Las estrategias de lectura que utilizan los estudiantes universitarios en el desarrollo de la lectura académica en inglés resultan ser fundamentales para el desarrollo del pensamiento y la construcción de significados. En Chile, se reporta que las estrategias de lectura en universitarios son poco variadas. Por tanto, el objetivo de la investigación fue caracterizar y analizar las concepciones de lectura de los y las estudiantes de primer año de la carrera de Pedagogía en inglés, y cómo estas pueden guiar el (...) uso de determinadas estrategias de lectura. Respecto de la metodología, el diseño fue cuantitativo-descriptivo, los participantes fueron 45, a quienes se les aplicó un cuestionario sobre concepciones de lectura y otro sobre estrategias de lectura. Finalmente, se identificó que los estudiantes de la carrera de inglés presentan simultáneamente tanto concepciones reproductivas como epistémicas y que las estrategias de lectura se utilizan principalmente antes de la lectura y durante la misma. (shrink)

Resumen: En la actualidad existe amplia evidencia acerca de la variación alofónica del fonema /tʃ/ en el español de Chile asociada a factores socioculturales; sin embargo, estas investigaciones se han focalizado en la población adulta. Considerando lo anterior, la presente investigación tuvo por objetivo analizar la articulación del fonema /tʃ/ en una muestra de 161 niños/as desde los 2,0 a los 3,11 años de edad residentes de la ciudad de Temuco. La muestra fue dividida según edad y NSE. Entre los (...) principales resultados se observó variabilidad entre los grupos analizados según el cruce de las variables edad y NSE. En cuanto a la variación alofónica del fonema /tʃ/ según el NSE, también se evidenció un comportamiento variable entre los grupos analizados. Los resultados de esta investigación concuerdan con las discusiones actuales respecto de la relación entre los procesos evolutivos propios de la adquisición y la emergencia de variaciones de tipo social.: Currently there is a vast evidence on the allophonic variation of the phoneme /tʃ/ in Chilean Spanish, associated to social factors. Nevertheless, these researches focused on adult population. With this consideration, this study aims to analyze the articulation of the /tʃ/ phoneme in a sample of 161 kids, from 2.0 to 3.11 years old who live the city of Temuco. The sample was divided per age and socioeconomic status. Among the main results, a variably between the groups has been observed, crossing the variables age and socioeconomic status. Concerning the allophonic variable of the /tʃ/ phoneme according to the socioeconomic status, there has also been evidenced a variable behavior between the groups. The results of this study are in concordance with the current discussions on the relationship between evolutionary acquisition processes and the emergence of social variations. (shrink)

En la actualidad existe amplia evidencia acerca de la variación alofónica del fonema /tʃ/ en el español de Chile asociada a factores socioculturales; sin embargo, estas investigaciones se han focalizado en la población adulta. Considerando lo anterior, la presente investigación tuvo por objetivo analizar la articulación del fonema /tʃ/ en una muestra de 161 niños/as desde los 2,0 a los 3,11 años de edad residentes de la ciudad de Temuco. La muestra fue dividida según edad y NSE. Entre los principales (...) resultados se observó variabilidad entre los grupos analizados según el cruce de las variables edad y NSE. En cuanto a la variación alofónica del fonema /tʃ/ según el NSE, también se evidenció un comportamiento variable entre los grupos analizados. Los resultados de esta investigación concuerdan con las discusiones actuales respecto de la relación entre los procesos evolutivos propios de la adquisición y la emergencia de variaciones de tipo social. (shrink)

Las prácticas docentes de lectura en Chile son, según la evidencia disponible, predominantemente reproductivas y presentan un limitado desafío cognitivo. En este contexto, el objetivo de la investigación fue analizar las percepciones de docentes destacados de educación básica respecto de sus prácticas de mediación lectora en distintas disciplinas. Respecto de la metodología, el diseño fue un estudio de casos múltiples descriptivo y cualitativo y los participantes fueron 11 docentes de 6 escuelas públicas de La Araucanía, Chile, a quienes se aplicaron (...) entrevistas semiestructuradas en profundidad y cuya codificación se efectuó en tres fases con un paradigma fenomenológico. Los resultados muestran que los docentes se centran más en acompañar y motivar la lectura que en enseñar estrategias específicas y que ofrecen espacios de diálogo para mediarla, aunque, en general, aún predomina en ellos un enfoque generalista y no disciplinar de la lectura. La identificación de las buenas prácticas de los profesores de excelencia puede contribuir al desarrollo de las prácticas pedagógicas de otros docentes. (shrink)

Moral bioenhancement is the attempt to improve human behavioral dispositions, especially in relation to the great ethical challenges of our age. To this end, scientists have hypothesised new molecules or even permanent changes in the genetic makeup to achieve such moral bioenhancement. The philosophical debate has focused on the permissibility and desirability of that enhancement and the possibility of making it mandatory, given the positive result that would follow. However, there might be another way to enhance the overall moral behavior (...) of us humans, namely that of targeting people with lower propensity to trust and altruism. Based on the theory of attachment, people who have a pattern of insecure attachment are less inclined to prosocial behavior. We know that these people are influenced by negative childhood memories: this negative emotional component may be erased or reduced by the administration of propranolol when the bad memory is reactivated, thereby improving prosocial skills. It could be objected that memory-editing might be a threat for the person’s identity and authenticity. However, if the notion of rigid identity is replaced by that of extended identity, this objection loses validity. If identity is understood as something that changes over time, moral bioenhancement through memory-editing seems indeed legitimate and even desirable. (shrink)

By virtue of what do alarm calls and facial expressions carry natural information? The answer I defend in this paper is that they carry natural information by virtue of changing the probabilities of various states of affairs, relative to background data. The Probabilistic Difference Maker Theory of natural information that I introduce here is inspired by Dretske's [1981] seminal analysis of natural information, but parts ways with it by eschewing the requirements that information transmission must be nomically underwritten, mind-independent, and (...) knowledge-yielding. PDMT includes both a qualitative account of information transmission and a measure of natural information in keeping with the basic principles of Shannon's communication theory and Bayesian confirmation theory. It also includes a new account of the informational content of a signal, understood as the combination of the incremental and overall support that the signal provides for all states of affairs at the source. Finally, I compare and.. (shrink)

John Christman has argued that constitutively relational accounts of autonomy, as defended by some feminist theorists, are problematically perfectionist about the human good. I argue that autonomy is constitutively relational, but not in a way that implies perfectionism: autonomy depends on a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external, critical perspectives on one's action-guiding commitments. This type of relationality carries no substantive value commitments, yet it does answer to core feminist concerns about autonomy.

Citizen science models of public participation in scientific research represent a growing area of opportunity for health and biomedical research, as well as new impetus for more collaborative forms of engagement in large-scale research. However, this also surfaces a variety of ethical issues that both fall outside of and build upon the standard human subjects concerns in bioethics. This article provides background on citizen science, examples of current projects in the field, and discussion of established and emerging ethical issues for (...) citizen science in health and biomedical research. (shrink)

Appeals to the miraculous are common in healthcare, and arguments about end-of-life decision-making can quickly become theological. Assessments of hope have been recommended within the biopsychosocialspiritual model of medicine, but these assessments fail to account for the theological dimension of hope. Examples of failed assessments include recent efforts in palliative care and classic works, such as On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. To adequately address the patient’s and family members’ hopes without patronizing or harming the patient, assessments must be (...) done by a person trained in theology. (shrink)

In the process of professionalization, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has emphasized process and knowledge as core competencies for clinical ethics consultants; however, the credentialing program launched in 2018 fails to address both pillars. The inadequacy of this program recalls earlier critiques of the professionalization effort made by Giles R. Scofield and H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.. Both argue that ethics consultation is not a profession and the effort to professionalize is motivated by self-interest. One argument they offer (...) against professionalization is that ethics consultants lack normative expertise. Although the question of expertise cannot be resolved completely, the accusation of self-interest can be addressed. Underlying these critiques is a concern for hubris, which can be addressed in certification and the vetting of candidates. Drawing on the virtue ethics literature of Alasdair MacIntyre and Edmund D. Pellegrino, I argue that medicine is a moral community in which ethics consultants are moral agents with a duty to foster the virtue of humility (or what Pellegrino and Thomasma call self-effacement). The implications of this argument include a requirement for self-reflection in one’s role as a moral agent and reflection on one’s progress toward developing or deepening virtuous engagement with the moral community of medicine. I recommend that professionalization of clinical ethics consultants include a self-reflective narrative component in the initial certification and ongoing renewal of certification where clinical ethics consultants address the emotional dimensions of their work as well as their own moral development. Adopting a teleological view of ethics consultation and incorporating narratives that work toward that purpose will mitigate the self-interest and hubris of the professionalization project. (shrink)

This interview seeks to highlight some of the main characteristics of the new pandemic world, besides the main contradictions the philosophical thought runs into in this difficult time. Between a political world which is unable to react and the scientific world which is usually moved by political aims, this work tries to understand if there is any room for a role of a long range philosophical thought, which is able to defend its clarity prerogatives but it is also able to (...) speak with other disciplines which seem increasingly deafer. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 36 Heft: 2 Seiten: 286-304.

Intellectual knowledge is omnipresent in human lives and decisions. We are constantly trying to make good and correct decisions. However, responsible decision-making is characterised by rather difficult epistemic conditions. It applies all the more during the pandemic when decisions require not only specialised knowledge in a number of disciplines, scientific consensus, and participants from different fields, but also responsibility and respect for moral principles in order to ensure that the human rights of all groups are observed. Pandemic measures are created (...) by politicians, healthcare policy-makers, and epidemiologists. However, what is the role of ethics as a moral philosophy and experts in ethics? Experts in ethics and philosophy are carefully scrutinising political decisions. Levy and Savulescu have claimed that Ethicists and philosophers are not epistemically arrogant if they question policy responses. They played an important role in the creation of a reliable consensus. This study analyses epistemic and moral responsibility, their similarities, analogies, and differences. Are they interconnected? What is their relationship and how can they be filled with actual content during the pandemic? (shrink)

That the maximization of quality-adjusted life years violates concerns for fairness is well known. One approach to face this issue is to elicit fairness preferences of the public empirically and to incorporate the corresponding equity weights into cost-utility analysis (CUA). It is thereby sought to encounter the objections by means of an axiological modification while leaving the value-maximizing framework of CUA intact. Based on the work of Lübbe (2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, forthcoming), this paper questions this strategy and scrutinizes the (...) concomitant assumptions concerning the nature of prioritization decisions. Empirical studies indicate that these premises are in fact unwarranted. People chose a certain resource allocation because they perceive it as a fair way to treat the persons concerned, not because it maximizes something valuable, and it is questionable if prioritization decision can be represented as value-maximizing choices at all. This reflection on the fundamental distinction between deontological and consequentialist reasoning bears general implications for the scope of ‘economic imperialism.’. (shrink)

Engelhardt’s critiques of “generic chaplaincy” rely on the argument that chaplains are secular; however, professionally certified chaplains must maintain ordination with an ecclesial body. Engelhardt’s concerns are better directed at the academic subfield that supports and trains chaplains: pastoral theology. That field is somewhat guilty of forced ecumenism because it attempts a universal theology rooted in experience and the social sciences rather than the authority of creeds, ecclesial bodies, or traditions. Pastoral theology makes too many sacrifices to the authority of (...) the behavioral sciences without sufficient appreciation for sacramental theology and the spiritual bonds that rituals effect in communities of shared belief. In this model, ritual is reduced to its instrumental value in addressing the emotional needs of patients rather than viewed as efficacious spiritual care. Chaplains should take a holistic approach to theology so that they can better identify the duties and scope of interfaith spiritual care. (shrink)

The reform process of the CAP is increasingly open to actors that apply different frames. Recent research reveals the consistent use of five frames during CAP reform processes: the policy mechanism frame, the farmers’ economic frame, the societal concerns frame, the budgetary frame, and the foreign trade frame. Our qualitative content analysis of 1,155 newspaper articles from Austria’s largest agricultural newspaper published between 01/10/2010 and 31/01/2015 confirms that these five frames are also used in national CAP reporting and consist of (...) subframes. The European Commission (EC), the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union, which are involved in the CAP legislative process, mainly use the policy mechanism frame. The farmers’ economic frame and the policy mechanism frame are applied throughout the reform process. The societal concerns frame is gradually used over time, while the foreign trade frame is limited to specific events. The budgetary frame increasingly refers to public money for public goods, which indicates that the EC and other actors put efforts into legitimising the CAP. The results emphasise that both, agricultural and environmental actors use agricultural media to generate support for or condemnation of agricultural policy and thereby affect political agenda-setting. (shrink)

Ontologies are created to describe and reason over the knowledge of a domain of interest. This requires deep understanding of the domain, and therefore, the input and collaboration of the domain’s...

In light of the impact of work on human flourishing, an intractable problem for political theorists concerns the distribution of meaningful work in a community of moral equals. This article reviews a number of partial solutions that a well-ordered society could draw upon to provide equality of opportunity for eudemonistically meaningful work and to minimize the impact of bad work upon those who perform it. Even in view of these solutions, however, it is not likely that opportunities for meaningful work (...) can be guaranteed for all people, which carries an implication that, even in well-ordered societies, it is likely that not all people will flourish. The author argues that the limitedness of meaningful work is not a reason to reject the normative claim that meaningful work is integral in flourishing, nor is it a reason against working to transform social and political institutions to increase opportunities for meaningful work. (shrink)

We investigate the initial segments of the Medvedev lattice as Brouwer algebras, and study the propositional logics connected to them.

Knowledge and Self-Knowledge in Plato's "Theaetetus" examines the dialogue in conversation with others, arriving at the conclusion that it is the absence of self-knowledge in the Theaetetus which leads to its closing impasse regarding knowledge. What Socrates accomplishes in the dialogue is to lead the mathematician Theaetetus to the recognition of his ignorance—the first step toward self-knowledge.

Hursthouse :57–68, 1991) argues that arational actions—e.g. kicking a door out of anger—cannot be explained by belief–desire pairs. The Humean Response to Hursthouse :25–38, 2000b) defends the Humean model from Hursthouse’s challenge. We argue that the Humean Response fails because belief–desire pairs are neither necessary nor sufficient for causing emotional actions. The Emotionist Response is to embrace Hursthouse’s conclusion that emotions provide an independent source of explanation for intentional actions. We consider Döring’s :214–230, 2003) feeling-based Emotionist account and argue that (...) it fails to explain arational actions. Finally, we develop our own Emotionist account, grounded in the Motivational Theory of Emotions one of us has developed. On our account, arational actions form a non-homogeneous class, some members of which must be understood as instrumental actions and some members of which must be understood as displacement behaviors of the kind animals display when their motivations are thwarted or in conflict. (shrink)

According to a traditional view, logical validity consists in necessary truth preservation. Such an account has been argued to carry an apparent commitment to a unique property of truth to be preserved from premises to conclusion. Recent discussions, however, have concluded that if the metaphor of truth preservation is carefully unpacked, no need for a unique property is there. All is needed is that certain structural relations among instantiations of truth properties hold. Against this view, we argue that a unique (...) general truth property is indeed required by logical validity. We first show that the unpacking should be correctly understood since it imposes constraints on the concept and the properties of truth. We then demonstrate that, under such constraints, a general property is not imposed by truth preservation but by another feature of validity: its uniformity. Finally, some options that could be attempted to resist this result are discussed, showing that (strong) truth pluralism and deflationism are affected in different ways. (shrink)

GoodRelations has existed since 2008 to aid businesses in describing their products and services. It provides a variety of definitions and terminology useful for improving a company’s online retail...

Clarifying the nature of possibility is crucial for an evaluation of the phenomenological approach to ontology. From a phenomenological perspective, it is ontological possibility, and not spatiotemporal existence, that has pre-eminent ontological status. Since the sphere of phenomenological being and the sphere of experienceability turn out to be overlapping, this makes room for two perspectives. We can confer foundational priority to the acts of consciousness over possibilities, or to pre-set possibilities over the activity of consciousness. Husserl’s position on this issue (...) seems to change over time. Ultimately, the establishment of a phenomenological perspective must involve a rejection of any hypostatization of pre-set possibilities, but not all implications of this theoretical step seem to be drawn in Husserl’s texts. This paper is devoted to an illustration of how the phenomenological notion of possibility should change when we reject the hypostatization of possibility, that is, when we reject the idea that all acts of consciousness are to be conceived as realizations of pre-set “ideal forms”. We examine this question, first, by trying to clarify the conceptual constellation of “possibility” in Husserl’s texts. This leads to an overall classification of the features of constituted possibilities. Then we distinguish such constituted possibilities from their constituting conditions, which outlines a different sense of “possibility”. In the last instance two “possibilizing” dimensions are shown to lie at the root of all ontic possibilities. This leads to a final suggestion on the nature of the relation between experience and possibility. Actual experiences create the room for possibility: they are possibilizations. In this sense, experience is to be taken as a generative sphere which goes beyond the customary boundary between epistemic and ontological. From this point of view all experience is to be conceived as emergence. (shrink)

Die Corona-Pandemie bestimmt seit fast einem Jahr nicht nur unseren Alltag, sondern ist in zahlreichen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen zum Gegenstand der Auseinandersetzung avanciert. Während allerdings beispielsweise Medizin und Public Health offensichtlich eine wichtige Rolle für die Bekämpfung der Pandemie spielen, lässt sich durchaus die Frage stellen, welchen Beitrag die Philosophie in einer solchen, anhaltenden Ausnahmesituation spielen kann und spielen sollte. In der Einleitung zum Schwerpunkt zur Corona-Pandemie werden daher drei Interpretationen des Einwands, es sei illegitim, dass sich die Philosophie mitten in (...) der Krise zu dieser äußere, diskutiert und zurückgewiesen. Philosophische Auseinandersetzungen mit der Corona-Pandemie in der Corona-Pandemie, so das Fazit, können einen relevanten Beitrag sowohl zur fachinternen als auch zur öffentlichen Debatte leisten, sind nicht per se pietätlos gegenüber Betroffenen und stellen auch keine spezifische Ungerechtigkeit gegenüber den von der Pandemie stärker betroffenen Kolleg*innen dar. (shrink)

The demand for social justice, especially in the context of the welfare state, is often framed as a demand of solidarity. But it is not clear why: in what sense, if any, is social justice best understood as a demand of solidarity? This article explores that question. There are two reasons to do so. First, very little has been written on the concept of solidarity, and almost nothing on why and how solidarity can both give rise to and be the (...) target of a moral obligation. The first aim of the article is to fill this gap. The second aim of the article is to explore the normative implications of this account of solidarity for the commitment to social justice at the heart of the welfare state, and in so doing, to put into question the idea that shared experience or shared identity are either necessary or sufficient bases for social justice qua solidarity. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize Claude Romano’s recent characterization of Husserl’s phenomenology as a form of Cartesianism. Contra Romano, Husserl is not committed to the view that since individual things in the world are dubitable, then the world as a whole is dubitable. On the contrary, for Husserl doubt is a merely transitional phenomenon which can only characterize a temporary span of experience. Similarly, illusion is not a mode of experience in its own right but a retrospective way of characterizing (...) a span of experience. Therefore, Husserl cannot be plausibly characterized as either a disjunctivist or a conjunctivist. The common premise of both theories – namely, that perception and illusion are two classes of conscious acts standing on equal footing – is phenomenologically unsound. I propose to call Husserl’s theory a hermeneutical theory of perception, i.e., one that interprets perception as a temporal and self-correcting process. In the last part of the paper I argue that Husserl’s positive appraisal of Cartesian doubt is only pedagogical in nature. Husserl does not take Cartesian doubt to be practicable, but the attempt to doubt universally has the positive effect of revealing transcendental subjectivity as the subject matter of phenomenology. (shrink)

Political theorists aiming to articulate normative standards for the EU have almost entirely focused on whether or not the EU suffers from a ‘democratic deficit'. Almost nothing has been written, by contrast, on one of the central values underpinning European integration since at least the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), namely solidarity. What kinds of principles, policies, and ideals should an affirmation of solidarity commit us to? Put another way: what norms of socioeconomic justice ought to apply to the (...) EU? This is not an empirical or narrowly legal question. We are not trying to gauge the degree of attachment there currently is in the EU by, for example, citing the latest Eurobarometer poll. We are also not attempting to state the implicit rationale followed by the Court of Justice in its recent ‘solidarity’ jurisprudence, let alone trying to fix what the Commission might mean by it. In this article, I ask the more fundamental question underlying both the legal and the empirical questions: What principles of social solidarity ought to apply between states and citizens of the emerging European polity? This question has rarely been asked or answered by political theorists in an EU context, so we are entering largely uncharted territory. The article develops a tripartite model of EU solidarity in Section 2, and then applies it to the case of free movement of persons in Section 3. (shrink)

The history of brain-computer interfaces developed from a mere idea in the days of early digital technology to today’s highly sophisticated approaches for signal detection, recording, and analysis. In the 1960s, electroencephalography was tied to the laboratory due to equipment and recording requirements. Today, amplifiers exist that are built in the electrode cap and are so resistant to movement artefacts that data collection in the field is no longer a critical issue. Within 60 years, the field has moved from simple (...) and artefact-sensitive EEG recording to making real the vision of brain-computer communication. In the last 40 years, direct brain-computer interaction went from simple communication programs to sophisticated BCI-controlled applications. In the past two decades, much research was conducted with locked-in individuals, and since the 2010s, independent home use by exemplary patients has been demonstrated. In these patients with locked-in syndrome, BCI were installed at their home and long-term usage was established, resulting in increased quality of life. Maintaining communication in disorders leading to LIS contributes significantly to the patients’ sense of being full persons. BCI as an assistive technology will likely be perceived as integral part of the self: insofar as it can prevent total loss of communication and the ensuing social isolation, it enables essential conditions for the subjective and intersubjective experience of personhood. (shrink)

This article offers an assessment of Henricus Regius’s (1598-1679) pre-Cartesian sources and their role in his appropriation of Descartes’s ideas, via two main questions: 1) Who was Regius, doctrinally speaking, before his exposure to Cartesianism? And 2) how did he use Descartes’s theories before his quarrel with Descartes himself in the mid-1640s? These questions are addressed by means of a textual analysis that concerns his theory of matter. In this article, I will show that 1) Regius started out with a (...) scientific program he had found in Ramism and the medical theories of Heurnius and Santorio. 2) On this basis, he developed a physiology encompassing Descartes’s theory of blood circulation and sensory perception. 3) Regius completed the resulting physiology with a theory of matter more developed than Descartes’s, and which he appropriated from Santorio, Basson, and Gorlaeus. (shrink)

Building on the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions and on social role theory, this research investigates the linkages among prior job satisfaction, voluntary workplace green behavior, and subsequent job satisfaction as dependent on work group gender composition. With a multi-source, multi-time dataset, our random coefficient modeling demonstrated that job satisfaction positively predicts VWGB and that this pattern is more salient in work groups with more females. In addition, while VWGB does not yield job satisfaction in a subsequent time period, this (...) positive linkage occurs in work groups with fewer females. This research offers theoretical implications for understanding the internal states and personal benefits of voluntary green performers as well as for the role of work group gender diversity on the linkages between prior job satisfaction and VWGB and between VWGB and subsequent job satisfaction. Our findings also illuminate the practical benefits of environmentally sustainable organizations. (shrink)

Assume consequentialism and assume moral properties are causally efficacious. Then, I’ll argue, a puzzle arises. These assumptions lead to denying each of two plausible metaphysical principles: that a cause cannot cause anything occurring before its ground and that a cause cannot cause anything belonging to its ground. We therefore have to reject either consequentialism or the causal efficacy of moral properties or the plausible metaphysical principles. And, I’ll show, the puzzle arises again even if we replace moral properties with the (...) non-moral properties making things right. Which component to reject is a question for another occasion: my aim here is to present the puzzle. It is a puzzle worth thinking about: no matter how we solve it, we stand to learn something, be it in normative ethics, metaethics, or metaphysics. And, I’ll suggest at the end of the paper, my arguments can be applied to other domains as well. (shrink)

A growing number of small fashion entrepreneurs seek to offer an alternative to the mainstream fashion industry, which, in its obsession with novelty and growth, often ignores the costs to society and the environment. There is a need to develop a deeper understanding of how these fashion entrepreneurs may be agents for change in their industry. Using rich data from an in-depth study of 27 UK-based entrepreneurs, we offer such analysis, drawing on a novel framework that combines MacIntyre’s virtue ethics (...) scheme and Jonas’s responsibility imperative. We identify key virtues—passionate commitment, authenticity, humility, sharing and empowering, and temperance—which shape the entrepreneurs’ practices in line with their accepted and perceived responsibility for sustainability. These virtues shape the entrepreneurial processes that seek an active negotiation and harmonisation of sustainability and the demands of business. In particular, we pay attention to the different ways in which fashion entrepreneurs take responsibility for sustainability which ranges from a ‘growth for impact’ strategy to staying small and seeking impact through influence and replication. Conclusions are drawn on conceptualising the varieties of ‘postgrowth entrepreneurship’ that aligns the virtues of a deep-rooted sense of responsibility with business goals. This shows what can be possible and prefigures an alternative fashion industry. (shrink)

The sixth chapter focuses on the evolution of Cartesianism in the last quarter of the seventeenth century in Leiden and Amsterdam, against the background of the emergence of alternative views in natural philosophy capable of replacing it as a dominant paradigm, namely, the experimental philosophy of Robert Boyle and the mathematical-experimental approach of Huygens and Newton. The last evolution of Cartesianism is reconstructed in this chapter by considering the ‘Cartesian empiricism’ of Burchard de Volder, and the reflections on the language (...) of philosophy and practical disciplines by De Raey in Amsterdam, where he moved in 1669. In 1675 De Volder established the Leiden Theatrum physicum. There he performed experiments in order to teach the principles of a mechanical philosophy largely inspired by Descartes but open to the use of experimental and mathematical evidences in the formulation of natural laws. A similar approach was in fact assumed in the same years by Wolferd Senguerd, who used the Theatrum to perform experiments in pneumatics to teach some of the principles of his eclectic worldview, encompassing some Cartesian principles (such as that of the circularity of movement), but also rejecting the vortex theory. Yet, only De Volder developed a foundational theory for the basic principles of mechanicism, namely, the assumption that every phenomenon can be explained by the notions of matter and movement alone. This was the result of a movement internal to Cartesianism, as De Volder not only reacted (positively) to the emergence of an experimental-mathematical natural philosophy, but was also involved in the defence of Cartesianism against the Censura philosophiae cartesianae of PierreDaniel Huet (1689), in which Descartes’s metaphysics is rejected as inconsistent given its very foundation on doubt and cogito. The intermingling of these different issues resulted, in De Volder’s hands, in a further de-metaphysicisation of physics – as metaphysics cannot provide a justification for the laws of motion – and in the narrowing of the scope of foundationalism, which can only sanction the psychological character of clarity and distinction as a criterion for internal truth, defined in terms of indubitability only. Accordingly, for De Volder metaphysics cannot demonstrate, on a Cartesian basis, that phenomena are actually ruled by the principles of mechanism: insofar as, for him, metaphysics has a prominent reflective role, and loses its status as justification of the absolute truth of scientific statements. This process can be labelled as the transition from foundationalism to philosophy of science and does not characterise only his ‘Cartesian empiricism’. In Amsterdam, De Raey was, over the same years, developing his Cogitata de interpretatione (1692), embodying one of the first, self-standing philosophical considerations of language. Still maintaining his separation thesis, and attacking Hobbes and the radical Cartesians, in this text he aimed to clarify how words meaning sensory data and abstract notions (such as those of mathematics) can be used in philosophy. Rather than setting a method for how to use mental faculties, De Raey aimed, at the end of his career, to provide an updating of the linguistic meanings of scientific vocabulary, namely, a reflection rather than a justification of science. (shrink)

This paper examines the transformation of medieval figures from state “heroes” during the interwar years into “villains” of the Communist state in Czechoslovakia and Hungary through their national day commemorations. I argue that the negative treatment of these medieval heroes was not clear-cut and, especially in Hungary, they enjoyed a comeback of sorts during the second half of the Communist era. This article thus demonstrates, through official commemorative events, that the Communist regimes of Czechoslovakia and Hungary to some extent were (...) ready to continue with national symbols and traditions that were firmly established in the previous era and had apparently been abolished by the Communist regimes themselves. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a conception of joint practical deliberation as a special type of shared cooperative activity, through which co-deliberators jointly accept reasons as applying to them as a pair or group. I argue, moreover, that the aspiration to deliberative “pairhood” is distinguished by a special concern for mutuality that guides each deliberator’s readiness to accept a given consideration as a reason-for-us. It matters to each of us, as joint deliberators, that each party’s (individual) reasons for accepting something (...) as a reason-for-us support a conception of our relationship as one characterized by mutual, non-instrumental concern for one another. (shrink)

This article problematizes the political category of the monster in Hobbes’s thought from a biopolitical perspective. Even though political thought has been traditionally focused on Leviathan’s figure as a political monster, here we pay particular attention to the maxim homo homini lupus, which can be identified with the werewolf. This figure allows us on the one hand, to show how the wolf becomes man with the creation of the State, and on the other hand, to show how there is a (...) constant threat of man becoming wolf, of the lupification of man. Hobbes’s discourse of sovereignty aims to neutralize the werewolf. This neutralization can be seen as immunization. In this sense, the werewolf operates both as poison and as antidote—pharmakon—within the State. The werewolf produces an inoculation with a therapeutical function: it is a dose of the same poison from which the State seeks to protect itself. (shrink)

Especially after the disasters of WWII, the relationship between human nature and technology has mainly been discussed in “Promethean” terms. That is to say, it has been discussed as it concerns the capacity, and perhaps the necessity, of humans to think and act technically, i.e., by means of technical devices, as well as to technically transform the environment. Now, as a consequence of the more recent, impressive advancements and achievements in biotechnology, pharmaceutics, etc. the new questions in this field seem (...) more reminiscent of the story of Icarus. The enigmatic core of this myth concerns the capacity to somehow change the human nature, the need to do so, and, aside from just the risks, what the goals of such modifications would be. In this article, a simultaneously conceptual and phenomenological analysis will be carried out regarding the relationship between technical capacities, technical products, human needs, and human desires. Although such an analysis should allow one to better frame also current questions concerning the ethical sides of technical (self-)interventions into human “nature”, the aim of this article is just to contribute to the clarification of the link between being human and technology. (shrink)