valer a pena regressar a Leibniz, também porque Leibniz se vangloria com frequência de dizer que o princípio de razão suficiente é o seu princípio. (shrink)

Inserido na colecção Temas de História de Portugal, cujo objectivo, balizado pelos seus coordenadores, Isabel Cluny e Nuno Gonçalo Monteiro, é “colocar à disposição dos leitores interessados textos sintéticos, mas actualizados, sobre grandes temas da História de Portugal”, A Cultura das Luzes em Portugal, Temas e Problemas é um ensaio-síntese da autoria de Ana Cristina Araújo e pretende gizar uma análise interpretativa da permeabilidade do espaço cultural português às novas correntes filosófi...

Theistic modal realism argues for an extension of Lewis's modal realism capable of accommodating a theistic God. By affording elegant solutions to many atheistic challenges, the view is of great theoretical utility for the theist. However, it has been objected that within a Lewisian framework God cannot be causally efficacious on pain of collapsing intuitively distinct modal notions. In this article I explain why these worries are ill-founded and show how God's existence and causal power over the pluriverse can be (...) consistently understood. If successful, the proposal offers a congenial theistic way to adopt modal realism and address the atheological problems. (shrink)

Resumo: A violência doméstica contra as mulheres é um mal que atinge todo o mundo e que é prati- cado comumente no interior das residências, pelas pessoas de seu convívio íntimo. Apesar da grande subnotificação, as polícias estaduais recebem alta demanda de denúncias dessa natureza. Diante das dificuldades de atuação policial inerentes a essa violência, uma estratégia de prevenção e intervenção a ser considerada é a entrevista motivacional: uma abordagem colaborativa que visa a mudança de comportamento baseada em estímulos com (...) foco na ambivalência. Baseamo-nos na premissa de que essa abordagem vem mudando comportamentos nocivos em várias áreas com resultados promissores, inclusive na violência doméstica, podendo, assim, contribuir para a interrupção do ciclo da violência. Esse artigo, fundamentado em pesquisa bibliográfica de abordagem qualitativa, analisa em que medida a entrevista motivacional pode ser aplicada pela polícia nos casos de violência doméstica contra a mulher. (shrink)

In the field of cybernetic systems and more specifically in robotics, one of the fundamental objectives is the detection of anomalies in order to minimize loss of time. Following this idea, this paper proposes the implementation of a Hybrid Intelligent System in four steps to impute the missing values, by combining clustering and regression techniques, followed by balancing and classification tasks. This system applies regression models to each one of the clusters built on the instances of data set. Subsequently, a (...) variety of balancing techniques are applied to improve the classifier’s ability to discern whether it is in an error or a normal state. These techniques support to obtain better classification ratios in which a robot is close to error and allow us to bring the behavior back to a normal state. The experimentation is performed using a modern and public data set, which has been extracted from a component-based robotic system, in which different anomalies are induced by software in their components. (shrink)

As it is well known, mobile phones have become a basic gadget for any individual that usually stores sensitive information. This mainly motivates the increase in the number of attacks aimed at jeopardizing smartphones, being an extreme concern above all on Android OS, which is the most popular platform in the market. Consequently, a strong effort has been devoted for mitigating mentioned incidents in recent years, even though few researchers have addressed the application of visualization techniques for the analysis of (...) malware. Within this field, the present work proposes the extension of a new technique called Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots to visualize Android malware datasets. More precisely, the novel Beta-Hebbian Learning (BHL) method is applied for the first time and validated under the frame of Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots, in conjunction with clustering methods. The informative visualization achieved provides a picture of the structure of the malware families, allowing subsequent analysis of their organization. To validate the Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plot extension and its tuning, the popular Android Malware Genome dataset has been used in the experimental setting. Promising results have been obtained, suggesting that BHL applied in combination with clustering techniques in Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots are a viable resource for the visualization of malware families. (shrink)

In this paper we deal with a not so slight misunderstanding about Heidegger’s conception of science(s). We try to show that instead of a so-called «anti-scientism» we find rather a critical thought on the part of Heidegger. Critical in two senses: one that implies a questioning and an explicitation of the pre-scientific, non-scientific foundations (or conditions) of science and the analysis of the relation between sciences as «regional ontologies» and philosophy as «fundamental ontology»; another that suggests the «need of another (...) thinking», an alternative (certainly discussible) to the predominant calculative thinking of «the era of science». (shrink)

The phenomenological reading of psychoanalysis undertook by Michel Henry is surprising in several ways. By inscribing Freud in the philosophical lineage and by affirming that his theses on the unconscious take over (resume), ignoring it, two opposite movements of western metaphysics, Henry intends to show that psychoanalysis has to overcome the primacy of representation in order to get rid of the contradictions that traverse it and that make it a prisoner of a philosophy of consciousness. Without fully rejecting the Freudian (...) theory, the author of the Genealogy of Psychoanalysis reformulates the meaning of the meta-psychological notions according to his theses on the cogito, subjectivity and the auto-affection of the living. In this article we retraced the stakes of this redefinition of drives, affect and the unconscious considering his reflexions on repression. (shrink)

While the notion of chance has been central in discussions over the probabilistic nature of natural selection and genetic drift, its role in the production of variants on which populational sampling takes place has received much less philosophical attention. This article discusses the concept of chance in evolution in the light of contemporary work in evo-devo. We distinguish different levels at which randomness and chance can be defined in this context, and argue that recent research on variability and evolvability demands (...) a causal understanding of variational probabilities under which development acquires a creative, rather than a constraining role in evolution. We then provide a propensity interpretation of variational probabilities that solves a conceptual confusion between causal properties, variational probabilities and extant variation present in the literature, and explore some metaphysical consequences that follow from our interpretation, specifically with regards to the nature of developmental types. 2.1Mutational randomness 2.2Morphological randomness 2.3Adaptive randomness3Variability and Phenotypic Probabilities 3.1The RNA model as a model for evo-devo4Evolvability and the Probability of Evolving5Variational Propensities in Evo-Devo 5.1Individuating variational propensities 5.2Developmental types6Conclusion. (shrink)

Criticisms of the “container” model of pregnancy picturing female and embryo as separate entities multiply in various philosophical and scientific contexts during the last decades. In this paper, we examine how this model underlies received views of pregnancy in evolutionary biology, in the characterization of the transition from oviparity to viviparity in mammals and in the selectionist explanations of pregnancy as an evolutionary strategy. In contrast, recent evo-devo studies on eutherian reproduction, including the role of inflammation and new maternal cell (...) types, gather evidence in favor of considering pregnancy as an evolved relational novelty. Our thesis is that from this perspective we can identify the emergence of a newhistoricalindividual in evolution. In evo-devo, historical units are conceptualized as evolved entities which fulfill two main criteria, their continuous persistence and their non-exchangeability. As pregnancy can be individuated in this way, we contend that pregnant females are historical individuals. We argue that historical individuality differs from, and coexists with, other views of biological individuality as applied to pregnancy (the physiological, the evolutionary and the ecological one), but brings forward an important new insight which might help dissolve misguided conceptions. (shrink)

Mainstream game theory explains cooperation as the outcome of the interaction of agents who permanently pursue their individual goals. Amartya Sen argues instead that cooperation can only be understood by positing a type of rule-following behaviour that can be out of phase with the pursuit of individual goals, due to the existence of a collective identity. However, Sen does not clarify the ontological preconditions for the type of social behaviour he describes. I will argue that Sen's account of collective identity (...) can be best interpreted in the light of John Searle's notion of collective intentionality, while Sen's explanation of rule-following behavior and agency is best understood using the critical realist transformational model of social activity. (shrink)

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This book approaches classic epistemological problems from a contextualist perspective. The author takes as his point of departure the fact that we are situated beings, more specifically that every single moment in our lives is already given within the framework of a specific context in the midst of which we understand ourselves and what surrounds us. In the process of his investigation, the author explores, in a fresh way, the works of key thinkers in epistemology. These include Bernard Bolzano, René (...) Descartes, Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl, Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Wittgenstein, but also contemporary authors such as Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose, David Lewis, Duncan Pritchard, Ernest Sosa and Charles Travis. Some of the topics covered are attributions of knowledge, the correspondence theory of truth, objectivity and subjectivity, possible worlds, primary and secondary evidence, scepticism, transcendentalism and relativism. The book also introduces a new contextualist thought-experiment for dealing with moral questions. Contextualism has received a great deal of attention in contemporary epistemology. It has the potential to resolve a number of issues that traditional epistemological approaches cannot address. In particular, a contextualist view opens the way to an understanding of those cognitive processes that require situational information to be fully grasped. However, contextualism poses serious difficulties in regard to epistemic invariance. This book offers readers an innovative approach to some fundamental questions in this field. (shrink)

This text consists of replies to commentaries by Michael Williams, Duncan Pritchard and Javier González de Prado on my book Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology.

Violence against women is a crime that causes countless victims all over the world. Specially when it occurs within the domestic and familiar environment, usually at home and perpetrated by people who are intimately related to the victims, calling the police might not be an option. Despite that, the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State answers around five thousand calls every month reporting cases of domestic violence against women. But how can the police improve the prevention of such invisible (...) crimes? How to prevent repetition? How to interrupt the cycle of violence? Based on a collaborative approach with stimuli to the behavioral change, the Motivational Interviewing has been broadly used in several areas, including domestic violence. Considering that this approach may contribute to the interruption of the domestic violence cycle, this research how it can be used by the police to tackle and prevent these crimes. Rio de Janeiro State – Brazil, was chosen as the scenario of research considering its leading position in reports of violence against women in the country. The Military Police of this state, is the subject of research, playing an interventive role in the response to emergency calls but also providing the follow-up of the applicable protective measures. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 21 A historical sequence is said to be hyperfactual whenever it contains facts that have been proved to exist twice, that is, they exist under two alternative courses of events: the factual and the counterfactual. In such cases, we may verify whether multiple courses of action lead to the same outcome. Drawing upon an idea from Nelson Goodman, each section of this article highlights a different type of hyperfactual sequence: those resulting from the turbulence of historical (...) turning points; those resulting from long term historical sequences; and those resulting from competing courses of action. The final section conveys how hyperfactuals represent the resistance of the multiple layers of history to the formalism of subjunctive conditionals. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Individual in the Period Prior to the Theory of the Will to Power The Individual and Individuality in the Theory of the Will to Power Conclusion.

Psychodrama is an effective psychotherapeutic model but interventions with adolescents require age-tailored techniques that maximize engagement and facilitate communication processes. This study describes a novel adaptation of a therapeutic mask technique to psychodrama with adolescents. Over the course of eight group sessions of psychodrama, five adolescents created their own mask and explored its therapeutic use. Their experiences were captured at the end of each session with the Helpful Aspects of Therapy form, and at the end of the study with the (...) Clinical Change Interview. Awareness/insight/self-understanding, empowerment and relief were the most significant aspects experienced by the adolescents, along with perceived increase of calmness and world connection, satisfaction in interpersonal communication and better emotional expression and regulation. The mask technique was experienced as a playful and engaging task that facilitated insight and interpersonal communication. Findings provide preliminary evidence on the clinical utility of mask-based psychodrama with adolescents. (shrink)

This article provides a critical reexamination of Blaise Pascal’s fragment on the “eternal silence of infinite spaces”, challenging the conventional objections, notably those by Paul Valéry. It presents an analytical journey through the philosophical and existential dimensions of Pascal’s text, exploring the unique interplay between human solitude and cosmic silence. The discussion navigates the intricate relationship between individual perception and the overarching sense of existential dread evoked by the universe’s vastness. This exploration is enriched by contrasting Pascal’s insights with broader (...) philosophical contexts, including references to Kierkegaard and the concept of the ‘music of the spheres’. Ultimately, the paper offers a nuanced interpretation of Pascal’s work, emphasizing its enduring relevance in understanding the human condition within the unfathomable expanse of the universe. (shrink)

Entre os muitos textos em que Leibniz introduz e apresenta o princípio de razão suficiente está, como se sabe, o do parágrafo 7 dos Princípios da Natureza e da Graça. O texto diz: "Jusqu'icy nous n'avons parlé qu'en simples Physiciens : maintenant il faut s'elever à la Metaphysique, en nous servant du Grand Principe, peu employé communement, qui porte que rien ne se fait sans raison suffisante, c'est à dire que rien n'arrive, sans qu'il soit possible à celuy qui connoitroit (...) assés les choses, de rendre une Raison qui suffise pour determiner, pourquoy il en est ainsi, et non pas autrement. Ce principe posé, la premiere question qu'on a droit de faire, sera, Pourquoy il y a plustôt quelque chose que rien? Car le rien est plus simple et plus facile que quelque chose. De plus, supposé que des choses doivent exister, il faut qu'on puisse rendre raison, pourquoy elles doivent exister ainsi, et non autrement". O texto é evidentemente muito denso e inclui uma enorme multiplicidade de aspectos que deveriam ser analisados, por exemplo, o pouco uso que se faz de um princípio que, todavia, está sempre presente em tudo o que pensamos e fazemos; o facto de ter de haver uma razão para haver algo e para haver o que há; o facto de o nada ser mais fácil do que o ente; que se entende, afinal, por razão, que é que queremos dizer quando dizemos que há razão para qualquer coisa; que é que a noção de suficiência acrescenta à noção de razão, etc. O problema é, aliás, bem actual. D. Parfit, em On What Matters, escreve logo na primeira página do primeiro capítulo: "It is hard to explain the concept of reason, or what the phrase 'a reason' means. Facts give us reasons, we might say, when they count in favour of our having some attitude, or our acting in some way. But 'counts in favour of' means roughly 'gives a reason for'. Like some other fundamental concepts, the concept of a reason is indefinable in the sense that it cannot be helpfully explained merely by using words". Ou seja, não é claro a que é que corresponde a noção de razão, e apesar de Parfit ignorar tranquilamente o que a tradição pensou sobre o assunto, pode valer a pena regressar a Leibniz, também porque Leibniz se vangloria com frequência de dizer que o princípio de razão suficiente é o seu princípio. (shrink)

This text brings together replies to three commentaries on my Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology (Springer, 2018) written by Modesto Gómez-Alonso, Anna Boncompagni and Marcin Lewiński.

Assuming that Aristotelian ethical thought is specifically related to the problem of stability and permanency of Polis, this paper researches the relationship between the human soul and the ethical-political order. Ethical life is described as an on-going process whereby we learn how to think and desire, due to the experience of each particular situation. Ethics shows the human life as a progressive assimilation of ethical-political order in which one becomes the man one is. But, on the other hand, it also (...) shows that any order owes itself to the character of men who take part in it. Interiorising of customs – the purpose of ethical process of personal constitution – forms the man (character is built from the communitarian experience). The virtuous man’s soul is the strongest guarantee againstruination that always threatens Polis. The affirmation of a good life as a happy life in virtue – as the permanent and stable activity according to virtue – assures political order’s stability and the permanence of the Polis. This leads to a reflection about how much Politics owes Ethics: the possibility of the most esteemed idea in Aristotelian political discourse (the permanence of Polis) depends on the ethical process of human soul’s construction. The soul belongs to the order just as the order belongs to the soul. Seen as a virtue, Justice is a certain configuration of the soul (of desiring, thinking and even of feeling) of a man. The abandonment of that incarnate old conception of Justice is strictly related to the contemporary crisis of Law, whose weaknesses in legitimacy and efficacy are evident. (shrink)

The focus of social simulation on representing the social world calls for an investigation of whether its implementations are inherently value-laden. In this article, I investigate what kind of thing implementation is in social simulation and consider the extent to which it has moral significance. When the purpose of a computational artefact is simulating human institutions, designers with different value judgements may have rational reasons for developing different implementations. I provide three arguments to show that different implementations amount to taking (...) moral stands via the artefact. First, the meaning of a social simulation is not homogeneous among its users, which indicates that simulations have high interpretive malleability. I place malleability as the condition of simulation to be a metaphorical vehicle for representing the social world, allowing for different value judgements about the institutional world that the artefact is expected to simulate. Second, simulating the social world involves distinguishing between malfunction of the artefact and representation gaps, which reflect the role of meaning in simulating the social world and how meaning may or not remain coherent among the models that constitute a single implementation. Third, social simulations are akin to Kroes’ techno-symbolic artefacts, in which the artefact’s effectiveness relative to a purpose hinges not only on the functional effectiveness of the artefact’s structure, but also on the artefact’s meaning. Meaning, not just technical function, makes implementations morally appraisable relative to a purpose. I investigate Schelling’s model of ethnic residential segregation as an example, in which different implementations amount to taking different moral stands via the artefact. (shrink)

Neste artigo analisa‑se a Máxima de La Rochefoucauld “l’esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur”. O esclarecimento da noção de coração passa por uma análise dos mecanismos do inconsciente, pela investigação do que se entende por corpo e da sua relação com o conceito de coração. Estuda‑se a oposição entre espírito e coração, como formas de “legislação” contrárias entre si, e como se produz o seu apaziguamento.

In this paper the use of mathematics in economics will be discussed, by comparing two approaches to mathematics, a Cartesian approach, and a Newtonian approach. I will argue that while mainstream economics is underpinned by a Cartesian approach which led to a divorce between mathematics and reality, the contributions of key authors of the Cambridge tradition, like Marshall, Keynes and Sraffa, are characterised by a Newtonian approach to mathematics, where mathematics is aimed at a study of reality. Marshall was influenced (...) by the Newtonian approach that still characterised many aspects of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, where the emphasis was on geometrical and mechanical examples rather than on symbolic (Cartesian) mathematics. Keynes, who criticised (Cartesian) symbolic mathematics, was indeed an admirer of Newton and of his method. Sraffa's mathematical constructions are also in line with the Newtonian approach where arithmetic and geometry were strictly separated, since Sraffa's mathematical constructions typically use arithmetic without engaging in the mixture between geometry and arithmetic that occurs in the Cartesian approach. View the Open Peer Discussion of this paper ». (shrink)

Background: Psychedelics are known for their powerful mental effects due to the activation of 5HT-2A receptors in the brain. During the 1950s and 1960s, research was conducted on these molecules until their criminalization. However, their clinical investigation as therapeutic tools for psychiatric disorders has revived the deontological ethics surrounding this subject. Questions arise as research on their therapeutic outcome becomes a reality. We aim to explore deontological ethics to understand the implications of psychedelics for the clinician, patient, and society. Results: (...) A total of 42 articles were considered for this review. Methods: A methodological search of psychedelic studies from 2017 to 2022 was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, EBSCOhost, and ScienceDirect to address the deontological ethics of clinical psychedelic use. Conclusion: Psychedelics need to be culturally contextualized, epistemic harm minimized and represented to ensure informed consent. Open data and commissions are needed to ensure safe and equal distribution. (shrink)

Warming up prior to competition is a widely accepted strategy to increase players’ readiness and achieve high performances. However, pre-match routines are commonly based on empirical knowledge and strongly influenced by models emerging from elite team practices. The aim of the present study was to identify and analyze current pre-match warm-up practices in elite futsal. Forty-three elite players were analyzed during their pre-match warm-up routines during the Portuguese Futsal Cup Final 8. Warm-up tasks were classified according to duration, type of (...) activity, sequence, and structure. External load variables included the total distance covered, total distance covered per minute, running distance per minute, sprinting distance per minute, number of accelerations per minute, and number of decelerations per minute. Results highlighted that warm-up routines lasted for 27.5 ± 9.2 min and included nine major different tasks. Open-skill activities were prioritized by coaches; competitive and non-competitive futsal-specific tasks were included in 90% of the total warm-up routines, with higher focus on non-competitive tasks. The intensity progressively increased during warm-ups, mainly because of the higher number of accelerations and decelerations per minute. Pre-match warm-up routines strongly endorse futsal-specific and representative tasks in order to establish pre-match settings able to prepare players for the upcoming game. When designing pre-match warm-up routines, coaches should be aware that duration, sequence, and type of tasks may affect players’ acute performance and readiness. (shrink)

In this article I address the question of whether corporations should be considered as part of the basic structure of society as defined in Rawls’s Theory of Justice. To do so, it becomes necessary to understand which institutions are crucial for defining Rawls’s basic structure of society. I will argue that a social ontology aimed at understanding how human institutions influence various aspects presupposed in Rawls’s basic structure of society can help addressing this topic. To do so, I shall draw (...) upon the social ontology elaborated by Searle, who follows an approach that is particularly suitable for showing how Rawls’s basic structure of society already contains an institutional setting that must take corporations into account in its very formulation, due to the implications of the activities of the corporation for distributive justice. (shrink)

A actual igreja paroquial de Santa Catarina, do antigo convento da congregação de São Paulo da Serra d’Ossa, é sem dúvida uma das mais ricas de Lisboa, e essa opulência, para além do seu recheio decorativo, passa também pela riqueza do seu programa iconográfico. Sendo originalmente igreja conventual de uma congregação eremítica, dedicada ao Santíssimo Sacramento, esta circunstância reflecte-se naturalmente no seu programa decorativo. Assim, é precisamente esta dupla vertente (a eucarística e a eremítica) que marca o seu complexo programa (...) iconográfico, que mantém, ainda hoje, a sua grandeza e plena integridade. (shrink)