'We desire all and only those things we conceive to be good; we avoid what we conceive to be bad.' This slogan was once the standard view of the relationship between desire or motivation and rational evaluation. Many critics have rejected this scholastic formula as either trivial or wrong. It appears to be trivial if we just define the good as 'what we want', and wrong if we consider apparent conflicts between what we seem to want and what we seem (...) to think is good. In Appearances of the Good, Sergio Tenenbaum argues that the old slogan is both significant and right, even in cases of apparent conflict between our desires and our evaluative judgements. Maintaining that the good is the formal end of practical inquiry in much the same way as truth is the formal end of theoretical inquiry, he provides a fully unified account of motivation and evaluation. (shrink)

The COVID‐ 19 pandemic is a critical test for the already overburdened and mostly underfunded public healthcare systems of Latin America. In a region that suffers from severe inequalities, public healthcare systems are the only source of medical care for a large sector of the population who work in the informal economy or are unemployed. State‐run hospitals and clinics are already overstressed by continuous demand for treatment of vector‐borne diseases and community‐acquired infections as well as high rates of non‐communicable diseases. (...) Ideological misconceptions and denial among Latin America’s political leaders prevented timely preparations for the pandemic and added to chronic governance problems. As ethical expertise in Latin America focuses on research ethics, few hospitals in the region have functioning clinical ethics committees or clinical ethics policy, forcing healthcare personnel to make excruciating treatment decisions in an environment dominated by material scarcity and public distrust. This essay examines the emergence of COVID‐19 in Latin America and the serious challenge that it poses for Latin America's public healthcare systems. (shrink)

A critical and notoriously elusive issue in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) research is the impact of Corporate Social Performance (CSP) on the bottom line. Instead of looking for direct correlations between social and financial performance, we hypothesize that the first result of CSR activities is the creation of trust among the stakeholders. A survey conducted on consumers of organic products provided support for our hypothesis, showing that CSP influences consumer trust and that that trust in turn influences consumers' subsequent actions. (...) The findings further suggest that intermediate variables between CSP and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) may best support a business case for CSR. (shrink)

We discuss the axiomatization of generalized consequence relations determined by non-deterministic matrices. We show that, under reasonable expressiveness requirements, simple axiomatizations can always be obtained, using inference rules which can have more than one conclusion. Further, when the non-deterministic matrices are finite we obtain finite axiomatizations with a suitable generalized subformula property.

While e-commerce has witnessed extensive growth in recent years, so has consumers' concerns regarding ethical issues surrounding online shopping. The vast majority of earlier research on this area is conceptual in nature, and limited in scope by focusing on consumers' privacy issues. This study develops a reliable and valid scale to measure consumers' perceptions regarding the ethics of online retailers. Findings indicate that the four factors of the scale - security, privacy, non-deception and fulfillment/reliability - are strongly predictive of online (...) consumers' satisfaction and trust. The results offer important implications for e-retailers and are likely to stimulate further research in the area of e-ethics from the consumers' perspective. (shrink)

Ethical concerns of Internet users continue to rise. Accordingly, several scholars have called for systematic empirical research to address these issues. This study examines the conceptualization and measurement of consumers' perceptions regarding the ethics of online retailers. Also, this research represents a first step into the analysis of the relationship between CPEOR, consumers' general Internet expertise and reported positive word of mouth. Results, from a convenience sample of 357 online shoppers, suggest that CPEOR can be operationalized as a second-order construct (...) composed of four dimensions: security, privacy, fulfillment, and non-deception. Our findings also indicate that consumers' general Internet expertise significantly improves CPEOR and CPEOR are strongly predictive of consumers' WOM. Managerial and research implications are offered. (shrink)

This paper deals with the proposal of a person‐affecting version of the principle of Procreative Beneficence. Such a principle has been stated by Savulescu & Kahane in an impersonal form and balanced with a person‐affecting principle of harm to address the moral problem of the selection of future children. The paper aims to show some differences between Person‐affecting Procreative Beneficence and Savulescu & Kahane’s hybrid position, and to distinguish the former from other pro‐selection perspectives. Moreover, it explores the extension of (...) such a principle beyond selection to other issues of reproductive ethics. (shrink)

This study investigates the negative influence of consumer’s perceptions of online retailer’s deceptive practices on consumer’s relational variables. Also, the moderating role of product type, consumer’s attitude toward the Internet, and consumer’s demographics in the deception-relational outcomes link is considered. Data from 398 online consumers revealed that satisfaction totally mediated the influence of deception on loyalty. Furthermore, the deception-satisfaction link was moderated by all the hypothesized variables. Interestingly, a direct effect of deception on loyalty was found among more educated consumers, (...) consumers who had a more positive attitude toward the Internet and consumers who had purchased a physical product. Implications for theory and management are discussed. (shrink)

In the philosophy of science, abstraction has usually been analyzed in terms of the interface between our experience and the design of our concepts. The often implicit assumption here is that such interface has a definite identifiable and universalizable structure, determining the epistemic correctness of any abstraction. Our claim is that, on the contrary, the epistemic grounding of abstraction should not be reduced to the structural norms of such interface but is also related to the constraints on the cognitive processes (...) of specific abstractions. This suggests that we should understand abstraction as embodied in different kinds of abstraction practices. (shrink)

La “conservación de la salud” ha constituido el eje sobre el que se han articulado y evaluado las aportaciones de Descartes a la medicina. Sobre ello, las interpretaciones canónicas se han circunscrito a la terapéutica cartesiana para las enfermedades, obviando otras dimensiones a las que el proyecto médico cartesiano también se dirigió. De ese modo, el presente artículo aborda un segundo sentido de conservación de la salud entendido como “preservación de la salud”, dirigiéndose, para ello, a un análisis de la (...) dieta cartesiana, cuyo empleo evita, según Descartes, la contracción de distintas afecciones. Dicho examen trata de mostrar en qué sentido la dieta posibilita la preservación de la salud, y cómo ésta se justifica apelando a la propia fisiología cartesiana. (shrink)

These two volumes consist of a critical edition and English translation of the two earliest known Armenian sets of scholia on the Heavenly Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite. Composed in the monastic schools of Erznka in the late thirteenth century, these scholia provide significant insight into how the Heavenly Hierarchy in particular, and Armenian translations of Greek texts in general, were understood by Armenian scholars in the Middle Ages. This editio princeps of the scholia represents a rare critical edition of (...) a native Armenian composition from the medieval period. In addition to the text and translation, these volumes include a textual commentary as well as a critical collation and English translation of a number of scholia from the Armenian version of the Greek scholia on the Heavenly Hierarchy. (shrink)

This article addresses the semiotic problem of how meaning is agentially grounded: how actual meaning is possible and is justifiably supported by agents’ capabilities and purposes. This article is particularly focused on human agential grounding; however, to a great degree, insights presented here can be extended to other living beings. Specifically, agential meaning is examined here inside the framework of agentive semiotics and embodied, situated and enactive cognition theories, in line with the mind-life continuity general thesis. To offer clarity and (...) methodological precision about agential grounding, three explanation categories are proposed: phylogenetic recurrence, the evolutionary basis for corporal/embodied grounding; ontogenetic recurrence, the developmental basis for individual meaning grounding; and collective recurrence, the basis for meaning recognized, attributed and assigned inside social contexts. These recurrences are conceived as three types of general processes that constantly enclose possibilities for purpose and meaning emergence in humans. As a result of these types of recurrences, two categories of human agendas or purposes are also proposed: individual and collective. Finally, remarks about how these categories can be useful for semiotic analysis and further research are suggested. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a new type of semiotic translation in the context of Audiovisual Translation Studies (AVTS). To that end, a set of formulaic sequencesbestowed of pragmalinguistic value (hedging strings) is analysed. It is argued that the semiotic analysis of conversational features in English may contribute to facilitate their pedagogical exploitation in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. This analysis builds theoretically on a semiotic translational framework termed Semiosic Translation (and its subset, Semiosic Subtitling) predicated upon three (...) types of translation: (i) Metaleptic translation; (ii) indexical translation; and (iii) translation as dynamic discontinuity. Th e translational rationale thus arrived at is deemed to account for what it is that binds together linguistic signs with other sign systems. (shrink)

A response to review essays by Chrisoula Andreou, John Brunero, Matthias Haase, Erasmus Mayr, and Sarah Paul on Sergio Tenenbaum's _Rational Powers in Action_.

La filosofía de la ciencia se desarrolló durante la primera mitad del siglo xx bajo el supuesto de que la ciencia podía caracterizarse por la estructura lógica tanto del conocimiento articulado en las teorías más exitosas como de sus explicaciones. En la segunda mitad del siglo xx se cuestiona fuertemente esa idea, pero se sigue asumiendo que la filosofía de la ciencia debe hacerse siguiendo los cánones de una epistemología fundamentalista que considera que el avance de la ciencia pasa por (...) una ontología cada vez mas austera guiada por la idea de "mientras menos mejor". Desde esta perspectiva fundamentalista, el que las diferentes ciencias hablen de diferentes tipos de cosas es un obstáculo al entendimiento, producto de la imperfección del conocimiento actual. Este ideal nos invita a pensar que la epistemología debe hacerse reflexionando sobre el conocimiento articulado en nuestras teorías más austeras y nos compromete con propuestas reduccionistas problemáticas que no permiten explicar la diversidad de recursos epistémicos que de hecho utilizan los científicos. En este libro promovemos una epistemología que no sigue el lema de "mientras menos mejor", sino el de "organizar nuestros recursos epistémicos de manera que se genere entendimiento". Así, la misma estructura de las explicaciones y las prácticas (que incluye métodos y normas respecto de lo que se considera plausible y valioso) es lo que nos da la pauta para responder a la pregunta de qué es lo que hay. Esta estrategia epistémica nos obliga a hacer una filosofía de la ciencia muy cercana a la ciencia, reconociendo la pluralidad de sus métodos, objetivos y prácticas, sin reducir la filosofía de la ciencia a la sociología o a cualquier otra ciencia en particular. (shrink)

La percepción clara y distinta es el elemento sobre el que se asienta la certeza metafísica de Descartes. Con todo, el planteamiento de los argumentos escépticos referidos a la duda metódica cartesiana ha evidenciado la necesidad de hallar una justificación al propio criterio de la percepción clara y distinta. Frente a los intentos basados en la indubitabilidad de la percepción o en la garantía surgida de la bondad divina, se defenderá una justificación alternativa pragmatista.

During the 19th century, evolutionary models of innovation followed a famous thesis of continuity, according to which methods and explanatory patterns of biology should have an important say in the social sciences. In the 20th century, this thesis was considered unacceptable as part of the sharp separation of biology from the social sciences. Recent advances in the biological sciences suggest a way in which a version of the thesis of continuity can be reinstated, to suggest new ways of explaining innovation (...) in the social sciences. Key kinds of innovation can be explained in terms of the evolution of robust complex systems, interpreted as processes of path creation. (shrink)

Na obra Eichmann em Jerusalém – um relato sobre a banalidade do mal, Hannah Arendt descreve em determinada passagem que o réu Otto Adolf Eichmann invoca o imperativo categórico de Immanuel Kant, na busca de justificar sua conduta criminosa no massacre ocorrido na Alemanha nazista. Inertes numa sociedade desfigurada e que apresentava novas leis, tanto o réu quanto os demais criminosos viviam sob um véu de cegueira, que não poderia, porém, ser fundamento para a barbaridade cometida. Pretende-se com esse artigo (...) elucidar o imperativo categórico de Kant empregado na ótica das leis da razão e, analisar o mau uso da autoridade de Kant por Eichmann. (shrink)

Estableciendo las bases de su primera síntesis precrítica, Kant presenta en la Nova dilucidatio los principios de sucesión y de coexistencia, que, además de hacer posible un conocimiento metafísico de la naturaleza, pretendían ser útiles para la ciencia natural. Ambos son derivados del principio de razón determinante, formulado en el marco de una crítica a Wolff. Estos principios establecen que el mundo está constituido por la totalidad de las substancias conformada por una red dinámica de interconexiones causales, cuyo fundamento último (...) es el esquema relacional con el que el intelecto divino concibe al mundo. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo contribuir, desde el punto de vista de la Kantforschung y empleando los referentes de la Quellengeschichte, al conocimiento de las actitudes del joven Kant ante la metafísica tal y como están expresadas en su más temprana obra sobre las ‘fuerzas vivas’ de 1747-1749. La amplia gama de doctrinas metafísicas que envolvió la formación universitaria de Kant tuvo como su principal característica el pluralismo: aunque podemos distinguir algunas tradiciones filosóficas diferentes entre sí como el aristotelismo neoescolástico, (...) el eclecticismo pietista y el racionalismo wolffiano, durante los años en los que Kant fue un estudiante de la Universidad de Königsberg —e incluso algunos años antes—, contra la creencia tradicional, ninguna orientación doctrinal tuvo predominio alguno. Esta situación plural generó un ambiente intelectual peculiar, diferente al de las otras universidades alemanas, el cual tuvo una relevante influencia sobre las primeras actitudes intelectuales de Kant ante la metafísica. (shrink)

Neste artigo, discute-se algumas das contribuições de Hannah Arendt para a reflexão acerca do fenômeno da desobediência civil. Inicialmente, interroga-se em que medida a contestação civil pode ser identificada com a objeção de consciência. Discutir essa questão permite compreender o desenvolvimento da argumentação de Arendt que visa ressaltar o sentido político dos atos de desobediência civil em oposição à caracterização negativa deste fenômeno, defendida por juristas, na tentativa de incluir pelo direito ações extralegais de contestação. Com efeito, essa leitura jurídica, (...) que se baseia na ideia de que a contestação tem por fundamento a moralidade de consciência, negligencia determinados aspectos que são fundamentais para a compreensão da desobediência civil segundo a perspectiva de Arendt, sobretudo seu caráter público, o compartilhamento de um interesse ativo no mundo e, por fim, a não-violência. Em um segundo momento, explicita-se a influência da tradição filosófica na maneira típica de se compreender a desobediência civil, sendo Sócrates e Henry Thoreau elencados por Arendt como seus interlocutores neste debate. Com esse percurso argumentativo, pretende-se mostrar alguns potencias do ensaio de Arendt que contribuem para reatualizar a discussão sobre o papel político central do ato de divergir publicamente. (shrink)

This paper focuses on order-preserving logics defined from varieties of distributive lattices with negation, and in particular on the problem of whether these can be axiomatized by means Hilbert-style calculi that are finite. On the negative side, we provide a syntactic condition on the equational presentation of a variety that entails failure of finite axiomatizability for the corresponding logic. An application of this result is that the logic of all distributive lattices with negation is not finitely axiomatizable; we likewise establish (...) that the order-preserving logic of the variety of all Ockham algebras is also not finitely axiomatizable. On the positive side, we show that an arbitrary subvariety of semi-De Morgan algebras is axiomatized by a finite number of equations if and only if the corresponding order-preserving logic is axiomatized by a finite Hilbert-style calculus. This equivalence also holds for every subvariety of a Berman variety of Ockham algebras. We obtain, as a corollary, a new proof that the implication-free fragment of intuitionistic logic is finitely axiomatizable, as well as a new corresponding Hilbert-style calculus. Our proofs are constructive in that they allow us to effectively convert an equational presentation of a variety of algebras into a Hilbert-style calculus for the corresponding order-preserving logic, and vice versa. We also consider the assertional logics associated to the above-mentioned varieties, showing in particular that the assertional logics of finitely axiomatizable subvarieties of semi-De Morgan algebras are finitely axiomatizable as well. (shrink)

The search for understanding is a major aim of science. Traditionally, understanding has been undervalued in the philosophy of science because of its psychological underpinnings; nowadays, however, it is widely recognized that epistemology cannot be divorced from psychology as sharp as traditional epistemology required. This eliminates the main obstacle to give scientific understanding due attention in philosophy of science. My aim in this paper is to describe an account of scientific understanding as an emergent feature of our mastering of different (...) (causal) explanatory frameworks that takes place through the mastering of scientific practices. Different practices lead to different kinds of representations. Such representations are often heterogeneous. The integration of such representations constitute understanding. (shrink)

En este trabajo se afirma que una descripción etnográfica no es una representación objetiva de la realidad - entendida como realidad objetiva -, sea ésta de tipo natural, social, histórico o cultural. Sino que es una ficción - entendida como composición lingüística - de elementos de la experienc..

We show that for an arbitrary logic being locally tabular is a strictly weaker property than being locally finite. We describe our hunt for a logic that allows us to separate the two properties, revealing weaker and weaker conditions under which they must coincide, and showing how they are intertwined. We single out several classes of logics where the two notions coincide, including logics that are determined by a finite set of finite matrices, selfextensional logics, algebraizable and equivalential logics. Furthermore, (...) we identify a closure property on models of a logic that, in the presence of local tabularity, is equivalent to local finiteness. (shrink)

Las Meditaciones Metafísicas de Descartes constituyen una narración. El ego opera en ésta como un recurso filosófico, en un itinerario reflexivo que se ha propuesto la conquista de un pensamiento cuya evidencia pueda ser considerada como fundamento de todo conocimiento. Esa evidencia es la existencia pensante del yo, evidencia en cierto modo predispuesta por la forma en que se la ha buscado, dándose como inicio la propia circunstancia mundana del yo que medita por escrito.

Resumen A partir de una de las últimas novelas de la escritora brasileña, Clarice Lispector, A hora da estrela (1977), y de la problematización de la relación entre literatura, representación y pobreza, este trabajo intenta dos cosas: (1) mostrar el complejo mecanismo utilizado por Lispector en la elaboración de su novela, como un trabajo de des-narrativización que interrumpe el proceso representacional desde una elaboración minimalista de la trama y del personaje; y (2) mostrar cómo, a partir de dicha presentación de (...) la vida precaria de su protagonista, Macabea, también refe-rida como la nordestina, se hace posible una nueva relación entre literatura, crítica e historia. (shrink)

El autor busca imprimir un estilo itinerante a la idea de pedagogía universitaria, a partir de la bifurcación discursiva de genealogía y de lugar. Afirma que preguntarse por la pedagogía equivale a interrogar el lugar de la pregunta y ello significa interrogar el lugar del poder. Afirma que en el cúlmen de una época donde emerge el estado y la instalación urbana del poder, nace la educación moderna; y de ello, la institución universitaria se construirá teniendo como fundamento las nuevas (...) prácticas estatales, derivadas, a su vez, de los antiguos modelos religiosos y militares. (shrink)

Background Compulsory treatments represent a legal means of imposing treatment on an individual, usually with a mental illness, who refuses therapeutic intervention and poses a risk of self-harm or harm to others. Compulsory outpatient treatment in psychiatry, also known as community treatment order, is a modality of involuntary treatment that broadens the therapeutic imposition beyond hospitalization and into the community. Despite its existence in over 75 jurisdictions worldwide, COT is currently one of the most controversial topics in psychiatry, and it (...) presents significant ethical challenges. Nonetheless, the ethical debate regarding compulsory treatment almost always stops at a preclinical level, with the different ethical positions arguing for or against its use, and there is little guidance to support for the individual clinicians to act ethically when making the decision to implement COT. Main body The current body of evidence is not clear about the efficacy of COT. Therefore, despite its application in several countries, evidence favouring the use of COT is controversial and mixed at best. In these unclear circumstances, ethical guidance becomes paramount. This paper provides an ethical analysis of use of COT, considering the principlist framework established by Ross Upshur in 2002 to justify public health interventions during the 2002–2004 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak. This paper thoroughly examines the pertinence of using the principles of harm, proportionality, reciprocity, and transparency when considering the initiation of COT. Conclusion Ross Upshur’s principlist model provides a useful reflection tool for justifying the application of COT. This framework may help to inform sounder ethical decisions in clinical psychiatric practice. (shrink)

Cet article vise à éclairer le développement des visions méta-éthiques proposées par les deux fondateurs de l’approche des capabilités, Amartya Sen et Martha Nussbaum. Les deux auteurs fondent leurs différentes conceptions de la justice sur certaines versions de l’objectivisme et se confrontent aux questions d’argumentation rationnelle dans le cas de désaccords pratiques. La réponse est différente chez Sen et chez Nussbaum. Leurs justifications méta-éthique de la théorie et leurs visions du raisonnement pratique et de l’argumentation morale présentent des similitudes et (...) des différences. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Una tendencia importante en la filosofía de la educación contemporánea toma de la sociología del conocimiento la manera de entender la naturaleza del conocimiento científico. Esta tendencia parte de una crítica al "cognitivismo" individualista, asociado con una concepción tradicional del conocimiento y defiende una posición consensualista según la cual el conocimiento es la búsqueda de consenso. El objetivo del trabajo es mostrar que los consensualistas asumen una falsa dicotomía. Contrario a lo que los consensualistas asumen la cognición puede entenderse (...) a la vez como un logro social y como el resultado del ejercicio de capacidades individuals. Concluyo haciendo ver algunas consecuencias del abandono de esa dicotomía para entenderel papel de la autoridad en la educación.ABSTRACT: An important trend in contemporary philosophy of education follows a view of knowledge promoted by sociologists of knowledge. According to this view a critique of the cognitive individualism implicit in the traditional account of knowledge leads to "consensualism ", the view that knowledge is the search for consensus. The aim of this paper is to show that the consensualists assume a false dichotomy. Cognition can be understood both as a social achievement and as the display of individual capacities. I conclude by exploring some consequences of the abandoning of this dichotomy for our understanding of the role of authority in education. (shrink)

Van Fraassen has presented in Scientific Representation an attractive notion of measurement as an important part of the empiricist structuralism that he endorses. However, he has been criticized on the grounds that both his notion of measurement and his empiricist structuralism force him to do the very thing he objects to in other philosophical projects—to endorse a controversial metaphysics. This paper proposes a defense of van Fraassen by arguing that his project is indeed a ‘metaphysical’ project, but one which is (...) very similar to Strawson’s ‘descriptive metaphysics’; if this is the case, van Fraassen’s project may be taken, following recent suggestions made by Ney and Paul, as a form of metaphysics that can potentially make a crucial contribution to scientific inquiry. (shrink)

This article deals with a discussion of Savulescu’s impersonal version of the Principle of Procreative Beneficence and its relationship with a person-affecting Principle of Harm in order to evaluate the cases of selection of which child to have. It aims to show some problems in Savulescu’s attempt to arrange the two principles (the conflict between beneficence and harm, the limitation of beneficence to pre-conception selection, the extension of beneficence to different quantity people choice), and to propose an alternative version of (...) Procreative Beneficence (a narrow person-affecting version), in order to avoid these problems. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda la filosofía de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a partir de su noción de Naturaleza, que funciona como idea reguladora. El efecto es paradójico; las premisas y las consecuencias son cristianas, pero semejante categoría le es hostil a esta religión. Comenzando por Hume y deteniéndose en el Emilio, se muestran las aporías resultantes.