The concept of biological sex guides research, clinical practice, science funding policy, and contemporary political discourse. Despite some substantive differences, all existing candidate philosophical accounts of sex assume its legitimacy as a biological concept. Here, we challenge this view. We argue against realism about biological sex, and that eliminating biological sex from large swaths of biological theory and practice may be preferable compared to conventionalist or fictionalist anti-realisms. There are serious social and epistemic costs to using “biological sex” in place (...) of more specific alternatives. Because of this, biologists and philosophers of science should consider eliminativism about the concept of biological sex. Biological sex eliminativism is worth taking seriously, and it can play important roles in philosophical debate and biological practice, even for those who remain skeptical. The methodological consequences of biological sex eliminativism are compatible with best practices for inquiry in the biological and biomedical sciences, with inclusive approaches to the study of sex and gender, and with feminist philosophical and methodological recommendations. Taking eliminativism seriously reveals important disagreement about the work that a concept of biological sex should do, and imposes a contrastive burden on would-be rivals. (shrink)

Explores the problems posed by identity politics and the possibilities for non-exclusive cultural and gendered positions. The essays are by feminist theorists from several disciplines from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of visual aesthetic perception on event-related potentials . Eight subjects assigned an aesthetic judgment and a 10-step beauty estimation to the target stimuli, consisting of famous artistic pictures and geometric shapes. In a further task, the subjects performed a motor response to the previously judged pictures and geometric shapes. ERPs were recorded through 54 scalp electrodes during both tasks. The P3b amplitude was increased during the categorization of the geometric shapes (...) compared to the artistic figures and during the vision of the beautiful targets preceding the motor response. The categorization of the aesthetic qualities of geometrical shapes seems to induce a higher level of attention, while a higher arousal variation was elicited by the recognition of beauty, in any form that was presented. (shrink)

European Portuguese (EP) is a language with variable stress, and the main cues for stress are duration and vowel reduction. A previous behavioral study has reported a stress “deafness” effect in EP when vowel quality cues are unavailable. The present study recorded both event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral data to examine the stress processing by native EP speakers in the absence of the vowel quality cues. Our behavioral result was consistent with previous research, showing that when vowel reduction is absent (...) EP speakers demonstrated a stress “deafness” effect similar to that found in speakers of languages with fixed stress or without any lexical stress marking. In the ERP task, both the trochaic and iambic conditions yielded mismatch negativity (MMN) and late negativity, suggesting that EP speakers are able to discriminate the two stress patterns without vowel reduction at the pre-attentive stage. Moreover, the ERP and behavioral data revealed compatible results regarding the pattern of stress bias in EP. In the EPR task, the MMN and late negativity components were more negative and span over a larger temporal window in the iambic condition than in the trochaic condition, indicating a higher sensitivity for the iambic stress pattern. In the behavioral task, EP speakers responded more accurately and more quickly to the iambic stress. These results match recent developmental findings in the acquisition of stress, but speak against the dominant view in EP phonological literature which assumes penultimate stress to be the regular stress pattern. In addition, both the ERP and the behavioral data showed that EP speakers’ stress processing was influenced by their working memory (WM) capacity. The participants with high WM capacity outperformed the participants with limited WM capacity in the iambic condition. In sum, our results broaden the current knowledge on stress processing by EP speakers at both the pre-attentive and attentive levels. (shrink)

The article analyses the close link between perspectivism, genealogy, and physiology in Nietzsche’s philosophy. The cardinal thesis is that the point of view of value is more fundamental than that of truth. The genealogical method enables the study of the conditions of conservation and growth of points of view and values, following the conductive thread of the body, with the aim of creating new springs of meaning and leaving nihilism behind. Special attention is paid to the tension between dogmatism and (...) relativism. Lastly, I present Nietzsche's notion of “breeding” (Züchtung), which enables a radical questioning of culture and highlights the physiological character of morals. Keywords: perspectivism, value, breeding, moral, point of view, interpretation. (shrink)

Impressions of Hume collects brand-new essays from leading scholars in different philosophical, historiographical, and literary traditions within which Hume is a canonical figure. To some his writings are vehicles for intuitions, problems, and arguments which are at the center of contemporary philosophical reflection; others locate Hume's views against the background of concerns and debates of his own time. Hume's texts may be read as highly sophisticated literary-cum-philosophical creations, or as moments in the construction of the ideology of modernity; these are (...) "open" texts which present their reader with a bounty of different materials and inspirations. (shrink)

Las Ciencias Sociales son áreas del conocimiento en las cuales inciden de forma muy importante las circunstancias que rodean al personal investigador. Los enfoques que se adoptan ante el tópico a investigar, las metodologías o maneras de estudiarlo, son especialmente claves en estas áreas. Entre estas circunstancias se encuentra el género de la investigadora principal. La metodología elegida para abordar este estudio ha sido cualitativa. En concreto, las entrevistas focalizadas a nivel individual y el análisis del discurso en la producción (...) científica son las técnicas utilizadas. De los resultados obtenidos podemos anunciar tendencias más que conclusiones. Sólo una cuarta parte de los grupos son liderados por mujeres y éstas parece que tienen unas condiciones especiales y que están ahí porque siguen las pautas investigadoras al uso. Parece observarse como rasgo diferenciador del género femenino una mayor preocupación por la formación del equipo de investigadores y por el clima del grupo. (shrink)

A model for U(1) gauge theories over a compact Lie group is described usingR×S 3 as background space. A comparison with other results is given. Electrodynamics equations are obtained. Finally, some considerations and observations about gravity onR×S 3 space are presented.

The tetradic Lorentz-gauge invariant formulation of the SU(2) × U(1) theory in S3 × R space-time is presented and the general gauge covariant Dirac-Klein-Gordon-Maxwell-Yang-Mills equations are derived. A direct comparison of these equations to those of the SU(2) × U(1) gauge theory on Minkowskian background points out major differences effectively induced by the minimally coupling to S3 × R gravity.

The second volume in the Homo Mimeticus mini-series advances the emerging transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. After the linguistic and the affective turns, the new materialist and the performative turns, the cognitive and the posthuman turns, it is now time to re-turn to the ancient, yet also modern and still contemporary realization that humans are mimetic creatures. In this second installment of the Homo Mimeticus series, international scholars working in philosophy, literary theory, classics, cultural studies, sociology, political theory, and the (...) neurosciences engage creatively with Nidesh Lawtoo's Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation to further the transdisciplinary field of mimetic studies. Agonistic critical engagements with precursors like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Bataille, Irigaray, and Girard, involving contributions by leading international thinkers such as Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, William E. Connolly, Henry Staten, and Vittorio Gallese, among many others, reveal the urgency to rethink mimesis beyond realism. From imitation to identification, mimicry to affective contagion, techne to simulation, mirror neurons to biomimicry, homo mimeticus casts a shadow—but also a light—on the present and future, from social media to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

In the article the problem of the system of urban management in emergency and crisis situations were considered. Composition and functions of the municipal government have been characterized. It was disclosed the concept of "emergency" and "crisis". Typology of crisis and emergency situations include: natural disasters, manmade disasters, sanitary-epidemiological, socio-political and economic crises. Crises have been classified: the reasons of occurrence, in the sphere of manifestation, on the possibilities of forecasting and duration. Typical measures to manage the liquidation of emergency (...) situations in the city have been identified. Principles and steps of the City of crisis management are presented. Analysis was performed operational management experience life support in an emergency situation caused by the fighting. Was justified by the implementation of additional features for managing urban emergency response and overcome the consequences of the social, economic and environmental crisis. Perform additional functions involves restoration of vital facilities of the city, which are damaged by the fighting. Additional features of urban governance provide fault detection of communal, social, engineering, road infrastructure. Function provides an assessment permanently damaged facilities. Function ensures the development of the investment project for restoration of urban infrastructure. Analysis functions provide resource support the restoration project. Functions provide monitoring restoration projects of urban infrastructure. (shrink)

This paper examines whether classical extensional mereology is adequate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in quantum chemical systems. Although other philosophers have argued that classical extensional and summative mereology does not adequately formalize whole–parts relation within organic wholes and social wholes, such critiques often assume that summative mereology is appropriate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in inorganic wholes such as atoms and molecules. However, my discussion of atoms and molecules as they are conceptualized in quantum chemistry will establish that standard (...) mereology cannot adequately fulfill this task, since the properties and behavior of such wholes are context-dependent and cannot simply be reduced to the summative properties of their parts. To the extent that philosophers of chemistry have called for the development of an alternative mereology for quantum chemical systems, this paper ends by proposing behavioral mereology as a promising step in that direction. According to behavioral mereology, considerations of what constitutes a part of a whole is dependent upon the observable behavior displayed by these entities. Thus, relationality and context-dependence are stipulated from the outset and this makes behavioral mereology particularly well-suited as a mereology of quantum chemical wholes. The question of which mereology is appropriate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in quantum chemical systems is relevant to contemporary philosophy of chemistry, since this issue is related to the more general questions of the reducibility of chemical wholes to their parts and of the reducibility of chemistry to physics, which have been of central importance within the philosophy of chemistry for several decades. More generally, this paper puts contemporary discussions of mereology within the philosophy of chemistry into a broader historical and philosophical context. In doing so, this paper also bridges the gap between formal mereology, conceived as a branch of formal ontology, and “applied” mereology, conceived as a branch of philosophy of science. (shrink)

The thought of the Cappadocian fathers is linked to the Trinitarian nature of God. They strive for formulating a definition of divine person. The extent of the Cappadocian notion of person covers two other important ideas which refer to being someone: an ability to be in a fraternal relation with others, and a disposition to enter such a relation voluntarily. The Christian idea of divine person also implicates a concept of infinite dignity. The authoress shows that at the grassroots of (...) the Western concept of person, associated with human inalienable rights, there are certain metaphysical intuitions. (shrink)

Mobile social media have become a widespread means to participate in everyday social and professional life. These platforms encourage the disclosure and exchange of personal information, which comes with privacy risks. While past scholarship has listed various predictors and consequences of online privacy concerns, there has been to date no empirical investigation of a conceivable relationship with perceived stress. Using a longitudinal panel study, we examined the reciprocal relationship between mobile social media privacy concerns and perceived stress. Results supported the (...) hypothesis that mobile social media privacy concerns at T1 are associated with higher perceived stress at T2. However, we found no evidence for the reverse association, that is, perceived stress at T1 was not related to mobile social media privacy concerns at T2. The findings are discussed based on two models—the “Antecedents privacy concerns outcomes” model and the “Privacy calculus” model. (shrink)

Esse texto tem por objetivo apresentar em linhas gerais a proposta de Otfried Höffe sobre a república mundial. Para tanto, iniciar-se-á com o ponto de partida de Höffe, a saber, o fenômeno da globalização, de onde são apontadas as principais atividades e problemas da república mundial. Em seguida, passa-se a analisar os dois níveis da proposta, o nível nacional e o nível internacional ou global da república mundial. Por fim, concluir-se-á com uma tentativa de comparação da proposta de Höffe com (...) a ideia de uma federação de Estados livres apresentada por Immanuel Kant em À paz perpétua. (shrink)

Much of the literature devoted to the topics of agent autonomy and agent responsibility suggests strong conceptual overlaps between the two, although few explore these overlaps explicitly. Beliefs of this sort are commonplace, but they mistakenly conflate the global state of being autonomous with the local condition of acting autonomously or exhibiting autonomy in respect to some act or decision. Because the latter, local phenomenon of autonomy seems closely tied to the condition of being responsible for an act, we tend (...) to think of the former, global phenomenon as a condition of responsibility as well. But one can act autonomously, or manifest autonomy with respect to some occurrent state, without satisfying the conditions for autonomous agency. Autonomous agency and responsible agency are logically distinct in part due to the varient conceptions of rationality each calls for. Both agent responsibility and holding a person responsible imply a fairly ``thick'''' form of rationality, where rationality embodies a normative component and is a matter of satisfying criteria that are objective in the sense that they are independent of what a person happens to want or to value. But autonomous agency calls for a quite different, ``thin'''' conception of instrumental rationality. (shrink)

We present here for the first time an italian translation of Rang’s Vom Weg messianischer Deutung : the introductory essay on the work on Shakespeare’s sonnets. This work remained unfinished and was only partially published posthumously by Rang’s son, Bernhard, in 1954, with the title Shakespeare der Christ. Eine Deutung der Sonette. The translation is accompanied by a comment essay on Rang’s text. This comment essay firstly aims to contextualize both the work on Shakespeare and the very complex and still (...) little researched figure of Florens Christian Rang; secondly, it addresses the most important conceptual issues that the essay presents. With a strongly programmatic nature and, at the same time, with an expressionistic style, which is as obscure as it is visionary, Vom Weg messianischer Deutung presents the method of messianic interpretation in contrast with the classical-romantic one of the pneumatic interpretation. What is at stake is a perspective that challenges the autonomy of art in order to place the Kunstwerk in the series of all the works of divine creation to transform it in faith work. It is the point of view of the Last Judgment that leads the way. The messianic critique of art reveals to be only a particular case of messianic world critique, literally a critique of the world, which redirects itself to the world. It is the movement of conversion which breaks with the false dualism of Romanticism, according to which the spirit is divided in two: on the one hand, there are the experience, the world, the science, on the other hand, there is the art as pure mirroring of forms. Through the messianic interpretation, the spirit returns to be body, flesh. It follows the permanent movement of creation, namely the continuous conversion from God to the world and from the world to God. In this sense, according to Rang, Shakespeare’s sonnets exemplify the faith work: their poetic word names the messianic unity of body and spirit. They are crystals within which all creatural life, the great stages of the divine creation, are concentrated. (shrink)

Moral taint occurs when one’s personality has been compromised by the introduction of something that produces disfigurement of the moral psyche. While taint may be traced to vicarious liability for our voluntary associations, the thought that we might be responsible for taint and that taint is something we must confront and make amends for becomes problematic when taint is acquired by circumstantial luck. I argue that the idea of circumstantial taint—for example, the idea that people can be morally compromised by (...) their heritage—is coherent. In such cases, although taint is not due to a deficient level of care or to an unsavory quality of will, shame is the appropriate affect and atonement the appropriate response. The concept of moral taint is helpful in assisting our comprehension of more vexing cases of responsibility and blame where shame and a need for atonement exist. (shrink)

O presente texto visa explicitar o significado cosmopolita da filosofia de Immanuel Kant. Essa explanação passará pelas definições de ‘filosofia’, ‘filósofo’, ‘ensino’ e ‘filosofar’. Procurará mostrar que a própria constituição do conceito de filosofia ainda preserva a sua raiz grega de ‘amor à sabedoria’; que é necessário cultivar esse ‘amor à sabedoria’ para, a partir daí, aprender a raciocinar; que o filosofar possui um direcionamento prático que visa o esclarecimento, isto é, a emancipação da tutela alheia.

Challenging many of the currently accepted conceptions of autonomy and of how it is valued, Oshana develops a social-relational account of autonomy that is constituted by a person's relations with others and by the absence of certain social relations. She denies that command over one's motives and the freedom to realize one's will are sufficient to secure the kind of command over one's life that autonomy requires, and argues against psychological, procedural, and content neutral accounts of autonomy.

We explore different ways in which the human visual system can adapt for perceiving and categorizing the environment. There are various accounts of supervised (categorical) and unsupervised perceptual learning, and different perspectives on the functional relationship between perception and categorization. We suggest that common experimental designs are insufficient to differentiate between hypothesized perceptual learning mechanisms and reveal their possible interplay. We propose a relatively underutilized way of studying potential categorical effects on perception, and we test the predictions of different perceptual (...) learning models using a two‐dimensional, interleaved categorization‐plus‐reconstruction task. We find evidence that the human visual system adapts its encodings to the feature structure of the environment, uses categorical expectations for robust reconstruction, allocates encoding resources with respect to categorization utility, and adapts to prevent miscategorizations. (shrink)