This paper investigates the interpretation of counterfactual conditionals. The main goal of the paper is to provide an account of the semantic role of similarity in the evaluation of counterfactuals. The paper proposes an analysis according to which counterfactuals are treated as predications “ de re ” over past situations in the actual world. The relevant situations enter semantic composition via the interpretation of tense. Counterfactuals are treated as law-like conditionals with de re predication over particular facts. Similarity with respect (...) to particular facts is ensured by the semantics of tense in interaction with the modal, while the modal itself is responsible for invoking laws. In the paper, various arguments are provided to support a local view of similarity over the global approach found in semantics along the line of Lewis’s and Stalnaker’s. Arguments are also provided tying the evaluation of similarity to the interpretation of tense. Finally, arguments are provided to show that in key cases, the approaches make comparable predictions. (shrink)

How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation between one’s own and another person’s face has been used to evoke changes in self-identification . We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other’s face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses of the identified common factor structure (...) revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on self-identification and perceived similarity with the other’s face. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face’s unique role as a marker of selfhood. (shrink)

The contemporary confluence of globalization and ethical pluralism is at the origin of many ethical challenges that confront business nowadays, both in practice and in theory. One of the challenges arising from the development of globalization has to do with respect for cultural diversity. It is often said that the success of economic globalization tends towards social and cultural homogeneity. To the extent that cultural diversity is usually seen as a valuable reality, that global trend seems to contradict our efforts (...) to respect ethical pluralism, both personal and cultural, within society. In this paper I argue that (a) ethical minimalism, despite its emphasis on tolerance and justice, does not take pluralism seriously into account in present-day society, and (b) ethical minimalism is not suited to balancing the homogenizing trend of globalization. Certainly ethical norms are necessary, but by no means are they sufficient in themselves to encourage either justice or tolerance; nor are they sufficient to inspire and encourage good practices and sound regulations. Instead, virtue-based ethics has the capacity of inspiring and encouraging good practices. Particularly, virtue-based ethics is able to inspire a serious dialogue about ethical and legal issues both in the public arena and within organizations. (shrink)

This paper considers the UN efforts to introduce a legally binding Treaty on corporate accountability for human rights impacts in the context of other proposed legislation at country level, on the one hand, and existing voluntary initiatives like the UN Guiding Principles (2011), on the other. What we are interested in is whether the proposed Treaty signals a transition from voluntary initiatives (based on moral commitments) to law (that is, a focus on compliance), and the extent to which it might (...) stimulate or hinder links between judicial and non-judicial initiatives. The scholars who have explicitly addressed these two divides are – Michael Sandel, on theory v. practice; and Amartya Sen, on law v. morality. We engage with their views, in sections II and III respectively, seeking to build an integrated approach to help us overcome these dualisms. We further consider John Ruggie’s “principled pragmatism”, a strategy that he uses to build the Protect, Respect and Remedy (henceforth, PRR) Framework; and we invoke arguments from casuistry as well as a practice-focused deontology (Thomas Donaldson’s) in favour of an ethics ‘beyond cognition’, which we consider better suited than either utilitarian or principle-based theories to guide the debate on human rights. This is because it allows us to take non-rational factors into account (such as emotions and personal affiliations), when judging the kind of common good we consider worth pursuing. In the last section of the paper, we investigate whether and how might the Treaty illustrate the two divides, trying to (a) distinguish between purely legal elements and those of a wider nature, to do with morality; and (b) understand what might help bridge the gap between theoretical commitments to the universality of human rights and various practical challenges. Our aim is not to evaluate the Treaty, from a legal viewpoint, or suggest improvements to it (lawyers are better placed to do that); rather, we seek to investigate the way in which the proposed Treaty – which is the first attempt to address the challenge of transnational business and human rights in international law – combines moral and legal aspects, and what this tells us about the world we live in. (shrink)

This book joins the contemporary recovery of Kant’s empirical works to highlight the relevance of his concept of culture for understanding the sources of various characteristic modern dilemmas, such as the tension between culture and happiness, the morally ambivalent nature of cultural progress, or the existing conflicts between a factual plurality of cultures and the historical forces pressing toward a universal civilization. The book will be of special interest for Kantian scholars, moral and political philosophers, as well as philosophers of (...) culture. (shrink)

There are competing accounts of the birth of bioethics. Despite the differences among them, these accounts share the claim that bioethics was not born in a single disciplinary home or in a single social space, but in numerous, including hospitals, doctors' offices, research laboratories, courtrooms, medical schools, churches and synagogues, and philosophy classrooms. This essay considers the interdisciplinarity of bioethics and the contribution of new disciplines to bioethics. It also explores the implications of interdisciplinarity for bioethics education. As bioethics develops, (...) it will be helpful to identify essential elements in the education of bioethicists and to distinguish between members of other disciplines who make important contributions to bioethics and bioethicists. (shrink)

The growing advancement of Artificial Intelligence models based on deep learning and the consequent popularization of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, place the academic community facing unprecedented dilemmas, in addition to corroborating questions involving research activities and human beings. In this work, Content Analysis was chosen as the object of study, an important technique for analyzing qualitative data and frequently used among Brazilian researchers. The objective of this work was to compare the process of categorization by themes carried (...) out by human researchers on material from the Educational area, at the end of 2022, with the help of the ATLAS.TI software and the same process of categorization by themes, now carried out by the version 2023 of the ATLAS.TI software, carried out in an automated way by Artificial Intelligence, for the same material. Through lexical and semantic analysis, the themes used in the two processes were compared, observing similarities and differences between the two proposals, and verifying the consistency between the two analyses. The main result of this study is the difficulty of Artificial Intelligence in carrying out a broader categorization, eliminating specificities that were considered irrelevant by the authors for understanding the material. It is concluded, therefore, that the automated categorization process proposed by ATLAS.TI through Natural Language Processing (NLP) is consistent from a lexical point of view but is still insufficient from a semantic aspect. (shrink)

The structuralist reconstruction of the metabolic biochemistry here presented is a more complete and revised version than the one presented in Donolo, Federico & Lorenzano (2006). This version, as the previous one, continues with the reconstructive task initiated by César Lorenzano (2002), but advances further on those elements which remained pendent of reconstruction: applications subsequent to the paradigmatic one, for being these “too diversified and numerous” (p. 210).In line with which is said before, the objective of this new reconstruction is (...) to make the theoretical network of the biochemistry wider, in order to be able to capture the many successful applications (paradigmatic examples or exemplars) which appear in modern university textbooks. In order to accomplish this, major conceptual precisions are being introduced which will have repercussions in a modification and increased complexity of the fundamental law implicit in the text books, but still conserving the previous basic idea. Because of all this we can say that the present article goes further into the reconstruction task of the metabolic biochemistry theory. (shrink)

Esse ensaio tem por finalidade discutir a abertura instaurada no debate educacional a partir da introdução do conceito de Duração produzido por Bergson, aproximando-o aos estudos deleuzianos sobre pensamento e aprendizagem. Partindo destes conceitos, procuro captar outros modos de atualização de processos educativos engendrados nos cotidianos escolares. Assim, tomando a prática docente como trabalho com matéria em movimento e não mais como ensino-transmissão de conhecimento, busco, de modo provisório, analisar as práticas de aprendizagem inventivas (Kastrup, 1999/2009) instauradas em meio aos (...) encontros educativos considerando a dimensão intempestiva do conceito de tempo. Argumento que a introdução do tempo duração modificou radicalmente as concepções de desenvolvimento que norteiam as políticas cognitivas vinculadas à recognição, instaurando o tempo intempestivo. Assim, o campo problemático desse ensaio se desenvolve a partir da seguinte questão: Quais as implicações da introdução do conceito de duração no atravessamento do conceito de pensamento proposto por Deleuze para as investigações sobre as práticas educativas, no campo da Educação? Considero que, ao deslizarmos sobre a superfície de aderência nos movimentos introduzidos nos cotidianos escolares no encontro entre os corpos desejantes, é possível captar múltiplas experiências perturbadoras, as quais desestabilizam o modelo de escolarização dominante - momentos fugazes onde os fluxos intensivos criam canais de passagem para as intensidades vitais que emanam nos encontros entre os corpos, produzindo outros modos de aprender. (shrink)

Este artículo reflexiona sobre la segregación socio-espacial en contextos urbanos, comprendiéndola como una dimensión particular de los procesos de estructuración social en las ciudades capitalistas. Concretamente, se aborda el caso de la ciudad de Córdoba (Argentina). Se parte del supuesto de que el crecimiento urbano por expansión que se registra durante la década del `80, es el resultado de un doble proceso de larga duración. Por un lado, políticas de desarrollo urbano que buscan incrementar la productividad y atraer inversiones privadas (...) que re-cualifiquen espacios estratégicos de la ciudad. Por otro lado, y subsidiario del proceso anterior, la progresiva ocupación diferencial del área periférica de acuerdo a posiciones y condiciones de clase. Se concluye que la suburbanización que se registra en la ciudad forma parte de una política general de (re)valorización urbana orientada hacia el capital privado, y que ya desde los primeros años de la transición democrática pueden observarse en Córdoba incipientes marcas de una periferia segmentada en términos de clase. La estrategia metodológica articula el análisis de datos provenientes de fuentes secundarias (indicadores urbanos, socio-demográficos y habitacionales) con el abordaje cualitativo de intervenciones urbanas y marcos normativos sancionados a mediados de la década del ’80. (shrink)

The ability to use and make technical artifacts has been considered exclusive to human beings. However, recent findings in ethology in light of observations made in nature and in laboratory show the opposite. In the area of philosophy of technology there are few exceptions that take into account the ability of some non-human animals to manufacture and use tools. In this paper I want to show some reasons to reconsider other possibilities. It seems that capacities such as intentionality, culture or (...) even the complexity of the structures of manufactured object are not exclusive to human beings. I will suggest a different way of analyzing objects created by non-human animals, one that tries to explain the gradualness of the structure, but also the plasticity of the behavior exhibited by non-human animals. These two elements allow a deeper understanding of the great variety of objects that other animals also manufacture and use. (shrink)

Between the 1960s and 1970s, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape and Edgardo Antonio Vigo shared the idea that the audience should stop behaving as a passive spectator to become an active participant in the artistic process. In this case study, we will study how, with this aim in mind, these artists put into practice a series of participatory proposals −most of them in public spaces− which sought to establish a bond with the community. Therefore, these three artist’s artistic proposals involved bodily (...) action, dancing, and intellectual and sensitive stimulus and exploration. Within the framework of both Brazilian and Argentinean dictatorships, as well as of the emergence of revolutionary actions and movements, they fostered an art democratizing ideal in their own way. (shrink)

Entre los diversos temas que permean la Educación en Ciencias (EC), se enfatizan los modos de enseñanza y aprendizaje con foco en los aspectos conceptuales y cognitivos. Este ensayo tiene como objetivo presentar una Filosofía de la Educación en Ciencias (FEC) basada en la Hermenéutica Filosófica (HF) de Hans-Georg Gadamer con el fin de promover un camino ontológico para la EC que pueda sortear el énfasis mencionado. La FEC está constituida por la intersección de tres campos académicos: Filosofía, Filosofía de (...) la Educación y Filosofía de la Ciencia. En Filosofía, el movimiento de comprender entender de manera ontológica explorado por Gadamer permite ver la Hermenéutica más allá de un carácter metodológico. En la Filosofía de la Educación, la HF se extiende a la apropiación del conocimiento, agregando una formación personal en la que hay exposición a la duda, valoración del diálogo, escucha del otro y búsqueda de la comprensión del mundo, pero también de uno mismo. En la Filosofía de la Ciencia, la perspectiva gadameriana permite una visión del trabajo científico en una racionalidad que se entrelaza con aspectos históricos, filosóficos y culturales a través de una aproximación entre la Hermenéutica y las Ciencias Naturales. Señalamos que una EC en la articulación entre estos campos con sesgo gadameriano promueve cambios en la dinámica escolar, en la disposición del alumno y del docente, en la forma de entenderse a sí mismo, al mundo y al lenguaje científico. (shrink)

La Europa de libertad, seguridad y justicia que pretende garantizarse para la ciudadanía, en principio, no iría dirigida a los millones de personas que residen legalmente en la UE sin ostentar la nacionalidad de ningún Estado miembro, y de ningún modo pensada para quienes se encuentran en situación irregular. A estas personas que forman parte de la población real de los Estados no se les califica de ciudadanos, ni se les otorgan derechos de ciudadanía. Por consiguiente, muestran la situación de (...) servidumbre que existe en el interior de los Estados europeos. Pero no sólo los nacionales de terceros Estados encuentran limitado el ejercicio de los derechos humanos. También la ciudadanía europea, como resultado de los necesarios ajustes institucionales y estructurales que demanda el modelo económico global, está viendo incrementarse los riesgos y la incertidumbres, debido a los cambios en el mercado de trabajo, en el sistema educativo y en el modelo de Estado. Todas estas reestructuraciones están gestando un nuevo orden social. En este nuevo modelo de sociedad, el control y la seguridad parecen haber usurpado el protagonismo hasta ahora detentado por la justicia social. La finalidad de esta investigación ha sido precisamente mostrar el doble impacto que el nuevo modelo económico y la sociedad del conocimiento y la información tienen en la ciudadanía y en quienes están fuera o en los límites de ella. Una comparación que permite sostener que en estos ajustes sólo ganan las mercancías y las instituciones, no las personas. (shrink)

In this paper I shall approach, from the luck egalitarianism perspective, to the problem of distributive justice in the health care. For that purpose I will follow an argumentative strategy based in some of the statements argued by Ronald Dworkin and Shlomi Segall on which the origin of luck egalitarianism relays. Even though it is truth that Rawls at the time of proposing the principle of fair equality of opportunities, he intended to mitigate the social inequalities originated by luck; for (...) some egalitarian philosophers such as Ronald Dworkin, Rawls’ argument resulted inequitable since it did not consider the binomial liberty-responsibility. The consideration of responsibility as a criterion of distribution of healthcare resources will be tested and studied in three points. First of all I will expose the general aspects of luck egalitarianism and I will define the position of Daniels and Segall regarding healthcare assistance. In second term, I will go back to the distinction made by Dworkin between “brute luck” and “option luck” and I will expose his proposal about the resources equality and the healthcare model based on the ground of the liberty-responsibility binomial that he defends. In third place, I will analyze the relationship between liberty and responsibility in healthcare. This way I shall intend to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages that may arise from taking individual responsibility as a criterion for the distribution of resources. (shrink)

María Zambrano no pensó en la muerte como cesación de la vida, sino como «verdadera vida». La entendió como instantes de pérdida radical que el sujeto padece ante una experiencia límite que ella caracteriza como situación de «naufragio». El artículo enfoca la relación dialéctica entre vida y muerte como polos complementarios en la metafísica de María Zambrano. No hay vida sin muerte, dice, ni hay muerte sin vida, pues el ser emerge del fondo de la nada. Al sentir el ser, (...) el sujeto inicia un morir que es un «despertar» del amor creador recibido en el origen de la vida. La muerte es fuente de esperanza y sabiduría para quien acepta su presencia. (shrink)

I argue that Rawls’ reading of Kant has been a major influence on the work of some contemporary Kantian scholars. Rawls’ influence on the new Kantian moral theory can be recognized in several points: a) the conception of philosophy as a “deeply practical project”, which leads to the adoption of a first-person approach to ethics; b) the reception of Kant’s philosophy within a pragmatic context, which leads to play down the metaphysical implications of Kant’s dualisms, in favor of an interpretation (...) which seems plausible within a political culture given in advance c) a characteristic interpretation of Kant’s moral constructivism, which while stressing the primacy of the right over the good, tries to specify the ways in which the good plays a role in morals, thereby opening a way to show the relevance of the empirical in Kant’s ethics d) an approach to Kant’s practical reason which stresses the complementarities between the Hypothetical and the Categorical Imperative, interpreted in the light of Rawls’ distinction between the Rational and the Reasonable; e) the central role played by the concept of “rational nature” in the new Kantian moral theory, which may likewise be related to Rawls’ concern for clarifying the conception of the person behind his approach to practical reason. (shrink)

O artigo visa a analisar como a Psicologia tem encarado os desafios colocados pelo desempenho escolar. Discute os princípios e as ferramentas q ue têm orientado as práticas psicológicas no campo do fracasso escolar. Faz um debate acerca da interface Psicologia e Educação, partindo dos princípios da ..

Este artigo procura analisar a introdução da justiça restaurativa no contexto educacional, na cidade de Campinas-SP. Desenvolvida sob o enfoque qualitativo, foi realizada com base em entrevistas analisadas a partir do referencial metodológico da história oral de vida. As estatísticas no Estado de São Paulo apontam um crescimento dos registros de violência nas unidades escolares. O objetivo de investigar a justiça restaurativa deve-se ao fato de que esta proposta tem sido executada tendo em vista o arrefecimento da violência e das (...) situações de conflito nas escolas. Nossa expectativa é compreender o que mobiliza o professor a introduzir a justiça restaurativa em sua prática pedagógica. (shrink)

Contemporary genome editing techniques have made genomic intervention—from microorganism to human—more accessible, easier to use, and more accurate than previous methods. We argue that, notwithstanding its merits in treating and preventing disease in humans, genome editing represents a potential threat for domestic and international security, requiring an integrated approach in regulating, detecting, preventing, and mitigating the risk of its use for malicious purposes. Despite the global regulatory ambitions of the 2021 WHO framework, we see insufficient attention given to the future (...) prospect of dual-use genomic technology. Drawing parallels with the nuclear field, we suggest tentative practical steps for a way forward in dealing with genome editing technologies, such as: 1) adapting national (bio)security and defence strategies to include genome editing as a possible threat (with conceivable WMD potential); 2) enhancing the international dialogue on genome editing and raising the issue at the highest level; 3) working towards a global, legally binding verification mechanism; 4) tracking genome editing technologies. (shrink)

This article addresses the impact of the potential conflict between the roles of physicians who are both clinicians and researchers on the recruitment of persons into research trials. It has been proposedthat a physician breaches inter-role confidentiality when he or she uses information gathered in his or her clinical role to inform patients about trials for which they may be eligible and that clinician-researchers should adopt a model of preliminary consent to be approached about research prior to commencing a clinical (...) relationship. This article argues that even if we grant the legitimacy of inter-role confidentiality (which is open to question), there are circumstances in which other obligations physicians bear override the obligation of inter-role confidentiality. Moreover, it is argued that the practice of preliminary consent is morally suspect and that such consent cannot be deemed valid. The article concludes with a series of recommendations of ways in which the legitimate concern regarding the conflicting roles of clinician-researchers can be addressed in the recruitment stage of research. (shrink)

The book you hold in your hands is the outcome of the "ISCS 2013: Interdisciplinary Symposium on Complex Systems" held at the historical capital of Bohemia as a continuation of our series of symposia in the science of complex systems. Prague, one of the most beautiful European cities, has its own beautiful genius loci. Here, a great number of important discoveries were made and many important scientists spent fruitful and creative years to leave unforgettable traces. The perhaps most significant period (...) was the time of Rudolf II who was a great supporter of the art and the science and attracted a great number of prominent minds to Prague. This trend would continue. Tycho Brahe, Niels Henrik Abel, Johannes Kepler, Bernard Bolzano, August Cauchy Christian Doppler, Ernst Mach, Albert Einstein and many others followed developing fundamental mathematical and physical theories or expanding them. Thus in the beginning of the 17th century, Kepler formulated here the first two of his three laws of planetary motion on the basis of Tycho Brahe’s observations. In the 19th century, nowhere differentiable continuous functions (of a fractal character) were constructed here by Bolzano along with a treatise on infinite sets, titled “Paradoxes of Infinity” (1851). Weierstrass would later publish a similar function in 1872. In 1842, Doppler as a professor of mathematics at the Technical University of Prague here first lectured about a physical effect to bear his name later. And the epoch-making physicist Albert Einstein – while being a chaired professor of theoretical physics at the German University of Prague – arrived at the decisive steps of his later finished theory of general relativity during the years 1911–1912. In Prague, also many famous philosophers and writers accomplished their works; for instance, playwright arel ape coined the word "robot" in Prague (“robot” comes from the Czech word “robota” which means “forced labor”). (shrink)

Corporeality is a subject strongly present in educational discussion nowadays. The purpose of this paper is to present an outline of issues we may address from the philosophy of sport that could foster a fruitful dialogue with the philosophy of education. It is understood that the philosophy of education can benefit from reflections on corporeality and human movement, namely from sports and games. Initially, the article introduces the philosophy of sport as a field of study that addresses reflections on human (...) movement from sports and games. They highlight elements that are not specific to such practices and foster reflexions on different areas. Afterwards, it explores the experience of corporeality and the dialogical dimension of human movement based on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. Human movement indicates a unique way of being communicative. Finally, it presents some reflections on playing games as an experience that helps us think about our relationships with others and the environment. From this perspective it is possible to seek some critical features to understand education in the experience of human movement, namely from playing games, such as experience, dialogue, and expressiveness. Thoughts on human movements may reinforce the role corporeality plays in education as a collective experience and the recognition of the body's expressive potential in constructing knowledge. (shrink)