O presente trabalho explora a possibilidade de compreensão de experiências temporais abertas por narrativas que se configuram por meio dos sons e da música no álbum Random Access Memories (2013), do grupo francês de música eletrônica Daft Punk. Destacamos no produto os modos com que ele articula questões e dinâmicas do tempo, da memória e da nostalgia, envolvendo pelo menos duas dimensões: a maneira como a banda explora uma dialética homem-máquina, revestindo – ou desconstruindo – aspectos sintéticos com elementos próprios (...) da “organicidade” da prática musical humana; o movimento de um suposto retorno ao passado em busca de referências da música pop, sobretudo dos anos de 1970 e 1980, aliado à busca dos sons do futuro. Com isso, buscamos não apenas caracterizar os temas do tempo que o álbum promove, mas refletir sobre a significância de tais problemas na comunicação e na cultura contemporânea. (shrink)

Background: Psychedelics are known for their powerful mental effects due to the activation of 5HT-2A receptors in the brain. During the 1950s and 1960s, research was conducted on these molecules until their criminalization. However, their clinical investigation as therapeutic tools for psychiatric disorders has revived the deontological ethics surrounding this subject. Questions arise as research on their therapeutic outcome becomes a reality. We aim to explore deontological ethics to understand the implications of psychedelics for the clinician, patient, and society. Results: (...) A total of 42 articles were considered for this review. Methods: A methodological search of psychedelic studies from 2017 to 2022 was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, EBSCOhost, and ScienceDirect to address the deontological ethics of clinical psychedelic use. Conclusion: Psychedelics need to be culturally contextualized, epistemic harm minimized and represented to ensure informed consent. Open data and commissions are needed to ensure safe and equal distribution. (shrink)

Por definição, quando se fala de existência se fala da existência de algo. O nada não é coisa alguma, logo não existe. O nada é um signo, uma representação linguística do que se pensa ser a ausência de tudo. O que existe são representações mentais do nada. Como uma definição ou um conceito é uma afirmação sobre o que uma coisa é, o nada não é positivamente definido, mas apenas representado, fazendo-se a relação entre seu símbolo (a palavra "nada") e (...) a ideia que se tem da não-existência de coisa alguma. O "nada" não existe, mas é concebido por operações de mente. Esta é a concepção de Bergson, oposta à de Hegel, modernamente reabilitada, de que o nada seria uma entidade de existência real, em oposição ao ser. -/- . (shrink)

The notion of fitness is usually equated to reproductive success. However, this actualist approach presents some difficulties, mainly the explanatory circularity problem, which have lead philosophers of biology to offer alternative definitions in which fitness and reproductive success are distinguished. In this paper, we argue that none of these alternatives is satisfactory and, inspired by Mumford and Anjum’s dispositional theory of causation, we offer a definition of fitness as a causal dispositional property. We argue that, under this framework, the distinctiveness (...) that biologists usually attribute to fitness—namely, the fact that fitness is something different from both the physical traits of an organism and the number of offspring it leaves—can be explained, and the main problems associated with the concept of fitness can be solved. Firstly, we introduce Mumford and Anjum's dispositional theory of causation and present our definition of fitness as a causal disposition. We explain in detail each of the elements involved in our definition, namely: the relationship between fitness and the functional dispositions that compose it, the emergent character of fitness, and the context-sensitivity of fitness. Finally, we explain how fitness and realized fitness, as well as expected and realized fitness are distinguished in our approach to fitness as a causal disposition. (shrink)

In the field of cybernetic systems and more specifically in robotics, one of the fundamental objectives is the detection of anomalies in order to minimize loss of time. Following this idea, this paper proposes the implementation of a Hybrid Intelligent System in four steps to impute the missing values, by combining clustering and regression techniques, followed by balancing and classification tasks. This system applies regression models to each one of the clusters built on the instances of data set. Subsequently, a (...) variety of balancing techniques are applied to improve the classifier’s ability to discern whether it is in an error or a normal state. These techniques support to obtain better classification ratios in which a robot is close to error and allow us to bring the behavior back to a normal state. The experimentation is performed using a modern and public data set, which has been extracted from a component-based robotic system, in which different anomalies are induced by software in their components. (shrink)

This book symposium comprises a précis of Nuno Venturinha’s Description of Situations: An Essay in Contextualist Epistemology together with four critical commentaries on different aspects of the book by Marcelo Carvalho, João Vergílio Gallerani Cuter, Marcos Silva and Darlei Dall’Agnol, and the author’s replies.

Criticisms of the “container” model of pregnancy picturing female and embryo as separate entities multiply in various philosophical and scientific contexts during the last decades. In this paper, we examine how this model underlies received views of pregnancy in evolutionary biology, in the characterization of the transition from oviparity to viviparity in mammals and in the selectionist explanations of pregnancy as an evolutionary strategy. In contrast, recent evo-devo studies on eutherian reproduction, including the role of inflammation and new maternal cell (...) types, gather evidence in favor of considering pregnancy as an evolved relational novelty. Our thesis is that from this perspective we can identify the emergence of a newhistoricalindividual in evolution. In evo-devo, historical units are conceptualized as evolved entities which fulfill two main criteria, their continuous persistence and their non-exchangeability. As pregnancy can be individuated in this way, we contend that pregnant females are historical individuals. We argue that historical individuality differs from, and coexists with, other views of biological individuality as applied to pregnancy (the physiological, the evolutionary and the ecological one), but brings forward an important new insight which might help dissolve misguided conceptions. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 21 A historical sequence is said to be hyperfactual whenever it contains facts that have been proved to exist twice, that is, they exist under two alternative courses of events: the factual and the counterfactual. In such cases, we may verify whether multiple courses of action lead to the same outcome. Drawing upon an idea from Nelson Goodman, each section of this article highlights a different type of hyperfactual sequence: those resulting from the turbulence of historical (...) turning points; those resulting from long term historical sequences; and those resulting from competing courses of action. The final section conveys how hyperfactuals represent the resistance of the multiple layers of history to the formalism of subjunctive conditionals. (shrink)

Sixty years after its first edition, there is an increasing consensus among scholars that the work posthumously published as _Philosophical Investigations _represents something that is far from a complete picture of Wittgenstein’s second book project. G.H. von Wright’s seminal research on the _Nachlass_ was an important contribution in this direction, showing that the Wittgenstein papers can reveal much more than the source of specific remarks. This book specifically explores Wittgenstein’s _Philosophical_ _Investigations_ from the different angles of its originary conceptions, including (...) the mathematical texts, shedding new light on fundamental issues in twentieth century and contemporary philosophy. Leading authorities in the field focus on newly published or hitherto unpublished sources for the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s later work and a Wittgenstein typescript, translated for the first time into English, is included as an appendix. (shrink)

In this article I draw upon the social ontologies developed by John Searle, Roy Bhaskar, Margaret Archer and Tony Lawson in order to distinguish between power and leadership. To do so, I distinguish the different organizing principles behind natural phenomena, collective phenomena and institutional phenomena, and argue that an understanding of those different organizing principles is essential to a clearer conceptualization of power and leadership. Natural power and cultural power, as I argue, depend upon the organizing principles of natural phenomena, (...) and differ depending on whether those organizing principles have been transformed by humans, in which case it becomes cultural power, or not, in which case it simply is natural power. Leadership emerges with the ability of making other humans share mental states through collective intentionality. Institutional power, in contrast, is connected to the creation of a deontology of rights and obligations that provide what Searle calls desire-independent reasons for action. (shrink)

The connections between Adam Smith and Catholic Social Teaching raise several questions. The principle of subsidiarity adopted in CST, according to which higher associations should not replace subordinate organizations on what the latter can do, seems to be in line with the idea that governmental intervention in the market sphere should be restricted to the minimum required, in line with what is typically seen as Smith’s view. But the principle of the common good would also recommend intervention from political authorities (...) in order to ensure that the common good is achieved. Here I shall argue that this question must be addressed taking into account another principle of CST, the principle of solidarity, and also the basic principle of CST, regarding human dignity. To do so, it is necessary to understand how the various principles of CST spring from the notion of imago Dei in CST, which is behind the notion of human dignity. This leads to a relational conception of human beings which can be fruitfully articulated with Smith’s moral philosophy and political economy. (shrink)

How can a work of art give us clues about scientific aspects? How can chemistry help a painter enhance his creativity and, above all, preserve the original characteristics of his work? Does an artist require scientific knowledge to innovate or, at least, not to be faked? Other symbiotic fields between art and science are: tattoos, as body art with physical and chemical consequences; pigments, as basic materials with interesting historiographical preparations; spectroscopy diagnosis, as very broad and thorough method of analysis (...) ; biosensors, as one of the applications of new pigments. Note also the interconnection between the several possible paths of science and art, which reflect new challenges with enormous potential investigated through a literature review and the application as a case study in an educational inquiry module. (shrink)

This discussion note surveys the main themes explored in Mona Simion’s Shifty Speech and Independent Thought: Epistemic Normativity in Context, paying particular attention to her treatment of kk compatibilism. I argue that in her attempt to establish “epistemic independence”—the disentanglement of epistemic evaluation from pragmatic considerations—Simion overemphasizes the role of context-dependence in Timothy Williamson’s work. I show that if we are to take Williamson at his word, we must appreciate the distinctive anti-sceptical insensitive invariantism at the core of his epistemology—an (...) approach that stands in contrast to both contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism. (shrink)

While the notion of chance has been central in discussions over the probabilistic nature of natural selection and genetic drift, its role in the production of variants on which populational sampling takes place has received much less philosophical attention. This article discusses the concept of chance in evolution in the light of contemporary work in evo-devo. We distinguish different levels at which randomness and chance can be defined in this context, and argue that recent research on variability and evolvability demands (...) a causal understanding of variational probabilities under which development acquires a creative, rather than a constraining role in evolution. We then provide a propensity interpretation of variational probabilities that solves a conceptual confusion between causal properties, variational probabilities and extant variation present in the literature, and explore some metaphysical consequences that follow from our interpretation, specifically with regards to the nature of developmental types. (shrink)

In the evolutionary biology of the Modern Synthesis the study of patterns refers to how to identify and systematise order in lineages, looking for hierarchies or for branching/splitting events in the tree of life, whereas the resulting order is supposed to be due to underlying processes or mechanisms. But patterns and processes play distinct roles in evo-devo: four different views on the role of patterns and processes in descriptions and explanations of development and evolution: A) transformational; B) generative; C) processual; (...) and D) complex are reviewed in this paper. Then, this discussion is related to two issues in evo-devo: homology and variation. (shrink)

Cette étude met M. Henry en confrontation avec Freud, sur la question de l’inconscient et du refoulement. M. Henry dénonce la tentation idéologique des lectures de la théorie freudienne qui viendraient cacher précisément l’originalité de la pensée de Freud – tentation qui est elle-même liée aux présupposés scientistes de ce dernier –, mais il ne cesse d’affirmer que la psychanalyse « propose une nouvelle conception de la phénoménologie », en ceci qu’elle prône le caractère subjectif et immanent de la vie (...) à l’encontre de l’extériorité du monde. Nuno Miguel Proença situe ainsi d’emblée le lecteur dans ce rapport complexe de M. Henry à Freud. (shrink)

As it is well known, mobile phones have become a basic gadget for any individual that usually stores sensitive information. This mainly motivates the increase in the number of attacks aimed at jeopardizing smartphones, being an extreme concern above all on Android OS, which is the most popular platform in the market. Consequently, a strong effort has been devoted for mitigating mentioned incidents in recent years, even though few researchers have addressed the application of visualization techniques for the analysis of (...) malware. Within this field, the present work proposes the extension of a new technique called Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots to visualize Android malware datasets. More precisely, the novel Beta-Hebbian Learning (BHL) method is applied for the first time and validated under the frame of Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots, in conjunction with clustering methods. The informative visualization achieved provides a picture of the structure of the malware families, allowing subsequent analysis of their organization. To validate the Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plot extension and its tuning, the popular Android Malware Genome dataset has been used in the experimental setting. Promising results have been obtained, suggesting that BHL applied in combination with clustering techniques in Hybrid Unsupervised Exploratory Plots are a viable resource for the visualization of malware families. (shrink)

Boffa non-well-founded set theory allows for several distinct sets equal to their respective singletons, the so-called ‘Quine atoms’. Rieger contends that this theory cannot be a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. He argues that, even after granting that there are non-well-founded sets, ‘the extensional nature of sets’ precludes numerically distinct Quine atoms. In this paper we uncover important similarities between Rieger’s argument and how non-rigid structures are conceived within mathematical structuralism. This opens the way for an objection against Rieger, whilst (...) affording the theoretical resources for a defence of Boffa set theory as a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. (shrink)

Warming up prior to competition is a widely accepted strategy to increase players’ readiness and achieve high performances. However, pre-match routines are commonly based on empirical knowledge and strongly influenced by models emerging from elite team practices. The aim of the present study was to identify and analyze current pre-match warm-up practices in elite futsal. Forty-three elite players were analyzed during their pre-match warm-up routines during the Portuguese Futsal Cup Final 8. Warm-up tasks were classified according to duration, type of (...) activity, sequence, and structure. External load variables included the total distance covered, total distance covered per minute, running distance per minute, sprinting distance per minute, number of accelerations per minute, and number of decelerations per minute. Results highlighted that warm-up routines lasted for 27.5 ± 9.2 min and included nine major different tasks. Open-skill activities were prioritized by coaches; competitive and non-competitive futsal-specific tasks were included in 90% of the total warm-up routines, with higher focus on non-competitive tasks. The intensity progressively increased during warm-ups, mainly because of the higher number of accelerations and decelerations per minute. Pre-match warm-up routines strongly endorse futsal-specific and representative tasks in order to establish pre-match settings able to prepare players for the upcoming game. When designing pre-match warm-up routines, coaches should be aware that duration, sequence, and type of tasks may affect players’ acute performance and readiness. (shrink)

Since before we can remember, humanity aims to overcome its biological limitations; such a goal has certainly played a key role in the advent of technique. However, despite the benefits that technique may bring, the people who make use of it will inevitably be under risk of harm. Even though human technical wisdom consists in attaining the best result without compromising anybody’s safety, misuses are always a possibility in the horizon. Nowadays, technology can be used for more than just improving (...) human capacities, preserving and restoring health or promoting human well-being. It also enables us to overcome human limitations and reach way beyond our "natural design". That being said, what could possibly justify the fear for these new directions of biotechnology? Should medicine and health care change their traditional goals and begin searching for artificial improvements to wellness in human nature? In this paper, I will hereby present and briefly discuss the main topics of the contemporary issue of human enhancement: the therapy-enhancement distinction, the possibility of cognitive enhancements and better physical performances, the fight against senescence, the arguments for and against human eugenics, the search for perfection, the quest of moral enhancement, the problem of public priorities, and some questions on medical ethics. Then, finally, I will want to present some realist perspectives on the subject. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

La crítica kantiana legó una doble herencia a la biología decimonónica: su noción de ciencia basada en el mecanicismo newtoniano configuró epistemológicamente la teoría de la evolución darwinista, mientras que su comprensión de los organismos se tradujo en una morfología teleológica. En este artículo planteamos dos cuestiones en torno la relación entre las ideas de Kant y Darwin: 1) si Kant habría considerado a Darwin el Newton de la biología, a lo que, con matices, respondemos afirmativamente; 2) si la física (...) newtoniana es hoy suficiente para naturalizar lo orgánico. Nuestra respuesta negativa se fundamenta en las ciencias de la autoorganización y la evo-devo, que permiten plantear la naturalización de la concepción kantiana de los organismos. (shrink)

This study aimed to adapt the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire -Brief Version to the Portuguese elderly, and to investigate the effect of relevant and easy to assess predictors on the strength of religious faith. Participants were 778 non-institutionalized Catholic elderly, with a majority of women, young-olds, with four years or less of education, and practicing Catholics. The sample was randomly split in two to study the invariance and the structural validity of the SCSRFQ-Brief Version across both groups. (...) Following this step, a multiple indicators and multiple causes model for age, gender, educational level, and religious participation influence on strength of religious faith was tested across groups. All predictors were statistically significant, with religious participation being the most influential. The study of religion in the elderly is enriched by resource to valid multiple-item instruments as the SCSRFQ-Brief Version. (shrink)

The formal and empirical-generative perspectives of computation are demonstrated to be inadequate to secure the goals of simulation in the social sciences. Simulation does not resemble formal demonstrations or generative mechanisms that deductively explain how certain models are sufficient to generate emergent macrostructures of interest. The description of scientific practice implies additional epistemic conceptions of scientific knowledge. Three kinds of knowledge that account for a comprehensive description of the discipline were identified: formal, empirical and intentional knowledge. The use of formal (...) conceptions of computation for describing simulation is refuted; the roles of programming languages according to intentional accounts of computation are identified; and the roles of iconographic programming languages and aesthetic machines in simulation are characterized. The roles that simulation and intentional decision making may be able to play in a participative information society are also discussed. (shrink)

Using the insights of evolutionary epistemology, the author develops a new naturalist realist methodology of science, and applies it to the conceptual, practical, and ethical problems of the social sciences.

Rom Harré criticizes critical realism for ascribing causal powers to social structures, arguing that it is human individuals, and not social structures, that possess causal powers, and that a false conception of structural causation undermines the emancipatory potential of critical realism. I argue that an interpretation of the category of process as the spatio-temporalization of the category of structure, which underpins much evolutionary theory, provides the conceptual tools to explain how the critical realist transformational model of social activity can escape (...) from Harré’s criticism, leading to a general conception of social development within which various types of evolutionary processes can be identified as particular cases. I then argue that Tony Lawson’s PVRS model provides an evolutionary perspective that enables the conceptualization of coercive power as selective pressure. (shrink)

Despite the radical importance of embryology in the development of organi- cism, developmental biology remains philosophically underexplored as a theoretical and empirical resource to clarify the nature of organisms. This paper discusses how embryology can help develop the organisational definition of the organism as a differentiated, function- ally integrated, and autonomous system. I distinguish two conceptions of development in the organisational tradition that yield two different conceptions of the organism: the life- history view claims that organisms can be considered as (...) such during their whole ontogeny; the constitutive view distinguishes two periods in the life history, a period of generation and a period of self-maintenance of a constitutive organisation. Arguing in favour of the con- stitutive view, it will be claimed that the organisational criteria for the definition of organ- ism (i.e., differentiation, functional integration, and autonomy) can only be applied to the developmental system when it has entered the period of self-maintenance of a constitutive organisation. under the light of current research in developmental biology, it is possible to make explicit how organisms come to be as organisms. To this end, I explore key onto- genetic events that help us clarify the core aspects of animal organisation and allow us to identify the developmental stage that marks the ontological transition between an organism in potency and an organism in actuality. The structure of this ontogenetic unfolding paral- lels the conceptual structure of the very notion of organism; the generation of the being of a particular organism parallels its definition. (shrink)

According to the United Nations, human intervention in nature set loose a series of transformations on the Earth’s ecosystems, resulting in a serious disruption of their natural balance. Some of these changes are irreversible and threaten all life on Earth, human life included. On the other hand, the world’s sociopolitical situation also seems to have reached a dead end, with millions of people living in poverty, unemployed, undernourished, and on flight from conflict. The purpose of this paper is to show (...) how Hannah Arendt’s thought on beginnings, crisis, understanding, meaning and human existence can illuminate and inspire an attempt to retrace the origins of this “ecological” crisis, understood as the human being’s inability to be at home in the world. (shrink)

The focus of social simulation on representing the social world calls for an investigation of whether its implementations are inherently value-laden. In this article, I investigate what kind of thing implementation is in social simulation and consider the extent to which it has moral significance. When the purpose of a computational artefact is simulating human institutions, designers with different value judgements may have rational reasons for developing different implementations. I provide three arguments to show that different implementations amount to taking (...) moral stands via the artefact. First, the meaning of a social simulation is not homogeneous among its users, which indicates that simulations have high interpretive malleability. I place malleability as the condition of simulation to be a metaphorical vehicle for representing the social world, allowing for different value judgements about the institutional world that the artefact is expected to simulate. Second, simulating the social world involves distinguishing between malfunction of the artefact and representation gaps, which reflect the role of meaning in simulating the social world and how meaning may or not remain coherent among the models that constitute a single implementation. Third, social simulations are akin to Kroes’ techno-symbolic artefacts, in which the artefact’s effectiveness relative to a purpose hinges not only on the functional effectiveness of the artefact’s structure, but also on the artefact’s meaning. Meaning, not just technical function, makes implementations morally appraisable relative to a purpose. I investigate Schelling’s model of ethnic residential segregation as an example, in which different implementations amount to taking different moral stands via the artefact. (shrink)

Psychodrama is an effective psychotherapeutic model but interventions with adolescents require age-tailored techniques that maximize engagement and facilitate communication processes. This study describes a novel adaptation of a therapeutic mask technique to psychodrama with adolescents. Over the course of eight group sessions of psychodrama, five adolescents created their own mask and explored its therapeutic use. Their experiences were captured at the end of each session with the Helpful Aspects of Therapy form, and at the end of the study with the (...) Clinical Change Interview. Awareness/insight/self-understanding, empowerment and relief were the most significant aspects experienced by the adolescents, along with perceived increase of calmness and world connection, satisfaction in interpersonal communication and better emotional expression and regulation. The mask technique was experienced as a playful and engaging task that facilitated insight and interpersonal communication. Findings provide preliminary evidence on the clinical utility of mask-based psychodrama with adolescents. (shrink)

The phenomenological reading of psychoanalysis undertook by Michel Henry is surprising in several ways. By inscribing Freud in the philosophical lineage and by affirming that his theses on the unconscious take over (resume), ignoring it, two opposite movements of western metaphysics, Henry intends to show that psychoanalysis has to overcome the primacy of representation in order to get rid of the contradictions that traverse it and that make it a prisoner of a philosophy of consciousness. Without fully rejecting the Freudian (...) theory, the author of the Genealogy of Psychoanalysis reformulates the meaning of the meta-psychological notions according to his theses on the cogito, subjectivity and the auto-affection of the living. In this article we retraced the stakes of this redefinition of drives, affect and the unconscious considering his reflexions on repression. (shrink)