In this article, we argue that scientists and technologists associated with the nuclear industry are building support for small modular reactors by advancing five rhetorical visions imbued with elements of fantasy that cater to various social expectations. The five visions are as follows: a vision of risk-free energy would eliminate catastrophic accidents and meltdowns. A vision of indigenous self-energization would see SMRs empowering remote communities and developing economies. A vision of water security would see SMR-powered desalination plants satisfying the world’s (...) water needs. A vision of environmental nirvana would see SMRs providing waste-free and carbon-free electricity to preserve the earth’s biosphere. A vision of space exploration would see SMRs assisting in the colonization of the moon, Mars, and possibly other worlds. These visions help create a symbolic convergence among promoters, serving to attract political and financial support, and erasing previous nuclear failures from public discourse. Moreover, underlying these visions is a technological utopian ideal world where SMRs would generate plentiful energy of multiple kinds, offering the necessary means for a life of comfort for all people by meeting various needs and without any environmental externalities or cause for concern about accidents. (shrink)

Proving academic plagiarism is difficult. This volume borrows principles from textual criticism to illustrate new techniques for demonstrating plagiarism. These techniques can be used to persuade others—colleagues, editors, publishers, and research integrity committees—when academic plagiarism has been committed.

Монография "Коммуникативные основы художественной культуры" посвящена раскрытию коммуникативного механизма культуры и роли художественной коммуникации в осуществлении диалога-отношения человека и мира.

“Para que isso servirá em minha vida?” Ao longo de minha trajetória como professor do ensino secundário, ouvi esta pergunta algumas vezes. É provável que nós professores de filosofia não sejamos um alvo privilegiado dessa pergunta provocadora. Trata-se mesmo de uma questão legítima, ainda mais para nós: latinoamericanos, brasileiros, nordestinos, piauienses. Trata-se de uma pergunta que evoca um certo desespero, uma certa pressa, um tipo de agonia que é bem nossa; como quando dizemos “estou agoniado”. Queremos tudo “pra já”. Parece (...) que jamais nos daremos o direito de viver e aprender algo pelo simples fato de que o saber é bom e merece ser fruído. (shrink)

This volume is the first book-length study on post-publication responses to academic plagiarism in humanities disciplines. It demonstrates that the correction of the scholarly literature for plagiarism is not a task for editors and publishers alone; each member of the research community has an indispensable role in maintaining the integrity of the published literature in the aftermath of plagiarism. If untreated, academic plagiarism damages the integrity of the scholarly record, corrupts the surrounding academic enterprise, and creates inefficiencies across all levels (...) of knowledge production. By providing case studies from the field of philosophy and related disciplines, the volume exhibits that current post-publication responses to academic plagiarism are insufficient. It catalogues how humanities disciplines fall short in comparison with the natural and biomedical sciences for ensuring the integrity of the body of published research. This volume provides clarity about how to conceptualize the scholarly record, surveys the traditional methods for correcting it, and argues for new interventions to improve the reliability of the body of published research. The book is valuable not only to those in the field of philosophy and other humanities disciplines, but also to those interested in research ethics, meta-science, and the sociology of research. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on what is referred to as the ‘mineness’ of experience, that is, the intimate familiarity we have with our own thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. Most accounts characterize mineness in terms of an experiential dimension, the first-person givenness of experience, that is subsumed under the notion of minimal self-consciousness or a ‘minimal self’. We argue that this account faces problems and develop an alternative account of mineness in terms of the coherence of experiences with what we (...) label an ‘embodied biography’. Building on a near consensus among consciousness researchers over the function of consciousness as integrating infor- mation, we argue that the phenomenology of mineness consists in the absence of any further thought on top of the experience itself. Finally we argue that this non-phenomenological account of mineness fits well with existing data on pathologies of mineness such as delusions of thought insertion. (shrink)

The Internet is a worldwide network of interconnected computer networks. Access to it is primarily a matter of access to a large amount of information. Interesting is the database of the latest religious movements available on the Internet, as their own web pages of the latest religious movements, and information about them from web pages from other sources. Particularly interesting information is about the newest religious movements that operate in Ukraine.

Open peer commentary on the article “A Computational Constructivist Model as an Anticipatory Learning Mechanism for Coupled Agent–Environment Systems” by Filipo Studzinski Perotto. Upshot: The schema system presented in the target article suffers from problems that had been acknowledged more than ten years ago. The main point is that our world is neither deterministic nor symbolic. Sensory as well as motor noise is ubiquitous in our environment. Symbols do not exist a priori but need to be grounded within our continuous (...) world. In conclusion, I suggest that research on schema-learning systems should tackle small but real-world, continuous, and noisy problem domains. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Opining the articuli fidei:Thomas Aquinas on the Heretic’s Assent to the Articles of FaithM. V. DoughertyTHOMAS AQUINAS’S ACCOUNT of the infused virtue (habitus) of faith presupposes that some intrinsically intelligible truths are beyond the range of the natural cognitive abilities of human beings. The possession of the virtue of faith allows the believer to transcend certain natural epistemic limitations so that he can assent to truths that are necessary (...) for salvation. Consonant with the Catholic theological tradition, Aquinas refers to such truths as the articles of faith (articuli fidei), and stock examples include propositions concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation.1In light of the many and well-known texts from the Corpus Thomisticum that highlight the disproportion or incommensurability between the articles of faith and the natural cognitive abilities of human beings, it would not be unreasonable for one to assume that faith is required to assent to such articles of faith [End Page 1] in this life. Such an interpretive assumption could be expressed as:A1: A human being can assent to the articles of faith in this life if and only if the human being is fortified with the infused virtue of faith.One might be led to ascribe A1 to Aquinas when one considers that he criticizes the Pelagians precisely for maintaining that the assent to matters of faith is caused by nothing other than free will.2 Still further, one might think that strong evidence for A1 is Aquinas’s claim that “free will does not suffice for believing, since those things that are of faith are above reason.”3I argue, however, that A1’s identification of the virtue of faith as a necessary condition for the assent to the articles of faith does not adequately reflect Aquinas’s position, despite the many texts that may suggest such a view.4 That Aquinas does not endorse A1 can be made evident by examining his largely overlooked account of the epistemic state of the heretic (haereticus). To be sure, most commentators who explore the Thomistic treatment of heresy focus on the psychology of error underlying the heretic’s denial of one or more of the articles of faith.5 In the present paper I take an alternate path, however, focusing on those epistemic acts whereby the heretic gets its [End Page 2] right, so to speak, by correctly assenting to some of the articles of faith. Aquinas maintains that the heretic does not possess the infused virtue of faith yet still assents to all the articles of faith except for the one or more articles that he denies. Bereft of faith, the heretic “holds those things that are of faith by another mode than through faith.”6 This seemingly anomalous epistemic condition deserves consideration.7I. Intellects without FaithThe heretic appears to be cognitively privileged, since without faith he assents to the things that are of faith, seemingly overcoming without divine assistance the aforementioned disproportion between the limited range of reason and the articles of faith. Aquinas is aware of the apparent difficulty; in the Summa theologiae he defuses the rather unusual objection that heretics appear to have greater cognitive capacities than the faithful, since heretics routinely and unassistedly assent to those higher truths without possessing the virtue of faith.8 Aquinas concludes that the heretic holds the articles of faith by opinion (opinio), not faith.What makes one a heretic? Frequently Aquinas identifies obstinacy (pertinacia, instantia) as a necessary condition for heresy.9 The cause of heresy is at times identified with pride [End Page 3] (superbia).10 On Aquinas’s account, heresy is a species of unbelief (infidelitas) and every heretic is a schismatic.11 But the heretic does get many things right. If one were to deny all of the articles of faith, one would not qualify as a heretic, but would simply be a nonbeliever or an apostate. So, apart from the denial of an article (or a few articles) that specifies heretics as the distinct kind of heretic they happen to be, heretics for the most part succeed in assenting to most—but not all—of the articles of faith.Although the... (shrink)

Clinical ethics takes on a special cast in a rehabilitation clinic for psychosis where many patients come from severely disadvantaged backgrounds and many suffer from fluctuating decisional capacity. This paper illustrates several ethical issues—truth telling and partiality, prescribing concealed medication, questionable billing practices, industry collaboration, limits of confidentiality, grounds for abandonment and the primacy of autonomy—in the hope that discussing such matters will lead to a clearer framework for work with this population.

Nearly all attempts to include Aquinas among the class of divine command theorists have focused on two kinds of texts: those exhibiting Aquinas’s treatment of the apparent immoralities of the patriarchs (e.g., Abraham’s intention to kill Isaac), and those pertaining to Aquinas’s discussion of the divine will. In the present paper, I lay out a third approach unrelated to these two. I argue that Aquinas’s explicit endorsement of one ethical proposition as self-evident throughout his writings is sufficient justification to include (...) Aquinas among the class of divine command theorists. I examine Aquinas’s persistent contention that the proposition “the commands of God are to be obeyed” is a self-evident or per se nota proposition of ethical reasoning, and I then trace Aquinas’s appeals to it in the Sentences commentary, De Veritate, and Quodlibet 3. I conclude with a discussion of passages where Aquinas argues that the experience of moral necessity or obligation requires reference to divine commands. (shrink)