At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

Gray's integration of the different levels of description and explanation in his theory is problematic: The introduction of consciousness into his theorising consists of the mind-brain identity assumption, which tells us nothing new. There need not be correlations between levels of description. Gray's account does not extend beyond “brute” correlation. Integration must be achieved in a principled, mutually constraining way.

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

A careful reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics focusing on his treatment of politics reveals a multifaceted discipline with political science, legislation, practice and ethics. These aspects of the discipline bear clear resemblance to the multiple conceptions of nursing. The potential that nursing is a multifaceted discipline, with nursing science as just one facet challenges the author's own conception of nursing as a practical science. Aristotle's discussion would seem to argue that nursing science is nursing, but nursing is more. Nursing is (...) also ethical practice, or art, and legislative for health. The multifaceted discipline of politics is united by the end, the common good, a just community that makes human happiness possible. Reasoning in this way, nursing is unified by its end, health of individuals and communities. Since nursing is not unique in having health as its end, this discussion ends with the question of where its uniqueness lies, i.e. within the activities or the personal presence of its practitioners. This discussion also contains some of the contemporary ethical and legislative challenges with which nursing is confronted. (shrink)

Michael Allen's latest work on the profoundly influential Florentine thinker of the fifteenth century, Marsilio Ficino, will be welcomed by philosophers, literary scholars, and historians of the Renaissance, as well as by classicists. Ficino was responsible for inaugurating, shaping, and disseminating the wide-ranging philosophico-cultural movement known as Renaissance Platonism, and his views on the _Sophist_, which he saw as Plato's preeminent ontological dialogue, are of signal interest. This dialogue also served Ficino as a vehicle for exploring a number of other (...) humanist, philosophical, and magical preoccupations, including the theme of man the artist and creator. (shrink)

Recent corporate legal and ethical meltdowns suggest that avoiding such harms to companies and to society requires a significant culture change within the organization. This paper addresses the issue of what it takes to change a corporate culture. While conventional wisdom may suggest that a change requires only the institution of an ethics office with proper reporting paths and an ethics code, such an approach is only a beginning. Many large corporations, especially those in danger of legal and ethical catastrophes, (...) need to undertake multiple initiatives to generate a new culture that manifests new values and new vocabularies. A cultural change accomplished by changing large numbers of personnel is expensive in financial and human terms. One component of a less costly approach is to tell new and different stories within the corporation because stories establish the cultural DNA that gives organizations, families, and individuals their identities. Such changes in individual firms, however, are influenced by the ideological assumptions within which and under which the industry and the society operates. (shrink)

This philosophical enquiry considers the impact of a global world view and technology on the meaning of being human. The global vision increases our awareness of the common bond between all humans, while technology tends to separate us from an understanding of ourselves as human persons. We review some advances in connecting as community within our world, and many examples of technological changes. This review is not exhaustive. The focus is to understand enough changes to think through the possibility of (...) healthcare professionals becoming cyborgs, human–machine units that are subsequently neither human and nor machine. It is seen that human technology interfaces are a different way of interacting but do not change what it is to be human in our rational capacities of providing meaningful speech and freely chosen actions. In the highly technical environment of the ICU, expert nurses work in harmony with both the technical equipment and the patient. We used Heidegger to consider the nature of equipment, and Descartes to explore unique human capacities. Aristotle, Wallace, Sokolowski, and Clarke provide a summary of humanity as substantial and relational. (shrink)

How does talk work, and can we engage the public in a dialogue about the scientific study of talk? This article presents a history, critical evaluation and empirical illustration of the public science of talk. We chart the public ethos of conversation analysis that treats talk as an inherently public phenomenon and its transcribed recordings as public data. We examine the inherent contradictions that conversation analysis is simultaneously obscure yet highly cited; it studies an object that people understand intuitively, yet (...) routinely produces counter-intuitive findings about talk. We describe a novel methodology for engaging the public in a science exhibition event and show how our ‘conversational rollercoaster’ used live recording, transcription and public-led analysis to address the challenge of demonstrating how talk can become an informative object of scientific research. We conclude by encouraging researchers not only to engage in a public dialogue but also to find ways to actively engage people in taking a scientific approach to talk as a pervasive, structural feature of their everyday lives. (shrink)

Plato's "Politicus" (Statesman) stands, both in date and in political thought, between the "Republic" and the "Laws". It presents his thought at the point when he was chastened by disappointment with his attempts to put theory into practice at Syracuse. The dialogue reflects contemporary controversies on the method of definition; but its logical exercises and the impressive 'myth' of the two cosmic eras serve to bring out its essential political teaching. This volume contains the text in translation. In this second (...) edition, Skemp made corrections to his extensive introduction and running commentary, and added a new appendix taking into account scholarship since the first (1952) edition. (shrink)

This article gives new information about the social, cultural, and political beliefs of Thomas Wilson, the first Secretary and Treasurer of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society founded in 1837. Wilson's private correspondence was not available to J. W. Davis, who wrote the standard history of the Society to celebrate its jubilee. Davis's history underestimates the part played by Wilson and overestimates the importance of Thomas William Embleton, whose private papers were placed at Davis's disposal. It is shown that Wilson, (...) and not Embleton, was the driving force in forming and consolidating the Society, especially with respect to its early difficulties in defining even its title and aims. (shrink)

Convenções e costumes estabelecem que a denominação galinheiro prevaleça em espaços destinados abrigar bichos de pena de variadas extrações. Este o caso do galinheiro em questão, cujo domínio, em que pese a absoluta maioria galinácea, é ostensivamente exercido por casal de perus. Caminhos se abrem quando todo enfunado, rabo imponentemente aberto em leque, o senhor peru desanda grugrulejante e majestoso a desfilar.Fato de subidíssima relevância motiva-o no momento a incorporar com frequência essa postura de maneira menos casual: madame perua está (...) chocando. (shrink)

Nestes nossos tempos gerundistas e de valores-isopores o apelo ao eufemismo e à grandiloquência torna-se palavra de ordem e progresso. Oficinas mecânicas passam a ser chamadas de centros automotivos, açougues transmutam-se em butiques de carnes e sapatarias em recuperadoras de calçados.Daí a gente olha em volta e começa igualmente a não achar mais nem barbearias nem barbeiros.Quedê, perguntamos, a Tesoura de Ouro do Carlão? Pois seu salão ganhou a neomodernosa indicação de Cabeleireiro Masculino e virou ele esteticista capilar. Bate daí (...) saudade danada – possivelmente, diria. (shrink)

Conheci Raduan num sábado entre junho ou julho de 1996. Estimo os meses e garanto o dia e o ano em razão de Menina a caminho. Amizades comuns nos levaram então a participar de festa familiar no paulistano bairro do Pacaembu. Situado em rua tranquila, o restaurado sobrado compunha-se das variadas dependências requeridas em outros tempos por famílias de classes em fase de ascensão. No piso térreo, destacava-se o espaço destinado aos convidados: a ampla sala, integrada à copa e a (...) um ajardinado terraço. Sobretudo ali as crianças da casa e de vários convidados comiam, corriam e algazarreavam. (shrink)

Alci, Miguelzinho e Lazinho trouxeram espigas de milho, as primeiras colhidas no milharal de Ivo e Sueli, amigos e vizinhos, e Rosilene colocou na panela. Mais tarde, Alci, voltou com imensa abóbora que foi logo transformada em doce e ainda será quibebe e sopa, tudo em fogão de lenha. Neste recanto do sul de Minas, descoberto há cinco anos, conseguimos construir um pequeno refúgio. Marcia, arquiteta, decidiu que a casa teria grandes janelas e portas de vidro, abrindo para a floresta, (...) para vales e montanhas e, do lado direito, para a Pico do Papagaio, um dos símbolos de Minas Gerais. (shrink)

In this essay, Weinstein wants to address the issue of argument strength, of how strongly the premises of an argument support a conclusion. Using the framework of the Toulmin model, arguments have warrants which indicate some general connection between the premises and the conclusion of the argument. We may ask for the backing of the warrant, evidence for it. If the connection is an empirical generalization, the backing includes data supporting the generalization. But the backing may include theoretical generalizations, which (...) may explain the warrant. Furthermore, theories may be reduced by more comprehensive theories. A warrant then may ultimately be backed by some deep and very comprehensive theoretical explanation.Weinstein seeks to explicate the relation between the depth of backing for the warrant and the strength of the connection between premises and conclusion which the warrant indicates through the Model of Emerging Truth . Data relevant to confirming the theory have empir .. (shrink)

Alexandre Koyre was one of the most prominent historians of science of the twentieth century. The standard interpretation of Koyre is that he falls squarely within the internalist camp of historians of science-that he focuses on the history of the ideas themselves, eschewing cultural and sociological interpretations regarding the influence of ideologies and institutions on the development of science. When we read what Koyre has to say about his historical studies (and most of what others have said about them), we (...) find him embracing and championing this Platonic view of his work. Ultimately I think this interpretation of Koyre's history of science is lopsided and in need of correction. I claim, rather, that a careful reading of Koyre's work suggests that a tension exists between internal and external methodological considerations. The external considerations stem from Koyre's commitment to the unity of human thought and the influence he admits that the 'transscientifiques' (philosophy, metaphysics, religion) have on the development of science. I suggest in conclusion then, that if we are to put a philosophical label on his work, rather than 'Platonist', as has been the custom, 'Hegelian' makes a better fit. (shrink)

A cutting-edge survey of formal methods directed specifically at dealing with the deep mathematical problems engendered by the study of developing systems, in particular dealing with developing phase spaces, changing components, structures and functionalities, and the problem of emergence. Several papers deal with the modelling of particular experimental situations in population biology, economics and plant and muscle developments in addition to purely theoretical approaches. Novel approaches include differential inclusions and viability theory, growth tensors, archetypal dynamics, ensembles with variable structures, and (...) complex system models. The papers represent the work of theoreticians and experimental biologists, psychologists and economists. The areas covered embrace complex systems, the development of artificial life, mathematics, computer science, biology and psychology. (shrink)

In a strictly deterministic universe a Laplacian superman undertakes to predict if a certain ongoing Turing machine will ever halt. Well, he may predict that the machine will be struck by lightning tomorrow but Judson Webb invites us to "idealize" the case sufficiently so that it is not any lack of physical knowledge that stymies the Laplacian superman but rather the negative result of Turing's metamathematical or formal "indeterminacy" that suggests to Webb a the-Turing machines are thus seen to enjoy (...) a certain sort of "indeterminacy" or "unpredictability" which, while not physical in character, might readily be styled metamathematical. It is precisely that metamathematical or formal "indeterminacy" that suggests to Webb a theoretical basis for overcoming the traditional dichotomy of mind and mechanism. The ostensibly negative results of Turing, Gödel, and Church, far from showing that minds cannot possibly be machines, Webb interprets positively as supplying us with rich instructions as to what sort of unpredictable machines we have right to expect them to be. (shrink)

Semantics of Detachment A Review of Burkhard Hasebrink, Susanne Bernhardt, and Imke Früh, eds., Semantik der Gelassenheit: Generierung, Etablierung, Transformation [Semantics of detachment: Formation, establishment, transformation] Silke Schwandt Beyond the Untranslatability of Concepts A Review of Martin J. Burke and Melvin Richter, eds., Why Concepts Matter: Translating Social and Political Thought László Kontler Emotional Modernities A Review of Ute Frevert, Monique Scheer, Anne Schmidt, Pascal Eitler, Bettina Hitzer, Nina Verheyen, Benno Gammerl, Christian Bailey, and Margrit Pernau, Gefühlswissen: Eine lexikalische Spurensuche (...) in der Moderne [Emotional knowledge: In search of lexical clues in modernity] Anu Korhonen Beyond Peace as a Process A Review of Julia Harfensteller, The United Nations and Peace: The Evolution of an Organizational Concept Marie-Christine Boilard Human Rights as Conceptual History A Review of Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, ed., Human Rights in the Twentieth Century Johan Strang. (shrink)