Philosophy of Social Science

This chapter aims to make analytical political philosophy part of existing discussions about the role of numbers in the workings of political institutions that already cut across many other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. To do that, it will first explore the prominent ‘capability approach’ to justice, which is characterised by scepticism towards excessive precision in law- and policy-making. Given the close link between precision and quantification, the loudest voice from political philosophy will therefore turn out to be (...) one of warning against the use of numbers in political decision-making. However, the chapter will also discuss powerful objections to the capability approach that, building on the work of John Rawls, stress the importance of public justification and, in turn, simplifying devices in political decision-making. Those objections will be used to demonstrate that quantification can play functions that are very important from a normative perspective. To further support its claim that under certain circumstances, numerical tools might well be the best way of making political decisions, the chapter will use as a case study the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, an administrative body in charge of appraising health technology for use in the British National Health Service. (shrink)

A consensus is emerging in the philosophy of science that value judgements are ineliminable from scientific inquiry. Which values should then be chosen by scientists? This paper proposes a novel answer to this question, labelled the public reason view. To place this answer on firm ground, I first redraw the boundaries of the political forum; in other words, I broaden the range of actors who have a moral duty to follow public reason. Specifically, I argue that scientific advisors to policy (...) makers have that duty—a duty that is needed to create a barrier against any nonpublic values that scientific researchers might let enter their work. Next, I specify how scientific advisors should approach value judgements to satisfy public reason, arguing that they should work within a conception of justice that is political and reasonable in several distinct senses. Scientific researchers at large should instead communicate their value judgements by following norms of transparency that facilitate scientific advisors’ public reasoning. Finally, I contrast my account with the dominant response to the which-values question, which focuses instead on citizens’ values, demonstrating that that response shares several problematic features with the heavily criticised external conception of public reason. (shrink)

The concept of pluriculturalism is a relatively novel one that has yet to be fully explored. It is based on the principles of plurilingualism, which focuses on the individual's capacity to acquire multiple abilities and competencies in terms of cultural and linguistic engagements. From a theoretical perspective, the concept emerged at the advent of the pragmatist turn in language, as well as from socio-linguistic studies. It reflects the breakdown of the one-culture man at the juncture and intersection of identities in (...) the context of the global outbreak. The individual’s concealed modularity and capacity to prioritize an identity within a cluster of affiliations revealed an emerging activity at the base of inter-social reality. As a result, a more finely tuned description of sociocul- tural phenomena enables pluriculturalism to transcend the limitations of multiculturalism, which is perceived as a more static picture. While multiculturalism sought to identify the foundation for a mutual dialogue at societal contacts, pluriculturalism demonstrates the potential for such a dialogue as individual repertoires. A crucial difference can be observed in terms of political management. While multiculturalism is oriented towards the institutional preservation and integration of a guest culture within a host country, pluriculturalism allows for a move towards an emergent planning. The latter is based on constraint-driven strategies that aim to facilitate individual abilities to engage in self-generating phenomena. This approach encourages the formation of living systems or networks. (shrink)

This habilitation thesis explores the foundations of scientific discovery by examining the roles of language, conceptual structures, and artificial intelligence in knowledge production. It contributes to the emerging field of the philosophy of scientific discovery by addressing fundamental questions: What constitutes a scientific discovery? What structural features characterize discovery processes? How do language and naming practices shape scientific progress? And to what extent can machines participate in or even independently generate discoveries? Drawing from case studies in biology, epistemology, and AI (...) research, this work argues that scientific discovery is a structured process encompassing three core elements: finding, acceptance, and knowledge. Special attention is given to declarative speech acts in the validation of discoveries, the role of ambiguity and naming in the evolution of scientific terminology, and the potential for artificial agents to engage in meaning-making and scientific inference. By integrating perspectives from the philosophy of science, language, and mind, this work lays the groundwork for a systematic and interdisciplinary approach to understanding scientific discovery. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of economic capital and risk management in Islamic finance. The concept of risk sharing explores economic capital from an Islamic perspective and compares it with conventional financial theory. The book also presents alternative models and practical examples to strengthen the regulation and supervision of the Islamic banking system, addressing critical policy challenges related to economic capital in Islamic finance, especially in countries with dual banking systems.

AI and Education in China: Imagining the Future, Excavating the Past authored by Jeremy Knox examines the relationship of AI and education in China by investigating the sociotechnical imageries in state policies, the thriving development of private sectors, both through the historical and political lenses. In the book, he examines holistically visions of AI-driven education in China through analyzing a wide range of key events and policies such as the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and the market reform (...) in the late 1970s. -/- " Kingfisher the Wise replies solemnly– Straight hook was once used to catch... an emperor."- In THE WEIRDEST FISH HOOK, , Wild Wise Weird: The Kingfisher Story Collection, Vuong (2025) -. (shrink)

John Searle’s social ontology distinguishes between linguistic and non-linguistic institutional facts. He argues that every instance of the latter is created by declarative speech acts, while the former are exceptions to this far-reaching claim: linguistic phenomena are autonomous, their meaning is “built in,” and this is necessary, Searle argues, to avoid “infinite regress.” In this essay I analyze Searle’s arguments for this linguistic exceptionalism and reveal its flaws. My method is to follow Searle’s argument closely and comprehensively so as to (...) avoid, insofar as is possible, a selective reading of his argument in my favor. Against Searle’s position, I argue that linguistic phenomena are not exceptions to his general theory of institutional facts, for they too always require supplementary representations in order to exist. Language itself is analogous to all other institutions and infinite regress turns out to be unavoidable. (shrink)

Most definitions of cooperation provide sufficient but not necessary conditions. This paper describes a form of minimal cooperation, corresponding to mass actions implying many agents, such as demonstrations. It characterizes its intentional, epistemic, strategic, and teleological aspects, mostly obtained from weakening classical concepts. The rationality of minimal cooperation turns out to be part of its definition, whereas it is usually considered as an optional though desirable feature. Game-theoretic concepts thus play an important role in its definition. The paper concludes by (...) answering concrete questions about what should and should not be called cooperation. (shrink)

Philosophers have become increasingly aware of the difficulties that plague accounts of kinds with objectively determined boundaries, and generally recognise that scientific taxonomies are shaped by human pragmatic interests and non-epistemic values. Against this trend, we propose an account of kinds conceived as dynamic entities, characterised by qualitatively distinct and robust trajectories originating from bifurcation events in the development of complex systems. We argue that the Homeorhetic Dynamic Kinds account (HDK) can be applied to systems investigated in a variety of (...) disciplinary contexts, ranging from biology, medicine, and the social sciences. Shifting the focus from a synchronic (homeostatic) to a dynamic and processual (homeorhetic) perspective, we show that HDK allows a better characterisation of discontinuities among kinds. We then outline its implications for pluralism, particularly how HDK can help us understand how scientific categories are shaped both by ontological aspects of developmental trajectories and by pragmatic, value-laden considerations. (shrink)

Humanizing AI is one of the most pressing issues in the development and use of artificial intelligence in recent years, and many scholars have highlighted the critical need for emphasizes humanistic values as a core foundation for developing and using AI for societal goods. Here, human subjectivity should be in the forefront AI development and integration, because “while algorithmic knowledge of humans can be vast and can outperform their own knowledge, it remains foreign to their subjectivity”, noted Razinsky (2023). Numerous (...) research works have attempted to apply the achievements of social sciences and humanities in making sense of AI development. Among these is Humanizing Artificial Intelligence: Psychoanalysis and the Problem of Control, edited by Fabio Tollon Possati, who pioneers applying psychoanalytic theories on AI and algorithms. Possati refers to this as “an odd couple,” a pairing he has explored in depth because he believes that focusing on neuropsychoanalysis and affective neuroscience, rather than solely on cognitive science, could yield more positive outcomes in AI development (Possati, 2021). (shrink)

Deploying an algorithmically informed policy is a significant intervention in society. Prominent methods for algorithmic fairness focus on the distribution of predictions at the time of training, rather than the distribution of social goods that arises after deploying the algorithm in a specific social context. However, requiring a ‘fair’ distribution of predictions may undermine efforts at establishing a fair distribution of social goods. First, we argue that addressing this problem requires a notion of prospective fairness that anticipates the change in (...) the distribution of social goods after deployment. Second, we provide formal conditions under which this change is identified from pre-deployment data. That requires accounting for different kinds of performative effects. Here, we focus on the way predictions change policy decisions and, consequently, the causally downstream distribution of social goods. Throughout, we are guided by an application from public administration: the use of algorithms to predict who among the recently unemployed will remain unemployed in the long term and to target them with labor market programs. Third, using administrative data from the Swiss public employment service, we simulate how such algorithmically informed policies would affect gender inequalities in long-term unemployment. When risk predictions are required to be ‘fair’ according to statistical parity and equality of opportunity, targeting decisions are less effective, undermining efforts to both lower overall levels of long-term unemployment and to close the gender gap in long-term unemployment. (shrink)

The study explores an approach to the philosophy of the sacred, tracing its presence from early recorded history to contemporary socio-political structures. The sacred is examined as a fundamental component of social organization, influencing social identities, institutions, and state legitimacy. -/- A key hypothesis introduced is the genetically determined centre of the sacred in the human brain, which evolved 50,000–70,000 years ago and functions archetypally, shaping emotions such as reverence, indignation at desecration, and numinous experiences. The sacred extends beyond traditional (...) religion into secular domains, including ideologies and eschatological narratives in modern societies. -/- The study also examines the role of trust and legitimacy in state stability, challenging N. Luhmann’s theory by arguing that trust operates beyond mere communication mechanisms and requires a fourth, sacred environment to maintain political order. The collapse of modern states (e.g., USSR, Libya, Syria) is linked to failures in reproducing trust. Furthermore, the paper introduces the concept of egregores – self-reproducing sacred structures that sustain collective belief systems, vital for the autopoiesis of political entities. -/- This work expands the philosophy of the sacred, linking it to macroevolutionary processes, the structuring of social identities, and the survival mechanisms of states. (shrink)

Performativity refers to the phenomenon that scientific conceptualisations can sometimes change their target systems or referents. A widely held view in the literature is that scientists ought not to deliberately deploy performative models or theories with the aim of eliciting desirable changes in their target systems. This paper has three aims. First, I cast and defend this received view as a worry about autonomy-infringing paternalism and, to that end, develop a taxonomy of the harms it can impose. Second, I consider (...) various approaches to this worry within the extant literature and argue that these offer only unsatisfactory responses. Third, I propose two positive claims. Manipulation of target systems is (a) not inherently paternalist and can be unproblematic, and is (b) sometimes paternalist, but whenever such paternalism is inescapable, it has got to be justifiable. I generalise an example of modelling international climate change coordination to develop this point. (shrink)

Dans le présent article, Maurice et Orensanz dialogueront sur quelques thèmes clés de l’œuvre de Bunge. L’objectif de ce dialogue est de faire avancer le programme métascientifique. Les principaux points abordés peuvent être présentés sous la forme d’une série de questions : est-il possible de prouver que le monde extérieur existe ? Qu’est-ce que la matière ? La relation partie à tout est-elle transi-tive ? Quelle est la différence entre les systèmes et les assortiments ? Les objets fictifs ont-ils une (...) fonction dans l’ontologie ? Bien qu’il s’agisse des sujets princi-paux, plusieurs autres points seront abordés tout au long de cet échange. (shrink)

Governments and social scientists are increasingly developing machine learning methods to automate the process of identifying terrorists in real time and predict future attacks. However, current operationalizations of “terrorist”’ in artificial intelligence are difficult to justify given three issues that remain neglected: insufficient construct legitimacy, insufficient criterion validity, and insufficient construct validity. I conclude that machine learning methods should be at most used for the identification of singular individuals deemed terrorists and not for identifying possible terrorists from some more general (...) class, nor to predict terrorist attacks more broadly, given intolerably high risks that result from such approaches. (shrink)

In his new book, La société automatique, Bernard Stiegler departs from a philosophical tradition that opposes autonomy and automatization so as to position automatization at the core of biological, social, and technical forms of life. Responding to the rise of the digital—as the increasing automatization of processes of selection through computational means—Stiegler’s project challenges us to recognize contemporary life as automatic. This shift in approach inevitably recalibrates the ontogenetic grounds of contemporary culture, and necessitates a reconsideration of sociocultural practices from (...) the standpoint of the digital modes of algorithmic existence that are enacted within our midst. -/- Anaïs Nony: Thank you very much, Bernard Stiegler, for having me in Paris today, in your Institute for Research and Innovation. You just finished a new book titled La société automatique. Can you explain what you mean by “automatic society,” and especially that element of it that refers to the self, autos (αὐτός) in Greek? What does it mean to apply this concept to the social order? -/- Bernard Stiegler: Thank you for these questions. First I must say that what I call automatic society is produced by the technology of automatism that is digital technology. (shrink)

This chapter revisits the metaphilosophical critique offered in The Racial Contract (Mills 1997). My analysis explicates Mills’s characterization of the “Racial Contract”—and non-ideal theory more broadly—as a conceptual bridge. I consider three questions: (a) what is the nature of the domains it connects, (b) what is the function and orientation of the bridge, (c) what is the relationship between once isolated domains after a bridge has been constructed? In answering these questions, I outline several features of the bridge’s construction, which, (...) though seemingly necessary for its functionality as a bridge, nonetheless compromise its structural integrity. Taking the discipline of philosophy as the primary subject of analysis, I advance an alternative conception of The Racial Contract. I argue that in constructing a bridge, Mills offers a critical cartography of the discipline itself. I contextualize these observations in light of Mills’s metaphilosophical views as they shifted over time and conclude with an invitation to explore new possibilities for non-ideal theory as a methodology of continued necessity. (shrink)

Charles W. Mills (1951 - 2021) was considered by many to be the most well-known philosopher specializing in political philosophy and critical philosophy of race. This is the first collection of essays to critically examine the key themes of Mills's philosophy across his major works. The chapters in this volume engage with major themes such as the racial contract, non-ideal theory, metaphysics of race, epistemology of ignorance, and corrective justice. They also explore Mills's engagement with philosophical figures including Frederick Douglass, (...) W. E. B. Du Bois, Maria Lugones, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and John Rawls. Furthermore, the contributors seek to uncover unexplored terrain which may be illuminated by applying many of Mills's key insights. The Philosophy of Charles W. Mills will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in political philosophy, philosophy of race, Africana philosophy, and Black political thought. (shrink)

AI-powered technology can both promote accuracy and hide the standards of measurement and circulation of information. It can also produce models that are opaque and hard to access. As such, the new paradigm of AI asks to pounder about societal values and sets of priorities we want to promote, especially as these technologies are further deployed in times of warfare. The systemic tracking of people’s life and the opaqueness of the models designate a new paradigm in the formation of truth, (...) as censorship is enabled on a new scale. (shrink)

An introduction to sociological theories -- Marx and marxism -- Max weber -- Emile Durkheim -- Interpretive sociology : action theories -- Language, discourse and power in modernity : Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault -- Social structures and social action -- Feminist and gender theories -- Sociology and its publics.

El propósito de este estudio es analizar las principales causas de los movimientos poblacionales en Colombia como consecuencia de factores ambientales, en especial, del cambio climático, en vista de discernir una distinción no solo conceptual, sino metodológica entre dos categorías de movimiento poblacional: la migración forzada y el desplazamiento forzado. De este modo, se dará cumplimiento a los siguientes objetivos específicos: 1) examinar la concordancia entre los factores causales que configuran temporalmente los fenómenos de migración y de desplazamiento forzado y (...) 2) elucidar si todo desplazamiento forzado está oculto en un evento migratorio. (shrink)

This study addresses the analysis of the main lexical patterns, mostly in the form of adverbial locutions and idioms, which could be classified as meteorological metaphors (or meteo-metaphors) used in the Spanish digital sports press and tries to find out if there is a specific sport in which metaphors that use weather phenomena to describe or characterize aspects of sports stand out. From a quasi-experimental approach, a method of content analysis is used on a generated corpus based on the 20 (...) most common meteorological phenomena reported by the Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET) and the Sistema de Notificación de Observaciones Atmosféricas Singulares (SINOBAS) (System of Notification of Singular Atmospheric Observations); as corpus we analyze the sports section of the digital edition of the Spanish free newspaper 20minutos, the most read newspaper in Spain, in April 2022, according to GfK DAM (the official measure of digital media consumption in Spain). The study is limited in time to one year, between March 14, 2020 (the date of the beginning of the state of alarm for COVID-19 in Spain) and June 21, 2021. After studying the frequency and context of these samples, the data indicate that the four meteorological phenomena that generate the most metaphors are those related to “ola” [wave], huracán [hurricane], calor [heat] and “sequía” [drought]. Moreover, there are no surprises with respect to the sport where such metaphors are used to the greatest extent: soccer. Nevertheless, it will be sociolinguistically justified that other sports connected to those metaphors stand out: “wave” / Tokyo Olympics Games, “hurricane” / F1, “heat” / NFL, and “drought” / tennis. (shrink)

Two recent practice-based conceptions of linguistic communication challenge the dominant “content-delivery” models. Beaver and Stanley’s The Politics of Language (2023) and Rouse’s Social Practices as Biological Niche Construction (2023) have different aims. Beaver and Stanley develop an account of linguistic meaning as affective and politically engaged. Rouse starts from evolutionary accounts of human ways of life to situate language within a more general, naturalistic account of social practices as forms of biological niche construction. Despite their different orientations, the two books (...) can work together as a more compelling challenge to standard accounts of linguistic meaning and communication. (shrink)

This article defends laws in the social sciences. Arguments against social laws are considered and rejected based on the "open" nature of social theory, the multiple realizability of social predicates, the macro and/or teleological nature of social laws, and the inadequacies of belief-desire psychology. The more serious problem that social laws are usually qualified ceteris paribus is then considered. How the natural sciences handle ceteris paribus laws is discussed and it is argued that such procedures are possible in the social (...) sciences. The article ends by arguing that at least some social research is roughly as well as confirmed as good work in evolutionary biology and ecology. (shrink)

On challenging predominant western paradigms in social science with Indigenous paradigms within Indonesian society.

This article scrutinizes some theoretical procedures prevalent in the philosophy of social science. These procedures are exemplified in Elder-Vass’s critical realism, which promises to place the social sciences on a sound ontological footing. The article focuses on the way that Elder-Vass’s general emergentist ontology is constituted and on the methods through which it is applied to society. It is contended that the ontology is not and could not be grounded in science and that its philosophical use distorts what it is (...) applied to. The incoherent methods that social ontological projects constitutionally rely on entail that they cannot ground social scientific explanation. (shrink)

De voorbije dertig jaar evolueerden we van een samenleving waarin het verschil tussen vrijheid en onvrijheid van fundamenteel belang was, naar een samenleving waarin het verschil tussen veilig en onveilig voorop staat. Het streven naar vrijheid verdeelde ons. Conservatieven en progressieven hebben verschillende opvattingen over wat echte vrijheid inhoudt. Vandaag verdeelt het streven naar veiligheid ons. We worden geenszins verenigd door onze angsten. Sommigen vrezen migratie, anderen kernenergie. Als we het over iets eens geraken, zoals de gevaren van klimaatopwarming, blijken (...) we diep verdeeld over de manier waarop we daarmee moeten omgaan."--Publisher information. (shrink)

Can social scientific description capture the historically individual? Is the idea of an ethically committed social science morally defensible? This book offers a critical, historically-grounded perspective on these perennial methodological and ethical problems, in their current forms. It provides a series of in-depth examinations of recent work by prominent authors in sociology and philosophy. The book draws on the thought of Peter Winch to provide a coherent response to the core issues that underlie past and present debate in social science (...) and to provide a solid basis for future inquiry. The book will be of particular interest to social scientists, philosophers, and historians, and to anyone seeking a clear grasp of the demands made by historical understanding and ethics on the study of society. (shrink)

This ground-breaking book opens up new vistas on the study of the humanities. Co-authored by three philosophers, it offers an in-depth exploration of a range of questions. For example, what, if anything, unifies scholarship in the humanities? Is it possible to attain objective truth in fields like history or literary studies or philosophy, or is everything a matter of perspective or standpoint? It is possible for fields in the humanities to make progress, and if so, how? And what should we (...) make of the political aims of the humanities-for example, the desire by many scholars in the humanities to uncover systems of oppression and domination? Does this interfere with "objective" scholarship or not? A host of new topics are also considered, such as whether or not replication studies are possible and worthwhile in the context of the humanities, and whether deference to other scholars is legitimate in the humanities. Finally, new "case studies" are introduced that look at how fields such as history, literary studies, and musicology advance our understanding of their topics, and a provocative set of new "rules" for interpretation in the humanities are proposed. (shrink)

In “Different Cultures, Different Rationalities” (2000) Stephen Lukes weighs in on the controversies concerning the killing of Captain Cook by Hawaiians and what it says about the role of rationality assumptions in translation. While at first seeming to adopt a Davidsonian anti-relativist position concerning the enabling role of assumptions of common rationality in interpretation, Lukes rejects Davidson’s view, and opts instead for a “totalizing” strategy inspired by Mauss. Here I explore rationales for Lukes’ position and endeavor to reconcile Lukes’, Davidson’s, (...) and Mauss’s positions by developing a case for a limited interpretive requirement of shared rationality. (shrink)

In this article, I articulate and defend an account of corporations motivated by John Searle’s discussion of them in his Making the Social World. According to this account, corporations are abstract entities that are the products of status function Declarations. They are also connected with, though not reducible to, various people and certain of the power relations among them. Moreover, these connections are responsible for corporations having features that stereotypical abstract entities lack (e.g., the abilities to take actions and make (...) profits). (shrink)

La historia se ha contado muchas veces. Georgy Arbatov venía a ser el hombre puente entre las dos orillas que dividían el mundo durante la Guerra Fría. Fundador del Instituto de Estudios de los Estados Unidos de América y el Canadá en la Academia Soviética de Ciencias, había sabido ganarse el aprecio del público norteamericano con su presencia asidua en los medios de comunicación. Partidario de una política de distensión con el competidor americano, fue uno de los asesores más influyentes (...) de Gorbachov en su travesía hacia la recomposición del universo ruso. Por aquel entonces el escenario trazado al término de la Segunda Guerra Mundial había experimentado una transformación formidable: de la lucha bilateral por la hegemonía de posibles consecuencias catastróficas se iba abriendo paso una geopolítica basada en la interdependencia multipolar y el reconocimiento mutuo. Arbatov era la cara visible de esta nueva posición de la Unión Soviética ante millones de espectadores estadounidenses. Por eso, en 1987, en una de sus frecuentes entrevistas televisivas, sus palabras debieron sonar algo inquietantes: «Os vamos a hacer una cosa terrible», advirtió a su interlocutor. En plena escalada armamentística, ¿de qué podría tratarse aquello tan terrible? «We will deprive you of your enemy», dijo: os vamos a privar del enemigo. Y así fue, en efecto. (shrink)

En Occidente nos aferrábamos, casi ideológicamente, a unas expectativas de paz perdurable suscitadas en 1995. En aquel entorno, tras la unificación de Alemania y superada la Guerra Fría, celebrábamos los doscientos años de la publicación del opúsculo La Paz perpetua de Immanuel Kant (1795-1995). Treinta años después el mundo ha cambiado, hemos entrado en una nueva época con dos guerras importantes vivas, sin fin a la vista, una en Europa (Ucrania) y otra en Oriente próximo (Israel), con crecientes tensiones y (...) el riesgo de arrastrar al mundo a un conflicto de mayor amplitud. Además, crecen numerosas crisis: en el Mar Rojo, por el hostigamiento de los hutíes del Yemen; la alta tensión entre las dos Coreas; en el Indo Pacífico la continua presión de China a Taiwán y su asertiva presencia en el Mar de la China Meridional. Hay brasas encendidas en otros conflictos como Nagorno ? Karabaj; los territorios Kurdos de Turquía; los conflictos civiles en Siria, Yemen, Sudán del Sur, República Centroafricana y Birmania. Hemos entrado en una era de conflictos. Este giro del curso histórico plantea diversos interrogantes decisivos para su estudio científico: ¿Qué ha ocurrido? ¿Cómo se ha llegado a esto? ¿Estamos ante el declive de la democracia? ¿Hay nuevamente una confrontación hegemónica? ¿Se ha roto la globalización e iniciamos un periodo de desglobalización? ¿Nos encontramos en un punto de inflexión en la historia reciente (Zeitenwende)? ¿Afloran síntomas de una decadencia de occidente? ¿Entramos de nuevo en un pasaje hacia una "civilización brutalizada"? Estas y otras preguntas se tratan aquí de la mano de grandes especialistas y académicos como Aquilino Cayuela, Jerónimo Molina, Enrique Bonete, Carlos Pérez del Valle, Miguel Ángel Belmonte, Domingo González y Juan Carlos Valderrama. Nos ofrecen con este libro un riguroso trabajo científico y reflexivo, centrado en el esclarecimiento, la evaluación y la crítica de los marcos morales y políticos del presente. (shrink)

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

The move from outright denialism by the fossil fuel and related industries to ‘soft denial’ urges reassessing the mechanisms and networks of actors involved in anti-environmentalism. One high-level tactic which harnesses evolutionary psychology and organizational self-protective tendencies to willfully overlook negative outcomes involves compartmentalization. Segmented judgment applies to multiple domains, including highlighting commitments, declarations, and philanthropy as a mask for continuing unsustainability. Selective accounting gives the impression that states and companies are doing enough on climate, that things are not as (...) bad as they seem, and that much-touted sustainable actions compensate for continuing environmental harms–in effect reducing the impetus for responsible action and diverting attention from climate change’s primary drivers. This bait-and-switch strategy fragments climate accounting by avoiding including both sustainable and unsustainable initiatives in the same ledger. This study categorizes strategies of compartmentalization according to sectoral, narrative, political, behavioral, and structural perspectives, with examples among agrochemical, fossil, and mining industries. Each of these facets is evaluated through examples of actions undertaken by corporations and public agents, often exploiting Global North-South dynamics. In spite of these aspects having different spheres of influence, acts of compartmentalization are interconnected and represent a core background frame enabling the climate denial machine. (shrink)

Философский анализ сущности информации и ее отношения к материи. Материалистическая концепция информационного познания мира .

While evidence strongly suggests a deterministic universe, the question of free will remains one of humanity's most complex and nuanced philosophical challenges. This paper examines the tension between deterministic principles and the persistent question of genuine free will, acknowledging both the compelling evidence for determinism and the remaining uncertainties that warrant continued scientific and philosophical inquiry.