The article, as part of a broader reflection on the criticism of the right to development and its impact on the modes of legal and political subjectivation of children and adolescents, questions the child's condition as a subject without speech, or a speech conditioned to criteria of maturation, dictated by the adult referential, in a field, moreover, limited to what is said to be pertinent to their manifestation. Guided by the thought of exteriority, we return to the Foucauldian debate on (...) the relation between truth and justice, in light of the monstrous unspeakability of legal and judicial practices and the ubuesco of state power. We will analyze, through the contributions of classic cynicism, supported by Foucault, and Sloterdijk, Nieheus-Pröbsting, the resistant practices - beyond language – available to children and adolescents, and rethink these power struggles in the context of human rights and the possibility of justice, through the thought of Derrida, Rancière, Butler and Foucault. Our text will develop along the following axes of analysis: 1. Contextualizing the Foucaultian debate on truth and justice and the place of the “sayable”; 2. Considering the sayability at the heart of law, childhood and monstrosity; 3. Framing the struggle between ubuesco power and cynic resistance, and 4. Speculating on our notions of “child” and the possibility of justice. (shrink)

Based on the theoretical reconstruction of neglected post-WWI writings and political action of W. E. B. Du Bois, this volume offers a normative account of transnational cosmopolitanism. Pointing out the limitations of Kant's cosmopolitanism through a novel contextual account of Perpetual Peace, Transnational Cosmopolitanism shows how these limits remain in neo-Kantian scholarship. Inés Valdez's framework overcomes these limitations in a methodologically unique way, taking Du Bois's writings and his coalitional political action both as text that should inform our theorization and (...) normative insights. The cosmopolitanism proposed in this work is an original contribution that questions the contemporary currency of Kant's canonical approach and enlists overlooked resources to radicalize, democratize, and transnationalize cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

In the early 1920s, Hans Reichenbach and Kurt Lewin presented two topological accounts of time that appear to be interrelated in more than one respect. Despite their different approaches, their underlying idea is that time order is derived from specific structural properties of the world. In both works, moreover, the notion of genidentity--i.e., identity through or over time--plays a crucial role. Although it is well known that Reichenbach borrowed this notion from Kurt Lewin, not much has been written about their (...) relationship, nor about the way Lewin implemented this notion in his own work in order to ground his topology. This paper examines these two early versions of the topology of time, and follows the extent of Lewin’s influence on Reichenbach’s proposal. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance - in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations - is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural (...) representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account: an organism-centered fictionalism or instrumentalism. We argue that, under the free-energy principle, pursuing even a deflationary account of the content of neural representations licenses the appeal to the kind of semantic content involved in the aboutness or intentionality of cognitive systems; our position is thus coherent with, but rests on distinct assumptions from, the realist position. We argue that the free-energy principle thereby explains the aboutness or intentionality in living systems and hence their capacity to parse their sensory stream using an ontology or set of semantic factors. (shrink)

Spatial representations have been considered for their high didactical efficacy, as concept maps and mind maps. Graphical and spatial representations may be seen as key elements of knowledge management and may contribute to enhancing spatial knowledge. Even if isomorphisms between the physical and the mental dimension can be controversial in the field of spatial knowledge, it is nevertheless interesting to study the role of spatial interpretation in knowledge management processes. In science education, spatial skills are actually highly required due to (...) the development of new technologies and their highly demanding spatial tasks they often work intertwined with other abilities, such as logical reasoning and verbal skills. Despite spatial knowledge being significative in the overall field of learning management, there is instead little research that shows its complex role in the comprehension of concepts in the humanistic fields, e.g. in philosophical conceptual reasoning. The Elementary Logic Theory—which underlies the philosophical maps of this Atlas—identifies at the basis of complex thinking prototypical knowledge units that may be activated in the possible collaboration between explicit and implicit thinking. In EL Theory, spatiality is considered the most suitable transition format for the hypothesized collaboration between implicit and explicit processing because it shares common aspects with both of them. The focus of EL Theory is to research particularly the role of the implicit in knowledge comprehension through spatial representations. In this Atlas, the role of Elementary Logic Theory is highlighted in shaping philosophical knowledge and comprehension of philosophical concepts and their intertwining. (shrink)

This article explores the distinctions among European peoples’ character established in Kant’s anthropology and their connection with his politics. These aspects are neglected relative to the analysis of race between Europeans and non-Europeans, but Kant’s anthropological works portray the people of Mediterranean Europe as not capable of civilization because of the dominance of passion in their faculty of desire, which he ties to ‘Oriental’ influences in blood or government. Kant then superimposes this racialized anthropology over the historical geopolitics of Europe, (...) obscuring the indebtedness of Northern European trade dominance to Mediterranean historical tactics and financial wealth. By relegating the Mediterranean to the margins and dismissing contentious commercial exchange in the region as mere violence spearheaded by North African corsairs, Kant gives us an elitist cosmopolitanism unable to cope with hierarchy and inequality, diminishing its potential for egalitarian global projects today. (shrink)

In recent years, Reichenbach's 1920 conception of the principles of coordination has attracted increased attention after Michael Friedman's attempt to revive Reichenbach's idea of a "relativized a priori". This paper follows the origin and development of this idea in the framework of Reichenbach's distinction between the axioms of coordination and the axioms of connection. It suggests a further differentiation among the coordinating axioms and accordingly proposes a different account of Reichenbach's "relativized a priori".

In his Scientific Representation (2008), van Fraassen argues that measuring is a form of representation. In fact, every measurement pinpoints its target in accordance with specific operational rules within an already-constructed theoretical space, in which certain conceptual interconnections can be represented. Reichenbach’s 1920 account of coordination is particularly interesting in this connection. Even though recent reassessments of this account do not do full justice to some important elements lying behind it, they do have the merit of focusing on a different (...) aspect of his early work that traditional interpretations of relativized a priori principles have unfortunately neglected in favour of a more “structural” role for coordination. In Reichenbach’s early work, however, the idea of coordination was employed not only to indicate theory-specific fundamental principles such as the ones suggested in the literature on conventional principles in science, but also to refer to more “basic” assumptions. In Reichenbach, these principles are preconditions both of the individuation of physical magnitudes and of their measurement, and, as such, they are necessary to approach the world in the first instance. This paper aims to reassess Reichenbach’s approach to coordination and to the representation of physical quantities in light of recent literature on measurement and scientific representation. (shrink)

The adoption of the French Duty of Vigilance law has been celebrated as a milestone for advancing the transnational business and human rights regime. The law can contribute to harden corporate accountability by challenging the “separation principle” of transnational companies and by obligating companies to report on their duty of vigilance. However, the question of whether the law actually contributes to human rights and environmental protection along global supply chains requires empirically grounded research that connects processes in home and host (...) state countries. This paper contributes to such a new research agenda by linking political ecology literature and empirical insights from the Global South to research on due diligence regulations. With reference to field research data on contestations between the oil and gas company Total E&P and indigenous communities in Bolivia, I argue that the burden of proof and contestations over valid knowledge represent major obstacles when trying to establish legal liability. (shrink)

The present paper gives a systematic account of the concept of virtue represented by de 德 in the “Book of Changes.” It starts with a short summary of the impact of this concept on later Song dynasty philosophy. In this traditional view, “virtue” is considered to be a natural entity which contains intrinsic dynamics. This naturalistic view of morality is later contrasted with earlier notions of de or “virtue” in the canonized edition of the “Changes.” The paper first examines its (...) meaning in the oracle sayings and then moves on to the “Traditions of the Changes,” Yizhuan 易傳. Placed in its own historical context, the concept of “virtue” goes together with ideas of destiny, political authority and spirit-like efficacy. (shrink)

El examen de carácter dialéctico que Aristóteles lleva a cabo del pensamiento de sus predecesores ha sido, como se sabe, blanco de duras críticas que cuestionan su honestidad intelectual y el valor de su indagación histórico-filosófica. Sin pretender ahondar en el tema de la naturaleza y funciones de la dialéctica aristotélica en sí misma, abordaré su tratamiento específicamente a la luz de la interpretación de Silvana Di Camillo, a modo de homenaje a su trayectoria. Sostendré, en acuerdo con la autora (...) y como resultado de un análisis propio de las fuentes correspondientes, que la investigación aristotélica de las filosofías de sus antecesores y, en especial, la de Platón, tiene como única y principal finalidad ‘la búsqueda de la verdad y el avance del conocimiento’ a través de una confrontación dialéctica que lo lleva a ofrecer respuestas alternativas a las dificultades que encuentra, edificando así un nuevo modelo explicativo de la realidad. Con tal fin, analizaré las críticas aristotélicas a los primeros pensadores en _Me_t_afísica_ I 3, las dirigidas a la teoría platónica de las Ideas, tanto en _Metafísica_ I 9 cuanto en _Sobre las Ideas_ y finalmente, la crítica a la Idea del Bien en _Ética Nicomaquea_ I 6. Sobre esta base, pondré de manifiesto cómo el estagirita privilegia ‘la verdad’ cuando, según él, en honor a ella, debe ir contra su maestro. Con todo, recordaré que es Platón antes que Aristóteles quien recalca la primacía de la verdad frente a la amistad al decir en _República_ X 595c, por ejemplo, que “no se debe honrar a un hombre más que a la verdad”. Por último, concluiré que es de la mano de Platón que Aristóteles avanza en su indagación manteniendo siempre encendida la antorcha de la verdad. (shrink)

In this article the author maintains that complexity theory relies on reductionist assumptions, showing itself not to be completely convincing in dealing with the issue of novelty. First, an outline of Mark C. Taylor's The Moment of Complexity is presented as an exemplary case, particularly for his attempt to import complexity theory into the social sciences. Then, the connection between complexity theory and evolutionism is considered, arguing that this connection prevents complexity theory from giving a convincing account of the emergence (...) of novelty. A provisional conclusion is offered by arguing that novelty should be conceived as arising from a "widening" of reduction at the individual level. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende analisar as interfaces da produção científica feminina no início do século XX com a constituição do espaço psi no Brasil, utilizando para tanto um artigo do periódico católico "A Ordem" e uma tese da Faculdade de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro. Para sermos mais precisos, nosso recor..

This paper explores both some of the concepts John Dewey exposed while in China in the 1920’s and considers why his idea of democracy did not thrive in China. In the lectures Dewey delivered in China he focused on the strength of democracy, from the perspective of political science, social science, philosophy and education. Dewey clarified the democratic way of thinking, doing and living to the Chinese people. Of these topics, he considered the philosophy of education and social and political (...) philosophy to be the most important. Through his speeches, he underlined the importance of reflective thinking and reasoning in constructing human intelligence and lively inquiries. In the early part of the 20th century, both Dewey’s pragmatism and Marx’s communism were honored and speculated. While both Dewey and Marx promoted similar aims for human beings, that is, the creation of a society for the common good, their means were substantially different. For Dewey, such a result could only be obtained by a gradual construction of communicative social relationships; for Marx, a radical revolution was necessary to get expunge the old currently dominant parties. With regards to their relationship to working for the common good, for many Chinese, Dewey’s philosophies and ideas were unclear, overly complicated, and inefficient, while Marx pointed out a concrete destination, a clearly designed and expedient wayto implement an egalitarian society. (shrink)

Firms usually need to attract debt to form and grow, but increasing financial leverage also entails increased risks and costs for stakeholders, such as customers and employees. Accordingly, past research suggests that for common commercial firms (CCFs), which prioritize profits, higher leverage leads to lower sales growth and higher employment costs. However, Certified B Corporations (CBCs) distinguish themselves by having a credible prosocial mission and, therefore, might be better insulated against the adverse effects of higher leverage. Using a European multi-country (...) matched sample of 136 CBCs and 136 CCFs, we find that the negative relationship between leverage and sales growth and the positive relationship between leverage and employment costs are weaker for CBCs than CCFs. Taken together, due to their certified prosocial mission, CBCs enjoy an advantage in debt financing compared to CCFs. (shrink)

In European science and technology policy, various styles have been developed and institutionalised to govern the ethical challenges of science and technology innovations. In this paper, we give an account of the most dominant styles of the past 30 years, particularly in Europe, seeking to show their specific merits and problems. We focus on three styles of governance: a technocratic style, an applied ethics style, and a public participation style. We discuss their merits and deficits, and use this analysis to (...) assess the potential of the recently established governance approach of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’. Based on this analysis, we reflect on the current shaping of RRI in terms of ‘doing governance’. (shrink)

The use of color-tinted lenses can introduce profound effects into how we process visual information at the early to late stages. Besides mediating harsh lighting conditions, some evidence suggests that color-tinted lenses can influence how humans respond to emotional events. In this study, we systematically evaluated how color-tinted lenses modified our participants’ psychophysiological responses to emotion-inducing images. The participants passively viewed pleasant, neutral or unpleasant images from the International-Affective-Picture-System (IAPS), while wearing none, blue, red, yellow or green tinted-lenses that were (...) controlled for luminance. Established neuroergonomic indices of arousal were measured on the autonomic level, namely Skin-Conductance-Response (SCR) and Heart-Rate-Variability (HRV), and on the cortical level, with electroencephalography (EEG) event-related potentials (ERPs). Phasic SCR responses were significantly enhanced for unpleasant images and both pleasant and unpleasant images induced significantly larger ERP amplitudes of the Late-Positive-Potential (LPP), with pleasant images having the greatest impact. Interestingly, a significant main effect was found for tint. Similar to viewing pleasant images, red-tinted lenses induced the largest LPPs. Taken together, these findings suggest that the autonomic response to affective images is modulated at the cortical level of processing, congruent with the use of red-tinted lenses. (shrink)

In the Eudemian Ethics Aristotle states that human beings are starting points of things that could be otherwise and that the eph’hemin are this kind of things. Famously, in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle endorses the thesis of habits’ unidirectionality, according to which the agent who already possesses moral habits, hexeis, will perform only actions consistent with the habits she possesses. Despite this apparent inconsistency, I aim to show that the two texts can be harmonized and that the Eudemian Ethics can (...) actually provide a theoretical background for habits’ unidirectionality. (shrink)

This highly multidisciplinary collection discusses an increasingly important topic among scholars in science and technology studies: objectivity in science. It features eleven essays on scientific objectivity from a variety of perspectives, including philosophy of science, history of science, and feminist philosophy. Topics addressed in the book include the nature and value of scientific objectivity, the history of objectivity, and objectivity in scientific journals and communities. Taken individually, the essays supply new methodological tools for theorizing what is valuable in the pursuit (...) of objective knowledge and for investigating its history. The essays offer many starting points, while suggesting new avenues of research. Taken collectively, the essays exemplify the very virtues of objectivity that they theorize—in reading them together, the reader can sense various anxieties about the dangerously subjective in our age and locate commonalities of concern as well as differences of approach. As a result, the volume offers an expansive vision of a research community seeking a communal understanding of its own methods and its own epistemic anxieties, struggling to enunciate the key problems of knowledge of our time and offer insight into how to overcome them. -/- (Contributors: Alex Csiszar, Scott Edgar, Peter Galison, Ian Hacking, Sandra Harding, Moira Howes, Paolo Savoia, Judy Segal, Joan Steigerwald, and Alison Wylie). (shrink)

Parmenides and Melissus employ different deductive styles for their different kinds of argumentation. The former’s poem flows in an interesting sequence of passages: contents foreword, methodological premises, krisis, conclusions and corollaries. The latter, however, organizes an extensive process of deduction to show the characteristics of what is. In both cases, the strength of their argument rests on their deductive form, on the syntactical level of their texts: the formal structure of their reasonings help to identify the features and logical intersections (...) of their thoughts. On the one hand, Parmenides uses modal reasoning, enforcing the employment of the principle of the excluded middle. On the other hand, Melissus radicalizes the use of modal reasoning and employs counterfactual statements in order to develop his doctrine of what is. Despite their differences, both deserve a place in the Stone Age of logic and theory of argumentation due to their common ambition to demonstrate what is. (shrink)

Platelets have important hemostatic functions in repairing blood vessels upon tissue injury. Cytokines, growth factors, and metabolites stored in platelet α‐granules and dense granules are released upon platelet activation and clotting. Emerging evidence indicates that such platelet‐derived signaling factors are instrumental in guiding tissue regeneration. Here, we discuss the important roles of platelet‐secreted signaling factors in skeletal muscle regeneration. Chemokines secreted by platelets in the early phase after injury are needed to recruit neutrophils to injured muscles, and impeding this early (...) step of muscle regeneration exacerbates inflammation at later stages, compromises neo‐angiogenesis and the growth of newly formed myofibers, and reduces post‐injury muscle force production. Platelets also contribute to the recruitment of pro‐regenerative stromal cells from the adipose tissue, and the platelet releasate may also regulate the metabolism and proliferation of muscle satellite cells, which sustain myogenesis. Therefore, harnessing the signaling functions of platelets and the platelet secretome may provide new avenues for promoting skeletal muscle regeneration in health and disease. (shrink)

Trata-se de investigar os tipos de tropas, tal como apresentados por Maquiavel, procurando compreender as características que destacam as tropas próprias. Feito isso, assumiremos o debate entre o que é público e o que é particular, tal como posto na Arte da Guerra, relacionando-o ao tema da guerra. Tal objetivo diz respeito à investigação anunciada por Maquiavel e que relaciona a vida civil à vida militar. Procurar-se-á mostrar a perspectiva do autor sobre o uso público da guerra tanto quanto as (...) consequências desastrosas de seu uso particular. Pretende-se, em tal percurso, evidenciar a guerra como ponto central do pensamento maquiaveliano, diretamente relacionada aos fundamentos da política, assim como o interesse de Maquiavel em pensar os problemas de seu tempo e abordá-los por uma perspectiva filosófica. A pesquisa se restringe a investigar o tema a partir do Príncipe, dos Discursos sobre a Primeira Década de Tito Lívio e da Arte da Guerra. (shrink)

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in (...) the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together. (shrink)

The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals’ psychosocial functioning was widely attested during the last year. However, the extent to which individual differences are associated with adaptive and maladaptive outcomes during quarantine in Italy remains largely unexplored. Using a person-oriented approach, the present study explored the association of personality profiles, based on three broad individual dispositions and two self-efficacy beliefs in the emotional area, with adaptive and maladaptive outcomes during the first Italian lockdown. In doing so, we focused (...) also on how different age groups differently faced the pandemic. The study was conducted through an online survey from May to June 2020 and included 1341 participants living in Italy, divided into two groups: 737 young adults aged 18–35 and 604 adults aged 36–60 years old. Latent Profile Analysis identified three personality profiles: resilient, vulnerable, and moderate. A subsequent path analysis model showed that the resilient profile was positively associated with prosocial behavior as an indicator of adaptive outcome, and negatively associated with three maladaptive outcomes: interpersonal aggression, depressive symptoms, and anxiety problems. Contrarily, the vulnerable profile resulted negatively associated with prosocial behavior and positively associated with the three maladaptive outcomes. Finally, regarding age group differences, young adults belonging to the vulnerable profile showed a greater association especially with interpersonal aggression, depression, and anxiety problems, as compared to adults belonging to the same profile. Overall, the results of the present study highlighted the importance to analyze individual functioning during an isolation period by using a person-oriented approach. Findings evidenced the existence of three different profiles and subsequent path analysis revealed, especially for the vulnerable profile and young adults, a greater maladaptive consequence of the quarantine. The practical implications will be discussed. (shrink)

Resenha do livro Filosofia da Ancestralidade de Eduardo David de Oliveira.