This paper is chiefly aimed at individuating some deep, but as yet almost unnoticed, similarities between Aristotle's syllogistic and the Stoic doctrine of conditionals, notably between Aristotle's metasyllogistic equimodality condition and truth-conditions for third type conditionals. In fact, as is shown in §1, Aristotle's condition amounts to introducing in his metasyllogistic a non-truthfunctional implicational arrow '', the truth-conditions of which turn out to be logically equivalent to truth-conditions of third type conditionals, according to which only the impossible follows from the (...) impossible. Moreover, Aristotle is given precisely this non-Scotian conditional logic in two so far overlooked passages of Themistius' Paraphrasis of De Caelo. Some further consequences of Aristotle's equimodality condition on his logic, and notably on his syllogistic, are pointed out and discussed at length. A extension of Aristotle's condition is also discussed, along with a full characterization of truth-conditions of fourth type conditionals. (shrink)

In this review article we describe the current scope, methods, and contents of medical ethics education in medical schools in Western English speaking countries (mainly the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia). We assess the strengths and weaknesses of current medical ethics curricula, and students’ levels of satisfaction with different teaching approaches and their reported difficulties in learning medical ethics concepts and applying them in clinical practice. We identify three main challenges for medical ethics education: counteracting the bad effects (...) of the “hidden curriculum,” teaching students how to apply ethical knowledge and critical thinking to real cases in clinical practice, and shaping future doctors’ right character through ethics education. We suggest ways in which these challenges could be addressed. On the basis of this analysis, we propose practical guidelines for designing, implementing, teaching, and assessing a medical ethics program within a four-year medical course. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Hägel’s book is timely. As economic inequality has been on the rise, the increasing number of billionaires and their political activities have come under public scrutiny. The book contributes to such scrutiny and allows to ask questions about responsibility, accountability, and legitimacy. It also adds to scholarship on individuals in world politics. Our comment provides a critical discussion of two specific aspects of Hägel’s analysis. First, we clarify that most of the book focuses on billionaires as transnational actors while (...) few billionaires seem to exert influence on broader structures or processes of global governance. This clarification helps to understand the character of billionaires’ activities in world politics. Second, we reverse the perspective from which Hägel looks at billionaires. We point out that, while Hägel tends to look over the shoulders of the billionaires and mainly observes how they exercise influence in world politics, we argue that the other actors matter, too. More specifically, we maintain that billionaires’ roles in global governance are shaped through their specific recognition by international society (state actors) and/or by world society (non-state actors). This change in perspective sheds additional light on the conditions that affect the role(s) billionaires can play in world politics. (shrink)

A lot of research in cognition and decision making suffers from a lack of formalism. The quantum probability program could help to improve this situation, but we wonder whether it would provide even more added value if its presumed focus on outcome models were complemented by process models that are, ideally, informed by ecological analyses and integrated into cognitive architectures.

In this paper, I endeavor to evaluate the ethical-political consequences of the metaphor of "teacher-midwife" awarded to Plato’s Socrates in Theaetetus and its use by different scholars to describe the role of teacher in a Philosophy with/for children context. The paper is divided into three sections: first an approach is made to the figure of Socrates in Meno, to the critique of his method as expressed by Jacques Rancière in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, and to the echoing of that critique by (...) Walter Kohan in his evaluation of the pedagogy of Pf/wC. Next, different descriptions of the teacher’s role in Pf/wC are reviewed, emphasizing the elements that emphasize the Socratic figure. For Matthew Lipman, one of the keys to turning classrooms into communities of philosophical inquiry was to substantially modify the teaching role. Because, on Lipman’s account, the teacher should not teach in the traditional sense, different metaphors have been sought to describe her role. In section, I argue that a description of the teacher as "guide" can be applied to many features that characterize Socrates. I analyze in depth the metaphor of the "teacher-midwife" establishing the links with those developed in and. Emphasis is placed on the ethical-political consequences of equating the teacher with a "teacher-midwife", especially if we take into account Plato's complete description of pedagogical maiusis in Theaetetus, and the centrality of the metaphor in Pf/wC pedagogical practice. Finally, I consider the very different image of the “birth” metaphor that is suggested by Hannah Arendt’s concept of “natality,” and explore its implications for a pedagogical alternative to the Socratic. (shrink)

Current and future possibilities for enhancing human physical ability, cognition, mood, and lifespan raise the ethical question of whether we should enhance normal human capacities in these ways. This chapter offers such an account of enhancement. It begins by reviewing a number of suggested accounts of enhancement, and points to their shortcomings. The chapter then identifies two key senses of “enhancement”: functional enhancement, the enhancement of some capacity or power (e.g. vision, intelligence, health) and human enhancement, the enhancement of a (...) human being's life. The latter notion is the notion of enhancement most relevant to ethical debate. The chapter argues that it is best understood in welfarist terms. It illustrates this welfarist approach to enhancement by applying it to the case of cognitive enhancement. Unlike the sociological pragmatic and functional approaches, the welfarist account is inherently normative. It ties enhancement to the value of well‐being. (shrink)

Our ordinary conception of time has it that there are temporal particulars: not only do people do things, but there are particular doings by people; not only are we born, but the birth of each one of us was a particular event, and each of us will have our own particular death. Temporal particulars in this sense are individuated, fundamentally, by their temporal locations or relations, rather than by their intrinsic or qualitative characteristics. In this respect they are unrepeatable, not (...) just de facto, but as a matter of their very nature. However, there is a tradition in philosophy that seriously downplays this aspect of our thinking about time. According to this tradition, the fundamental unit of temporal representation is _tensed truth_; the notion of an unrepeatable particular, individuated by its temporal location, is at best an abstraction from a complex of tensed truths. The aims of this paper are, first, to argue that the representation of temporal particulars is deeply implicated in our ordinary conception of the past as fixed and unalterable; and, secondly, to argue that the theorist of tensed truth is able to provide only a pale imitation of this aspect of our thinking. I will then reflect on the consequences of this for debates about the metaphysics of tense. (shrink)

It is suggested, following a proposal made recently by Smolin, that the most fundamental law of the universe takes this form: Among the set of all possible universes compatible with an irreducibly minimal set of structural constraints, the actually realized universe is the one which maximizes a mathematically well-defined number (the variety) that measures the structural variety of the universe (in the totality of its history). This gives expression to Leibniz's idea that the actual universe gives “the greatest variety possible, (...) but with the greatest possible order.” Two models are proposed in which the idea can be realized and its consequences tested; both are discrete in nature and satisfy highly nonlocal laws. In such a scheme a unique (finite) universe is called into being by the fundamental requirement of maximal variety (for given definition of the variety), which it is conjectured could have such a powerful ordering effect that space, time, the currently known laws of physics, and the observed structure of the universe could all appear as emergent consequences of the single underlying law. (shrink)

By now, it should be clear: in the face of disinformation and disaster, we cannot hot take, life hack, or meme our way to a better future. But how should we respond instead? In How to Think like a Philosopher, Julian Baggini turns to the study of reason itself for practical solutions to this question, inspired by our most eminent philosophers, past and present. Baggini offers twelve key principles for a more human, balanced, and rational approach to thinking: pay (...) attention; question everything (including your questions); watch your steps; follow the facts; watch your language; be eclectic; be a psychologist; know what matters; lose your ego; think for yourself, not by yourself; make connections, not theories; and don't give up. Each chapter is chockfull of real-world examples showing these principles at work-from the discovery of penicillin to the fight for trans rights-and how they lead to more thoughtful conclusions. More than a book of tips and tricks (or ways to be insufferably clever at parties), How to Think like a Philosopher is an invitation to develop the habits of good reasoning that our world desperately needs. (shrink)

The path taken by German philosophy in the twentieth century is one of the most exciting and controversial in the history of human thought, by turns radical and conservative and secular and religious. In this outstanding introduction, German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Dilthey to Honneth--the third and final volume in his trilogy, Julian Young examines the work of eight German philosophers and theologians of the period. He shows how they engaged with profound existential questions about individual and collective (...) lives, criticised the increasing rationalisation and mechanisation characteristic of modernity, and committed themselves to varying forms of liberalism, socialism and democracy. Young introduces and assesses the thought of the following figures: Wilhelm Dilthey, the encroachment of the natural sciences upon the study of humanity and his distinction between 'explanation' and 'understanding'; Karl Jaspers, existentialism, the challenge of nihilism and the turn to theology; Edith Stein, our understanding of other people and the philosophy of empathy from a phenomenological standpoint; Paul Tillich, philosophical theology and the 'theonomous' life; Martin Buber, Recovering the 'I-Thou' relationship in the face of modernity and religious socialism; Hans Jonas, responsibility, selfhood and threats to humanity in the twentieth century; Erich Fromm, the 'art of loving' as a bulwark against totalitarianism and the replacement of capitalism by communitarian socialism; Axel Honneth, contemporary Hegelianism and the ethics and politics of recognition. Lucidly and engagingly written, German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Dilthey to Honneth is essential reading for students of German philosophy, phenomenology and theology and will also be of interest to students in related fields such as literature, political theory and sociology. (shrink)

This paper explores themes of _wildness_, _awakening_ and _transformative learning_ in a land-based MBA leadership course. For twenty years, students have consistently characterized their participation as being a life-changing experience that shapes their personal choices and leadership actions for years afterwards. Many describe personal, social or ecological _awakenings_ that have catalyzed a deeper ethos of connectedness, care and responsibility for the well-being of the planet and future generations. I distinguish _wildness_ from _wilderness_ and consider its role in generating and sustaining (...) culture. I critically examine the MBA as a vehicle for cultivating effective and ethical leaders along with the promise and limitations of _awakened leadership_. I historically contextualize various forms of spiritual and social awakening, review the theoretical foundations of ecological awakening, and warily consider transformative learning as a _pedagogy of awakening_. I outline the overall approach of the leadership course and discuss three primary transformative learning components; _Indigenous pedagogies_, _nature as teacher_, and a range of _transformative practices_. I suggest that wildness offers a distinct pedagogical wellspring for educators working to shift and recalibrate patterns of consciousness and culture and conclude that transformative learning provides a way to integrate a pedagogy of awakening into management education and leadership training. (shrink)

The ways in which work gets done are observably different from the ways in which those in positions of responsibility talk about that work or from the ways in which the organizational and business literature portrays work. The ethnographic study of work focuses on work practice, on what is actually done, and on how those doing the work make sense of their practice, but this is rarely part of either corporate or organizational discourse about work This article tries to show (...) what is missing from this discourse and suggests that the corporate model is based on a common misapprehension of the nature of technique and confounds the ways humans work with the ways machines work. (shrink)

En este artículo se exponen las conclusiones de un estudio cuyo objetivo principal fue describir y analizar las situaciones de discriminación, violencia y desigualdad contra enfermeros/as gays y lesbianas con pretexto de su orientación sexual y/o expresión de género en organizaciones de salud públicas y privadas de Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (en adelante, CABA). Aquí se analizan las estrategias y los modos en que gays y lesbianas gestionan la información personal relativa a su orientación sexual en sus intercambios socio-laborales (...) para evitar el estigma.Este escrito se centra en dos categorías principales que ordenaron la investigación: (a) las posibilidades de expresar la propia orientación sexual en los respectivos espacios de trabajo y su vinculación con el estigma real o anticipado en las interacciones con compañeros/as, superiores y pacientes; y (b) el heterosexismo internalizado como una categoría vinculada tanto con el estigma anticipado y experimentado como con los distintos grados de apertura sobre la propia orientación sexual en el trabajo.Para alcanzar el objetivo propuesto, se adoptó un enfoque cualitativo y se analizaron 20 entrevistas a enfermeros y enfermeras gays, lesbianas y heterosexuales, sumado a la indagación de diversas fuentes secundarias, desde los lineamientos de la teoría fundamentada en datos. Como conclusión, se destaca la asociación entre el grado de asunción de la propia identidad sexual, el uso de estrategias de gestión de la información personal y el heterosexismo internalizado, que repercuten en la reproducción de la opresión y el estigma entre gays y lesbianas en comparación con la población heterosexual. Por lo tanto, este trabajo pretende hacer un aporte significativo a las discusiones y los estudios sobre diversidad sexual en los espacios de trabajo de Argentina y la región. (shrink)

Is it Possible to Experiment with Thought? Ernst Mach’s Notion of Thought Experiment and its Pedagogical Context around 1900. The article tries to establish the crucial importance of the pedagogical dimension of Ernst Mach’s ideas on experimenting with thought. The focus on contemporary pedagogics demonstrates, first, that Mach’s didactic approach to physics is part of a much broader stream of pedagogical writings that transcends national and disciplinary borders and comprises a diversity of authors, e.g. Wilhelm Jerusalem, William James or Alfred (...) N. Whitehead; second, that the much‐heralded controversy between Mach and the French philosopher of science Pierre Duhem about thought experiments does not only revolve around epistemological issues but rather stems from their antagonist vision of teaching physics; and finally, third, that G. Stanley Hall’s psychogenetic theory of pedagogics bears a strong resemblance with the evolutionary naturalism of Machian epistemology and helps explaining key tenets of Mach’s conception of thought experiment. By establishing a broad convergence between the work of all these authors despite their different academic upbringing, background and nationality the article argues for a complex and historically fine‐grained vision of the relations between natural, social and human sciences going beyond dichotomies like ‘Erklären’ and ‘Verstehen’ or the ‘Two Cultures’. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates that social alignment is distinct from value alignment as it is currently understood in the AI safety literature, and argues that social alignment is an important research agenda. Work provides an important example for the argument, since work is a cooperative endeavor, and it is part of the larger manifold of social cooperation. These cooperative aspects of work are individually and socially valuable, and so they must be given a central place when evaluating the impact of AI (...) upon work. Workplace technologies are not simply instruments for achieving productive goals, but ways of mediating interpersonal relations. They are aspects of a cooperative interface i.e. the infrastructure by which we engage cooperative behavior with others. The concept of the cooperative interface suggests two conjectures to foreground in the social alignment agenda, motivated by the experience of algorithmic trading and social robotics: that AI impacts cooperation through its effects on social networks, and through its effects on social norms. (shrink)

There’s not only indifference, there’s actually a huge sense of sneering superiority. The need for intercultural understanding and global dialogue between different philosophical traditions and philosophical countries is so important. It’s just crazy to think that in your own monoglot culture you’ve got all the essential tools that you need to do philosophy.

ABSTRACTAny philosophy which aspires to universality is caught in a perennial tension: the attempt to transcend the particularities of the individual thinker and her time and place can only be made by specific individuals in specific times and places. Anglophone philosophy deals with this tension by ignoring it.

Great Thinkers A-Z is the ideal book for anyone interested in the history of Western thought and a valuable reference resource for students of philosophy and related disciplines.

Philosophy has become more and more abstracted from people’s daily lives, so in a way, philosophers are a kind of joke in Britain. The only time they appearis in comedy and it seems to me really important to do something about this.

One does not need to hold that western philosophy, or some subset of it, is superior to other kinds in order to worry about whether different strands of philosophy can meaningfully engage in dialogue together. Nor do these worries necessarily entail any arrogance. We can always learn form others, but that does not mean we should not prioritise some encounters over others.

My father really looked forward to reading my book and then was terribly disappointed when he found it was unreadable. One of the reader’s reports for the press when it was published said ‘This book is written ordinary English – there are no symbols, little of what could be called technical terminology – but this appearance is entirely misleading’.