There is, at present, little precise understanding of the relative contributions of the various income streams used by impoverished rural households in southern Africa. The impact of household profiles on overall income also is not well understood. There is, therefore, little consideration of these factors in national economic accounting. This paper is an attempt to reduce this gap in knowledge by reflecting on the relative contribution of agro-pastoralism, secondary woodland resources, and formal and informal cash income streams to households in (...) the semi-arid rural village of Thorndale, Limpopo Province, South Africa. In the absence of jobs and confronted with high migrant labor, households with open access to natural resources derived more benefits from land-based livelihoods than cash income streams (i.e., 57.5 % vs. 42.5 %). Total livelihood income was valued at US$2887 per household per annum. A significant correlation between monetary values derived from crops and formal wages was established, and it was found that households with high cash incomes tended to invest more in crop production. Over 80 of households were male-headed. Of these heads of household, more than 60 were long-term migrants to urban areas, leaving household decision-making to the women. The low literacy rates of women have deprived them of paid jobs outside the area and, therefore, have increased their dependence on crops (62%) and secondary woodlands resources (60%). This was further reflected in the proportion of households in which females were the main contributors of cash income (9.7%), or joint contributors with men (24.4%). Various positive correlations were established between the number of women per household and the three land-based livelihoods. This implied that women’s total control over such activities was mostly a result of the absence of men and not a typical phenomenon. In spite of this control, it was not positively reflected in the lives of majority of the women. Households differed in their participation in livelihood activities. Household size influenced the level of production and was positively correlated with the value of secondary woodland resources and crops. The study shows the interdependence of land-based livelihood sources and the impact of household features on production and consumption. Policies that focus on livelihood options need to recognize and accommodate associated household dynamics. (shrink)

Carruthers presents an interesting analysis of confabulation and a clear attack on introspection. Yet his theory-based alternative is a mechanistic view of which neglects the fact that social understanding occurs within a network of social relationships. In particular, the role of language in his model is too simple.

Theories of children's developing understanding of mind tend to emphasize either individualistic processes of theory formation, maturation, or introspection, or the process of enculturation. However, such theories must be able to account for the accumulating evidence of the role of social interaction in the development of social understanding. We propose an alternative account, according to which the development of children's social understanding occurs within triadic interaction involving the child's experience of the world as well as communicative interaction with others about (...) their experience and beliefs (Chapman 1991; 1999). It is through such triadic interaction that children gradually construct knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of other people. We contend that the extent and nature of the social interaction children experience will influence the development of children's social understanding. Increased opportunity to engage in cooperative social interaction and exposure to talk about mental states should facilitate the development of social understanding. We review evidence suggesting that children's understanding of mind develops gradually in the context of social interaction. Therefore, we need a theory of development in this area that accords a fundamental role to social interaction, yet does not assume that children simply adopt socially available knowledge but rather that children construct an understanding of mind within social interaction. Key Words: language; Piaget; social interaction; theories of mind; Vygotsky; Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Susan Hurley's shared circuits model (SCM) rightly begins in action and progresses through a series of layers; but it fails to reach action understanding because it relies on mirroring as a driving force, draws on heavily criticized theories, and neglects the need for shared experience in our grasp of social understanding.

We explore three types of criticisms of our theory on the development of children's social understanding. We reject suggestions that we offer nothing new to traditional theories of development or recent “social” accounts of “theory of mind.” Second, we take the point that there are grounds for improving our account of dyadic interaction in infancy but reject claims that we have not sufficiently accounted for how we incorporate the notions of criteria and structure into the theory. Third, we accept that (...) the epistemic triangle, as defined, would benefit from an affective dimension and such a formulation could be used to describe the dynamic of developmental change from infancy to beyond early childhood. We still feel that the combination of Wittgenstein, Vygotsky, and Piaget remains as an antidote to the flaws in current “theories of mind” approaches to social understanding. (shrink)

In place of Tomasello's explanation for the source of moral obligation, we suggest that it develops from the concern for others already implicit in the human developmental system. Mutual affection and caring make the development of communication and thinking possible. Humans develop as persons within such relationships and this develops into respect and moral obligation.

Knobe's laudable conclusion that we make sense of our social world based on moral considerations requires a development account of human thought and a theoretical framework. We outline a view that such a moral framework must be rooted in social interaction.

Negative emotions are often thought to lack value—they’re pernicious, inherently unpleasant, and inconsistent with human virtue. Taking anxiety as a case study, I argue that this assessment is mistaken. I begin with an account of what anxiety is: a response to uncertainty about a possible threat or challenge that brings thoughts about one’s predicament (‘I’m worried,’ ‘What should I do?’), negatively valenced feelings of concern, and a motivational tendency toward caution regarding the potential threat one faces. Given this account of (...) what anxiety is, I show it can be instrumentally valuable: in sensitizing us to uncertainty and prompting caution and risk assessment efforts, it’s an emotion that can help us better recognize and respond to uncertain threats and challenges. But anxiety can also be aretaically valuable—that is, it’s an emotion that can contribute positively to one’s character. For instance, your anxiety about how best to care for your aging mother not only prompts helpful brainstorming about what you should do, but also reflect well on you—your unease demonstrates both an admirable sensitivity and emotional attunement to what’s at stake. (shrink)

T.M. Scanlon’s ‘reasons fundamentalism’ is thought to face difficulties answering the normative question—that is, explaining why it’s irrational to not do what you judge yourself to have most reason to do (e.g., Dreier 2014a). I argue that this difficulty results from Scanlon’s failure to provide a theory of mind that can give substance to his account of normative judgment and its tie to motivation. A central aim of this paper is to address this deficiency. To do this, I draw on (...) broadly cognitivist theories of emotion (e.g., Nussbaum 2001, Roberts 2013). These theories are interesting because they view emotions as cognitive states from which motivation emerges. Thus, they provide a model Scanlon can use to develop a richer account of both the judgment-motivation connection and the irrationality of not doing what you judge yourself to have most reason to do. However, the success is only partial—even this more developed proposal fails to give a satisfactory answer to the normative question. (shrink)

According to the epistemic theory of hallucination, the fundamental psychological nature of a hallucinatory experience is constituted by its being 'introspectively indiscriminable', in some sense, from a veridical experience of a corresponding type. How is the notion of introspective indiscriminability to which the epistemic theory appeals best construed? Following M. G. F. Martin, the standard assumption is that the notion should be construed in terms of negative epistemics: in particular, it is assumed that the notion should be explained in terms (...) of the impossibility that a hallucinator might possess a certain type of knowledge on a certain basis. I argue that the standard assumption is mistaken. I argue that the relevant notion of introspective indiscriminability is better construed in terms of positive epistemics: in particular, I argue that the notion is better explained by reference to the fact that it would be rational for a hallucinator positively to make a certain type of judgement, were that judgement made on a certain basis. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. It discusses the tragic case of Charlie Gard, the baby who a U.K. hospital would not discharge so his parents could take him to the U.S. for experimental treatment for a rare, normally terminal DNA disorder that might have saved his life. Krason says that the case illustrated a number of dangerous current trends in Western (...) political societies: the advancement of the euthanasia/“quality of life” mindset, the suppression of parental rights by both child protective-type agencies and courts that are overly-deferential to them, runaway judicial power generally, the increasing authoritarianism of functional experts, and the unwillingness of elected political officials and leaders to come to the aid of the citizenry by standing up to them and the unelected bureaucrats and judges who protect them and more generally to uphold the traditional legal norms and principles that they are violating. (shrink)

The opinion of Mr. Justice Francis of the English High Court which denied the parents of Charlie Gard, who had been born with an extremely rare mutation of a genetic disease, the right to take their child to the United States for a proposed experimental treatment occasioned world wide attention including that of the Pope, President Trump, and the US Congress. The case raise anew a debate as old as the foundation of Western medicine on who should decide and (...) on what standard when there is a conflict between a family and the treating physicians over a possible treatment. This paper will explore the different approaches of the British and American courts on the issue and the various proposals from that of John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice to a processed-based approach for resolving such disputes. As carefully crafted as the opinion of Mr Justice Nicholas Francis in the Gard case proved to be, it left commentators unsatisfied. A widespread criticism, captured in an article by Michael Dougherty in The National Review was for the state to ‘get out of the way of the parents trying to act in the best interests of the child’.1 Although he conceded the parents could be adding to the suffering of the child by taking Charlie to America for an experimental therapy and agreed that such a choice ‘may be the wrong decision,’ in Dougherty’s view, it should still be ‘their decision’. Dougherty’s stand was the popular response to the question of ‘Who should decide?’ It fails, however, to propose any rationale for the decision. It provided no norms, no standards and no guidelines for the parents. Their motive could equally well be indifference to the suffering of the child as concern for his well-being. Furthermore, even good, loving parents may make …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Womanist-Buddhist Consultation as a Reading CommunityCarolyn M. Jones MedineIn Breaking the Fall, the late Robert Detweiler (1932-2008) imagines what a reading community, "a contemporary version of the old storytelling cultures,"1 might look like. He suggests that in such a community, "The accent on community itself would offer a balance to our excessively privatizing tendencies; the communal interaction could counter our relentless drive to interpret... with attitudes of play (...) and Gelassenheit (abandonment, chance, and relaxation); the writing and reading community especially as a liminal entity, could nurture a respect for the incomprehensibility of form and a reverence for mystery."2 This description offers an entry to the work of the Womanist-Buddhist Consultations. To reach a provisional understanding of the meaning of that work, I shall reflect on first what we mean when we say that we want to read something. Second, I turn to a conversation with Robert Detweiler, who was one of my mentors, as a way to address the form of reading that we do and the form of community that we make in the Womanist-Buddhist Consultations. Third, I want to draw on the thought of the consultations themselves, using Emmanuel Levinas's work on reading and ethics, to examine the capacity the consultations have to hold tensions creatively and to allow multiple meanings to be part of them. Finally, I want to address the goals for the consultations. I am thinking specifically of Melanie Harris's desire to see the consultations as generating practices that promote peace, compassion, and justice, and Charlie Hallisey's desire to generate a more complex reading of Buddhist texts in and of themselves.The Womanist-Buddhist Consultations have met three times between 2009 and 2011. We met at Harvard Divinity School and at Texas Christian University for sessions of four days each, and for an evening at the University of Georgia between the two longer meetings. The Texas Christian meeting included some previous members from the Harvard meeting, and added new ones. The University of Georgia meeting consisted primarily of students who participated in the reading practice.In the meeting at the University of Georgia, Charles Hallisey looked askance at me when I said that Buddhism offers an entry into peace and compassion; yet Melanie Harris, when she constructed the later session at Texas Christian University, deployed the terms "peace" and "justice" as descriptors for the work of the group. Hallisey's ironic glance occurred right before we read, at the University of Georgia, a text that contained magic and murder. His glance and the content of that text have prompted [End Page 47] me to think through Harris's claims and to see how our group achieves both a reading of Buddhism and an ethical practice that generates peace and points to justice.The instructions that Hallisey gives for the reading process describe a practice of "being and reading together" as we encounter a variety of Buddhist texts.3 The group's guide is the bodhisattva Manjushri, who has overseen our work through an image gracing the wall at all our meetings. Manjushri has a sword to cut through obstacles, and holds a book, signifying wisdom. The practice of reading with friends, Hallisey told us, comes from Jewish tradition: we need a friend to help us overcome what we can and to begin to see what we cannot. The work involves three steps:1. To read passages individually.2. To read the same passages together in small groups.3. To gather again as a large group and discuss what we have discovered.The major goal of reading is to encounter levels of ourselves to which we ordinarily have no access, by examining a text that becomes "generous" to us. Reading together, Hallisey asserts, makes the generosity of the text visible to us.This process of reading, I would argue, is different from what we usually do when we read and different from what we mean when we tell students to read. Patricia O'Connell Killen, an AAR Teaching Award winner, has delineated some of what we mean when we say to our students: "Read chapter 2 of 'X' and come to class prepared."4... (shrink)

Face à la violence, que peut la philosophie? Cette question se pose avec une terrible acuité après les attentats de janvier contre Charlie Hebdo et l'hyper-cacher. Le présent ouvrage prétend y apporter une réponse en prenant du recul et à travers la philo française contemporaine de Sartre à Levinas en passant par Camus, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone Weil, Canguilhem, Cavaillès, Lévi-Strauss, Deleuze, Foucault, Jankélévitch et Derrida. Sartre, c'est à la fois l'être et le néant et toutes les questions politiques de (...) l'après-guerre ; Camus, l'absurde et la révolte avec le refus de la violence ; Merleau-Ponty, la justification du communisme et donc d'une certaine forme de totalitarisme ; Simone Weil, Canguilhem et Cavaillès mettent le pacifisme à l'épreuve et en avant l'expérience de la nécessité ; Lévi-Strauss pose le problème de la violence face à la diversité humaine repensée ; Deleuze confronte la métaphysique à la politique. Foucault souligne l'enfermement intolérable ; Jankélévitch Derrida et Levinas pose le problème de l'éthique et de la métaphysique et de l'impossible pardon face au génocide juif. Ici c'est toute la philosophie c'est-à-dire, l'action et la pensée les oeuvres et les relations, l'histoire et l'actualité qui tentent de répondre à une certaine folie du monde. (shrink)

"A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure." Charlie Chaplin Freud, in a letter to Max Schiller (25 Mar. 1931), writes of an occasion in which Charlie Chaplin came to Vienna. In his account, Freud cavalierly offers great insight into the person behind the actor, even though he has never met Chaplin. Just recently . . . Charlie Chaplin was in Vienna; I almost caught sight of him, but (...) it was too cold for him, and he left in a hurry. He is undoubtedly a great artist—although he always plays one and the same part, the weak, poor, helpless, clumsy boy for whom life turns out all right in the end. Now do you think he has to forget his own self in .. (shrink)

The case of Charlie Gard sparked an ongoing public and academic debate whether in court decisions about medical treatment for children in England & Wales the best interests test should be replaced by a harm threshold. However, the literature has scantly considered (1) what the impact of such a replacement would be on future litigation and (2) how a harm threshold should be introduced: for triage or as standard for decision-making. This article directly addresses these gaps, by first analysing (...) reported cases in England & Wales about medical treatment in the context of a S31 order, thus using a harm threshold for triage and second comparing court decisions about medical treatment for children in England & Wales based on the best interest test with Dutch and German case law using a harm threshold. The investigation found that whilst no substantial increase of parental discretion can be expected an introduction of a harm threshold for triage would change litigation. In particular, cases in which harm is limited, currently only heard when there are concerns about parental decision-making, may be denied a court hearing as might cases in which the child has lost their capacity to suffer. Applying a harm threshold for triage in decisions about withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment might lead to a continuation of medical treatment that could be considered futile. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Men Becoming Gods in "Style"Gioia and Girard on Divinized DesireJoshua Hren (bio)In our secular age we hear seekers of the sacred and religious devotees alike decry the soul-deadening, spirit-dumbing consequences of materialism. René Girard contends that—on the contrary—in the "leveled," horizontal world of a purportedly materialistic modernity this transcendent authority is deviated and distorted but it does not disappear. In his first major work, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, (...) he argues that "the passion that drives men to seize or gain more possessions is not materialistic; it is the triumph of the mediator, the god with the human face."1 In a materialistic age, the gods are "pulled down from the heaven, the sacred flows over the earth" and men become "gods for each other."2Dana Gioia, former businessman and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is no stranger to the economy of divinized desire. The stakes of our passions—whether we are wrecked by dubious wants or able to shed our infernal imitations—pierce his poetry. Gioia cites Girard as a significant influence alongside St. Augustine and Kierkegaard, though he does not indicate whether his own poetic investigations of mimesis are a direct yield of [End Page 149] his encounter with Girard or the independent discovery of attentive artistic intuition.3The refuge of lies so central to Girard is particularly palpable in Gioia's long narrative poem "Style."4 Charlie, the self-deprecating narrator, divinizes his college friend Tom, a business mogul who "prospered like one chosen by the gods."5 Tom uses his easy money to purchase gaudy metamorphoses, hosting magnificent events with his "flawless" wife Eden. An antihero of the unremarkable variety, Charlie attends all Tom's parties until he stops receiving invitations. When he discovers his deity's disappearance is tied to a terminal illness, he descends into the infernal "slums" of Tom's new hideout, and he finds his former hero hell-bent, ready to commit an arson that will erase his own existence in style. Charlie is confronted with a difficult decision that any coward would waver before. He has the chance to become an atheist—at least with respect to his dying god. After painting a portrait of man-made gods, the poem probes the question of whether and how we can cut short our penchant for great deceits.Charlie opens this narrative poem with an invective directed against himself.Just look at me. Isn't it obvious?I have no style. I'm just a human blur.On me expensive clothes look second-hand.They droop or sag. The color's never right.I wear the wrong apparel to the party.I pick the dullest item on the menu.Each haircut brings some new humiliation.6Crucially, we never receive an audit of this dour self-consciousness. By poem's end, no one has corrected or confirmed Charlie's condemnations. He may be right; his might be the antinomy of Midas's modus operandi. His hyperbolic portrait of Tom's greatness suggests that he is less than just to himself. His preoccupation with something as small as a menu item betrays a brutal obsessiveness. He employs the ascetical word "humiliation" in conjunction with a "haircut"—further revealing his unforgiving inner harshness. Charlie "always loved to visit Tom" precisely because he himself is Pathetic, Inc.7Were René Girard Charlie's older brother, he might sit the sad sap down on a comfortable couch and spell out the difficult truth as follows: The anti-hero "dreams of absorbing and assimilating his mediator's being."8 This highfalutin description of "the Other implies an insuperable revulsion for one's own substance."9 We ought not to take seriously the excuses these types give for their [End Page 150] failings and their fawning, for they "hate themselves on a more essential level than that of 'qualities.'"10 When Charlie disparages his badly cut bangs or his mismatched outfits, he's really incriminating his very being."The desire," Girard argues, "is aimed at the mediator's being."11 Charlie evinces this dynamic when he insists that Tom's "success was existential: / It wasn't what... (shrink)

' I heartily recommend it to any philosopher of language interested in the issues. [] Logicians, of course, will want to savour the whole thing.' Australian Journal of Philosophy, 71:3 (1993).

It is commonly believed that populist politics and social media pose a serious threat to our concept of truth. Philosophical pragmatists, who are typically thought to regard truth as merely that which is 'helpful' for us to believe, are sometimes blamed for providing the theoretical basis for the phenomenon of 'post-truth'. In this book, Sami Pihlström develops a pragmatist account of truth and truth-seeking based on the ideas of William James, and defends a thoroughly pragmatist view of humanism which gives (...) space for a sincere search for truth. By elaborating on James's pragmatism and the 'will to believe' strategy in the philosophy of religion, Pihlström argues for a Kantian-inspired transcendental articulation of pragmatism that recognizes irreducible normativity as a constitutive feature of our practices of pursuing the truth. James himself thereby emerges as a deeply Kantian thinker. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:?;5. HUME AND SPINOZA It is strange that there has been so little interest in comparing two great philosophers, Hume and -Spinoza, who were both so important and influential in bringing about the decline of traditional religion. Jessop's bibliography indicates no interest in Hume and Spinoza up to the 1930 's. The Hume conferences of 1976, as far as I have been able to 2 determine, avoided the topic. (...) In one of the better new Hume volumes, Livingston and King, Hume, A Re-evaluation, 3 Spinoza is cited twice, and once incorrectly at that. On the other hand, in the massive new Spinoza volume edited by Siegfried Hessing, Speculum Spinozanun 1677-1977, Hume is mentioned four times, but only one of these has any real relevance to Hume's views vis-a-vis Spinoza's. Some discussion of Hume's comments, usually brief, occurs in the commentators. B. M. Laing, in David Hume, (London 1932), has just three short references to Spinoza. John Laird, in Hume's Philosophy of Human Nature, (London 1932) has a couple of cursory references to Spinoza, plus a bit more extended statement of Pierre Bay le" s critique of him. In H. H. Price, Hume's Theory of the External World, (Oxford 1940), there is one paragraph on Hume and Spinoza. In Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (London 1941), there are three references to Spinoza. Rachel Kydd, Reason and Conduct in Hume's Treatise (Oxford 194 6), has the greatest number of references to Spinoza. She was concerned to compare him with Hume on other matters than are dealt with in this paper, namely Spinoza's theory of reason and 9 the passions. In contrast, André Leroy, David Hume, (Paris 1953), has just one paragraph on Spinoza dealing with the immateriality of the soul; and Ernest C. Mossner, in his monumental Life of David Hume, (Austin 1954), has only one reference to Spinoza - James Beattie's denunciation of Hume, Hobbes, Malebranche, Leibniz and Spinoza. Lastly, in a fairly recent commentary by James Noxon, Spinoza is mentioned 66. three times, but not for anything in Hume's text. Noxon does point out (p. 75) that Spinoza is not mentioned in ] 2 Hume's correspondence. John H. Randall has offered an explanation for this neglect of Spinoza by Hume scholars, namely that "Hume stands for all time as the antithesis of Spinoza in his thought". In the England of Hume's day, Spinoza was little known, but still better known at the time than he was in France or England. Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 14 had been twice translated into English anonymously. He had been attacked by Bishop Stillingfleet, by John Evelyn, by Berkeley and several others. But Spinoza was not a major figure, except to the English Deists, and to Hume's early patron, the Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay. Most of the information known about Spinoza came from Pierre Bayle' s Historical and Critical Dictionary, where the article "Spinoza" is the longest in the Dictionary, about three hundred pages in length. My suspicion, or hypothesis, is that Hume first became interested in Spinoza through Ramsay, and then learned what he knew about Spinoza from Bayle' s article. When the young David Hume went to France to write his A Treatise of Human Nature in 1734, he went first to see the Chevalier Ramsay, who entertained Hume for about two weeks. Ramsay was a leading Scottish Catholic, was the teacher of Bonnie Prince Charlie, a leading Scottish revolutionary, 18 as well as the Grand Master of the Free Masons. With Ramsay's eclectic views it is not odd that he had a serious interest in Spinoza's theory, and that he was composing answers to it. Ramsay advised Hume about his own book, and Hume felt he had to show Ramsay the Treatise before he 19 brought it back to England. In the Treatise there is a not too well studied section on Spinoza, Of the immateriality of the soul 20 (T240-45). In introducing Spinoza into the discussion of 67. the immateriality of the soul, Hume follows what was common practice in his day, namely to insult Spinoza and his theory... (shrink)

For more than fifty years, Sterling M. McMurrin served as one of the preeminent intellectual voices of the LDS community. From his beginnings as an Institute of Religion instructor to U.S. Commissioner of Education, and from a professor of philosophy to U.S. Envoy to Iran, he showed by example how personal and institutional morality can be defended.In a series of candid discussions with Jack Newell, McMurrin reveals his ability to reconcile freedom and conscience. In a spirit of repartee and friendship, (...) writes Boyer Jarvis in the foreword, Newell probes, challenges, and constantly draws McMurrin out as he... reflects upon his wide-ranging ideas and experiences. Rich in insight and humor, this remarkable dialogue captures the sweep and depth of McMurrin's thoughts as Newell engages him in discussing his approaches to philosophy, education, and religion.Among the qualities that characterized McMurrin's life and mind, explains Newell, perhaps the most notable is the freedom with which he has spoken his views on both the sacred and the profane. His intellectual integrity -- coupled as it almost always is with his humane instincts and innate fairness -- has simultaneously confounded and earned the respect of critics. (shrink)

In Contingent Computation, M. Beatrice Fazi offers a new theoretical perspective through which we can engage philosophically with computing. The book proves that aesthetics is a viable mode of investigating contemporary computational systems. It does so by advancing an original conception of computational aesthetics that does not just concern art made by or with computers, but rather the modes of being and becoming of computational processes. Contingent Computation mobilises the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Alfred North Whitehead in order to (...) address aesthetics as an ontological study of the generative potential of reality. Through a novel philosophical reading of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and of Turing’s notion of incomputability, Fazi finds this potential at the formal heart of computational systems, and argues that computation is a process of determining indeterminacy. This indeterminacy, which is central to computational systems, does not contradict their functionality. Instead, it drives their very operation, albeit in a manner that might not always fit with the instrumental, representational and cognitivist purposes that we have assigned to computing. (shrink)

Wines with geographical indication can be classified and represented by such features as designations of origin, producers, vintage years, alcoholic strength, and grape varieties; these features allow us to define wines in terms of a set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions. However, wines can also be identified by other characteristics, involving their look, smell, and taste; in this case, it is hard to define wines in terms of necessary and/or sufficient conditions, as wine concepts exhibit typicality effects. This is a (...) setback for the design of computer science ontologies aiming to represent wine concepts, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. To solve this problem, we propose to adopt a hybrid approach in which ontology-oriented formalisms are combined with a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces. As in conceptual spaces, concepts are identified in terms of a number of quality dimensions. In order to determine those relevant for wine representation, we use the terminology developed by the Italian Association of Sommeliers to describe wines. This will allow us to understand typicality effects about wines, determine prototypes and better exemplars, and measure the degree of similarity between different wines. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to provide building blocks for a reconciliation of the ethical care for heritage protection and nature restoration ethics. It will do so, by introducing a hermeneutic landscape philosophy that takes landscape as a multi-layered “text” in need of interpretation, and place identities as build upon certain readings of the landscape. I will argue that from a hermeneutic perspective, both approaches appear to complement each other. Renaturing presents a valuable correction to the anthropocentrism of many European (...) rural cultures. Yet, heritage protectionists rightly point to the value of narratives for Old World identities. I will conclude with a short reflection on how such a hermeneutic environmental ethic can be helpful in dealing with environmental conflicts. (shrink)

carrington places race and racism at the center of his densely written analysis of science fiction, fantasy, utopia, and other forms of popular culture. He moves easily between a broad range of forms, which include memoirs, television series, comic books, novels, novelizations, fandom and fanzines, and short fiction and fiction circulated on the Internet. Popular culture helps us to construct notions of identity and race, and for carrington many constituent groups, notably fans, develop its key concepts and values.Speculative fiction is (...) for carrington a framework that links these various forms of popular culture. Here, SF is a genre different from literature, as it is situated closer to, and is more deeply... (shrink)

In their paper, “Helpful Lessons and Cautionary Tales: How Should COVID-19 Drug Development and Access Inform Approaches to Non-Pandemic Diseases?” Holly Fernandez Lynch and colleagues have present...

Philosophie et sciences: voila un theme difficile, central, de notre temps, ou il est necessairement question de son sens. C'est ce sens qu'interrogent, d'une facon a la fois historique et problematique, les essais du present volume. J. Merleau-Ponty questionne les rapports entre sciences et vulgarisation scientifique. J. Ladriere pose le probleme de La normativite de la pensee scientifique. J. Lambert met en evidence le probleme du Livre de la Nature chez Galilee et Kepler. P. Kerszberg confronte les structures internes de (...) la philosophie critique kantienne et de la theorie de la relativite sur la question cosmologique. M. Richir analyse L'illusion transcendantale dans la theorie cantorienne des ensembles. B. d'Espagnat et G. Hottois evoquent le problemes des rapports difficiles, aujourd'hui, entre science et philosophie. (shrink)

It is generally believed that the de Broglie-Bohm model does not admit a particle interpretation for massive relativistic spin-0 particles, on the basis that particle trajectories cannot be defined. We show this situation is due to the fact that in the standard representation of the Klein-Gordon equation the wavefunction systematically contains superpositions of particle and anti-particle contributions. We argue that by working in a Foldy-Wouthuysen type representation uncoupling the particle from the anti-particle evolutions, a positive conserved density for a particle (...) and associated density current can be defined. For the free Klein-Gordon equation the velocity field obtained from this current density appears to be well-behaved and sub-luminal in typical instances. As an illustration, Bohmian trajectories for a spin-0 boson distribution are computed numerically for free propagation in situations in which the standard velocity field would take arbitrarily high positive and negative values. (shrink)

Some patients have no chance of surviving if not treated, but very little chance if treated. A number of medical ethicists and physicians have argued that treatment in such cases is medically futile and a matter of physician discretion. This paper critically examines that position.According to Howard Brody and others, a judgment of medical futility is a purely technical matter, which physicians are uniquely qualified to make. Although Brody later retracted these claims, he held to the view that physicians need (...) not consult the patient or his family to determine their values before deciding not to treat. This is because professional integrity dictates that treatment should not be undertaken. The argument for this claim is that medicine is a profession and a social practice, and thus capable of breaches of professional integrity.Underlying professional integrity are two moral principles, one concerning harm, the other fraud. According to Brody both point to the fact that when the odds of survival are very low treatment is a violation of professional integrity.The details of this skeletal argument are exposed and explained, and the full argument is criticised. On a number of counts, it is found wanting. If anything, professional integrity points to the opposite conclusion. (shrink)

Philosophy of science is the organized expression of a growing intent among philosophers and scientists to clarify, perhaps unify, the programs, methods and results of the disciplines of philosophy and of science. The examination of fundamental concepts and presuppositions in the light of the positive results of science, systematic doubt of the positive results, and a thorough-going analysis and critique of logic and of language, are typical projects for this joint effort. It is not necessary to be committed to a (...) belief that science and philosophy are or should be one, or else that “never the twain shall meet.” If anything, there is to be expected a wholesome regard for the value of established science in furnishing a foil for philosophy and a check on its old extravagances. This does not mean that even the best-established science may not be subject to most devastating criticism by analysis of its foundations. In fact, despairing of the philosophy of the schools, science has done it largely for itself. The theories of gravitation, atomicity, electro-magnetism, evolution, relativity and quanta have all arisen through drastic revisions of complacent fundamental “truths.”. (shrink)

Disregard of gender and of women’s contributions in the higher education curriculum is still a widespread phenomenon. Building on feminist institutionalism, this article explores the forms and types of resistance that efforts to engender the higher education curriculum must contend with and discusses the ways in which resistance to curricular reform is entrenched in a web of both gender-specific and apparently gender-neutral academic informal rules. In doing so, the authors use empirical evidence collected by an action-research project undertaken at a (...) faculty of political and social sciences in a Catalan public university. The Spanish case is intriguing because mainstreaming gender in higher education has been prescribed by various national and regional laws that are nonetheless poorly implemented. The article also reflects on the positive feedback loop action-research projects can facilitate within gendered institutions such as universities and pinpoints the role of feminist agency in counteracting resistance to institutional change. (shrink)

Сучасний прогрес у таких наукових науках, як історія філософії, археологія, етнографія, етнопсихологія та теорія культурної традиції, захоплює увагу, довідавшись про відокремлення коренерів колективних вірогідностей, моделей та образів, а також їх збереження, перегляду й трансляції у часі. Спеціальний інтерес у використанні з боку цього полягає в еволюції стародавніх східнослов'янських історій і культурів, історіософське осміння дозволяє зробити глибше усвідомлене архаїчне першооснову українського православ'я.