Within the field of neuroscience, it is assumed that the central nervous system is divided into two functionally distinct components: the brain, which does the cognizing, and the spinal cord, which is a conduit of information enabling the brain to do its job. We dub this the “Cinderella view” of the spinal cord. Here, we suggest it should be abandoned. Marshalling recent empirical findings, we claim that the spinal cord is best conceived as an intrabodily cognitive extension: a piece of (...) biological circuitry that, together with the brain, constitutes our cognitive engine. To do so, after a brief introduction to the anatomy of the spinal cord, we briefly present a number of empirical studies highlighting the role played by the spinal cord in cognitive processing. Having so done, we claim that the spinal cord satisfies two popular and often endorsed criteria used to adjudicate cases of cognitive extension; namely the parity principle and the so-called “trust and glue” criteria. This, we argue, is sufficient to vindicate the role of the spinal cord as an intrabodily mental extension. We then steel our case considering a sizable number of prominent anti-extension arguments, showing that none of them poses a serious threat to our main claim. We then conclude the essay, spelling out a number of far-from trivial implications of our view. (shrink)

Background Considering the extensive debate that is currently taking place in Spain regarding euthanasia, it is important to examine the attitude of professionals who perform most of their duties at the bedside of these patients and their families. Objectives The aim of the present study was to present an adaptation and validation of the Euthanasia Attitude Scale and to evaluate its psychometric properties among a sample of nursing students in Spain. Research design A cross-sectional study design was conducted. Participants and (...) research context Non-probabilistic sampling was used to recruit 396 Spanish nursing students. Methods A self-report questionnaire, including socio-demographic data and the Euthanasia Attitude Scale, were used for data collection. The psychometric properties of the Euthanasia Attitude Scale were assessed, including reliability and validity. Fit indices of the overall model were computed. Ethical considerations This study was approved by the Hospital Ethical Committee. Students were informed of the aims and procedures and provided written informed consent prior to data collection. Results The factorial solution comprised four domains and the scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha =.878). For the exploratory factor analysis, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin index of sampling adequacy was.905 and the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was 2972.79 (p <.001). The initial factorial solution revealed four factors with eigenvalues of 6.78 for the first factor, 1.90 for the second one, 1.29 for the third, and 1.10 for the fourth factor. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between religiosity and the domains of the Euthanasia Attitude Scale. Discussion This study obtained a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of.88 which is in consonance with the findings reported by other studies whereby none of the items were removed and the initial structure based on four domains was conserved, with a factorial solution that explains 52.79% of the total variance. The displacement of some items of the domain may be explained by certain religious and/or cultural components as, in accordance with other studies, people with firm religious beliefs are more inclined to refuse euthanasia. Conclusion According to the findings of this study, the Euthanasia Attitude Scale is a reliable and valid instrument to measure the attitudes toward euthanasia in a sample of Spanish nursing students. This Spanish adaptation will be valuable in future studies examining the attitude and implication of nurses, understanding that nurses are key figures in the euthanasia debate. (shrink)

The origin of chordates and the consequent genesis of vertebrates were major events in natural history. The amphioxus (lancelet) is now recognised as the closest extant relative to the stem chordate and is the only living invertebrate that retains a vertebrate‐like development and body plan through its lifespan, despite more than 500 million years of independent evolution from the stem vertebrate. The inspiring data coming from its recently sequenced genome confirms that amphioxus has a prototypical chordate genome with respect to (...) gene content and structure, and even chromosomal organisation. Pushed by joint efforts of amphioxus researchers, amphioxus is now entering a new era, namely its maturation as a laboratory model, through the availability of a large amount of molecular data and the advent of experimental manipulation of the embryo. These two facts may well serve to illuminate the hidden secrets of the genetic changes that generated, among other vertebrates, ourselves. (shrink)

As Medicine shifts from a paternalistic practice to a patient-centered approach, the concept of medical informed consent (IC) has evolved to safeguard patient autonomy. However, its current implementation still presents many challenges in clinical practice. We assessed the knowledge and attitudes of the general Lebanese population regarding the IC process as well as their sociodemographic and medical correlates. An anonymous online survey was distributed to the Lebanese population using social media channels. A sample of 500 adults with an average age (...) of 36.2 ± 13.5 years, including 319 females and 181 males, was recruited. Most of the respondents had a university degree (85.8%), reported previous hospital admissions (75.9%) and had signed an IC for surgical procedures (40.7%). Few participants were knowledgeable about IC Lebanese law. Variability in knowledge level was significantly related to gender and a previous hospitalization history. Positive attitudes toward patient autonomy (53.1%) and shared decision-making (57.5%) correlated with older age, female gender, graduate education, and a previous history of signing an IC document. Males were more likely to believe that IC has positive effects on health than females. This is the first study that provides novel findings regarding Lebanese peoples’ awareness of the ethico-legal components of medical IC. (shrink)

This study aims to open a critical scenario on the current paradigm of reference for teaching sports techniques by pointing to a methodological perspective that is more in keeping with the theoretical reference framework of the ecological-dynamic approach. Currently, the Constraints-led Approach is considered very useful for teaching sports techniques; however, the transition from pure theory to practice is not so simple and consistent with the heuristic learning paradigm. The purpose is to highlight, starting from the theoretical lines, the methodological (...) applications of the different ways of applying the reference paradigm, analyzing the contrasts of the significant aspects and the uniqueness and unrepeatability of heuristic learning. For this purpose, an in-depth review of the scientific literature was conducted, highlighting the main critical points of the approach, also defined as nonlinear, with the consequent elaboration of operational proposals for the various macro-families of sports. (shrink)

La integración de la tecnología en el ámbito del derecho penal plantea desafíos significativos debido a la falta de regulación de la inteligencia artificial (IA), lo que podría comprometer los derechos fundamentales. Este estudio se centra en abordar estos desafíos y proponer soluciones mediante un análisis exhaustivo de la situación actual y las posibles implicaciones de la IA en el sistema jurídico penal. El objetivo principal de esta investigación es analizar los problemas, desafíos y oportunidades que surgen con la implementación (...) de la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Se busca identificar la necesidad de una regulación específica para la IA en el derecho penal, con el fin de proteger los derechos fundamentales de las personas y garantizar un sistema jurídico justo y equitativo. Para abordar esta problemática, se adoptó un enfoque metodológico cualitativo. Se llevó a cabo una revisión bibliográfica detallada para examinar los antecedentes, problemas y desafíos asociados con la IA en los sistemas jurídicos, especialmente en el ámbito penal. Además, se realizaron análisis de criterios y opiniones de expertos en derecho para obtener una comprensión más profunda de la situación y las posibles soluciones. Los resultados de este estudio revelan la necesidad urgente de establecer una normativa específica para regular la aplicación de la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Se destaca que la falta de regulación representa un riesgo significativo para los derechos fundamentales, especialmente en lo que respecta a la configuración de delitos con el apoyo de la IA. Además, se identifican diferentes dimensiones que deben abordarse en la regulación, incluyendo principios y reglas básicas del derecho, supervisión humana de los sistemas de IA y la promoción de la innovación responsable en este campo. Este artículo subraya la importancia de establecer una regulación efectiva para la inteligencia artificial en el ámbito penal. Esta regulación no solo protegerá los derechos fundamentales de las personas, sino que también promoverá un uso responsable y progresivo de la IA como una herramienta valiosa para los profesionales del derecho. Es crucial que la regulación sea integral y adaptable para garantizar un sistema jurídico justo y equitativo en la era digital. (shrink)

Our knowledge about colonial philosophical manuscripts preserved in the «Fondo Antiguo» and «Fondo Varios» at the National Historical Archive is limited almost exclusively to its listing and location. In some cases, there is a very brief description of the contents, identification of their philosophical tendency and some information about their authors. In order to expand our knowledge about them, we have tried here, on the one hand, to provide a more detailed description of the contents of the works, and, on (...) the other hand, to systematise the information provided by different catalogues. For this work, the contents of the original manuscripts and the corresponding microfiche have been revised and described. Thus, we have been able to correct some errors concerning location and content. We therefore hope to contribute, even minimally, to the construction of the history of philosophy in Chile. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo revisa brevemente diferentes aspectos de los Comentarios Acerca del alma, dictados por el franciscano chileno fray Juan de Fuica, en mayo de 1689, en el Colegio San Diego de Alcalá de Santiago de Chile. Presentamos, primero, una nota biográfica del fraile con información relativa a su trayectoria académica y administrativa dentro de la orden franciscana. Luego, analizamos en cinco categorías los aspectos fundamentales de este curso inédito: características generales, características del lenguaje, estructura, método de enseñanza y contenidos (...) ad mentem Scoti. Creemos que con la edición de este testimonio exclusivo de la enseñanza filosófica de la época, visibilizamos el patrimonio filosófico colonial del país y, en consecuencia, llenamos una gran laguna en la historia de la filosofía chilena. This article briefly reviews the different aspects of the Commentaries On the Soul, dictated in 1689 by Chilean Franciscan Friar Juan de Fuica at San Diego de Alcalá College, Santiago de Chile. First, we present a biographical note on the Friar with information concerning his academic and administrative career within the Franciscan order. Second, we analyze in five categories the fundamental aspects of this unreleased manuscript: general features, language features, structure, teaching method and ad mentem Scoti contents. We believe that with the edition of this exclusive testimony of philosophical teachings at that time, we give visibility to the colonial philosophical heritage of the country and, thereby, fill a gap in the history of Chilean philosophy. (shrink)

What is Sociology? presents in concise and provocative form the major ideas of a seminal thinker whose work--spanning more than four decades--is only now gaining the recognition here it has long had in Germany and France. Unlike other post-war sociologists, Norbert Elias has always held the concept of historical development among his central concerns; his dynamic theories of the evolution of modern man have remedied the historical and epistemological shortcomings of structualism and ethno-methodology. What is Sociology? refines the arguments that (...) were first found in Elias' massive work on the civilizing process, in which he formulated his major assertions about the interdependence of the making of modern man and modern society. It is Elias' contention that changes in personality structure--embodied in phenomena ranging from table manners and hygiene habits to rites of punishment and courtly love--inevitably reflect and mould patterns of control generated by new political and social instututions. Elias' rejection of a dichotomy between individual and society, and his use of psychoanalysis, political theory, and social history, help restore a fullness of resource to sociology. (shrink)

Elias Baumgarten taught philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1972 to 2018. He was born in Brooklyn, grew up in California, and went to schools in Boston and Chicago. He was one of the first recipients of the campus’s “Distinguished Teaching Award.” He taught a wide variety of courses including Medical Ethics, Ethics of War and Peace, Ethics of Nationalism, and Darwinism and Philosophy. Most of his publications are in ethics, including “Zionism, Nationalism, and Morality” and “Curiosity as a (...) Moral Virtue.” Dr. Baumgarten also served for over 30 years on hospital ethics committees at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. A child of immigrants, Prof. Baumgarten was passionate, both as teacher and citizen, in celebrating multicultural diversity both on our campus and in our country. He sees travel as a form of education and traveled to over 70 countries. (shrink)

El siglo XXI debe apostar por una transmisión de la Historia de manera diferente. Sin perder el rigor académico podemos servirnos de esta disciplina para su uso en las explicaciones de cualquier acontecimiento o situación de crisis que se produce en el mundo actual. Existen nuevas técnicas que nos permiten explicar el sentido de la Historia en cada momento de nuestra vida. Tomando como ejemplo el siglo XVI y el Imperio de Carlos V podemos hacer un ejercicio de análisis que (...) nos conduce fácilmente a claves de actualidad que pasan por el nacimiento del estado moderno, su configuración territorial o la relación de España con América. El afán didáctico de todo lo que contamos debe ser fundamental. Hemos de evitar distorsiones gracias al conocimiento del ayer. La Historia nos ayudará a aportar coherencia al mensaje y a profundizar en la creación de una sociedad rigurosa, tolerante, plural y respetuosa. (shrink)

The concept of truth arguably plays a central role in many areas of philosophical theorizing. Yet, what seems to be one of the most fundamental principles governing that concept, i.e. the equivalence between P and , is inconsistent in full classical logic, as shown by the semantic paradoxes. I propose a new solution to those paradoxes, based on a principled revision of classical logic. Technically, the key idea consists in the rejection of the unrestricted validity of the structural principle of (...) contraction. I first motivate philosophically this idea with the metaphysical picture of the states-of-affairs expressed by paradoxical sentences as being distinctively . I then proceed to demonstrate that the theory of truth resulting from this metaphysical picture is, in many philosophically interesting respects, surprisingly stronger than most other theories of truth endorsing the equivalence between P and (for example, the theory vindicates the validity of the traditional laws of excluded middle and of non-contradiction, and also vindicates the traditional constraint of truth preservation on logical consequence). I conclude by proving a cutelimination theorem that shows the consistency of the theory. (shrink)

Elias wrote in both English and German, and in all his work runs to 14 books and around 90 other essays, along with poems and numerous interviews. The 18 volumes of the collected works contain many writings not previously published in English, and a small number never published before. All of the texts have thoroughly checked and revised, by editors who have a deep knowledge of Elia's thinking; they have inserted many clarifications, cross-references and explanatory notes.

This paper aims at providing an epistemic defense of democracy based on John Dewey’s idea that democracies do not only find problems and provide solutions to them but they also articulate problems. According to this view, when citizens inquire about collective issues, they also partially shape them. This view contrasts with the standard account of democracy’s epistemic defense, according to which democracy’s is good at tracking and finding solutions that are independent of political will-formation and decision-making. It is also less (...) vulnerable to the criticisms that have been raised against the standard account. To show this, the paper develops a theory of expressive domination and argues that problem-articulation works best when it is inclusive and domination-free. It also shows that democratic conflict represents a fundamental element for problem-articulation. (shrink)

En este trabajo se realiza una propuesta de comunicación transdisciplinar entre las ciencias cognitivas y la educación, tal y como se perfilan en el siglo XXI. En un primer lugar se contextualizan estos procesos de comunicación en el continuum histórico que transita desde los inicios del siglo pasado, con la configuración de la psicología educativa dentro del constructo de las ciencias educativas; pasando por la constitución de las ciencias cognitivas, a mediados del siglo XX que propició la emergencia de la (...) síntesis disciplinar entre las ciencias del cerebro y de la mente, para posibilitar un encuadre arraigado en el presente, y en las propuestas de consiliencia entre neurociencia cognitiva y educación. Desde este presente histórico, se efectúa una propuesta de diálogo entre las distintas epistemes (educativas y cognitivas), en relación con el fenómeno de la educación bilingüe, y en concreto en el contexto intercultural ecuatoriano. La integración de los distintos niveles de análisis que configuran un fenómeno complejo, como lo es todo fenómeno educativo, refleja cómo los intentos transdisciplinares orientados a reconocer la complejidad ontológica de un mismo objeto de estudio, requiere del diálogo entre las distintas epistemologías y metodologías implicadas. La apertura del campo educativo a las dimensiones mentales y cerebrales en su expresión cognitiva, requiere en este s. XXI procesos de apertura recíproca respecto de la influencia que el eje cultura-educación ejerce en el modelamiento de los procesos de cognición y aprendizaje. (shrink)

A necessary condition for a group being taken as a rational agent is that its choices and judgements are ‘logically contestable’, but this can lead to problems of aggregation, as Arrow impossibility theorem or the discursive dilemma. This paper proposes a contractarian or constitutional approach: the relevant thing is what aggregation mechanisms would be preferred by the members of the group. Two distinctions need to be made: first, judgement aggregation is not aggregation of decisions, and judgement aggregation needs be distinguished (...) from the aggregation of information: we assume that every member of the group has already taken into account the opinions of the other members, by means of a process of public deliberation, but they may end having different opinions; we also assume that the members are rational, so that they have no reasons to accept further changes in their individual opinions. So, from the epistemic point of view, the collective judgment is not a 'better' opinion than those of the individual members. The collective judgement is better seen as a kind of compromise, the outcome of a ‘bargain’, so to say. Basically, we assume that individuals will have an interest in choosing a specific aggregation function by taking into account how are they affected by the collective actions carried out by the group, and grounded on the chosen collective judgement. (shrink)

El positivismo jurídico como teoría sobre la existencia del derecho: un comentario sobre Judging Positivism de Margaret Martin Este comentario examina de forma crítica la concepción de positivismo jurídico que informa el desafío planteado por Margaret Martin contra la substancia y el método de esta tradición intelectual. La afirmación central de este artículo es que su caracterización de la teoría substantiva del positivismo jurídico deja de lado una dimensión más fundamental, y explicativamente previa, relacionada a la teoría positivista de la (...) existencia de los sistemas y normas jurídicas. También sostengo que su caracterización de la metodología descriptiva del positivismo como un proyecto no normativo es demasiado exigente y no puede capturar la relaciones entre derecho y moral reconocidas por los positivistas contemporáneos ni la distinción entre preguntas internas y externas. Estas clarificaciones proporcionan recursos para comenzar a responder algunas de las objeciones de Martín contra el proyecto de Raz. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with a logical difficulty which Lionel Shapiro’s deflationist theory of logical consequence (as well as the author’s favoured, non-deflationist theory) gives rise to. It is argued that Shapiro’s non-contractive approach to solving the difficulty, although correct in its broad outlines, is nevertheless extremely problematic in some of its specifics, in particular in its failure to validate certain intuitive rules and laws associated with the principle of modus ponens. An alternative non-contractive theory is offered which does not (...) suffer from the same problem. (shrink)

As soon as 'modernity' was defined as a particular way of con ceiving of time, the questions of tempo rality came to be situated at the heart of the ongoing debate regarding the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the 'modern age'. This has, in turn, readily led to a no less passionate search for the assessment of modernity's foundations which are thought to rest in its typical sense of experiencing temporality. This polemic instance, however, involves polarized perspectives and the consequent risk, (...) always present in dichotomous approaches, of oversimplifying the concepts at stake and smoothing over the intricacies of their history and meaning. Does there really exist something like a ' time of modernity'? This is the central question that the present article examines. 1 Key Words: evolution • modemity • philosophy of history • time irreversibility. (shrink)

Earnings management behavior is a concern of standard-setters, regulators and the accounting profession. This study examines the ethics of this practice using a national sample of 763 accounting practitioners, faculty and students. Possible determinants of the ethics of this practice such as perceived role of ethics and social responsibility, and personal moral philosophies (i.e. idealism and relativism) are explored. Results indicate a positive relationship between social responsibility, focus on long-term gains, idealism, and the ethical perception of earnings management and negative (...) relationship between focus on short-term gains, relativism and the ethical perception of this practice. Implications for the accounting profession as it deals with the issue of earnings management are discussed. (shrink)

La transmisión de la filosofía al continente americano puede rastrearse materialmente por medio del examen de las redes comerciales que procuraron la numerosa llegada de libros que alimentaron a las primeras bibliotecas coloniales. En ellas se resguardaron variadas obras filosóficas y humanísticas que fueron fundamentales en la promoción y el desarrollo de la cultura escrita y la educación. Al revisar algunos aspectos centrales del comercio, el control librario y la colección de obras afines en las primeras bibliotecas privadas y religiosas, (...) se pretende reconstruir, al menos en sus rasgos característicos, el devenir de la filosofía en el Nuevo Mundo. The transmission of philosophy to the Americas can be traced through the examination of the commercial networks that provided the first colonial libraries with books. These vast collections contained various philosophical and humanistic works that were a key factor in the promotion and the development of written culture and education. Reviewing some aspects on trading, book inventory and the collection of related works in the first private and religious libraries, the main goal is to reconstruct, at least in its characteristic features, the development of philosophy in the New World. (shrink)

Resumen En este documento, a partir de lo que desde la literatura especializada se registra como los puntos de acuerdo y como los avances en el campo de la teoría ética del desarrollo, se lleva a cabo una descripción de las ventajas y desventajas que se observan en tres mecanismos muy populares como vías para la realización de los postulados de la ética del desarrollo, en especial respecto a aquel que apunta a la necesaria erradicación de la pobreza extrema en (...) el mundo. Una vez realizado el estudio de la Ayuda Oficial para el Desarrollo, la tasa Tobin y la Renta Básica Universal, se analizan las propuestas económica y jurídica, respectivamente, de Thomas Piketty y Luigi Ferrajoli a fin de identificar los aportes teóricos que las mismas pueden realizar al campo de la ética del desarrollo y las ventajas que presentan frente a los mecanismos hasta ahora explorados.In this document, based on what is recorded on the specialized literature as the points of agreement and as the advances in the field of the ethical theory of development, a description is realized on the advantages and disadvantages that can be observed in three mechanisms that are very popular as avenues for the realization of the postulates of development ethics, especially with respect to the one that points to the necessary eradication of extreme poverty in the world. Following the study of the Official Aid for Development, the Tobin tax and the Universal Basic Income, the economic and legal proposals of Thomas Piketty and Luigi Ferrajoli are analyzed in order to identify the theoretical contributions that they can make to the field of development ethics and the advantages they present over the mechanisms explored so far. (shrink)

"Cuando hablamos de criticar el arte, no hablamos de considerar las cualidades más o menos objetivables de algo que hemos convenido en designar como "obra de arte", sino de cuestionar, cabría decir de un modo trascendental, los fundamentos ideológicos mismos que nos han llevado no sólo a convertir a una serie de objetos en una especie de excepción en el reino de las cosas, sino a considerar incluso que en ellos habitan revelaciones trascendentales que nos sitúan de modo inmediato en (...) el reino de la verdad. Hablamos más bien de replantear el propio estatuto ontológico del arte en tanto realidad histórica un tanto estupefaciente, de la misma forma en que el pensamiento ilustrado se atervió a cuestionar las verdades más o menos inconmesurables del discurso religioso". (shrink)

Los fragmentos que aquí se presentan bajo el título de Notas de la razón son el producto de una investigación que apenas si ha alcanzado algunas certezas relativas, y que nace, como todas aquellas que aspiran a la condición de filosóficas, de algunas perplejidades, de algunos desconciertos y también, por qué no confesarlo, de la insólita sorpresa que a veces nos produce el hecho de que las cosas sean lo que son. El asombro que nos despierta lo que ya está (...) ahí, como si fuéramos oscuramente conscientes de que podría haber no estado o haberlo hecho de cualquier otra forma, se deriva de una evidencia imponderable: no sólo que la verdad existe, sino que nosotros no podríamos existir sin ella. Si la verdad está, podría afirmarse, parafraseando a Epicuro, estamos nosotros, pero si ella desaparece, nosotros no existimos o lo hacemos de forma improbable. En estas reflexiones se cuestionan verdades: sobre la propia verdad, sobre la belleza y el arte, sobre el bien, el yo y la tragedia… Hay también una fracasada aspiración de unidad que, tal vez, tan sólo se alcance en la perspectiva final del lector. (shrink)

The paper critically discusses two prominent arguments against closure principles for knowledge. The first one is the “argument from aggregation”, claiming that closure under conjunction has the consequence that, if one individually knows i premises, one also knows their i-fold conjunction—yet, every one of the premises might exhibit interesting positive epistemic properties while the i-fold conjunction might fail to do so. The second one is the “argument from concatenation”, claiming that closure under entailment has the consequence that, if one knows (...) a premise, one also knows each of its remote consequences one arrives at—yet, again, the premise might exhibit interesting positive epistemic properties while some of its remote consequences might fail to do so. The paper firstly observes that the ways in which these two arguments try to establish that the relevant closure principle has the relevant problematic consequence are strikingly similar. They both crucially involve showing that, given the features of the case, the relevant closure principle acts in effect as a soritical principle, which is in turn assumed to lead validly to the relevant problematic consequence. There are however nontransitive logics of vagueness where soritical principles do not have any problematic consequence. Assuming that one of these logics is the correct logic of vagueness, the paper secondly observes that both arguments describe situations where knowledge is arguably vague in the relevant respects, so that a tolerant logic should be used in reasoning about it, with the effect that the relevant soritical principle no longer validly leads to the relevant problematic consequence. This shows an interesting respect in which the gap between validity and good inference that arguably arises in a transitive framework can be bridged in a tolerant one, thereby approximating better certain features of our epistemic lives as finite subjects. Moreover, even for those who do not subscribe to tolerant logics, the paper’s two observations jointly indicate that, for all the arguments from aggregation and concatenation show, the status of the relevant closure principles should be no worse than that assigned by one’s favoured theory of vagueness to soritical principles, which only rarely is plain falsity and can indeed get arbitrarily close to full truth. (shrink)

In this unique book, leading legal scholars and philosophers provide a breadth of perspectives and inspire stimulating debate around the transformations of jurisprudence in a globalized world. Traditionally the central debates surrounding jurisprudence and legal theory are concerned with the elucidation of the particularities of state-law. This innovative book considers that this orthodox picture may no longer be tenable, given the increasing standardization of technologies, systems and information worldwide.Split across four thematic parts, this timely book provides a broad overview of (...) the topic, followed by in depth analyses investigating the modifications to jurisprudence's methodological approaches driven by globalization, the concepts and theoretical tools required to account for putative new forms of legal phenomena, and normative issues relating to the legitimacy and democratic character of these legal orders. Chapters cover legal encounters with alterity in a post-monist mode, normative legal pluralism, relating law and power in a historical global context, cosmopolitan legitimacy and human rights and dignity in a corporate world.Jurisprudence in a Globalized World will be a key resource for students and scholars working in global transnational law, public international law and legal theory and philosophy. (shrink)

This article contributes to the literature on national varieties of socially responsible investment (SRI) by demonstrating how Scandinavian SRI developed from the 60s and onwards. Combining findings on Scandinavian SRI with insights from previous research and institutional theory, the article accounts for the role of changes in societal values and norms, the mechanisms by which SRI practices spread, and how investors adopt and transform practices to suit their surrounding institutional contexts. Especially, the article draws attention to how different categories of (...) investors act as institutional entrepreneurs during specific historical periods, and how these roles come to shift as institutional rule systems of varying societal levels change. Thus, the insights gained are useful in the future research agenda concerned with advancing knowledge on idiosyncrasies and commonalities of national SRI manifestations, and to understand the reasons underlying such characteristics. (shrink)

The decision whether to have a realist or an anti-realist attitude towards scientific hypotheses is interpreted in this paper as a choice that scientists themselves have to face in their work as scientists, rather than as a ‘philosophical’ problem. Scientists’ choices between realism and instrumentalism (or other types of anti-realism) are interpreted in this paper with the help of two different conceptual tools: a deflationary semantics grounded in the inferentialist approach to linguistic practices developed by some authors (e.g., Sellars, Brandom), (...) and an epistemic utility function that tries to represent the cognitive preferences of scientists. The first tool is applied to two different questions traditionally related to the problem of scientific realism: the non-miracle argument, and the continuity of reference. The second one is applied to the problem of unconceived alternatives, and to the distinction between realist and instrumentalist attitudes towards scientific hypotheses. (shrink)

According to the naive theory of vagueness, the vagueness of an expression consists in the existence of both positive and negative cases of application of the expression and in the non- existence of a sharp cut-off point between them. The sorites paradox shows the naive theory to be inconsistent in most logics proposed for a vague language. The paper explores the prospects of saving the naive theory by revising the logic in a novel way, placing principled restrictions on the transitivity (...) of the consequence relation. A lattice-theoretical framework for a whole family of “tolerant logics” is proposed and developed. Particular care is devoted to the relation between the salient features of the formal apparatus and the informal logical and semantic notions they are supposed to model. A suitable non-transitive counterpart to classical logic is defined. Some of its properties are studied, and it is eventually shown how an appropriate regimentation of the naive theory of vagueness is consistent in such a logic. (shrink)

In [E. Baro, M. Otero, On o-minimal homotopy, Quart. J. Math. 15pp, in press ] o-minimal homotopy was developed for the definable category, proving o-minimal versions of the Hurewicz theorems and the Whitehead theorem. Here, we extend these results to the category of locally definable spaces, for which we introduce homology and homotopy functors. We also study the concept of connectedness in -definable groups — which are examples of locally definable spaces. We show that the various concepts of connectedness associated (...) to these groups, which have appeared in the literature, are non-equivalent. (shrink)