For the philosopher of Rotterdam, religious coercion has two essential sources of illegitimacy: the linking of religious and ecclesiastical belief and the use of politics for religious purposes. Bayle responds to it, with his doctrine of freedom of conscience, on one hand and by means of the essential distinction between voluntary religious affiliation and political obligation, on the other hand. From my perspective, his doctrine of tolerance does not involve an atheist state, nor does it mean the rejection of the (...) presence of religion in the public space or its displacement to the intimate sphere of the conscience. This paper proposes a reading of Baylean tolerance as a political doctrine that allows the articulation between freedom of conscience, minority confessions, and official religion. Thus, the Baylean theoretical model could be considered a proposal to provide a normative form to the practice of toleration present in the seventeenth -century Netherlands. (shrink)

This paper is about the use of analogical reasoning, models and metaphors in Galileo's discovery of the mountains of the moon, which he describes in the Starry Messenger, a short but groundbreaking treatise published in 1610. On the basis of the observations of the Moon he has made with the newly invented telescope, Galileo shows that the Moon has mountains and that therefore it shares the same solid, opaque and rugged nature of the Earth. I will first reconstruct Galileo's reasoning, (...) and illustrate the counterintuitive and quasi-circular way in which discovery depends on analogy: in order for analogical reasoning to succeed in bridging ontological gaps and thus serve as a discovery tool, a certain similarity between what are considered as radically different domains has to be presupposed. More particularly, in order for analogical reasoning to lead to genuine discoveries, salient features have to be selected in the source domain that will be mapped onto the target domain. There is disagreement as to how this mapping is successfully carried out: the syntactical, pragmatic and ontological-categorical approaches, all illuminate some features of this selection in the mapping process. On the basis of an analysis of Galileo's discovery, I will argue that we need a different "bootstrapping" approach which involves the construction of an imaginary temporary model encompassing both the source and the target domains, and which is occasionally strengthened by metaphors which serve as incomplete transitional models. (shrink)

Within feminist theory and a wide range of social sciences, intersectionality has emerged as a key analytic framework, challenging paradigms that consider gender, race, class, sexuality, and other categories as separate and instead conceptualizing them as interconnected. This has led most authors to assume mutual constitution as the pertinent model, often without much scrutiny. In this essay we critically review the main senses of mutual constitution in the literature and challenge what we take to be a problematic assumption: the problem (...) of reification, here understood as the conceptualization of social categories as entities or objects. We then present the properties framework, together with the emergent experience view, which conceptualizes categories and social systems in a way that maintains their ontological specificity while allowing for their being deeply affected by each other. (shrink)

This essay deals with the medical recipe as an epistemic genre that played an important role in the cross-cultural transmission of knowledge. The article first compares the development of the recipe as a textual form in Chinese and European premodern medical cultures. It then focuses on the use of recipes in the transmission of Chinese pharmacology to Europe in the second half of the seventeenth century. The main sources examined are the Chinese medicinal formulas translated—presumably—by the Jesuit Michael Boym and (...) published in Specimen Medicinae Sinicae (1682), a text that introduced Chinese pulse medicine to Europe. The article examines how the translator rendered the Chinese formulas into Latin for a European audience. Arguably, the translation was facilitated by the fact that the recipe as a distinct epistemic genre had developed, with strong parallels, in both Europe and China. Building on these parallels, the translator used the recipe as a shared textual format that would allow the transfer of knowledge between the two medical cultures. (shrink)

We introduce the logic LRC, designed to describe and reason about agents’ abilities and capabilities in using resources. The proposed framework bridges two—up to now—mutually independent strands of literature: the one on logics of abilities and capabilities, developed within the theory of agency, and the one on logics of resources, motivated by program semantics. The logic LRC is suitable to describe and reason about key aspects of social behaviour in organizations. We prove a number of properties enjoyed by LRC and (...) its associated analytic calculus. These results lay at the intersection of the algebraic theory of unified correspondence and the theory of multitype calculi in structural proof theory. Case studies are discussed which showcase several ways in which this framework can be extended and enriched while retaining its basic properties, so as to model an array of issues, both practically and theoretically relevant, spanning from planning problems to the logical foundations of the theory of organizations. (shrink)

Attribute spaces are a type of conceptual spaces which Carnap introduced in his late basic system of inductive logic. This article shows how to extend Carnap's use of them into a full model of inductive reasoning with geometrically represented concepts, extending my earlier work. The proposed model draws on Bayesian non-parametric techniques in order to define a probability distribution over the attribute space and a way of updating it with data. The model is another example of conceptual and formal continuity (...) of Carnapian inductive logic with subsequent developments in statistics. (shrink)

This book provides a critical reflection on automated science and addresses the question whether the computational tools we developed in last decades are changing the way we humans do science. More concretely: Can machines replace scientists in crucial aspects of scientific practice? The contributors to this book rethink and refine some of the main concepts by which science is understood, drawing a fascinating picture of the developments we expect over the next decades of human-machine co-evolution. The volume covers examples from (...) various fields and areas, such as molecular biology, climate modeling, clinical medicine, and artificial intelligence. The explosion of technological tools and drivers for scientific research calls for a renewed understanding of the human character of science. This book aims precisely to contribute to such a renewed understanding of science. (shrink)

In this paper I take up the question about the unity of justice in Aristotle and advocate for a robust relationship between lawfulness and equality, the two senses of justice that Aristotle distinguishes in Nicomachean Ethics V. My strategy is to focus on Aristotle’s indication in NE V 2 that “other-relatedness” is the common element shared by the two justices and turn to Aristotle’s discussion of the notion of self-love in EN IX 8 to explain what that means. I argue (...) that the other-relatedness of justice can be characterized in terms of proper self-love. Concretely, the discussion of self-love makes clear that those who are concerned with the well-being of others in their community over their own material gain—i.e., those who are lawful and not grasping or pleonectic—are able to see that their own self-interest is in harmony with acting in benefit of their community. This shows that there is an intimate link between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being able to act for the sake of the common good—and in general, between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being virtuous in relation to others. (shrink)

Authors deal with theoretical and social contexts of the teaching profession as a starting point for empirical research into ethical relationships among Slovak primary and secondary school teachers. They surveyed the opinions of teachers at that level regarding their relationship with students, parents, colleagues and superiors. According to the research results, more than 80% of respondents positively rate the behaviour of teachers towards their students and parents from the viewpoint of realising ethical values, based on which they could be an (...) ethical model for their students. The level of relationships among colleagues received a less optimistic rating. They were, however, much more critical in evaluating their superiors. Only approximately 60% of the members of school management could be an ethical model for other teachers. (shrink)

This cross-disciplinary collection of essays focuses on gender from multiple perspectives. The main themes include human rights, political economy, cultural diversity, democracy, immigration, dignity, care, and shifts in hegemonic male models of societies.

Health behaviours of preschool children have a considerable impact on the shaping of habits later on in their lives. Parents’ and guardians’ role is to develop positive health patterns and represent exemplary models to be followed by children. The aim of the paper is to present the use of correspondence analysis for the assessment of the relationship between eating habits of parents and children, as well as for the determination of the most common situations in which preschool children consume fast-food (...) products and to find the relationship between the frequency of fast-food consumption and BMI values in preschool children. The tests were carried out with the use of an own survey carried out in kindergartens in Białystok among parents dropping off and picking up children. 149 correctly filled questionnaires were obtained. The statistical analysis employs the chi-squared test and correspondence analysis. Among the tested children, a statistically significant relationship between body weight and sex was obtained. In the group of children and parents consuming fast-foods, a statistically significant relationship between the frequency of children’s and parents’ consumption of the products in question was noticed. A statistically significant relationship between the age of introduction of fast-food products into the child’s diet and their BMI was found. A situation that was statistically significant as far as contribution to frequent consumption of fast-food products by children, i.e. at least once a week, were children and parents shopping together. The relationship between the frequency of fast-food consumption by parents and children was presented in the form of correspondence maps, as well as the relationship between the child’s BMI and the age when the first fast-food product is served, and the relationship between the child’s BMI and the frequency of their consumption of fast-foods. Unfortunately, despite the high awareness among parents of the harmful effects of fast-food products and the widespread health education programmes, a number of the children in kindergartens were overweight or even obese. For this reason, the quality of the educational programmes in kindergartens, as well as in various media outlets, needs to be improved, with emphasis put on their effectiveness, in order to minimise the problem of the occurrence of overweight and obesity in children. It is also important for parents rearing children to pay special attention not only to their children’s menus, but also to foods consumed in the presence of children. (shrink)

Differences in Common engages in the ongoing debate on ‘community’ focusing on its philosophical and political aspects through a gendered perspective. It explores the subversive and enriching potential of the concept of community, as seen from the perspective of heterogeneity and distance, and not from homogeneity and fused adhesions. This theoretical reflection is, in most of the essays included here, based on the analysis of literary and filmic texts, which, due to their irreducible singularity, teach us to think without being (...) tied, or needing to resort, to commonplaces. Philosophers such as Arendt, Blanchot, Foucault, Agamben or Derrida have made seminal reflections on community, often inspired by contemporary historical events and sometimes questioning the term itself. More recently, thinkers like Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak or Rada Ivekovic—included in this volume are essays by all three—have emphasized the gender bias in the debate, also problematizing the notion of community. Most of the essays gathered in Differences in Common conceive community not as the affirmation of several properties which would unite us to other similar individuals, but as the “expropriation” of ourselves (Esposito), in an intimate diaspora. Community does not fill the gap between subjects but places itself in this gap or void. This conception stresses the subject’s vulnerability, a topic which is also central to this volume. The body of community is thus opened by a “wound” (Cixous) which exposes us to the contagion of otherness. The essays collected here reflect on different topics related to these issues, such as: gender and nation; nationalism, internationalism, transnationalism; nationalism’s naturalization of citizenship and the exclusion of women from citizenship; the violent consequences of a gendered nation on women’s bodies; gendering community; preservation of difference(s) within the community; bodily vulnerability and new politics; community and mourning; community and the politics of memory; fiction, historical truth and (fake) documentary; love, relationality and community; interpretive communities and virtual communities on the Web, among others. Joana Sabadell-Nieto is Professor of Contemporary Spanish Literature (Gender and Feminist Studies) at Hamilton College (USA) and Researcher at the Center for Women and Literature at the University of Barcelona. Marta Segarra is Professor of French and Francophone literature and Gender Studies at the University of Barcelona (Spain), Director of the UNESCO Chair Women, Development and Cultures and co-founder and director of the Center for Women and Literature (2003-2012). (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es realizar un repaso de las teorías de las emociones más importantes de las últimas décadas y valorar en qué medida tales teorías ofrecen una buena caracterización del fenómeno en cuestión. Para alcanzar una comprensión adecuada de las diferentes teorías, así como del rumbo que ha tomado el debate actual sobre las emociones, es importante que prestemos especial atención a algunos de los compromisos filosóficos involucrados en la formulación de estas teorías. La revisión cuidadosa (...) de algunos de estos compromisos nos llevará a plantearnos si algunas de las dificultades a las que se enfrentan varias de las teorías de las emociones actuales podrían tener origen en tales compromisos filosóficos y no, como suele pensarse, en la complejidad de las emociones.: The aim of this paper is to review the most important theories of emotions in recent decades and to assess the extent to which these theories provide a good characterisation of the phenomenon in question. In order to achieve an appropriate understanding of the different theories, as well as of the direction that the current debate on emotions has taken, it is important that we pay special attention to some of the philosophical commitments involved in the formulation of these theories. Careful examination of some of these commitments will lead us to consider whether some of the difficulties faced by several of the current theories of emotions might stem from such philosophical commitments rather than, as is often thought, from the complexity of emotions. Palabras clave: episodios, intencionalidad, fenomenología, propiedades evaluativas. Keywords: episodes, intentionality, phenomenology, evaluative properties. (shrink)

This volume reviews examples and notions of robustness at several levels of biological organization. It tackles many philosophical and conceptual issues and casts an outlook on the future challenges of robustness studies in the context of a practice-oriented philosophy of science. The focus of discussion is on concrete case studies. These highlight the necessity of a level-dependent description of robust biological behaviors.Experts from the neurosciences, biochemistry, ecology, biology, and the history and the philosophy of life sciences provide a multiplex perspective (...) on the topic. Contributions span from protein folding, to cell-level robustness, to organismal and developmental robustness, to sensorimotor systems, up to the robustness of ecological systems.Several chapters detail neurobiological case-studies. The brain, the poster child of plasticity in biology, offers multiple examples of robustness. Neurobiology explores the importance of temporal organization and multiscalarity in making this robustness-with-plasticity possible. The discussion also includes structures well beyond the brain, such as muscles and the complex feedback loops involved in the peculiar robustness of music perception. Overall, the volume grounds general reflections upon concrete case studies, opening to all the life sciences but also to non-biological and bio-inspired fields such as post-modern engineering. It will appeal to researchers, students, as well as non-expert readers. (shrink)

Focusing on cell dynamics, molecular medicine and robotics, contributors explore the interplay between biological, technological and theoretical ways of thinking. They argue that the direction of modern science means that these areas can no longer be explored independently but must be integrated if we are to better understand the world. The collection makes a strong contribution to current debates in the philosophy of science and the changing role of scientific practice.0.

Campdelacreu_The Double Lives of Objects, by Thomas Sattig.

This book presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle's account of how shame instils virtue, and defends its philosophical import. Shame is shown to provide motivational continuity between the actions of the learners and the virtuous dispositions that they will eventually acquire.

This paper depicts my conception of the philosophy of religion. I think that there nothing like religion in general. The world of what is customarily called religion is a very different and analogous reality. I make Catholic Christianity the starting point of this philosophy of religion. I treat it as the main analogy to the world of religion. The objective aim of the philosophy of religion is threefold: 1) description of religion, 2) justification of religion, 3) epistemology of religious beliefs. (...) In the philosophy of religion understood in this manner I use methods proper to general metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, and theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Affective knowledge of God is a kind of knowledge which follows human affectivity. This knowledge takes place on two levels: the level of the natural inclination of man towards God and the level of the religious bias of man towards God. What is the nature of affective knowledge of God? It seems there are three problems in question. First of all, as there is a natural inclination towards God in man, one will be restless unless one recognizes or finds God. (...) Secondly, one who loves God has a new deeper knowledge of the divine things through connaturality and inclination. Thirdly, as the result of one's encounter with God and of uniting with Him, man experiences certain subjective states which cannot be expressed by words. (shrink)

What determines whether the procedures for proving the affirmative statement of God's existence may be called a proof? Certainly, it is necessary that all premises be true and that a reliable inference schemata be applied. One premise appears to be the most critical in the theistic argument. This premise is the principle of sufficient reason. I hold the view that the principle of sufficient reason cannot be found among the premises of any metaphysical explanation of reality, so I suggest that (...) the terms “proof” and “argument” not be used. Instead, we could speak of ways of acquiring discursive knowledge of God and ways of indirect substantiation of God's existence. (shrink)

The affective knowledge of God is this kind of knowledge that follows human affection. This knowledge comes about on two levels: on the natural human inclination to God and on the religious level of man’s orientation towards God. What is the nature of the affective knowledge of God? What does the passage of ex affectu circa divina in intellectum consist in? It seems that there are three matters: – firstly, since there is a natural inclination towards God in man (desiderium (...) naturale vivendi Deum), man will be “restless” as long as he does not recognise or find God, – secondly, who loves God gains a new and more profound knowledge of Divine matters through con-naturalness and inclination, – thirdly, as a result of meeting with God and unification with Him, man experiences certain subjective states that cannot be expressed in words. (shrink)

The article characterizes my way of recognizing the Catholic religion as the true religion. This recognition is a multi-motif process. I recognize the Catholic religion as religio vera, which does not mean that I completely justify the fact that it is a religio vera.I characterize the following ways to recognize the Catholic religion as being true:1. The way of using philosophical arguments.2. The way of recognizing legitimacy of the claims made by the Magisterium.3. The way of recognizing the sign character (...) of the Church.4. The way of assessment of the explanative value of the Church’s doctrine. (shrink)

The central idea behind this paper is that presuppositions of soft triggers arise from the way our attention structures the informational content of a sentence. Some aspects of the information conveyed are such that we pay attention to them by default, even in the absence of contextual information. On the other hand, contextual cues or conversational goals can divert attention to types of information that we would not pay attention to by default. Either way, whatever we do not pay attention (...) to, be it by default, or in context, is what ends up presupposed by soft triggers. This paper attempts to predict what information in the sentence is likely to end up being the main point (i.e. what we pay attention to) and what information is independent from this, and therefore likely presupposed. It is proposed that this can be calculated by making reference to event times. The notion of aboutness used to calculate independence is based on that of Demolombe and Fariñas del Cerro (In: Holdobler S (ed) Intellectics and computational logic: papers in honor of Wolfgang Bibel, 2000). (shrink)

introduction Dialectic and the notion of tradition The past does not pull back but presses forward. (Hannah Arendt 1977: 10) Through the confrontation over ...

The current disclosure model of informed consent ignores the linguistic complexity of any act of communication, and the increased risk of difficulties in the special circumstances of informed consent. This article explores, through linguistic analysis, the specificity of informed consent as a speech act, a communication act, and a form of dialogue, following on the theories of J.L. Austin, Roman Jakobson, and Mikhail Bakhtin, respectively. In the proposed model, informed consent is a performative speech act resulting from a series of (...) communication acts which together constitute a dialogic, polyphonic, heteroglossial discourse. It is an act of speech that results in action being taken after a conversation has happened where distinct individuals, multiple voices, and multiple perspectives have been respected, and convention observed and recognized. It is more meaningful and more ethical for both patient and physician, in all their human facets including their interconnectedness. Keywords: communication, dialogism, informed consent, linguistics, performative, physician-patient relationship CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In March 2016, DeepMind's computer programme AlphaGo surprised the world by defeating the world‐champion Go player, Lee Sedol. AlphaGo exhibits a novel, surprising and valuable style of play and has been recognised as “creative” by the artificial intelligence (AI) and Go communities. This article examines whether AlphaGo engages in creative problem solving according to the standards of comparative psychology. I argue that AlphaGo displays one important aspect of creative problem solving (namely mental scenario building in the form of Monte Carlo (...) tree search), while lacking another (domain generality). This analysis has consequences for how we think about creativity in humans and AI. (shrink)

In contrast to many countries, the political debates in the Netherlands on reproductive technologies and embryo research have paid particular attention to the issue of health risks to women. This article focuses on the question to what extent the discourse of gender has contributed to shaping the space for embryonic research in this country. The author argues that in the policy arena flexible conceptualizations of risks and burdens to women and of the identities of embryos have been crucial in drawing (...) and maintaining a discursive boundary between the domains of medically assisted reproduction and embryo research. The author shows that feminist intervention challenging this discursive strategy has had an impact on the present regulation of research. However, the main weakness of this temporary and partial feminist success is the virtual absence of a public debate on the meaning and desirability of embryo research. (shrink)

Aristotle ’s claim that we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions raises a familiar problem: How can we perform virtuous actions unless we are already virtuous? I reject deflationary accounts of the answer given in _Nicomachean Ethics_ 2.4 and argue instead that proper habituation involves doing virtuous actions with the right motive, i.e. for the sake of the noble, even though learners do not yet have virtuous dispositions. My interpretation confers continuity to habituation and explains in a non-mysterious way how (...) we become virtuous by doing virtuous actions in the right way. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFinance may suffer from institutional deformations that subordinate its distinctive goods to the pursuit of external goods, but this should encourage attempts to reform the institutionalization of finance rather than to reject its potential for virtuous business activity. This article argues that finance should be regarded as a domain-relative practice. Alongside management, its moral status thereby varies with the purposes it serves. Hence, when practitioners working in finance facilitate projects that create common goods, it allows them to develop virtues. This (...) argument applies MacIntyre’s widely acknowledged account of the relationship between practices and the development of virtues while questioning some of his claims about finance. It also takes issue with extant accounts of particular financial functions that have failed to identify the distinctive goods of financial practice. (shrink)

BackgroundIn clinical research, obtaining informed consent from participants is an ethical and legal requirement. Conveying the information concerning the study can be done using multiple methods yet this step commonly relies exclusively on the informed consent form alone. While this is legal, it does not ensure the participant’s true comprehension. New effective methods of conveying consent information should be tested. In this study we compared the effect of different methods on the knowledge of caregivers of participants of a clinical trial (...) on Pemba Island, Tanzania.MethodsA total of 254 caregivers were assigned to receive (i) a pamphlet (n = 63), (ii) an oral information session (n = 62) or (iii) a pamphlet and an oral information session (n = 64) about the clinical trial procedures, their rights, benefits and potential risks. Their post-intervention knowledge was assessed using a questionnaire. One group of caregivers had not received any information when they were interviewed (n = 65).ResultsIn contrast to the pamphlet, attending an information session significantly increased caregivers’ knowledge for some of the questions. Most of these questions were either related to the parasite (hookworm) or to the trial design (study procedures).ConclusionsIn conclusion, within our trial on Pemba Island, a pamphlet was found to not be a good form of conveying clinical trial information while an oral information session improved knowledge. Not all caregivers attending an information session responded correctly to all questions; therefore, better forms of communicating information need to be found to achieve a truly informed consent. (shrink)

This paper examines a little studied type of perspective shift that I call protagonist projection, following Holton :625–628, 1997). PP is a way of describing the mental state of a protagonist that conveys, to some extent, her perspective. Similarly to its better known cousin free indirect discourse, the shift in perspective is achieved without an overt operator. Unlike FID, PP is not based on a presumed speech-act of a protagonist. Rather, it gives a linguistic form to pre-verbal perceptual content, sensations, (...) feelings or implicit beliefs. I propose to analyse PP in a bi-contextual framework, extending Eckardt’s approach to FID. Under the resulting analysis, FID and PP are two instances of a more general category of perspective shift. (shrink)