The rapid dynamics of COVID-19 calls for quick and effective tracking of virus transmission chains and early detection of outbreaks, especially in the “phase 2” of the pandemic, when lockdown and other restriction measures are progressively withdrawn, in order to avoid or minimize contagion resurgence. For this purpose, contact-tracing apps are being proposed for large scale adoption by many countries. A centralized approach, where data sensed by the app are all sent to a nation-wide server, raises concerns about citizens’ privacy (...) and needlessly strong digital surveillance, thus alerting us to the need to minimize personal data collection and avoiding location tracking. We advocate the conceptual advantage of a decentralized approach, where both contact and location data are collected exclusively in individual citizens’ “personal data stores”, to be shared separately and selectively, voluntarily, only when the citizen has tested positive for COVID-19, and with a privacy preserving level of granularity. This approach better protects the personal sphere of citizens and affords multiple benefits: it allows for detailed information gathering for infected people in a privacy-preserving fashion; and, in turn this enables both contact tracing, and, the early detection of outbreak hotspots on more finely-granulated geographic scale. The decentralized approach is also scalable to large populations, in that only the data of positive patients need be handled at a central level. Our recommendation is two-fold. First to extend existing decentralized architectures with a light touch, in order to manage the collection of location data locally on the device, and allow the user to share spatio-temporal aggregates—if and when they want and for specific aims—with health authorities, for instance. Second, we favour a longer-term pursuit of realizing a Personal Data Store vision, giving users the opportunity to contribute to collective good in the measure they want, enhancing self-awareness, and cultivating collective efforts for rebuilding society. (shrink)

Recent work has demonstrated how data-driven AI methods can leverage consumer protection by supporting the automated analysis of legal documents. However, a shortcoming of data-driven approaches is poor explainability. We posit that in this domain useful explanations of classifier outcomes can be provided by resorting to legal rationales. We thus consider several configurations of memory-augmented neural networks where rationales are given a special role in the modeling of context knowledge. Our results show that rationales not only contribute to improve the (...) classification accuracy, but are also able to offer meaningful, natural language explanations of otherwise opaque classifier outcomes. (shrink)

This book presents a unique rethinking of G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy from unusual and controversial perspectives in order to liberate new energies from his philosophy. The role Hegel ascribes to women in the shaping of society and family, the reconstruction of his anthropological and psychological perspective, his approach to human nature, the relationship between mental illness and social disease, the role of the unconscious, and the relevance of intercultural and interreligious pathways: All these themes reveal new and inspiring aspects (...) of Hegel’s thought for our time. (shrink)

The development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) presented a unique set of challenges. There was a global need for safe, effective vaccines against a new virus. In response to the development of vaccines for COVID-19 (some of which used novel technologies), there was a proliferation of no-fault compensation schemes (NFCS) for COVID-19 vaccine injuries. We identified 28 national vaccine injury NFCS operating in December 2019. Just 2 years later, over 130 countries had some NFCS coverage for COVID-19 vaccines. This rapid (...) expansion was primarily driven by the creation of three multinational schemes. The COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme covers vaccines given under the COVAX framework in 92 low and middle-income countries across the globe. The African Vaccines Acquisition Trust (AVAT) scheme covers vaccines administered under the AVAT framework in 36 African and Caribbean countries. The UNICEF scheme covers vaccines administered by UNICEF in 18 Asian countries.Because of the sudden expansion of no-fault compensation for vaccine injury, especially in developing economies, more research on the foundations, procedures and outcomes of NFCS is needed. In this article, we examine how these NFCS meet the needs of individual claimants and society more widely. To do so, we first review the rationales offered to support the creation of vaccine injury NFCS. We then argue that, in order to achieve their function as compensation mechanisms, NFCS should be accessible and offer substantive and procedural justice to claimants. Finally, we focus on transparency and accountability as necessary requirements to allow scrutiny over existing NFCS and their wider impacts. (shrink)

In this paper we clarify some issues related to our previous article ‘After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?’.

While a large body of research has provided quantitative data on children’s levels of happiness, positive emotions and life satisfaction, the literature reflects a dearth of studies that analyze these dimensions from a narrative and qualitative point of view. Folk and fairy tales may serve as ideal tools for this purpose, since they are concerned with several concepts scientifically investigated by research in the field of positive psychology, such as resilience, self-realization, personal growth and meaning in life. The aim of (...) the present study was to explore children’s well-being and positive emotions using an innovative narrative approach, which involved interviews and group discussions, as well as the analysis of fairy tales written and discussed in a group context. The sample included 95 school children who were asked to report and discuss in a group setting situations or experiences which triggered positive emotions and happiness in them. Guided by their teachers and a school psychologist, they were then asked to write their own original fairy tale drawing on the positive emotions that had previously emerged. Positive emotions were found to be triggered mainly by interpersonal relationships with peers as well as with family members. Hobbies and leisure time were also strongly associated with happiness and hedonic well-being, while personal fulfilment, self-esteem and goal achievement emerged as highly significant for children. In sum, the findings suggest that this school psycho-educative intervention based on narrative strategies provided useful information on children’s well-being and yielded positive feedback, the implications and possible further applications of which are discussed. (shrink)

The concept of adaptation is employed in many fields such as biology, psychology, cognitive sciences, robotics, social sciences, even literacy and art,1 and its meaning varies quite evidently according to the particular research context in which it is applied. We expect to find a particularly rich catalogue of meanings within evolutionary biology, where adaptation has held a particularly central role since Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) throughout important epistemological shifts and scientific findings that enriched and diversified the concept. Accordingly, (...) a conceptual taxonomy of adaptation in evolutionary biology may help to disambiguate it. Interdisciplinary researches focused on adaptation would benefit from such a result. In the present work we recognize and define seven different meanings of adaptation: (1) individual fitness; (2) adaptation of a population; (3) adaptation as the process of natural selection; (4) adaptive traits; (5) molecular adaptation; (6) adaptation as structural tinkering; (7) plasticity. For convenience here, we refer to them as W-, P-, NS-, T-, M-, S- and PL-ADAPTATION. We present the seven meanings in some detail, hinting at their respective origins and conceptual developments in the history of evolutionary thought (references are offered for further deepening). However, it is important to point out that evolution researchers seldom if ever refer to a single meaning purified from the others. This applies also to the authors we cite as representatives of one of the seven meanings. In Discussion and Conclusion draw from our work some future perspectives for adaptation within evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Using the work of philosopher Henri Bergson to examine the nature of movement and memory, this article contributes to recent research on the role of the body in learning mathematics. Our aim in this paper is to introduce the ideas of Bergson and to show how these ideas shed light on mathematics classroom activity. Bergson’s monist philosophy provides a framework for understanding the materiality of both bodies and mathematical concepts. We discuss two case studies of classrooms to show how the (...) mathematical concepts of number and function are themselves mobile and full of potentiality, open to deformation and the remapping of the possible. Bergson helps us look differently at mathematical activity in the classroom, not as a closed set of distinct interacting bodies groping after abstract concepts, but as a dynamic relational assemblage. (shrink)

Traduzione di Ausgleichung eines auf Mißverstand beruhenden matematischen Streit. Il testo fu pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1796 in "Berlinische Monatsschrift", 2, pp. 368-370.

One of three commentaries on ‐Scholarly Discussion of Infanticide?” by Mirko D. Garasic, and “Reflections from a Troubled Stream: Giubilini and Minerva on ‘After‐Birth Abortion,’” by Michael Hauskeller, from the July‐August 2012 issue.

A cavallo tra i due concili di Costanza e Basilea, che hanno fortemente influito sul giudizio della Chiesa in relazione alle donne visionarie, si staglia la figura di Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani. Le visioni politiche di Francesca rappresentano un fulgido esempio di come i modelli brigidini e cateriniani siano stati ripresi e rimodellati su un nuovo, mutato contesto storico. La sua consolidata autorità le consentì di ammonire a più riprese papa Eugenio IV riguardo alla sua partecipazione al concilio (...) di Basilea, intervenendo attivamente nello scenario religioso e politico romano. (shrink)

Science and language; Axioms; Deduction and induction; Probability and statistics; The methodological structure of the natural sciences.

In the recent literature on proof theory, there seems to be a new raising topic which consists in identifying those properties that characterise a good sequent calculus. The property that has received by far the most attention is the analyticity property. In this paper we propose a new argument in support of the analyticity property. We will do it by means of the example of the logic of proofs, a logic recently introduced by Artemov [1]. Indeed a detailed proof analysis (...) of this logic sheds new light on the logic itself and perfectly exemplifies our argument in favour of the analiticity. (shrink)

This volume is the second part of a project which hosts an interdisciplinary discussion about the relationship among law and language, legal practice and ordinary conversation, legal philosophy and the linguistics sciences. An international group of authors, from cognitive science, philosophy of language and philosophy of law question about how legal theory and pragmatics can enrich each other. In particular, the first part is devoted to the analysis of how pragmatics can solve problems related to legal theory: What can pragmatics (...) teach about the concept of law and its relationship with moral, and, in particular, about the eternal dispute between legal positivism and legal naturalism? What can pragmatics teach about the concept of law and/or legal disagreements? The second part is focused on legal adjudication: it aims to construct a pragmatic apparatus appropriate to legal trial and/or to test the tenure of the traditional pragmatics tools in the field. The authors face questions such as: Which interesting pragmatic features emerge from legal adjudication? What pragmatic theories are better suited to account for the practice of judgment or its particular aspects? Which pragmatic and socio-linguistic problems are highlighted by this practice? (shrink)

_Aristotle on Prescription_ explores Aristotle’s deep reflections on rule-making as a process that is both distinct from that of particular deliberation and decision-making and fundamental to it, operating at the level both of the individual and of society as a whole.

In this paper, we present a simple sequent calculus for the modal propositional logic S5. We prove that this sequent calculus is theoremwise equivalent to the Hilbert-style system S5, that it is contraction-free and cut-free, and finally that it is decidable. All results are proved in a purely syntactic way.

Francesca Ervas 7 Journal of Language & Translation 9-2September 2008, 7-29 Davidson’s Notions of TranslationEquivalence Francesca Ervas Università Roma Tre Abstract The paper analyses the relationship of semantic equivalence as described by Donald Davidson in his theory of meaning, showing its limits above all in respect to language use in the contextual situation.The notion of equivalence used by the “first” Davidson does not successfully explain why some biconditionals are simply true and why others, besides being true, offer the (...) real translation of the source sentence. The paper argues that the main limits of the Davidsonian proposal, which lie in the very attempt to apply Tarskian theory of truth to natural languages, are partially overcome later by Davidson himself. Above all in his paper A NiceDerangement of Epitaphs (1986), Davidson rejects the very idea of an “invariance of meaning” and proposes a “second” notion of equivalence, described as the research of momentary and always changing points of convergence of interpreter and speaker,depending on contextual information. This convergence is possible because of a “deeper equivalence,” a common cognitive apparatus that allows communication to take place. At any rate, as the paper aims to demonstrate, this solution seems to simply shift the problem on to another level of explanation. Once this level of “deeper equivalence” is reached, there is too no explanation of exactly how a translator can understand contextual implications in order to graspfunctional equivalence. (shrink)

At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the American Philosophical Association (APA). He ignored the technical philosophical questions the audience had gathered to discuss and instead addressed the topic of human energy. Tramping on the rules of academic decorum, James invoked the work of amateurs, read testimonials on the benefits of yoga and alcohol, and concluded by urging his listeners to take up this psychological and physiological problem. What was the goal of this unusual (...) speech? Rather than an oddity, Francesca Bordogna asserts that the APA address was emblematic—it was just one of many gestures that James employed as he plowed through the barriers between academic, popular, and pseudoscience, as well as the newly emergent borders between the study of philosophy, psychology, and the “science of man.” Bordogna reveals that James’s trespassing of boundaries was an essential element of a broader intellectual and social project. By crisscrossing divides, she argues, James imagined a new social configuration of knowledge, a better society, and a new vision of the human self. As the academy moves toward an increasingly interdisciplinary future, William James at the Boundaries reintroduces readers to a seminal influence on the way knowledge is pursued. (shrink)

Criminal liability for acts committed by AI systems has recently become a hot legal topic. This paper includes three different contributions. The first contribution is an analysis of the extent to which an AI system can satisfy the requirements for criminal liability: accomplishing an actus reus, having the corresponding mens rea, possessing the cognitive capacities needed for responsibility. The second contribution is a discussion of criminal activity accomplished by an AI entity, with reference to a recent case involving an online (...) bot, the Random Darknet Shopper. This discussion will provide the context for the analysis of commonalities and differences between criminal activities by humans and by artificial systems. The third contribution concerns the evaluation of different ways of addressing criminal activities by AI systems in a regulatory perspective. (shrink)

_Aims:_ Italy was one of the first countries to be significantly affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, determining a unique scenario for Italian psychotherapists to consider changing the modality in which they deliver treatment. The present study aimed at studying which factors related to psychotherapists and their clinical practice had a major role in predicting two main outcomes: (1) the rate of interrupted treatments during lockdown and (2) psychotherapists’ satisfaction with the telepsychotherapy modality. _Methods:_ An online survey was (...) administered to licensed psychotherapists ( n = 306), who worked mainly as private practitioners, between April 5 and May 10, 2020 (i.e., the peak of the pandemic in Italy). _Results:_ Psychotherapists reported that 42.1% (SD = 28.9) of their treatments had been interrupted, suggesting that Italy faced an important undersupply of psychotherapy during the lockdown. Using the Akaike information criterion (AIC) model selection, we identified three predictors of the rate of interrupted treatments: (1) psychotherapists’ lack of experience with telepsychotherapy prior to the lockdown, (2) their theoretical orientation (with cognitive behavioral psychotherapists reporting a higher rate of interrupted treatments), and (3) patients’ lack of privacy at home, as reported to the psychotherapists. Furthermore, we found four predictors of psychotherapists’ satisfaction with the telepsychotherapy modality: (1) the rate of interrupted treatments, (2) psychotherapists’ previous experience with telepsychotherapy, (3) their beliefs about the compatibility of telepsychotherapy with their theoretical orientation, and (4) their use of a video-conferencing modality, rather than telephone. _Conclusion:_ The following recommendations can help policy makers, professional associations, and practitioners in promoting the continuity of psychotherapy treatments during the COVID-19 outbreak and in future emergencies: (i) disseminating training programs for practitioners on telepsychotherapy, (ii) supporting patients to pragmatically access a private space at home, (iii) encouraging practitioners to use video-conferencing (instead of telephone) to deliver remote therapy, and (iv) increasing the acceptance of telepsychotherapy among both clinicians and the general public. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the intersections between Hegel’s aesthetics lec- tures and translation theory and praxis, with reference to the French-Italian translation project Hegel Art Net. Against the background of the historical recon- struction that sees Hegel repeatedly confronted with the fruition and production of translations, we intend to examine the hermeneutic, philological and political challenges that a translator of the aesthetics Nachschriften encounters today, following the “philological turn” of the 1990s and the publication of new sources documenting Hegel’s (...) Berlin lectures on the philosophy of art. (shrink)

A historical and systematic introduction to what the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about the Trinity. By focusing on the thought of one of the greatest defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity, Gilles Emery OP elucidates the classical Christian understanding of God.

Machine learning classifiers are increasingly used to inform, or even make, decisions significantly affecting human lives. Fairness concerns have spawned a number of contributions aimed at both identifying and addressing unfairness in algorithmic decision-making. This paper critically discusses the adoption of group-parity criteria (e.g., demographic parity, equality of opportunity, treatment equality) as fairness standards. To this end, we evaluate the use of machine learning methods relative to different steps of the decision-making process: assigning a predictive score, linking a classification to (...) the score, and adopting decisions based on the classification. Throughout our inquiry we use the COMPAS system, complemented by a radical simplification of it (our SAPMOC I and SAPMOC II models), as our running examples. Through these examples, we show how a system that is equally accurate for different groups may fail to comply with group-parity standards, owing to different base rates in the population. We discuss the general properties of the statistics determining the satisfaction of group-parity criteria and levels of accuracy. Using the distinction between scoring, classifying, and deciding, we argue that equalisation of classifications/decisions between groups can be achieved thorough group-dependent thresholding. We discuss contexts in which this approach may be meaningful and useful in pursuing policy objectives. We claim that the implementation of group-parity standards should be left to competent human decision-makers, under appropriate scrutiny, since it involves discretionary value-based political choices. Accordingly, predictive systems should be designed in such a way that relevant policy goals can be transparently implemented. Our paper presents three main contributions: (1) it addresses a complex predictive system through the lens of simplified toy models; (2) it argues for selective policy interventions on the different steps of automated decision-making; (3) it points to the limited significance of statistical notions of fairness to achieve social goals. (shrink)

The global spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has led to the imposition of severely restrictive measures by governments in the Western hemisphere. We feel a contrast between these measures and our freedom. This contrast, we argue, is a false perception. It only appears to us because we look at the issue through our contemporary moral philosophy of utilitarianism and an understanding of freedom as absence of constraints. Both these views can be (...) substituted with more sophisticated alternatives, namely an ethics of virtue and a notion of freedom of the will. These offer a fuller picture of morality and enable us to cooperate with the current restrictions by consciously choosing to adhere to them instead of perceiving them as draconian and immoral. We ask whether we should collaborate with the restrictions and argue that considerations of virtue will lead to an affirmative answer. More broadly, virtue ethics permits to deal with the practical concerns about how an individual should behave during this pandemic, given the current lockdown measures or lack thereof. -/- In section 1, we present how utilitarianism and a notion of freedom as negative liberty support the opposition to restrictive measures. In section 2, we outline an alternative based on an ethics of virtue and a more elaborated notion of free will. In the concluding section 3, we argue that considerations of virtue should guide the individual and public response to the emergency. (shrink)

Francesca Y. Albertini (1974‐2011) compares Maimonides’ idea of peace, as developed in MT Sefer shofetim (Book of Judges), with Kant’s work on the notion of “eternal peace” ( Zum ewigen Frieden ). Both authors develop a historical vision pointed against the use of force and war in light of a framework not limited by historical time (messianic age, eternity). Despite all differences in method and historical context, the authors agree on the notion that universal ethics provides the basis of (...) a determination of right grounded in the will. Maimonides’ universal messianism as well as Kant’s universal history emphasize the pivotal role and decisive responsibility of the human being in realizing, through reason, the reign of peace and prosperity on earth first envisioned by the biblical prophets. These utopias continue to challenge us, especially in this day and age. (shrink)

I deal with the issue of the environmental crisis from the perspective of a phenomenologically embedded qualitative social ontology. The first point I make is that our environment is a «personal world», and not a «naturalistic world»: a world that is experienced in the «personalistic attitude» and as such is an ontologically qualitative world, in which both natural and social entities are given to us as essentially constituted by value-qualities and meanings, and not as merely material things. The second point (...) I argue for is that our environment is also a «common-surrounding world» whose personal collectives are its essential correlate: «common-surrounding world» and personal collectives existentially depend on one another, and human persons, both individual and collective, are responsible for the existence of their environment and its entities. I apply the tools of phenomenological eidetics to the ideas of «personal world» and «common-surrounding world», and inquire into the ontologically qualitative implications that they have for our environment and its crisis. (shrink)