Online controlled experiments, also known as A/B tests, have become ubiquitous. While many practical challenges in running experiments at scale have been thoroughly discussed, the ethical dimension of A/B testing has been neglected. This article fills this gap in the literature by introducing a new, soft ethics and governance framework that explicitly recognizes how the rise of an experimentation culture in industry settings brings not only unprecedented opportunities to businesses but also significant responsibilities. More precisely, the article (a) introduces a (...) set of principles to encourage ethical and responsible experimentation to protect users, customers, and society; (b) argues that ensuring compliance with the proposed principles is a complex challenge unlikely to be addressed by resorting to a one-solution response; (c) discusses the relevance and effectiveness of several mechanisms and policies in educating, governing, and incentivizing companies conducting online controlled experiments; and (d) offers a list of prompting questions specifically designed to help and empower practitioners by stimulating specific ethical deliberations and facilitating coordination among different groups of stakeholders. (shrink)

Predicates like “coloring‐the‐star” denote events that have a temporal duration and a culmination point (telos). When combined with perfective aspect (e.g., “Valeria has colored the star”), a culmination inference arises implying that the action has stopped, and the star is fully colored. While the perfective aspect is known to constrain the conceptualization of the event as telic, many reading studies have demonstrated that readers do not make early commitments as to whether the event is bounded or unbounded. A few visual‐world (...) studies tested the processing of telic predicates during online sentence processing, demonstrating an early integration of aspectual and temporal cues. By employing the visual‐world paradigm, we tested the incremental processing of the perfective aspect in Italian in two eye‐tracking studies in which listeners heard durative predicates in the perfective form in a scenario showing a completed and a non‐completed event. Differently from previous studies, we compared telic durative predicates such as “coloring‐the‐star” to punctual predicates such as “lighting‐the‐candle.” While for punctual predicates, the inferences of telicity (the event has a telos) and of culmination (the telos is reached) are lexically encoded in the perfective verb, for durative predicates, the degree of event completion (visually encoded) needs to be integrated with perfective aspect (linguistically encoded) for the culmination inference derivation. By modulating the interaction of visual and linguistic stimuli across the two experiments, we show that the verb's perfective aspect triggers the culmination inference incrementally during sentence processing, offering novel evidence for the continuous integration of linguistic processing with real‐world visual information. (shrink)

When we affirm that someone knows something, we are making a value judgment of sorts - we are claiming that there is something superior about that person's opinion, or their evidence, or perhaps about them. A central task of the theory of knowledge is to investigate the sort of evaluation at issue. This is the first book to make 'epistemic normativity,' or the normative dimension of knowledge and knowledge ascriptions, its central focus. John Greco argues that knowledge is a (...) kind of achievement, as opposed to mere lucky success. This locates knowledge within a broader, familiar normative domain. By reflecting on our thinking and practices in this domain, it is argued, we gain insight into what knowledge is and what kind of value it has for us. (shrink)

Objective: Mindfulness disposition is associated with various psychological factors and prevent emotional distress in chronic diseases. In the present study, we analyzed the key role of mindfulness dispositions in protecting the individual against psychological distress consequent to COVID-19 social distancing and quarantining. Methods: An online survey was launched on March 13, 2020, with 6,412 responses by April 6, 2020. Socio-demographic information, exposure to the pandemic, and quarantining were assessed together with psychological distress and mindfulness disposition. Multivariate linear regression analysis was (...) performed to study the influence of predictive factors on psychological distress and quality of life in Italian responders during the early days of lockdown. Pearson correlations were calculated to study the relations between mindfulness and psychiatric symptoms. Results: Multivariate linear regression run on socio-demographics, COVID-19-related variables, and mindfulness disposition as moderators of overall psychological distress showed that mindfulness was the best predictor of psychological distress (β = -0.504; p =.000). High negative correlations were found between mindfulness disposition and overall Global Severity Index (r = -.637; p =.000), while moderate to high associations were found between mindfulness and all SCL-90 sub-scales. Discussion: Findings showed that high dispositional mindfulness enhances well-being and helps in dealing with stressful situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Mindfulness-based mental training could represent an effective intervention to stem the post-traumatic psychopathological beginnings and preventing the onset of chronic mental disorders. (shrink)

In this paper we study interpretations and equivalences of propositional deductive systems by using a quantale-theoretic approach introduced by Galatos and Tsinakis. Our aim is to provide a general order-theoretic framework which is able to describe and characterize both strong and weak forms of interpretations among propositional deductive systems also in the cases where the systems have different underlying languages.

We propose various methods for combining or amalgamating propositional languages and deductive systems. We make heavy use of quantales and quantale modules in the wake of previous works by the present and other authors. We also describe quite extensively the relationships among the algebraic and order-theoretic constructions and the corresponding ones based on a purely logical approach.

How do we transmit or distribute knowledge, as distinct from generating or producing it? In this book John Greco examines the interpersonal relations and social structures which enable and inhibit the sharing of knowledge within and across epistemic communities. Drawing on resources from moral theory, the philosophy of language, action theory and the cognitive sciences, he considers the role of interpersonal trust in transmitting knowledge, and argues that sharing knowledge involves a kind of shared agency similar to giving a (...) gift or passing a ball. He also explains why transmitting knowledge is easy in some social contexts, such as those involving friendship or caregiving, but impossible in contexts characterized by suspicion and competition rather than by trust and cooperation. His book explores phenomena that have been undertheorized by traditional epistemology, and throws new light on existing problems in social epistemology and the epistemology of testimony. (shrink)

Der Beitrag untersucht die geschichtliche Entwicklung in ehemaligen Kolonialstaaten nach dem Rückzug der Kolonialmächte. Er unternimmt diese Untersuchung im Ausgang von Hegels Begriff der Sittlichkeit. Mittels dieses Konzepts entwickelt der Autor ein Modell des historischen Prozesses, der durch den Widerstreit zwischen den Ansprüchen der einzelnen Gemeinschaften und denen des Nationalstaats bestimmt ist. Anschließend prüft er dieses Modell unter Rückgriff auf tatsächliche Entwicklungen, etwa in Südamerika.

Nuestro tiempo se caracteriza por un fuerte subjetivismo valórico que posibilita a cada uno apreciar realidades de distinta forma. Mishima, a través de su obra literaria, acoge al mal, al sufrimiento, al dolor y a la muerte como valores que expresan lo bello.

Mediante el análisis de determinados pasajes del capítulo VI de la Fenomenología del espíritu, este trabajo demuestra cómo se vale Hegel de la tragedia griega para diseñar un modelo del desarrollo conflictivo de las relaciones entre sociedad y Estado. El hilo conductor de la lectura es el concepto de inversión (Verkehrung), que aparece estrechamente vinculado al de acción (Handlung). El estudio muestra, en conclusión, que la reducción de esta comprensión trágica de la eticidad a los términos del conflicto entre sociedad (...) civil y Estado de la Filosofía del derecho implica pérdidas grandes, pero no irrecuperables. (shrink)

In his later writings, Althusser brings to light a repressed materialistic current in Western philosophy, ranging from Epicurus to Heidegger and Derrida. In this article, I argue that the comparison between Epicurus's conception of Nature and Heidegger's concepts of _Geworfenheit_ and _Es gibt_ allows Althusser to lay the foundation for a new notion of event. Through the analysis of this philosophical connection, Althusser aims both to think of Time and History in a non-teleological way and to create the conditions for (...) a political praxis that does not apply any kind of metaphysical principles to a constantly changing reality. (shrink)

The paper begins by reviewing two problems for fallibilism: the lottery problem, or the problem of explaining why fallible evidence, though otherwise excellent, is not enough to know that one will lose the lottery, and Gettier problems. It is then argued that both problems can be resolved if we note an important illocutionary force of knowledge attributions: namely, that when we attribute knowledge to someone we mean to give the person credit for getting things right. Alternatively, to say that a (...) person knows is to say that she got things right due to her own abilities, efforts and actions, rather than due to dumb luck, or blind chance, or something else. (shrink)

Hermenéutica es interpretación de texto. En este caso el texto es el sistema educativo, los proyectos o los establecimientos educativos y el educando en sí mismo. Una lectura univoca impide abrirse a otras visiones, una lectura equívoca impide el dialogo. La Analogía parece ser el camino para un análisis compresivo del quehacer educacional.

This paper reviews two skeptical arguments and argues that a reliabilist framework is necessary to avoid them. The paper also argues that agent reliabilism, which makes the knower the seat of reliability, is the most plausible version of reliabilism.

La reciprocidad se revela como un principio social fundamental cuando se evidencia su estructura dual. Por un lado, el don desvía el valor de las cosas hacia una pretensión de reconocimiento y estatus, con lo que crea un contramundo social; por otro, tales pretensiones, muchas veces defraudadas, contrastan con las relaciones objetivas y éstas son criticadas sobre el trasfondo de la reciprocidad pretendida. En las Confesiones de Rousseau, el sentido del agradecimiento de los personajes jóvenes y marginales les confiere dignidad (...) y derecho a la crítica. Smith esboza un procedimiento de recontextualización afín al de las narraciones de Rousseau, pero en su teoría, el significado distinto que la reciprocidad da a los objetos y sujetos del intercambio tiene que descubrirse en un trasfondo social, como una realidad paralela. (shrink)

In his Cahiers , Valéry says that writing two of his major dialogues, Eupalinos and L’âme et la danse , was an antidote to his ravaging mood: literature and spirituality are the remedy generated by a necessary and not eliminable evil, particularly the one that shows itself as ‘rage’ in love. The essay investigates thoroughly this contradictory logic and focuses on the problem of sensitiveness in Valéry’s work, pointing out a twofold presence of the ‘body’. Preserving these two presences, the (...) writing incessantly tries to make up “une fureur intelligente et expérimentale” and to give a new form, without deleting it, to sensitiveness’ acute pain. (shrink)

This book, first published in 2000, is about the nature of skeptical arguments and their role in philosophical inquiry. John Greco delineates three main theses: that a number of historically prominent skeptical arguments make no obvious mistake, and therefore cannot be easily dismissed; that the analysis of skeptical arguments is philosophically useful and important, and should therefore have a central place in the methodology of philosophy; and that taking skeptical arguments seriously requires us to adopt an externalist, reliabilist epistemology. (...) Greco argues that the importance of skeptical arguments is methodological. It is further argued that taking skeptical arguments seriously requires us to adopt a version of 'virtue epistemology', or a theory of knowledge that makes intellectual virtue central in the analysis of knowledge. The above methodology has consequences for moral and religious epistemology; in particular, a theory of moral perception is defended. (shrink)