A movement asking to take race out of medicine is growing in the US. While we agree with the necessity to get rid of flawed assumptions about biological race that pervade automatic race correction in medical algorithms, we urge caution about insisting on a blanket eliminativism about race in medicine. If we look at racism as a fundamental cause, in the sense that this notion has been introduced in epidemiological studies by Bruce Link and Jo Phelan, we must conclude that (...) race is indispensable to consider, investigate, and denounce the health effects of multilevel racism, and cannot be eliminated by addressing more specific risk factors in socially responsible epidemiology and clinical medicine. This does not mean that realism about human races is vindicated. While maintaining that there are no human races, we show how it is that a non-referring concept can nonetheless turn out indispensable for explaining real phenomena. (shrink)

There are sentences that express the same temporally fully specified proposition at all contexts--call them 'context-insensitive, temporally specific sentences.' Sentence (1) 'Obama was born in 1961' is a case in point: at all contexts, it expresses the proposition ascribing to the year 1961 the property of being a time in which Obama was born. Suppose that someone uttered (1) in a context located on Christmas 2000 in our world. In this context, (1) is a true sentence about the past. Moreover, (...) it seems impossible that (1) will be false in a successive context (one located, say, on Christmas 2020 in our world). More generally, one might be tempted to endorse the following principle: if a context-insensitive, temporally specific sentence is uttered in a context in which it is about the past and takes a certain truth value in this context, it cannot be the case that it takes a different truth value in a successive context located in the same world. In this paper, we present linguistic evidence that shows that this principle fails. On this basis, we draw an apparently crazy conclusion: the past can change. We then explain why this conclusion is not that crazy, after all. (shrink)

Is freedom of research protected at the constitutional level? No obvious answer can be given to this question, as European and Northern American constitutional systems are not unequivocal and the topic has not been discussed deeply enough.Looking at the constitutions of some European and Northern American countries, it is possible to immediately note that there are essentially two ways to deal with freedom of scientific research. On the one hand, in Canada and in the US, constitutions have no specific provisions (...) to protect freedom of scientific research, with the result that such freedom ends up having to be protected as a specific aspect of the wider freedom of thought and expression . On the other hand, other countries’ constitutional systems, mainly European ones, expressly recognise freedom of research and teaching arts and science. For instance, article 5 of the German Constitution states that “Art and science, research and teaching are free”, article 33 of the Italian Constitution1i establishes that “The arts and sciences as well as their teaching are free” and article 59 of the Slovenian Constitution states that “Freedom of scientific research and artistic endeavor shall be guaranteed”.Within this second group, some constitutions limit their protection to the provision of freedom of scientific research, whereas other fundamental laws engage governments in promoting and supporting it. For example, the Italian Constitution, which states that “The Republic promotes cultural development and scientific and technical research” , the Spanish Constitution, according to which “public authorities shall promote science and scientific and technical research for the benefit of general interest” and, also, the Greek Constitution, whose article 16 establishes that art, science, research and their teaching are free, and their promotion is mandatory for the State.2 It …. (shrink)

Le courant de la cognition sociale a conceptualisé plusieurs modèles de la catégorisation décrivant les manières avec lesquelles les individus organisent leurs connaissances sur les groupes sociaux. Les trois principaux modèles - les entités, les prototypes, et les exemplaires - détaillent les caractéristiques formelles du groupe. Cet article présente ces modèles et, en adoptant une perspective psychosociologique, il en souligne une limite importante : leur silence en ce qui concerne les conditions qui en déterminent l'actualisation dans les cognitions individuelles. La (...) conclusion s'attarde sur l'apport de ces modèles qui, dès lors qu'ils abandonnent leur prétention d'englober la totalité des activités cognitives individuelles, constituent des outils nécessaires pour comprendre les dynamiques de représentations sociales chez les membres des groupes dominants et des groupes dominés.The cognitive tradition in social psychology has conceptualized several models of categorization. Each model emphasizes the emergence of a single representation of the social group . However, when defining a model of the social group, individual positions in the social structure and the interactions of these individuals are not systematically taken into account. The present contribution argues for the adequacy of the theory of social representations to uncover the antecedent conditions of individuals’ use of various representations of the social group. Research examples will show how models of the social group which are generally considered antagonistic develop concurrently, depending on the target group to which they are applied. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the concept of prefiguration by outlining the necessity of its contribution to a progressive public philosophy for the 2020s. In the introduction, I explain how the object of critique for many social theorists has shifted over the course of the last decade from neoliberal globalization to capitalism understood as an encompassing form of life. In light of this, I enumerate the features that should define a progressive public philosophy: radical, emancipatory, and (...) decolonized. The introduction is followed by an overview of the academic debates emerging after the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2007–8. Among these, accelerationism fundamentally rejects the incorporation of prefigurative politics in any emancipatory political agenda. To better understand this position, I examine the origin and meaning of prefiguration and prefigurative practices in more detail in Section III. In it, I argue that prefigurative politics entails a holistic approach to social change that digs its roots in feminist and ecological thought and focuses on social reproduction and the preservation of life rather than solely economic production. Subsequently, I deploy the case of Occupy Wall Street to show that a growing number of contemporary social movements are implementing a dualistic strategy that simultaneously combines repertoires of action typical of protest movements with prefigurative practices focused on the embodiment of alternatives. This dualism, along with the limited success of Occupy Wall Street in concretizing its claims and goals, has led prefigurative politics to being labelled as incompatible with, if not even hindering, any emancipatory strategy. My argument instead is that prefigurative politics constitutes a fundamental and necessary component of any political strategy aimed at transcending contemporary capitalism since it conceives progressive social change in an ontologically and epistemologically different way with respect to political parties and protest movements. Taking this into consideration, I conclude that conventional politics and prefigurative politics can be seen as having the potential to mutually reinforce each other and that prefigurative politics should be acknowledged as a pivotal concept in establishing a progressive public philosophy for the 2020s. Only by doing so, will this philosophy be truly radical, emancipatory, and decolonial. (shrink)

Causal modelling provides a powerful set of tools for identifying causal structure from observed correlations. It is well known that such techniques fail for quantum systems, unless one introduces 'spooky' hidden mechanisms. Whether one can produce a genuinely quantum framework in order to discover causal structure remains an open question. Here we introduce a new framework for quantum causal modelling that allows for the discovery of causal structure. We define quantum analogues for core features of classical causal modelling techniques, including (...) the causal Markov condition and faithfulness. Based on the process matrix formalism, this framework naturally extends to generalised structures with indefinite causal order. (shrink)

Da un colloquio tra una fenomenologa di chiara fama e un pedagogista emergono iconnotati dell’atteggiamento fenomenologico, inteso come disposizione intellettuale e morale capace di fondare una “conoscenza personale” nel lavoro di cura. Questa attitudine della mente e del cuore può dar forma al “modo di essere” peculiare di chi, per professione e per vocazione, si prende quotidianamente cura delle persone e della loro esistenza.From this conversation between a well-known phenomenologist and a pedagogist thephenomenological attitude arises as both intellectual and existential (...) disposition, wich is the basis of a “personal knowledge” in care professions. This cognitive and emotional attitude can mould the particular “way of being” which characterizes those professionals who, day by day, take care of people and their existence. (shrink)

En el vórtice del tiempo -- La digestión del conocimiento -- De la noble virtud -- Retrodicción del futuro -- Taki Onqoy -- Guernica -- Máximas e interludios -- De retorno al crepúsculo -- Bitácora.

Modes of action readiness Acceptance accepting presence or interaction Non- acceptance not accepting presence or interaction Attending acquiring information Disinterest not acquiring information Affiliate achieving or accepting close ...

This book attempts to open up a path towards a phenomenological theory of values. By drawing on everyday experience, and dissociating the notion of value from that of tradition, it shows how emotional sensibility can be integrated to practical reason. This project was prompted by the persuasion that the fragility of democracy, and the current public irrelevance of the ideal principles which support it, largely depend on the inability of modern philosophy to overcome the well-entrenched skepticism about the power of (...) practical reason. The book begins with a phenomenology of cynical consciousness, continues with a survey of still influential theories of value rooted in 20th century philosophy, and finally offers an outline of a bottom-up axiology that revives the anti-skeptical legacy of phenomenology, without ignoring the standards set by contemporary metaethics. (shrink)

In the framework of the theory of the semiosphere elaborated by Juri Lotman in the 1980s, the notion of translation acquires a new, broadened meaning and is used to describe a general mechanism of cultural dynamics. This is a direct consequence of the understanding of the semiosphere as a “continuum of semiotic systems” of which heterogeneity and polyglotism are constitutive features. If the “smallest functioning semiotic mechanism” is not an isolated system, but always a (at least) binary system, translation will (...) play a central role in communication not only between different cultures, but also within every single culture.The article focuses on the different places of translation within the semiosphere as a system of systems and its relations to the notion of border. It argues that in Lotman’s theory, translation can function both as a homogenizing and a heterogenizing semiotic force, depending on its position at the center or the periphery of a given semiotic system. The first part of the article develops a theoretical argument on the relation between translation processes and cultural borders, which acquire different meanings and functions within Lotman’s theory of the semiosphere corresponding to differently oriented kinds of translation. The second part of the article develops a close analysis of Giacomo Leopardi’s poem “L’Infinito,” where the tension and dialogue between the different functions of the Lotmanian borders and the different kinds of cultural translation become devices for the generation of new meanings. Finally, the article briefly considers the significance of Lotman’s semiospheric understanding of the relation between borders and translation for contemporary translation and border studies. (shrink)

Focused on city-scale automation, and using self-driving cars (SDCs) as a case study, this article reflects on the role of AI—and in particular, computer vision systems used for mapping and navigation—as a catalyst for urban transformation. Urban research commonly presents AI and cities as having a one-way cause-and-effect relationship, giving undue weight to AI’s impact on cities and overlooking the role of cities in shaping AI. Working at the intersection of data science and social research, this paper aims to counter (...) this trend by exploring the reverse perspective: how do cities affect the development, and expose the present limits, of SDCs? The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, by comparing urban and nonurban environments and thoroughly examining the relationship between computer vision and city-specific sociality and form, it defines machine autonomy/automation as a function of the sociotechnical milieu in which an AI system operates. Second, and related, the paper problematizes the notion of SDCs as autonomous technologies and the role it plays in envisioning contending policy arrangements and technical solutions for achieving full driving automation. Finally, the article offers insight into a materialist and spatialized understanding of AI—namely, not as an abstract quality susceptible to replication within discrete machines, but rather as a distributed property emerging through embodied interactions among a multiplicity of agents (human, non-human, and technological) within/with their environments. (shrink)

We present a sound and complete Fitch-style natural deduction system for an S5 modal logic containing an actuality operator, a diagonal necessity operator, and a diagonal possibility operator. The logic is two-dimensional, where we evaluate sentences with respect to both an actual world (first dimension) and a world of evaluation (second dimension). The diagonal necessity operator behaves as a quantifier over every point on the diagonal between actual worlds and worlds of evaluation, while the diagonal possibility quantifies over some point (...) on the diagonal. Thus, they are just like the epistemic operators for apriority and its dual. We take this extension of Fitch’s familiar derivation system to be a very natural one, since the new rules and labeled lines hereby introduced preserve the structure of Fitch’s own rules for the modal case. (shrink)

People argue to reconcile differences of opinion, but reconciliation may fail to happen. In these cases, most theorists assume arguers are left with the same disagreement from which they started. This is too optimistic, since disagreement might instead escalate, and this may happen because of the argumentative practice, not in spite of it. These dangers depend on epistemological, pragmatic, and cultural factors, and show why arguers should be careful in picking their dialogical fights.

Why are enthymemes so frequent? Are we dumb arguers, smart rhetoricians, or parsimonious reasoners? This paper investigates systematic use of enthymemes, criticizing the application of the principle of charity to their interpretation. In contrast, I propose to analyze enthymematic argumentation in terms of parsimony, i.e. as a manifestation of the rational tendency to economize over scant resources. Consequences of this view on the current debate on enthymemes and on their rational reconstruction are discussed.

Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986) is worldwide renowned as the principal author (with Ernesto Rossi) of the Ventotene Manifesto (1941), whose second edition (1944), prefaced by Eugenio Colorni, is one of the founding documents of the European Union. Less known is the width and depth of Spinelli's thought, not only as a political theorist of supra-national democracy and institutional designer of a possible European Federation but also as a philosopher of civilization and history. While the sources of his federalism have been largely (...) investigated, much less have those of his more comprehensive philosophy. This paper discusses, on a philological basis, the dialogue Spinelli certainly has with some of Max Scheler's writings while going into this dialogue more in-depth, in a philosophical more than philological attitude. (shrink)

Fábio Alves dos Santos (1954-2013) cursou Pedagogia, Ciências Sociais e Teologia, era Especialista em Filosofia da Religião (PUC Minas), Advogado (PUC Minas) e Mestre em Direito Constitucional (UFMG). Lecionou na PUC Minas como professor de Cultura Religiosa e depois como professor no Curso de Direito, atuando principalmente no Serviço de Assistência Judiciária – SAJ, especialmente cuidado de causas populares como as da ASMARE (Associação dos Catadores de Papel, Papelão e Material Reaproveitável de Belo Horizonte), da Pastoral de Rua, da Pastoral (...) Carcerária, de movimentos de “Sem Casa”, de ocupações e tantos outros grupos. Fábio sofria de grave problema de visão há mais de 15 anos. Quase ficou cego depois de diversas cirurgias de miopia. Isso, porém, não o impedia de seguir seu constante compromisso com as lutas populares. Na última entrevista que concedeu, menos de um mês antes de sua morte (19 de outubro de 2013), depois de duro sofrimento de quase dois anos, no tratamento de um câncer no pâncreas, conta um pouco de sua vida, sua luta e sua percepção de várias realidades, especialmente da Igreja e da pastoral. Militante formado na Teologia da Libertação, de profunda espiritualidade, marcada por traços da religiosidade popular nordestina e comprometida com a libertação, Fábio Alves também buscou em sua vida abrir-se à teologia do pluralismo religioso, especialmente com o Santo Daime, em cuja tradição religiosa chegou a ser “fardado”, mantendo uma profunda atitude espiritual aberta ao diálogo inter-religioso. Sua primeira publicação foi “Começo de mundo novo: sofrimento, luta e vitória dos posseiros de Santana dos Frades”, Sergipe, numa versão popular em 1981 e outra pela Editora Vozes (1990). Fruto de sua dissertação de mestrado, publicou o livro “Direito Agrário: política fundiária no Brasil (1995). Em 2001 saiu seu último livro, uma coletânea de artigos publicados em diversos jornais: “Em defesa da vida”. Num artigo em Horizonte (2004), juntamente com o advogado, amigo e colega Prof. Cristiano de Melo Bastos, discutiu “A prática jurídica na missão da PUC Minas”. Palavras-chave : Teologia da Libertação. Militância. Igreja Católica. Pastoral. Lutas populares. (shrink)

La obra de Giovanni Piana se ha interesado también de literatura. La razón se debe al hecho que entre los actos de experiencia la percepción estética posee una naturaleza específica que la filosofía fenomenológica quiere aclarar. Por otra parte, se sabe la pasión de este autor para la música, a la cual ha dedicado un libro de filosofía y numerosos otros textos. El objetivo de este ensayo es analizar el estudio de Piana sobre la obra del poeta italiano Giovanni Pascoli (...) y en particular sobre la relación entre percepción estética, imaginación y material sonoro que se desprende de las poesías de Pascoli. Más allá de considerarse sólo una actividad creativa la producción poética de este autor representa para Piana el lugar de un verdadera reflexión filo-sófica. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the extent to which relationships between Human Agents (HAs) and Artificial Agents (AAs) can be adequately defined in terms of trust. Since such relationships consist mostly in the allocation of tasks to technological products, particular attention is paid to the notion of delegation. In short, I argue that it would be more accurate to describe direct relationships between HAs and AAs in terms of reliance, rather than in terms of trust. However, as (...) mediums of human actions to which tasks are delegated, AAs indirectly mediate trust between users and other social actors involved in their design, manufacture, commercialisation and deployment. In this sense, AAs mediate social trust. My conclusion is that relationships between HAs and AAs are thus to be understood directly in terms of reliance and indirectly in terms of social trust mediation. (shrink)

The history of fallacy theory is long, distinguished and, admittedly, checkered. I offer a bird eye view on it, with the aim of contrasting the standard conception of fallacies as attractive and universal errors that are hard to eradicate with the contemporary preoccupation with “non-fallacious fallacies”, that is, arguments that fit the bill of one of the traditional fallacies but are actually respectable enough to be used in appropriate contexts. Godden and Zenker have recently argued that reinterpreting alleged fallacies as (...) non-fallacious arguments requires supplementing the textual material with something else, e.g. probability distributions, pragmatic considerations, dialogical context. Thus fallacies remain gappy on all accounts, and this is the hallmark of their failure. However, I argue that such gappiness is typically unproblematic, and thus no more flawed than enthymematic argumentation in general. This, in turn, calls into question the usefulness of the very notion of fallacy. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that the necessity of the syllogisms in the first figure is evident, and calls them ‘perfect’ on this basis. The perfection of such syllogisms, most notably barbara, appears to be correlated with the actual disposition of the middle term. G. Patzig strengthened the correlation to an explanation, claiming that in virtue of that disposition the transitivity of the relation ‘belongs to all’ between the terms becomes manifest. The present article shows that the modern scheme of transitivity, namely, with (...) contiguous middle term, is not the same as the one employed with remarkable consistency in the ancient mathematical texts. On these grounds, I argue that Patzig’s calling into play the notion of transitivity cannot count as an explanation of first figure syllogisms being perfect, not even of those in barbara. Keywords: Aristotle; logic; syllogism; perfect syllogism; first figure; barbara; proportion; transitivity. (shrink)

La complessità dei rapporti tra oggetto mentale, realtà storica e rappresentazione storiografica appare evidente, quando taluni film di fantascienza ripropongono discussioni teoriche, alcune delle quali dal forte sapore medievale, in atmosfere medievali collocate nel futuro.