Interactive Cinema explores cinematic practices that work to transform what is often seen as a receptive activity into a participatory, multimedia experience. Combining cutting-edge theory with updated conventional film studies methodologies, Marina Hassapopoulou presses at the conceptual limits of cinema and offers an essential road map to the rapidly evolving landscape of contemporary media.

The restructured globalized economy has provided women with employment opportunities. Globalisation has also meant a shift towards self-regulation of multinationals as part of the restructuring of the world economy that increases among others things, flexible employment practices, worsening of labour conditions and lower wages for many women workers around the world. In this context, as part of the global trend emphasising Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the 1980s, one important development has been the growth of voluntary Corporate Codes of Conduct (...) to improve labour conditions. This article reviews from a feminist interdisciplinary perspective the broad academic literature on women workers, covering the more classical debate on women workers in the industrialization process and entering into women workers in the global supply chains and women workers and corporate codes of conduct. The main argument is that this research on women workers is crucial to frame the issues of business ethics and in particular CSR and Codes of Conduct in the context of women in the global political economy. When this crucial knowledge is ignored, then the ethical policies of the companies also ignore the real situation of the women workers at the bottom of their supply chains. (shrink)

This paper focuses on how experiences of trauma can lead to generalized fear of people, objects and places that are similar or contextually or conceptually related to those that produced the initial fear, causing epistemic, affective, and practical harms to those who are unduly feared and those who are intimates of the victim of trauma. We argue that cases of fear generalization that bring harm to other people constitute examples of injustice closely akin to testimonial injustice, specifically, mnemonic injustice. Mnemonic (...) injustice is a label that has been introduced to capture how injustice can occur via the operation of human memory systems when stereotypes shape what is remembered. Here we argue that injustices can also occur via memory systems when trauma leads to a generalized fear. We also argue that this calls for a reformulation of the notion of mnemonic injustice. (shrink)

U ovom članku raspravljamo o hipotezi proširenog jastva Andyja Clarka i Davida Chalmersa, a osobito o prigovoru prema kojemu proširenom jastvu nedostaje stabilnost i kontinuitet koji su potrebni da bismo ga smatrali identičnim kroz vrijeme. Pokušavamo pokazati da je taj prigovor neodrživ. Raspravljamo i o gledištu prema kojemu se drugi tip jastva, to jest narativno jastvo, također može shvatiti kao prošireno, i tvrdimo da stabilnost i kontinuitet toga tipa jastva također nisu ugroženi ako ga proširimo izvan granica čovjekova tijela. Stoga, (...) barem što se tiče tih tipova jastva, kada razmišljamo o problemima osobnog identiteta, nije potrebno ograničiti se na internalizirano jastvo. (shrink)

Este artigo explora o conceito emergente de ‘soberania digital’ no contexto atual de dataficação da vida, examinando como o termo é definido na esfera acadêmica. A discussão em torno do conceito ‘soberania digital’ tem sido abordado pela sociedade civil e pelos movimentos sociais em torno de uma internet livre e soberana, como pode ser observado através da Carta Soberania Digital entregue ao presidente Lula e assinada por diferentes atores e ativistas que se dedicam à discussão do tema. A pesquisa baseia-se (...) em levantamento bibliográfico e análise de artigos científicos da base CAPES Periódicos que foram publicados nos últimos dois anos, período em que o conceito se tornou mais presente na esfera acadêmica. A atual investigação tem como objetivo compreender como a comunidade acadêmica tem discutido o tema, explorando as discussões sobre o controle e a gestão de dados em níveis estatais e regionais. Nota-se que a caracterização político-jurídica do conceito de soberania é abordado a partir de diferentes perspectivas. A análise revela como o conceito de soberania digital está sendo utilizado para discutir questões de vigilância algorítmica, plataformas digitais e inteligência artificial, destacando os impactos dessas tecnologias na esfera pública democrática. Por fim, reflete-se sobre as implicações da soberania digital para o contexto educacional e sua gestão, políticas educacionais e financiamentos, sublinhando a importância de um debate aprofundado sobre o controle e a gestão dos dados na sociedade contemporânea, cada vez mais influenciada pelas tecnologias digitais e pela vigilância algorítmica. (shrink)

The ability to sequence individual genomes is leading to the identification of an increasing number of genetic risk factors for serious diseases. Knowledge of these risk factors can often provide significant medical and psychological benefit, but also raises complex ethical and social issues. This paper focuses on one area of rapid progress: the identification of mutations causing long QT syndrome and other cardiac channel disorders, which can explain some previously unexplained deaths in infants (SIDS) and children and adults (SUDS) and (...) prevent others from occurring. This genetic knowledge, discovered posthumously in many cases, has implications for clinical care for surviving family members who might carry the same mutations. The information obtained from genetic testing, in the context of personal and family history, can guide individually tailored interventions that reduce risk and save lives. At the same time, obtaining and disclosing genetic information raises difficult issues about confidentiality and decision making within families. We draw on the experience of the Montefiore-Einstein Center for Cardiogenetics, which has played a leading role in the genetic diagnosis and clinical management of cardiac channel diseases, to explore some of the challenging ethical questions arising in affected families with adolescent children. We focus on the related issues of (1) family confidentiality, privacy and disclosure and (2) adolescent decision making about genetic risk, and argue for the value of interdisciplinary dialogue with affected families in resolving these issues. (shrink)

Recent findings indicate that toddlers can use geometric cues to locate an object hidden in a corner of a rectangular room after being disoriented [Cognition 61 (1996) 195]. It has been suggested that locating the object involves reestablishing one's initial heading. The present experiments examine search behavior after disorientation. We find that toddlers go directly to a particular corner, indicating that they do not have to reestablish their original heading. It also has been suggested that toddlers ability to use geometric (...) cues is limited to surrounding spaces. We find that toddlers can locate an object from outside as well as from inside a space, although the task is harder from outside. Based on these results, we argue that while toddlers do not represent their position relative to a particular portion of a space, they nevertheless may represent their position relative to the entire space (i.e., outside vs. inside). (shrink)

Knowledge before belief ascription? Yes and no (depending on the type of “knowledge” under consideration). In an influential paper, Jonathan Phillips and colleagues have recently presented a fascinating and provocative big picture that challenges foundational assumptions of traditional Theory of Mind research (Phillips et al., 2020). Conceptually, this big picture is built around the main claim that ascription of knowledge is primary relative to ascription of belief. The primary form of Theory of Mind (ToM) thus is so-called factive ToM that (...) centres around knowledge-related mental states that are true rather than meta-representational ToM that centres around subjective epistemic states like belief that may or may not be true (Nagel, 2017; Phillips & Norby, 2019). Empirically, Phillips and colleagues build on converging findings from different areas: Ample research in developmental psychology shows that children track who has had informational access to events (and thus knows about the events) before they keep track of others’ potentially false beliefs (e.g., Perner & Roessler, 2012). Many studies from comparative psychology have found evidence that non-human great apes keep track of others’ perceptual and informational access while there is no convincing evidence that they keep track of others’ beliefs (Horschler et al., 2020; Martin & Santos, 2016; Call & Tomasello, 2008). And, work from cognitive psychology and experimental philosophy suggests that adults are faster, for example, to judge what others know than to judge what they believe (Phillips et al., 2018).In this commentary, we would like to critically evaluate and friendly amend the claims put forward by Phillips and colleagues. Conceptually, while we agree that some form of factive Theory of Mind is primary, we would like to raise doubts whether this primary factive ToM already involves full-fledged knowledge ascription. Empirically, we will point to potential test cases that are suitable to test Phillips and colleagues’ account against the friendly amendment proposed here. Is knowledge ascription really primary relative to belief ascription?We agree that the empirical findings reviewed by Phillips and colleagues do make a strong case for the conjecture that some form of factive ToM is indeed (phylogenetically, ontogenetically, and cognitively) primary. But we suspect that this claim, in unqualified form, may be somewhat incomplete and misleading. There is not necessarily one unitary form of factive ToM, and one notion of “knowledge“ in play across development and evolution, and perhaps not even in adults‘ Theory of Mind. This suspicion builds on several foundations: First, from an empirical point of view there have been, as highlighted by the authors, characteristic U-shaped developmental curves in some tasks of factive ToM – often a reliable indicator that different underlying processes are in play (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). Second, from a theoretical point of view, conceptual change and dual process approaches to ToM and other forms of social cognition have highlighted the possibility of more complex developmental trajectories such that earlier and more basic forms of a conceptual competence may be supplemented and superseded by later and more sophisticated refinements (e.g. Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Perner, 1991). For the case of factive ToM, it may be that there is a basic and primitive notion of “knowledge“ in place early in ontogeny (and perhaps phylogenetically more ancient) that shares some of the essential features of our mature “knowledge” concept: “knowledge” in this broad sense, as emphasized by the authors, is factive, not modality-specific, and allows for representations of egocentric ignorance. For this basic concept, the slogan “knowledge before belief“ may well be true. However, this basic concept need not yet be our mature notion of knowledge proper and thus this basic form of factive ToM may fall crucially short of our adult form of factive ToM. Why? Because essential elements of our mature concept of knowledge are still missing: First of all, while so-called Gettier cases and other considerations make clear that knowledge does not reduce to justified true belief (one can have justified true beliefs that still do not amount to knowledge; Gettier, 1963), according to many accounts knowledge at least presupposes justified true belief. Correspondingly, ascription of knowledge would thus presuppose ascription of belief. Now, we understand that this is one of the very traditional assumptions that Phillips and colleagues challenge, and given space restrictions we will not focus on it here any further (see, e.g, Rose & Schaffer, 2013). But there is a second crucial aspect of knowledge proper that is missing from the basic notion: knowledge proper is aspectual, and consequently reports of knowledge proper are intensional, while neither seems to be the case of basic knowledge and reports of it. Knowledge proper is aspectual in the following sense: whether or not someone knows something depends on how, under which aspects, she has had informational access to a given scene. Suppose Eve has seen Clark Kent enter the house. Does she know that Superman is in the house? It depends. If she knows about the identity Clark Kent = Superman, she does, otherwise she does not. Consequently, knowledge ascription is intensional in the sense that the substitution of co-referential terms is not necessarily truth-value preserving: “Eve knows that Clark Kent is in the house“ does not imply “Eve knows that Superman is in the house”.Now, from the point of view of cognitive development, much research suggests that children’s appreciation of the aspectuality of propositional attitudes (and the intensionality of propositional attitude reports) develops in protracted ways not before the age of four (e.g., Apperly & Robinson, 1998; Rakoczy et al., 2015; Proft et al., 2019). In fact, recent studies suggest that around age four children undergo a fundamental and coherent cognitive revolution: they acquire a solid meta-representational notion of propositional attitudes that allows them to ascribe subjective aspectual representations that may or may not be accurate: Children come to solve false belief tasks that require belief ascription at the same time as tasks that require an understanding of aspectuality, and there is strong convergence/correlation between these different tasks (Rakoczy, 2017; Rakoczy et al., 2015). These considerations thus evoke a somewhat modified picture of the developmental course of factive Theory of Mind: Some form of factive ToM, indeed, comes first (developmentally and phylogenetically). In this primary stage, subjects track agents‘ cognitive relations to the world that display some of the essential signatures of knowledge proper (factive; not modality-specific; allow for representations of egocentric ignorance). Various approaches in ToM research over the last years have aimed at describing this basic form of knowledge-like relations, for example in terms of “cognitive connections“ (Flavell, 1988), “registration“ (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009), “experiential records“ (Perner & Roessler, 2012) or “awareness relations“ (Martin & Santos, 2016). While differing in focus and details, all these accounts converge in stressing one crucial point: this early form of factive ToM allows observer to keep track of what others have or have not witnessed and, in this sense, what they do or do not know. It allows, in other words, so-called “Level I” perspective-taking (Flavell, 1977): understanding what others see. But this early form of factive ToM still falls short of knowledge ascription proper because it lacks an appreciation of the essential aspectuality of propositional attitudes in general and of knowledge in particular. In other words, it does not yet allow for “Level II” perspective-taking: understanding how different agents may represent a given scene (Fizke et al., 2017; Low & Watts, 2013; Oktay-Gür et al., 2018). Only later, around age 4, do children then develop the new meta-representational framework of propositional attitudes that goes beyond basic factive ToM. Once they have this framework and thus an understanding of aspectuality at hand, they can extend their initial and primary factive ToM to acquire the mature concept of knowledge (as at least presupposing true, justified belief, where belief is necessarily aspectual). So, while basic knowledge ascription indeed precedes belief ascription, full-blown attribution of aspectual knowledge develops in tandem with belief attribution. Or in other words: basic factive ToM precedes full-blown meta-representational ToM but full-blown factive ToM does not (since it is itself a part of full-blown meta-representational ToM). Empirical outlookThis slightly modified picture raises many interesting new empirical questions, and makes competing predictions relative to the picture put forward by Phillips and colleagues: From developmental and comparative perspectives, the modified picture would predict that “knowledge before belief” only applies for a circumscribed set of knowledge-related situations: those in which knowledge ascription does not require sensitivity to the aspectuality of knowledge (does not require distinguishing, for example, “Does she know that Clark Kent is in the house?” vs. “Does she know that Superman is in the house?”) and is limited to Level I perspective-taking. Young children before the age of four and non-human primates should be able to solve such non-aspectual knowledge ascription problems. But only older children from around age four, once they have acquired the full-fledged conceptual apparatus of meta-representation, should be able to handle aspectual knowledge ascription. Regarding adult functioning, the most fundamental question is: Do adults operate with one unitary factive ToM, as Phillips and colleagues assume? Or are there two kinds of factive ToM throughout the lifespan, as our modified picture suggests? In particular, does the more basic version remain in operation in adulthood, perhaps even as the default mode, that reveals itself under conditions of speeded responses, limited cognitive resources etc.? If the latter were true, specific performance patterns should be found. First, results such that adults are faster at knowledge ascription than at belief ascription (as found in Phillips et al., 2018) should be restricted to designs where knowledge ascription does not require any considerations of aspectuality. In such designs (as they were used in Phillips et al., 2018), subjects can make use of their primordial (non-aspectual) factive ToM in knowledge ascription, but have to use their full-fledged (aspectual) ToM in belief ascription. However, in new cases in which knowledge ascription is potentially aspectual (“Does Eve know that Superman is in the house?”), the speed difference between knowledge and belief ascription should vanish since both now require full-fledged (aspectual) ToM. Second, and relatedly, fast factive ToM should have characteristic signature limits to do with the lacking appreciation of aspectuality (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Low et al., 2016): Subjects under speeded conditions (or in dual task formats in which their central cognitive resources are taxed) should be unable to systematically distinguish between “Eve knows that Clark Kent is the house” (true) and “Eve knows that Superman is in the house” (possibly true). No such signature limits should be expected, in contrast, under reflective conditions in which subjects can use their full-fledged and mature factive ToM. Interestingly, these hypothetical developmental and adult performance patterns would correspond to similar patterns found in the domain of modal judgments. Adults, it seems, have two notions of modality at their disposal: a more primitive (ontogenetically old) default notion that does not differentiate between descriptive and normative modals and thus yield characteristic signature limits; and more differentiated and nuanced notions (ontogenetically more recent) that do sharply distinguish between different forms of modality. What works fast and gets addressed in speeded tasks is the primitive default notion (in speeded tasks, adults tend to confuse what is possible with what is permitted, for example, in the way very young children do) whereas the more nuanced notions reveal themselves in reflective task settings in which adults are not subject to such confusions (Phillips & Cushman, 2017). Modality judgments and factive ToM may thus reveal striking analogies. Just like in the area of modality, then, there may be basic and default factive ToM, present from early on and in operation throughout the lifespan in speeded responses (and under other conditions of limited cognitive resources), and more sophisticated factive Theory of Mind that develops later on the basis of full-fledged meta-representation and that reveals itself in more reflective judgements. (shrink)

Breaking the Chair. About the Symbolic Reorganisation of the Trial. On July 23, 2018, the article 7 of Law no. 304/2004 about the judicial organisation was completed as follows: the configuration of the court room must reflect the principle of the equality of arms concerning the position of the judge, the prosecutor and the lawyers. This paper aims to treat about the symbolic connotations of the rearrangement of the position of the main procedural actors in the space destinated to the (...) act of judging, meaning the relocation of the prosecutor in line with the lawyer, with his back on the audience – as a visual sign of the equidistance of the judge regarding both of them. (shrink)

The categorical dualities presented are: (first) for the category of bi-algebraic lattices that belong to the variety generated by the smallest non-modular lattice with complete (0,1)-lattice homomorphisms as morphisms, and (second) for the category of non-trivial (0,1)-lattices belonging to the same variety with (0,1)-lattice homomorphisms as morphisms. Although the two categories coincide on their finite objects, the presented dualities essentially differ mostly but not only by the fact that the duality for the second category uses topology. Using the presented dualities (...) and some known in the literature results we prove that the Q-lattice of any non-trivial variety of (0,1)-lattices is either a 2-element chain or is uncountable and non-distributive. (shrink)

Los constantes cambios que sacuden el mundo actual han hecho entrar en una situación organizacional de ruptura paradigmática; hoy los viejos lenguajes son insuficientes para llegar a ser éticos, sensitivos y rentables en el día a día. Las organizaciones que aprenden, concebidas como sistemas complejos, deben ser autoconscientes y estar en proceso de construcción y deconstrucción permanente que posibiliten el desarrollo de valores para un ambiente de trabajo dinámico y potenciador. Se propone el concepto de “fárbices caórdicas” como elemento esencial (...) de un conjunto que resulta parte indeclinable de la composición de otros elementos que coinciden en resonancia sinérgica, en un todo llamado globalización. (shrink)

Mi problema es como reconciliar una fundamentación racional de instituciones democráticas, que en nuestras sociedades tienden a ser de índole liberal, con la creciente complejidad demográfica de las sociedades contemporáneas. Mi punto de vista es que esta fundamentación debería ser deliberativa y discursiva, es decir, debería garantizar una participación reflexiva de todos los ciudadanos en el diseño y sostenimiento de sus instituciones públicas. Ahora bien, ¿cómo alcanzar este ideal en sociedades cuyas complejidades dificultan la coordinación de intereses y la participación (...) discursiva, lo que vuelve a sus ciudadanos dispuestos a sacrificar sus libertades para rendirlas a un poder político despótico y totalitario? Palabras claves: instituciones democráticas y sociedades complejas; democracia deliberativa. The constitution of democratic citizenship and the problem of the foundation of knowledge in complex societiesMy problem is how to reconcile a rational foundation of democratic institutions, which in our societies tend to be of a liberal nature, with the increasing demographic complexity of contemporary societies. My contention is that this rational and liberal foundation ought to be deliberative and discursive, that is to say, it must guarantee a reflective participation of all citizens in the design and maintenance of their public institutions. However, how could this ideal be achieved within societies with such complexities that make coordination of interests and discursive participation difficult, thus making their citizens willing to sacrifice their liberties, in order to surrender them to a despotic or totalitarian political power? Keywords: Democratic institutions and complex societies; Deliberative democracy. (shrink)

¿Por qué hay que suscribir tratados que prohiban la clonación de individuos humanos? Las implicaciones de la reciente clonación de Dolly y las posibilidades técnicamente abiertas a la clonación de humanos requiere que reflexionemos acerca de lo que estaría mal si la humanidad, ahora en un futuro que ya no esta más lejos de nuestro alcance, comienza a clonar individuos humanos. En primer lugar, examino y explico en que consiste una clonación a partir de células somáticas. En segundo lugar, analizo (...) los problemas e implicaciones del procedimiento desde el punto de vista ético. (shrink)

The solution of the Klein-Gordon equation for a complex scalar field in the presence of an electrostatic field orthogonal to a magnetostatic field is analyzed. Considerations concerning the quantum Hall-type evolution are presented also. Using the Hamiltonian with a self-interaction term, we obtain a critical value for the magnetic field in the case of the spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Translations of Chinese writing on human rights from throughout the twentieth century, with introductions.

Este artigo explora os desafios impostos pela implementação de sistemas algorítmicos e inteligência artificial (IA) em diversas plataformas que fazem parte da cultura digital hoje. O foco principal é analisar como a literatura científica recente relaciona a questão algorítmica com os fenômenos da pós-verdade e a crise da democracia, em um contexto onde a disseminação de fake news e a manipulação digital desempenham papeis centrais. A pesquisa mapeia artigos publicados nos últimos dois anos, pós-pandemia, identificando correlações entre a aparição do (...) termo ‘pós-verdade’, o declínio da confiança social nas instituições democráticas e o colapso da verdade na esfera pública, o que tem configurado um cenário chamado de ‘crise da democracia’. Entre os temas abordados nos 13 artigos analisados, destacam-se a relação entre democracia e fake news, a crise da verdade na esfera pública e a manipulação algorítmica na era digital. Com base nesses estudos, o artigo esboça os desafios para a consolidação de uma política pública informada e democrática em um cenário cada vez mais influenciado por algoritmos e plataformas digitais. Em última análise, o trabalho contribui para a compreensão dos impactos das novas tecnologias na democracia, propondo caminhos possíveis para mitigar os riscos da pós-verdade e fortalecer o espaço público democrático. (shrink)

The peculiarities of the “domestic” and political worlds’ interactions as well as their impact on the freedom of human choice are considered in the article. The purpose of the article is to analyze political and existential being which can be transformed in the light of collecting or distracting way. The phenomenon of national security is analyzed in theoretical as well as in practical dimension. The first part of the study of separatism is connected with the modern social world’s tendency of (...) social transgression which involves blurring the rules and limits expansion. The frontier concept as the transgressive space, which can be embodied in the form of possibility of political interaction or as a place of a political conflict, is offered. Frontier understanding in the light of a cultural dialogue permits to consider it as a perspective dynamic system in the social projects of common being construction. The second part of the article reveals three main directions of transgression: philosophical and reflexive, ethical and normative, common practices. An idea of correlation between freedom of choice, manifestation of will with the human ability of critical thinking, reflection is offered and proved. Tolerance is defined to be the strategical practice in the process of launching a dialogue program of conflicting political communication. (shrink)

(2013). Hope and Fear: The Theological Side of Framing Environmental Change. Ethics, Policy & Environment: Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 152-155. doi: 10.1080/21550085.2013.801187.

The linguistic complexity of words has largely been studied on the behavioral level and in experimental settings. Only little is known about the neural processes underlying it in uninstructed, spontaneous conversations. We built up a multimodal neurolinguistic corpus composed of synchronized audio, video, and electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings from the fronto-temporo-parietal cortex to address this phenomenon based on uninstructed, spontaneous speech production. We performed extensive linguistic annotations of the language material and calculated word complexity using several numeric parameters. We orthogonalized the (...) parameters with the help of a linear regression model. Then, we correlated the spectral components of neural activity with the individual linguistic parameters and with the residuals of the linear regression model, and compared the results. The proportional relation between the number of consonants and vowels, which was the most informative parameter with regard to the neural representation of word complexity, showed effects in two areas: the frontal one was at the junction of the premotor cortex, the prefrontal cortex, and Brodmann area 44. The postcentral one lay directly above the lateral sulcus and comprised the ventral central sulcus, the parietal operculum and the adjacent inferior parietal cortex. Beyond the physiological findings summarized here, our methods may be useful for those interested in ways of studying neural effects related to natural language production and in surmounting the intrinsic problem of collinearity between multiple features of spontaneously spoken material. (shrink)

La educación tradicional concebida en compartimientos estancos que coquetean en torno al árbol de la ciencia, ha formado a un individuo descontextualizado, sin capacidad de respuesta para enfrentar la complejidad del mundo actual. La Multiversidad Mundo Real “Edgar Morin” asume la misión de una enseñanza educativa basada en los postulados del Pensamiento Complejo de Edgar Morin; pero aún quedan pendientes nuevas definiciones que rompan con los esquemas de la educación basada en el paradigma simplificador. La meta es emprender el gran (...) viraje que haga posible que la reforma paradigmática implique también una reforma de las mentes y del lenguaje, porque nombrar lo nuevo con la palabra vieja dificulta a nivel inconsciente detonar el cambio. Superar los bloqueos propios y los adquiridos por la educación que nos ha conducido a ser individuos desarticulados del contexto, ese es el gran reto de la Multiversidad. (shrink)

Resenha de Ancona, R.; Tsouvala, G. (eds.) New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-Roman World (2021).

Here's an exercise: take a piece of paper. Grab a pen, pencil, crayon - any drawing utensil within reach. Now, draw a typical family. The shape of family has changed in the 21st century. While the nuclear family still exists, many more types of kinship surround us. Kin is an investigation into what influences us to have children and the new ways that have made parenthood possible. It delves into the experiences of couples without children, single parents by choice and (...) rainbow families, and investigates the impacts of adoption, sperm donation, IVF and surrogacy, and the potential for a future of designer babies. Assisted reproductive technology has developed quickly, and the ways in which we think and speak about its implications - both legally and ethically - need to catch up. Written by journalist Marina Kamenev, Kin: Family in the 21st century is an incisive and powerful look at how families are created today, and how they might be created in the future. 'A careful and compassionate exploration of the creativity, pain and power involved in the eternally imperfect art of family making.' - Gina Rushton, author of The Most Important Job in the World 'A forensically researched book that's impossible to put down, Kamenev deftly demonstrates how society's understanding of family has changed through the generations and what it might mean now. You'll be thinking about the issues she explores for years to come.' - Isabelle Oderberg, author of Hard to Bear: Investigating the science and silence of miscarriage 'Kin is a veritable tome on family - from its evolution to the unique ways we build it - that makes clear Western society's concepts of family, reproduction and kinship need updating. Kamenev's thoughtful and often witty voice combined with meticulously researched stories makes Kin a fascinating read.' - Roz Bellamy, author of Mood: A memoir of love, identity and mental health and editor-in-chief of Archer magazine 'Well researched and animated by a multitude of voices, Kin is a complex and moving account of how our capacity to create new forms of family has not always been accompanied by sufficient reflection. Kin is an important addition to our understanding of how modern kinship relations are understood, generated, and regulated.' - Fiona Kelly, Dean of La Trobe University law school and an expert in family and health law. (shrink)

Marina McCoy explores Plato's treatment of the rhetoric of philosophers and sophists through a thematic treatment of six different Platonic dialogues, including Apology, Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist, and Phaedras. She argues that Plato presents the philosopher and the sophist as difficult to distinguish, insofar as both use rhetoric as part of their arguments. Plato does not present philosophy as rhetoric-free, but rather shows that rhetoric is an integral part of philosophy. However, the philosopher and the sophist are distinguished by (...) the philosopher's love of the forms as the ultimate objects of desire. It is this love of the forms that informs the philosopher's rhetoric, which he uses to lead his partner to better understand his deepest desires. McCoy's work is of interest to philosophers, classicists, and communications specialists alike in its careful yet comprehensive treatment of philosophy, sophistry, and rhetoric as portrayed through the drama of the dialogues. (shrink)

Uptake and Conventionality in Illocution The aim of this paper is to put forward a new way of conceiving of the conventionality of illocutionary acts, grounded in a new look at Austin's original ideas. While the indispensability of uptake has correctly been deemed to be a hallmark of illocution, it has also been taken as evidence of the intention-based nature of illocutionary acts as opposed to their alleged conventionality. After discussing the readings of the "securing of uptake" offered by Strawson (...) and Searle and commenting on the consequently established divide between "communicative" and conventional speech acts, I claim that illocutionary acts are conventional, first of all, because they have conventional effects. I show that Austin took such effects to be essential to illocution and argue that the bringing about of conventional effects is bound up with the indispensability of uptake. (shrink)

Introduction Marina Sbisà University of Trieste 1. Pragmatics and philosophy It is well known that pragmatics – like many branches of the social and even ...

We are constantly making choices about how to invest our time and resources. From a moral perspective, we must ask which moral concerns are most deserving of our attention. Longtermism, as e.g. defined by Greaves and MacAskill, holds that our moral focus should be on the long-term future, and that current and medium-term moral problems are comparatively insignificant. This theory is centrally based on the assumption that the moral importance of individuals can be aggregated. Since the number of individuals of (...) future generations far exceeds the number of current individuals and those closer in time, future generations are to bemorally prioritised, according to longtermism. This paper explores the implications of rejecting the premise of moral aggregation of individuals and adopting a strongly non-aggregationist position instead. It is argued that, according to strong non-aggregationism, the magnitude of the probability with which our intervention actually make a difference, as well as whether we look at the available interventions from an ex ante or ex post perspective, are relevant factors in their moral assessment. Ultimately, the conclusion is reached that strong non-aggregationism does likely not support strongly longtermist conclusions. (shrink)