El artículo analiza la producción de vacunas en el Instituto Bacteriológico del Departamento Nacional de Higiene de Argentina entre 1913 y 1921. Durante estos años, bajo la dirección del bacteriólogo austríaco Rudolf Kraus, la producción de vacunas fue una apuesta central de las actividades del IB. Para ello, presentamos una reconstrucción de los diferentes aspectos sociales y cognitivos involucrados en estos desarrollos, tales como la selección de los productos, de las técnicas utilizadas, del alcance que tuvieron en su distribución y (...) aplicación efectiva, de las expectativas en torno a su aplicación y de las relaciones y antecedentes a nivel internacional de cada caso, entre otras cuestiones. Proponemos, como eje del análisis, que es posible identificar tres tipos de racionalidades que guiaron el desarrollo de las vacunas, ligadas a las retribuciones o diferentes usos que estas podían redituar en los distintos campos o espacios sociales: una médica-sanitaria, una comercial y una científico-técnica, resultado de las diferentes expectativas y demandas que atravesaron al IB. En términos metodológicos, el trabajo se basa en el análisis de diversas fuentes documentales, tales como trabajos científicos y memorias institucionales del IB y del DNH, trabajos de divulgación profesional o educación universitaria de la época, y bibliografía secundaria de la historia de la ciencia y la medicina. (shrink)

In the present article, I introduce Husserl’s analyses of ‘natural causality’ and ‘volitional causality’, which are collected in the volume ‘Wille und Handlung’ of the Husserliana edition Studien zur Struktur des Bewußtseins. My aim is to show that Husserl’s insight into these phenomena enables us to understand more clearly both the specificity of, and the relation between, the motivational nexus belonging to the sphere of the will in contrast with the causal laws of nature. In light of this understanding, in (...) the last part of the article I reflect on whether and to what extent there is, in fact, an ontological and epistemological compatibility between volitional causality and natural causality. (shrink)

In the present article I discuss, in confrontation with the most recent studies on Husserl’s phenomenology of acting and willing, the taxonomy of action that is collected in the volume ‘_Wille und Handlung_’ of the Husserliana edition _Studien zur Struktur des Bewussteins_. In so doing, I first present Husserl’s universal characterization of action (_Handlung_) as a volitional process (_willentlicher Vorgang_). Then, after clarifying what it means for a process to have a character of volitionality (_Willentlichkeit_), I illustrate the various types (...) of actions, which Husserl distinguishes as ‘straightforward’ (_schlicht_) or ‘deciding’ (_entscheidend_), ‘primary’ (_primär_) or ‘secondary’ (_sekundär_), ‘inner’ (_innere_) or ‘outer’ (_äußere_), ‘immediate’ (_unmittelbar_) or mediate (_mittelbar_), ‘simple’ (_einfach_) or ‘compound’ (_zusammengesetzt_). Finally, I consider Husserl’s discussion of the direction and foundation of action. (shrink)

What makes someone responsible for a crime and therefore liable to punishment under the criminal law? Modern lawyers will quickly and easily point to the criminal law's requirement of concurrent actus reus and mens rea, doctrines of the criminal law which ensure that someone will only be found criminally responsible if they have committed criminal conduct while possessing capacities of understanding, awareness, and self-control at the time of offense. Any notion of criminal responsibility based on the character of the offender, (...) meaning an implication of criminality based on reputation or the assumed disposition of the person, would seem to today's criminal lawyer a relic of the 18th Century. In this volume, Nicola Lacey demonstrates that the practice of character-based patterns of attribution was not laid to rest in 18th Century criminal law, but is alive and well in contemporary English criminal responsibility-attribution. Building upon the analysis of criminal responsibility in her previous book, Women, Crime, and Character, Lacey investigates the changing nature of criminal responsibility in English law from the mid-18th Century to the early 21st Century. Through a combined philosophical, historical, and socio-legal approach, this volume evidences how the theory behind criminal responsibility has shifted over time. The character and outcome responsibility which dominated criminal law in the 18th Century diminished in ideological importance in the following two centuries, when the idea of responsibility as founded in capacity was gradually established as the core of criminal law. Lacey traces the historical trajectory of responsibility into the 21st Century, arguing that ideas of character responsibility and the discourse of responsibility as founded in risk are enjoying a renaissance in the modern criminal law. These ideas of criminal responsibility are explored through an examination of the institutions through which they are produced, interpreted and executed; the interests which have shaped both doctrines and institutions; and the substantive social functions which criminal law and punishment have been expected to perform at different points in history. (shrink)

This paper sheds light on the shift that is taking place from the practice of ‘coding’, namely developing programs as conventional in the software community, to the practice of ‘curing’, an activity that has emerged in the last few years in Deep Learning (DL) and that amounts to curing the data regime to which a DL model is exposed during training. Initially, the curing paradigm is illustrated by means of a study-case on autonomous vehicles. Subsequently, the shift from coding to (...) curing is analysed taking into consideration the epistemological notions, central in the philosophy of computer science, of function, implementation, and correctness. First, it is illustrated how, in the curing paradigm, the functions performed by the trained model depend much more on dataset curation rather than on the model algorithms which, in contrast with the coding paradigm, do not comply with requested specifications. Second, it is highlighted how DL models cannot be considered implementations according to any of the available definitions of implementation that follow an intentional theory of functions. Finally, it is argued that DL models cannot be evaluated in terms of their correctness but rather in their experimental computational validity. (shrink)

The essay intends to revisit certain phenomenological themes present in the theoretical work of Pierre Schaeffer, based on his most important and influential book: the Traité des objets musicaux. A French engineer and composer, Schaeffer was the initiator – from the point of view of its musical practice, and its theoretical analysis – of one of the most important musical avant-gardes of the 20th century, musique concrète. The objective of the article will be to consider Schaeffer’s main reference – the (...) phenomenology of Edmund Husserl – and suggest that Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology could be a prism that helps to understand and expand the heterogeneous and incomplete research project the French composer documented extensively in his writings. (shrink)

Nicola Lacey presents a new approach to the question of the moral justification of punishment by the State. She focuses on the theory of punishments in context of other political questions, such as the nature of political obligation and the function and scope of criminal law. Arguing that no convincing set of justifying reasons has so far been produced, she puts forward a theory of punishments which places the values of the community at its centre.

Starting from Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of meaning, the article explores the semiotic functions of the spider’s web, examining in depth its material characteristics and relationship to communication. This study reinterprets the biologist’s concepts, highlighting the vibration of webs as a mode of interspecific communication. By inquiring into the physical composition of spider webs, the research proposes artistic performances that seek to extend material vibration by exploring subjective experience. Thus, a performance-based biosemiotic and materialist approach is proposed to recreate the (...) umwelt of the spider, bridging the human and arachnid realms through minimalist constructions by focusing on vibrational communication processes. In conclusion, the intricate interplay between material manifestations and subjective interpretations in the spider’s ecological niche will be outlined. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza la apropiación que Theodor W. Adorno ha realizado de la dialéctica hegeliana, a modo de exhibir su potencialidad como crítica inmanente. Aunque el artículo señala las grandes divergencias entre ambos pensadores, el énfasis está puesto en sus continuidades como vía para demostrar la actualidad de la dialéctica como ejercicio teórico. Con este fin, el artículo se divide en cinco secciones que desarrollan: (1) la complejidad del pensamiento dialéctico como bicéfalo en la relación entre sujeto y objeto; (2) (...) la posibilidad de concebir a la dialéctica como crítica inmanente a partir de la idea de Hegel de “el puro mirar atentamente” (das reine Zusehen); (3) la plausibilidad de la cercanía a lo verdadero a través del concepto de no-verdad; (4) la negación determinada y la exposición como dos nervios esenciales del pensamiento dialéctico; (5) el modo en el cual la dialéctica negativa adorniana exhibe cómo actualizar el pensamiento hegeliano a una coyuntura determinada, haciéndole justicia a su filosofía. (shrink)

In its formlessness and potentiality, prime matter is a problematic entity of medieval metaphysics and its ontological limitations drastically affect human possibility of conceiving it. In this article, I analyse three influential strategies elaborated to justify an epistemic access to prime matter. They are incidental perception, negative abstraction, and analogy. Through a systematic and historical analysis of these procedures, the article shows the richness of interpretations and theoretical stakes implied by the conundrum of how prime matter can be known by (...) human beings. In particular, the reasons behind the later medieval acceptance of analogy as the main way to unveil prime matter become clearer by pointing out the correlation between the ontological and epistemological levels of the medieval examination of prime matter. (shrink)

This article is a critical and appreciative interaction with Christopher Southgate's theodicy and theology of glory. I critique in particular his rejection of all dualist moves in theodicy. I question why Southgate can ascribe evil to some human actions, many of which are automatic and unconscious, but not to any other level or form of consciousness. I argue that he may rely too heavily on rational scientific categories, which are not sufficient in themselves to carry the weight of key theological (...) concepts. His use of poetry is powerful and suggestive, but in the end, he may not give it enough epistemic weight. (shrink)

This symposium contributes to the broader discussion about humanism in management and organizational well-being. Dignity plays a crucial role as both a fundamental value and as an end state in the process of humanizing organizational cultures, workplaces and relationships. However, despite its significance, it has yet to be addressed properly in the growing discourse on humanistic capitalism and management, and indeed in business ethics as a whole. This symposium seeks to inform and inspire emerging research and approaches towards human dignity (...) through the lens of artistic expression and explores how arts may promote human dignity in organizational life. (shrink)

This paper introduces the _Global Philosophy_ symposium on Giuseppe Primiero’s book _On the Foundations of Computing_ (2020). The collection gathers commentaries and responses of the author with the aim of engaging with some open questions in the philosophy of computer science. Firstly, this paper introduces the central themes addressed in Primiero’s book; secondly, it highlights some of the main critiques from commentators in order to, finally, pinpoint some conceptual challenges indicating future directions for the philosophy of computer science.

Digital technologies are pervasively used, and they are becoming part of our everyday actions by being designed to be connected to every aspect of our private life like emotions. However, it is not very clear how they are going to change who we are through their tight intertwinement. Especially in relation to emotions, it is not clear at all what happens when they become digitalized and visualized through these digital devices. Usually, the research focusses on the effect on the privacy (...) of the intrusion of digital devices in our lives as if this process of digitalization leaves the meanings human beings give to their emotions untouched. This article does not focus on the privacy related to the personal information captured by the devices, but it aims to open an analysis of the effects of this digitalization on the emotions in order to highlight the fact the introduction of these digital technologies change what emotions are. (shrink)

BackgroundObtaining consent has become a standard way of respecting the patient’s rights and autonomy in clinical research. Ethical guidelines recommend that the child’s parent/s or authorised legal guardian provides informed consent for their child’s participation. However, obtaining informed consent in paediatric research is challenging. Parents become vulnerable because of stress related to their child’s illness. Understanding the views held by guardians and researchers about the consent process in Malawi, where there are limitations in health care access and research literacy will (...) assist in developing appropriate consent guidelines.MethodsWe conducted 20 in-depth interviews with guardians of children and research staff who had participated in paediatric clinical trial and observational studies in acute and non-acute settings in the Southern Region of Malawi. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analysed. Interviews were compared across studies and settings to identify differences and similarities in participants’ views about informed consent processes. Data analysis was facilitated by NVIVO 11 software.ResultsAll participants across study types and settings reported that they associated participating in research with therapeutic benefits. Substantial differences were noted in the decision-making process across study settings. Guardians from acute studies felt that the role of their spouses was neglected during consenting, while staff reported that they had problems obtaining consent from guardians when their partners were not present. Across all study types and settings, research staff reported that they emphasised the benefits more than the risks of the study to participants, due to pressure to recruit. Participants from non-acute settings were more likely to recall information shared during the consent process than participants in the acute setting.ConclusionThe health care context, culture and research process influenced participants’ understanding of study information across study types and settings. We advise research managers or principal investigators to define minimum requirements that would not compromise the consent process and conduct study specific training for staff. The use of one size fits all consent process may not be ideal. More guidance is needed on how these differences can be incorporated during the consent process to improve understanding and delivery of consent.Trial registration Not applicable. (shrink)

Taste as Experience puts the pleasure of food at the center of human experience. It shows how the sense of taste informs our preferences for and relationship to nature, pushes us toward ethical practices of consumption, and impresses upon us the importance of aesthetics. Eating is often dismissed as a necessary aspect of survival, and our personal enjoyment of food is considered a quirk. Nicola Perullo sees food as the only portion of the world we take in on a (...) daily basis, constituting our first and most significant encounter with the earth. Perullo has long observed people's food practices and has listened to their food experiences. He draws on years of research to explain the complex meanings behind our food choices and the thinking that accompanies our gustatory actions. He also considers our indifference toward food as a force influencing us as much as engagement. For Perullo, taste is value and wisdom. It cannot be reduced to mere chemical or cultural factors but embodies the quality and quantity of our earthly experience. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that entities have essences. What are we to make of the view that essences are themselves entities? E.J. Lowe has put forward an infinite regress argument against it. In this paper I challenge that argument. First, drawing on work by J.W. Wieland, I give a general condition for the obtaining of a vicious infinite regress. I then argue that in Lowe’s case the condition is not met. In making my case, I mainly (but not exclusively) consider definitionalist (...) accounts of essence. I make a re￾quirement to which definitionalists such as Lowe are committed and which, I venture, should also be palatable to non-naïve modalists. I call it the Relevance Principle. The defence trades on it, as well as on the distinction, due to K. Fine, between mediate and immediate essence. (shrink)

Ackrill’s Problem is a tension between Aristotle’s alleged view that the matter of a living being is a body that is essentially ensouled, and his view that the matter of a substance preexists its generation. Most interpreters solve the tension by claiming that the subject of substantial generation is not the organic body of the living being, but its non-organic matter. I defend a different solution by showing that the embryological theory ofOn the Generation of Animalsimplies that the organic body (...) of a living being already exists before acquiring the soul in actuality. (shrink)

World food production is facing exorbitant challenges like climate change, use of resources, population growth, and dietary changes. These, in turn, raise major ethical and political questions, such as how to uphold the right to adequate nutrition, or the right to enact a gastronomic culture and to preserve the conditions to do so. Proposals for utopic solutions vary from vertical farming and lab meat to diets filled with the most fanciful insects and seaweeds. Common to all proposals is a polarized (...) understanding of food and diets, famously captured by Warren Belasco in the contraposition between technological fixes and anthropological fixes. According to the first, technology will deliver clean, just, pleasurable, affordable food; future generations will not need to adjust much of their dietary cultures. According to the second, future generations should dramatically change their dietary habits (what they eat and how they eat it) to achieve a sustainable diet. The two fixes found remarkably distinct perspectives over dietary politics and the ethics of food production and consumption. In this paper we argue that such polarized thinking rests on a misrepresentation of the ontological status of food, which in turn affects the underlying ethical and political issues. Food is a socially constructed object that draws in specific ways on habits, norms, traditions, geographical, and climatic conditions. Although this thesis seems somewhat obvious, its consequences on the ethical and political perspectives on the future of food have not been derived properly. After introducing the issue at stake (¤1), we point out the polarities that characterize food utopias (¤2) and their ontological faults (¤3). We hence suggest that a socio-ontological analysis of food can better deliver the principles for a foundation of food utopias (¤4). (shrink)

A survey of the similarities and differences between BFO and DOLCE, and of the mutual interactions between Nicola Guarino and Barry Smith.

This paper contributes to the ongoing reassessment of the controversy between William Bateson and Karl Pearson by characterising what we call “Batesonian Mendelism” and “Pearsonian biometry” as coherent and competing scientific outlooks. Contrary to the thesis that such a controversy stemmed from diverging theoretical commitments on the nature of heredity and evolution, we argue that Pearson’s and Bateson’s alternative views on those processes ultimately relied on different appraisals of the methodological value of the statistical apparatus developed by Francis Galton. Accordingly, (...) we contend that Bateson’s belief in the primacy of cross-breeding experiments over statistical analysis constituted a minimal methodological unifying condition ensuring the internal coherence of Batesonian Mendelism. Moreover, this same belief implied a view of the study of heredity and evolution as an experimental endeavour and a conception of heredity and evolution as fundamentally discontinuous processes. Similarly, we identify a minimal methodological unifying condition for Pearsonian biometry, which we characterise as the view that experimental methods had to be subordinate to statistical analysis, according to methodological standards set by biometrical research. This other methodological commitment entailed conceiving the study of heredity and evolution as subsumable under biometry and primed Pearson to regard discontinuous hereditary and evolutionary processes as exceptions to a statistical norm. Finally, we conclude that Batesonian Mendelism and Pearsonian biometry represented two potential versions of a single genetics-based evolutionary synthesis since the methodological principles and the phenomena that played a central role in the former were also acknowledged by the latter—albeit as fringe cases—and conversely. (shrink)

We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristotelian distinction between the object that changes and the actual subject of change, which is what we call an individual quality. While in the Kimian tradition events are individuated by a triple ⟨ o, P, t ⟩, where o is an object, P a property, and t an interval of time, for us the simplest events are qualitative changes, individuated by a triple ⟨ o, (...) q, t ⟩, where q is an individual quality inhering in o or in one of its parts. Detaching the individuation of events from the property they exemplify results in a fine-grained theory that keeps metaphysics and semantics clearly separate, and lies between the multiplicative and the unitarian approaches. We discuss then the way language refers to events, observing that, in most cases, event descriptions refer to complex, cognitively relevant clusters of co-occurring qualitative changes, which exhibit a synchronic structure depending on the way they are described. Contra Bennett, who famously argued that the semantics of event names ultimately depends on “local context and unprincipled intuitions”, we show how the lexicon provides systematic principles for individuating such clusters and classifying them into kinds. Finally, we address some open challenges in the semantics of locative and manner modifiers. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse teledildonics from a phenomenological perspective in order to show the possible effects they will have on ourselves and on our society. The new way of using digital technologies is to merge digital activities with our everyday praxes, and there are already devices which enable subjects to be digitally connected in every moment of their lives. Even the most intimate ones are becoming mediated by devices such as teledildonics which digitally provide a tactual (...) stimulation allowing users to have sexual intercourse through them. The efforts made in order to provide such an intertwinement of our everyday lives and digital technologies are evident, but the effects produced by them are not clear at all. This paper will analyse these technologies from a phenomenological perspective in order to understand their effects on the constitution of the subjects and on our society at the intimate level. (shrink)

This paper studies the structure of semantic theories over modular computational systems and applies the algebraic Theory of Institutions to provide a logical representation of such theories. A modular semantic theory is here defined by a cluster of semantic theories, each for a single program's module, and by a set of relations connecting models of different semantic theories. A semantic theory of a single module is provided in terms of the set of ∑‐models mapped from the category Th of ∑‐theories (...) and generating a hierarchy of structures from an abstract model to a concrete model of data. The collection of abstract models representing different modules of a program is formalised as the category of institutions INS, where theory morphisms express refinements, integrations, and compositions between couples of modules. Finally, it is required that a morphism in INS at any level occurs iff the same morphism occurs at the lower level alongside the Th hierarchy. (shrink)

In this article we argue that the social value of health research should be conceptualized as a function of both the expected benefits of the research and the priority that the beneficiaries deserve. People deserve greater priority the worse off they are. This conception of social value can be applied for at least two important purposes: in health research priority setting when research funders, policy-makers, or researchers decide between alternative research projects; and in evaluating the ethics of proposed research proposals (...) when research ethics committees assess whether the social value of the research is sufficient to justify the risks and burdens to research participants and others. In assessing how far a proposed research project will advance the interests of people who are more disadvantaged, research priority setters and RECs should examine the diseases that the research targets and the type of research. Just as certain diseases impose a greater burden on people who are more disadvantaged, so certain types of intervention and forms of research are more likely to benefit people who are more disadvantaged. We outline which populations are likely to be representative of the global worst off and identify what types of health research, and which disease categories, are priorities for these populations. (shrink)

Model checking, a prominent formal method used to predict and explain the behaviour of software and hardware systems, is examined on the basis of reflective work in the philosophy of science concerning the ontology of scientific theories and model-based reasoning. The empirical theories of computational systems that model checking techniques enable one to build are identified, in the light of the semantic conception of scientific theories, with families of models that are interconnected by simulation relations. And the mappings between these (...) scientific theories and computational systems in their scope are analyzed in terms of suitable specializations of the notions of model of experiment and model of data. Furthermore, the extensively mechanized character of model-based reasoning in model checking is highlighted by a comparison with proof procedures adopted by other formal methods in computer science. Finally, potential epistemic benefits flowing from the application of model checking in other areas of scientific inquiry are emphasized in the context of computer simulation studies of biological information processing. (shrink)

Las palabras desempeñan un papel fundamental en todos los ámbitos de la comunicación, pero en el caso concreto de las leyes educativas, se convierten en vehículo de transmisión de ideas y valores. Con este artículo se ha querido analizar, siguiendo los principios de la minería de textos y con la ayuda de la herramienta R Studio, el uso que se hace del lenguaje en estos textos legislativos para transmitir determinadas prioridades en materia educativa. El resultado es un análisis diacrónico de (...) la evolución lingüística observada en las leyes educativas españolas desde 1980 hasta 2022. (shrink)

Questions concerning the epistemological status of computer science are, in this paper, answered from the point of view of the formal verification framework. State space reduction techniques adopted to simplify computational models in model checking are analysed in terms of Aristotelian abstractions and Galilean idealizations characterizing the inquiry of empirical systems. Methodological considerations drawn here are employed to argue in favour of the scientific understanding of computer science as a discipline. Specifically, reduced models gained by Dataion are acknowledged as Aristotelian (...) abstractions that include only data which are sufficient to examine the interested executions. The present study highlights how the need to maximize incompatible properties is at the basis of both Abstraction Refinement, the process of generating a cascade of computational models to achieve a balance between simplicity and informativeness, and the Multiple Model Idealization approach in biology. Finally, fairness constraints, imposed to computational models to allow fair behaviours only, are defined as ceteris paribus conditions under which temporal formulas, formalizing software requirements, acquire the status of law-like statements about the software systems executions. (shrink)

In management theory and business practice, the dealing with diversity, especially a diverse workforce, has played a prominent role in recent years. In a globalizing economy companies recognized potential benefits of a multicultural workforce and tried to create more inclusive work environments. However, many organizations have been disappointed with the results they have achieved in their efforts to meet the diversity challenge [Cox: 2001, Creating the Multicultural Organization (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco)]. We see the reason for this in the fact that (...) while much attention has been paid to the strategic dimension of diversity policies, systems, and processes, much less thought has been given to the normative dimension, the norms and values involved. Given the fact that diversity is essentially about cultural norms and values, appropriate reflection work becomes a fundamental task to create a truly inclusive work environment where people from diverse backgrounds feel respected and recognized. Therefore, we focus in this article on the challenge of building an inclusive diversity culture showing that such a culture of inclusion has to be built on solid moral grounds. We present a conceptual framework of inclusion based on a moral theory of recognition and introduce the founding principles of reciprocal understanding, standpoint plurality and mutual enabling, trust and integrity. After revealing barriers that hinder a culture of inclusion from emerging we shed light on the process of developing such a culture which involves four essential transformational stages: The first phase focuses on raising awareness, building understanding and encouraging reflection. The second phase deals with the development of a vision of inclusion as an important step to define the change direction. In a third phase key management concepts and principles should be re-thought. This leads to the fourth, action-oriented phase, that focuses on an integrated Human Relations Management (HRM)1 system that helps implement change by doing both, translating the founding principles via competencies into observable and measurable behavior and fostering the development, reinforcement and recognition of inclusive behavior. (shrink)