The basis of science is the hypothetico-deductive method and the recording of experiments in sufficient detail to enable reproducibility. We report the development of Robot Scientist "Adam," which advances the automation of both. Adam has autonomously generated functional genomics hypotheses about the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and experimentally tested these hypotheses by using laboratory automation. We have confirmed Adam's conclusions through manual experiments. To describe Adam's research, we have developed an ontology and logical language. The resulting formalization involves over 10,000 different (...) research units in a nested treelike structure, 10 levels deep, that relates the 6.6 million biomass measurements to their logical description. This formalization describes how a machine contributed to scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Decades of empirical and theoretical research has produced an extensive literature on the ethical judgments construct. Given its importance to understanding people’s ethical choices, future research should explore the psychological processes that produce ethical judgments. In this paper, the authors discuss two steps needed to advance this effort. First, they note that the business ethics literature lacks a single, generally accepted definition of ethical judgments. After reviewing several extant definitions, the authors offer a definition of the construct and discuss its (...) advantages. Second, future ethical judgment research would benefit from greater integration between theories of ethical decision making and theories of social cognition. Drawing upon the Hunt–Vitell ( Journal of Macromarketing 6 (Spring), 5–15, 1986 ; In: N. C. Smith and J. A. Quelch (eds.), Ethics in Marketing . Irwin, Homewood, IL, pp. 775–784, 1992 ) model and the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39 (November), 752–766, 1980 ), the authors present a brief research agenda intended to stimulate research on the psychological processes behind ethical judgments. (shrink)

In this paper, dimensions of the debate surrounding the application of gene technology to food production are discussed and a study assessing perceptions of the technology among a sample of the UK public (n = 1499) is reported. The general picture that emerges from the study is one of people expressing low familiarity with the technology, with more people associating it with high risks than with low risks, and more people expecting it to provide low benefits than high benefits. Attitudes (...) towards different applications vary significantly, as does trust in different potential sources of information about the technology. It is also shown that attitudes can be predicted not only by estimates of risks and benefits but also by perceptions of the involvement of ethical issues, by the perceived need for the technology, and by the perceived likelihood of improvements it is likely to bring to the quality of life in the UK. The results are discussed in the context of the need for greater public information about the technology and the realization that communication of risks takes place within a complex network of societal relationships. (shrink)

We should react to deaf parents who choose to have a deaf child with compassion not condemnationThere has been a great deal of discussion during the past few years of the potential biotechnology offers to us to choose to have only perfect babies, and of the implications that might have, for instance for the disabled. What few people foresaw is that these same technologies could be deliberately used to ensure that children would be born with disabilities. That this is a (...) real possibility, and not merely the thought experiment of a philosopher, is brought home to us by the decision of an American lesbian couple to select a deaf sperm donor in order to maximise the chances that their children, Jehanne and Gauvin, would be deaf like them.1 Their choice has sparked controversy, not only among medical ethicists, but in the opinion pages of newspapers across the world. Ought parents be permitted to make such choices?If the parents of Jehanne and Gauvin have done anything wrong, it must consist in violating their child’s right to an open future—limiting its future potential for choice.2 But what does it mean to respect this right?From the moment a child is born, her parents are making choices for her, which will powerfully shape her future. They will decide what kind of education she will have, what religious experiences, from among what group she can select friends. Thereby, they profoundly mould the person she will be and the life she will have.When this activity is carried out within certain, ill-defined, limits, it is in no way objectionable. It is not merely a …. (shrink)

Voprosy filosofii is publishing V. I. Danilov-Danil'ian's article "Is the ‘Coevolution of Nature and Society’ Possible?" in which he discusses at the same time the problems of sustainable development. It is a well-written, sharp polemic directed against my use of the concept "coevolution of nature and society." The article is reads easily and contains many interesting ideas. I believe it will spark the reader's interest, especially as it contains a number of debatable assertions, and may be regarded as the opening (...) of a debate on the problem of the coevolution of nature and society. A number of my works on this issue have been published and the fullest exposition of my position is contained in the monograph Sovremmenyi ratsionalizm, published in 1995. (shrink)

This paper examines the US Atomic Energy Commission's radioisotope distribution program, established in 1946, which employed the uranium piles built for the wartime bomb project to produce specific radioisotopes for use in scientific investigation and medical therapy. As soon as the program was announced, requests from researchers began pouring into the Commission's office. During the first year of the program alone over 1000 radioisotope shipments were sent out. The numerous requests that came from scientists outside the United States, however, sparked (...) a political debate about whether the Commission should or even could export radioisotopes. This controversy manifested the tension between the aims of the Marshall Plan and growing US national security concerns after World War II. Proponents of international circulation of radioisotopes emphasized the political and scientific value of collaborating with European scientists, especially biomedical researchers. In the end, radioisotopes were shipped from the Commission's Oak Ridge facility to many laboratories in England and continental Europe, where they were used in biochemical research on animals, plants, and microbes. However, the issue of radioisotope export continued to draw political fire in the United States, even after the establishment of national atomic energy facilities elsewhere. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to reflect on the origins and meanings of names describing investment practices that integrate a consideration of environmental, social and corporate governance issues in the academic literature. A review of 190 academic papers spanning the period from 1975 to mid-2009 was conducted. This exploratory study evaluated the associations and disassociations of the primary name assigned to this genre of investment with variables grouped into five domains, namely Primary Ethical Position, Investment Strategy, Publication Date, Regions (...) Covered and Periodical Type. The study indicated that papers coded as expressing a deontological ethical position were more frequently associated with the name Ethical Investment , whereas those with an ambiguous ethical position were less frequently associated with Ethical Investment . Three investment strategies (positive screening, best-in-class and cause-based investing) were unusually associated with the primary name Responsible Investment . A strong preference for the name Ethical Investment was noted in the United Kingdom, and contrasted starkly with an apparent aversion for this name in the United States. The name Ethical Investment is significantly more frequently used in journals dealing with ethics, business ethics and philosophy than in finance, economic and investment journals. Finally, the study yielded some weak hints that the name Responsible Investment might perhaps be linked to an egoist ethical position. On the basis of this, and because these have already been substantively linked through the Principles for Responsible Investment in the popular discourse, we follow the heuristic tradition set by Sparkes (Business Ethics Eur Rev 10:194–201, 2001 ), and propose that Responsible Investment be defined as ‘Investment practices that integrate a consideration of ESG issues with the primary purpose of delivering higher-risk-adjusted financial returns’. (shrink)

Recent developments in biotechnology allow for the generation of increasingly complex products out of human tissues, for example, human stem cell lines, synthetic embryo-like structures and organoids. These developments are coupled with growing commercial interests. Although commercialisation can spark the scientific and clinical promises, profit-making out of human tissues is ethically contentious and known to raise public concern. The traditional bioethical frames of gift versus market are inapt to capture the resulting practical and ethical complexities. Therefore, we propose an alternative (...) approach to identify, evaluate and deal with the ethical challenges that are raised by the increasing commercialisation of the exchange of sophisticated human tissue products. We use organoid technology, a cutting-edge stem cell technology that enables the cultivation of ‘mini-organs’ in a dish, as an example. First, we examine the moral value of organoids and recognise them as hybrids that relate to persons and their bodies as well as to technologies and markets in ambiguous ways. Second, we show that commercialisation of organoids is legitimised by a detachment of the instrumental and commercial value of organoids from their associations with persons and their bodies. This detachment is enacted in steps of disentanglement, among which consent and commodification. Third, we contend that far-reaching disentanglement is ethically challenging: (1) Societal interests could be put under pressure, because the rationale for commercialising organoid technology, that is, to stimulate biomedical innovation for the good of society, may not be fulfilled; (2) The interests of donors are made subordinate to those of third parties and the relational moral value of organoids may be insufficiently recognised. Fourth, we propose a ‘consent for governance’ model that contributes to responsible innovation and clinical translation in this exciting field. (shrink)

This paper examines the US Atomic Energy Commission’s radioisotope distribution program, established in 1946, which employed the uranium piles built for the wartime bomb project to produce specific radioisotopes for use in scientific investigation and medical therapy. As soon as the program was announced, requests from researchers began pouring into the Commission’s office. During the first year of the program alone over 1000 radioisotope shipments were sent out. The numerous requests that came from scientists outside the United States, however, sparked (...) a political debate about whether the Commission should or even could export radioisotopes. This controversy manifested the tension between the aims of the Marshall Plan and growing US national security concerns after World War II. Proponents of international circulation of radioisotopes emphasized the political and scientific value of collaborating with European scientists, especially biomedical researchers. In the end, radioisotopes were shipped from the Commission’s Oak Ridge facility to many laboratories in England and continental Europe, where they were used in biochemical research on animals, plants, and microbes. However, the issue of radioisotope export continued to draw political fire in the United States, even after the establishment of national atomic energy facilities elsewhere. (shrink)

Consumer skepticism of corporate environmental activities is on the rise. Yet research on this timely, intriguing, and important topic is scarce for both academics and practitioners. Building on attribution theory, we develop and test a theoretically anchored model that explains the sources and consequences of green skepticism. The study findings reveal that consumers’ perceptions of industry norms, corporate social responsibility, and corporate history are important factors that explain why consumers assign different motives to corporate environmental actions. In addition, the results (...) show that while intrinsic motives exert a strong negative effect on green skepticism, extrinsic motives have no discernible effect. Furthermore, the findings indicate that green skepticism prompts consumers to seek more information about the products, sparks negative word of mouth to friends and acquaintances, and forestalls purchase intentions. The study offers several implications for corporate and public policy makers and presents fruitful research directions. (shrink)

The theory of self-organization of complex systems studies laws of sustainable co-evolutionary development of structures having different speeds of development as well as laws of assembling of a complex evolutionary whole from parts when some elements of “memory” must be included. The theory reveals general rules of nonlinear synthesis of complex evolutionary structures. The most important and paradoxical consequences of the holistic view, including an approach to solving the riddle of human personality, are as follows: 1) the explanation why and (...) under what conditions a part can be more complex than a whole ; 2) in order to reconstruct society it is necessary to change an individual but not by cutting off the supposed undesirable past, since a human being as a microcosm is the synthesis of all previous stages of evolution, and as a result of repression of, it would seem, the wild past one can extinguish a “divine spark” in his soul; 3) in the physical sense, singularity denotes a moment of instability, phase transition; one can talk about the human singularity of co-evolutionary processes, since in such a moment of instability individual actions of a human can play a key role in determining a channel of further development as well as in appearance of a new pattern of collective behavior in society; 4) as the models of nonlinear dynamics, elaborated at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, show, there is a possibility of a direct influence of the future and even a touch of an infinitely remote future in certain evolutionary regimes and under rigorously definite conditions, more over, it turns out that such a possibility exists only for a human but not for the human society. (shrink)

A growing number of Irish women have chosen to write in Irish for reasons varying from a desire to promote and preserve the Irish language to a belief that a marginalized language is an appropriate vehicle of expression for marginalized women. Their work explores aspects of womanhood relating to sexuality, relationships, motherhood and religion. Some feel hampered by the lack of female models. Until recent years there were few attempts on the part of women to explore the reality of women's (...) lives through literature in Irish. The largely subordinate role played by women in literary matters as teachers, translators, and writers of children's literature reflected the position of women in Irish society since the achievement of independence in the 1920s. The work of earlier women poets has, for the most part, lain buried in manuscripts and is only recently being excavated by scholars. The problems of writing for a limited audience have been partially overcome in recent years by increased production of dual-language books. The increase in translation has sparked off an intense controversy among the Irish language community, some of whom are concerned that both the style and content of writing in Irish are adversely influenced by the knowledge that the literature will be read largely in translation. Nevertheless, translation also has positive implications. Interest in women's literature is helping to break down the traditional barriers between Irish literature in Irish and in English. The isolation of Irish literature in Irish is further broken down by the fact that women writers in Irish and their critics operate in a wider international context of women's literature. (shrink)

Today the medical community faces a number of pressing issues. Molecular and high-tech medicine, despite their tremendous successes, also burden us with new ethical dilemmas: when and how to die, whose life to preserve, whether to modify genes and to create life, and how to pay for it all. Furthermore, alternative methods appear to work at least for certain disorders. They are popular and definitely cost less, while the spiraling costs of conventional medicine have led to the development of managed (...) care and health economy assessments with controversial consequences. An international symposium in Berlin, in September 1999, sought to address some of these issues by sparking an interdisciplinary discussion gathering leading experts in the field of genetics, robotic surgery, medical ethics, preventive health and health economics, history, and law. This book contains all the contributions and seeks to involve scholars and medical practitioners who are interested in shaping the future of medicine. (shrink)

The religious crisis in Nigeria dates back to the colonial era. The amalgamation of two distinct nationalities for the purpose of administrative convenience by the colonial government, irrespective of their cultural and educational differences, not only created a hitch in assimilation but also mistrust and bitter rivalry that has accentuated to conflict. In the same vein, most of the communal crises taking place today could be traced to colonial making as they created artificial boundaries that did not take cognisance of (...) kith and kin, consanguinity and linguistic identity. It rather brazenly demarcated people to suit their exploitative governance. The above built-up grievances and tensions spark off a crisis at the slightest provocation or misunderstanding. The objectives of the study are as follows: to identify the factors responsible for the crises, to trace and analyse the antecedents of the crises, and finally to proffer solutions to this seemingly intractable national problem. The methodology adopted for the study is the qualitative phenomenological approach, whereby data were collected from secondary sources and treated analytically. The work found that religion and inter-communal conflict have hindered sustainable development, taking a large toll of lives and property amongst others. (shrink)

The octogenarian festival in Obosi is a festival that is celebrated with a huge fanfare of pumps and pageantries. It is celebrated every three years in March to rejoice with fathers and mothers on the attainment of the age of 80. The worry of the researchers now is how this festival will be handled amid the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the absence of curative drugs. This article examines the octogenarian cultural festival during the COVID-19 pandemic in Obosi, Anambra State, (...) Nigeria. The article aims at narrating the history of octogenarians in Obosi, discussing the functions of age grades, and discussing its relevance and a discourse on this celebration amid the coronavirus. Historical and phenomenological methods were adopted for analytical purposes. The article found that the longevity of life among Obosi people has been strongly threatened by the delta variant and also that celebrants do not feel safe in sustaining the festival for fear of contracting the delta variant.Contribution: The Obosi’s Ito-ogbo celebration is a good one and it has become a homecoming for all. It has sparked a desire to provide more care to elderly parents, resulting in increased life expectancy. African traditional religion was implicated in this study. (shrink)

Widely recognized as a crucial text in his corpus, and a popular object of scholarly attention, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit remains controversial, generating almost as many vexing questions about its meaning and significance as it has inspired divergent interpretive approaches. With Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit, Michael N. Forster has made a significant contribution to the literature, one certain to stimulate much discussion and likely to spark many responses. His study is a work of first-rate scholarship in a (...) philosophical area where, sadly, this is more often the exception rather than the rule. This is a valuable and important book indeed, for a number of reasons. (shrink)

Jan Van Ruusbroec (1293–1381), the most important spiritual writer of the Low Countries, is often associated (with or without some qualifications) with the tradition of the Rhineland Mystics, of which Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1327) is the most prominent exponent.For instance O. Davies, The Rhineland Mystics: An anthology (London: SPCK, 1989); O. Davies, God Within: The mystical Tradition of Northern Europe (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1988). L. Cognet, Introduction aux mystiques rhéno- flamands (Paris: Desclée, 1968). To date however, an in-depth (...) study of the influence of Meister Eckhart’s main doctrinal positions on Ruusbroec’s thought has not been published.Colledge and J. C. Marler, “‘Poverty of the Will’: Ruusbroec, Eckhart and The Mirror of Simple Souls,” Jan Van Ruusbroec: The Sources, Content and Sequels of His Mysticism, ed. P. Mommaers and N. De Paepe (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1984), p. 14–47 is a possible exception, although the article focuses primarily on the influence of Marguerite Porete on Eckhart and Ruusbroec and only secondarily on the relation between Eckhart and Ruusbroec. In this paper I want to compare their central ideas concerning the relation between God and his creation (in particular man). More specifically, I hope to make clear that the vocabulary they occasionally share (Birth of the Son in the soul, the spark of the soul, the ground of the soul, the soul as Image, and so on) actually veils two very different theologies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gendered Geographies across Time IBeatriz Hermida Ramos and Miguel Sebastián-MartínEarly Researchers' Seminar for Science and Speculative Fiction, University of Salamanca, Spain, 03 06 2023The first Early Researchers' Seminar for Science and Speculative Fiction: Gendered Geographies across Time showcased the many and diverse approaches to speculative fiction (SF) currently being pursued within the University of Salamanca's English Department, which in a matter of years has become an unexpected hotbed of (...) aspiring SF scholars. A graduate student–led initiative organized by Paula Barba Guerrero (University of Salamanca), the seminar comprised six sessions that took place in spring 2023. The series opened with a keynote by Miriam Borham Puyal (University of Salamanca), followed by five more panels throughout the semester. Open to the public and organized in a hybrid format, the event positioned itself as a welcoming, non-commodified space for the exchange of ideas. To that end, the shared philosophy of the speakers was usually to deliver accessible talks, written not exclusively for established researchers and early career researchers (ECRs), but also catering to graduate and undergraduate populations. Questions ranged, therefore, from the most specialized to the most general—though questions such as "What is SF?" or "What is Utopia?" that might sound "basic" are not taken as such, and these led to the most intensive conversations among the diverse audience. [End Page 299]In the keynote lecture, titled "From Shelley to Braidotti: Posthuman Maternity in Netflix's I Am Mother," Borham Puyal traced a feminist genealogy of the streaming platform's latest speculative thriller by connecting it to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Puyal's talk occurred on International Women's Day and, in keeping with the overall seminar subtitle, "Gendered Geographies across Time," the speaker explored such topics as gendered corporealities, vulnerable bodies, and reproductive justice in a technological world. Through the lens of Rosi Braidotti's notion of posthumanism, Puyal investigated I Am Mother's (2019) alternative modes of maternity, belonging, and relationality; the speaker also reflected on the potential of speculative fiction and media to question and to imagine alternatives futures in response to our less-than-perfect present. Puyal's talk sparked a vibrant debate regarding precarity, surrogacy, and the fight for legal control over women and trans* people's bodies. Established professors, ECRs and undergraduate students alike debated the meanings of feminist speculation and posthumanism, particularly the nature of posthuman bodies. The audience responded enthusiastically to the nonhierarchical format of the discussion, which established the seminar—with five events yet to come—as a venue welcoming to everyone, regardless of their academic status or their familiarity with science and speculative fiction.The themes of posthuman perspectives and corporealities reappeared in "Beyond the Human: Posthuman and Ecocritical Perspectives," a panel taking place the following week. Lidia María Cuadrado Payeras (University of Salamanca), and Ana Tejero Marín (University of Salamanca) discussed a set of North American speculative novels that bring together the environmental humanities and posthumanist philosophy, transitioning from the topics of the opening keynote into those of the first thematic cluster. Cuadrado Payeras opened with a methodological discussion on genre and form, drawing from the works of both Braidotti and Margaret Atwood to argue for a queer approach to science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction, positioning these categories as porous rather than rigid and separate. Then, Cuadrado Payeras turned to contemporary Canadian authors to explore the nature/technology dyad and its relation to posthumanism. Moving the conversation toward the environmental humanities and the role of capitalism in the current climate crisis, Tejero Marín's talk addressed themes of worldbuilding, ecofeminism, and the Anthropocene in US-American science fiction. Afterward, she analyzed gendered conceptions of the earth and the nonhuman in N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy (2015–17), focusing on how the vengeful [End Page 300] Father Earth of Jemisin's work subverts traditional associations between femininity and nature. The first panel ended with a lively discussion, during which both speakers had the opportunity to discuss the necessity of understanding the environmental humanities and posthumanism in dialogue with one another, and the necessity of emphasizing the potential of contemporary stories to help us rethink our relationship... (shrink)

_Filosofi og etikk har fått en stadig større plass i det offentlige rom i Norge. 2017 ble et år der filosofer sørget for overskrifter i en rekke norske medier. En av sakene som fikk størst oppmerksomhet, var debatten om sorteringssamfunnet og Aksel Braanen Sterris påstand om at personer med Downs syndrom ikke kan leve fullverdige liv. Utsagnet skapte en voldsom debatt og kraftige reaksjoner. Temaet for debatten er interessant i seg selv, men den reiser også spørsmål om hvordan slike debatter (...) endrer filosofiens anseelse og rolle i det offentlige ordskiftet i Norge. I denne artikkelen stiller vi derfor spørsmålet: På hvilken måte har debatten om sorteringssamfunnet i 2017 påvirket forholdet mellom filosofi og samfunn? Som perspektiv for analysen anvender vi tradisjonelle kvalitetskriterier innen filosofi, slik som konsistens, klare premisser og evnen til å klargjøre begreper, fremstille motargumenter og begrunne grenser. Vi finner at debatten om sorteringssamfunnet utvilsomt har gitt filosofien mer oppmerksomhet i det offentlige ordskiftet, og at filosofisk argumentasjon kan bidra til å løfte frem skjulte problemstillinger og sette ord på uuttalte intuisjoner, samt å stimulere til bedre argumentasjon. Dette bør hilses velkommen. Samtidig finner vi at filosofiens tilpasning til mediediskursen fører til at akademiske forbehold tradisjonelle kvalitetskrav og nyansering forsvinner. Dersom skjulte premisser, manglende konsistens, begrepslige og vurderingsmessige uklarheter, samt ignorering av empiriske premisser, motargumenter og viktige implikasjoner blir utbredt, vil resultatet kunne bli en fattigere offentlig debatt, et dårligere samfunn og et svekket omdømme for filosofien. Løsningen må være at vi som fagpersoner er villige til å gjøre klart og grundig rede for våre påstander, perspektiver, premisser, argumenter og konklusjoner, og at vi bør revidere eller trekke dem tilbake dersom vi ikke makter å gjøre dette. Ellers står vi i fare for å gjøre filosofien til en form for «villedningskunst» – en ny form for sofisme – og et lett bytte for platonsk fordømmelse._ __Nøkkelord:_ Filosofisk argumentasjon, offentlig debatt, sorteringssamfunnet, Downs syndrom, konsekvensetikk_ _English summary:_ The role of philosophy in public debate - A content analysis of the debate on the "sorting society" in Norway in 2017 Philosophy and ethics has recently gained increased attention in Norway. During 2017 philosophers hit the headlines in Norwegian media. One of the issues that gained most attention was the debate on “the differentiation/sorting society”. The debate was sparked by Aksel Braanen Sterri’s statement that persons with Downs’s syndrome cannot live full lives related to the issue of introducing non-invasive prenatal screening. While the debate is interesting in terms of its content, we will in this article focus on in what way the debate in 2017 has affected the relationship between philosophy and society, in particular the role and reputation of philosophy in public debates. To analyse the debate we apply traditional quality criteria within philosophy such as consistency, clear premises and the ability to clarify concepts, present counter-arguments and limitations. We find that the debate about “the sorting society” undoubtedly has given philosophy more public attention, and that philosophers can help raise covert or forgotten issues and explicate unspoken intuitions, as well as stimulate improved argumentation. This should be welcomed. At the same time, we find that philosophy's adaptation to the media discourse eliminates academic reservations and nuances. If hidden assumptions, lack of consistency, conceptual and evaluative uncertainties, as well as ignorance of empirical premises, counter-arguments, and important implications become widespread, the result could be a poorer public debate, an impoverished society, and a weakened reputation for philosophy. One solution is that we as professionals are willing to make our claims, perspectives, arguments, and conclusions clear and comprehensible, and that we are willing to revise or withdraw them if we are not able to do so. Otherwise, philosophy may become a form of "art of deception" - a new form of sophism - and an easy target for Platonic criticism. _Keywords:_ Philosophical argumentation, public debate, discrimination, Down's syndrome, consequentialism. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “A First-Person Analysis Using Third Person-Data as a Generative Method: A Case Study of Surprise in Depression” by Natalie Depraz, Maria Gyemant & Thomas Desmidt. Upshot: Given the claims of Natalie Depraz regarding what she called in 2004 the “practical turn of phenomenology,” I ask the authors how they conceive the research they presented in their 2017 article, particularly regarding transcendental phenomenology.

One of the primary goals of Religious Education is to make students come together with Qur’an text and religious content seamlessly. In order to reach this goal, religious educators usually support students to have the knowledge of the text and sometimes students only memorize the content. But although “knowing” and “memorizing” stages are important for educational processes, they are not functional enough in the long term. For providing a permanent learning, students should also “understand” the text. Besides, students cannot create (...) their own ideas and interpretations by the ways of knowing and memorizing. Because they can achieve to make their “own” senses only by their understanding. For these reasons, setting “understanding” as a goal for RE and defining the bases of an “understanding focused religious education” are an important responsibility of all.There are lots of bases for understanding focused religious education. One of them is “asking question”. Asking question to the religious texts and questioning the content have crucial effects for understanding processes due to their role of being a chance for having a dialogue with the text and its author. Therefore, it is necessary to determine which types of questions are useful for permanent learning and which types of contributions to understanding are limited. In Religious Education which is a social discipline, in order to reveal the meaning, the questions that are convenient to open a field for individual interpretations of the students can be functional. These questions are mostly open-ended questions and high level cognitive questions offering students an opportunity for their ownevaluations. However, students can establish the healthiest communication with Qur’an text and religious content through contextual and existential questions that they will pose to them. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed new light on some significant problems that have been present in the education systems for decades. Тhe lack of various educational methods is becoming more and more evident, leading to a decreasing interest in learning and critical thinking. Оn the other hand, more and more research shows that different types of digital games can enhance creative and critical thinking in students. А closer look at the requirements of the educational programs shows how strict they are (...) in their demands on students. Digital games like role playing games can be a bridge between students’ imaginations and complex educational material. Video games feature a variety of game mechanics that stimulate creative thinking and spark interest in otherwise difficult to understand topics. Motivation and engagement in digital games can be used in a specific way for educational purposes. If we think of teaching as an art in itself, what better method of teaching than through interactive arts. (shrink)

Twitter is a virtual social network where people share their posts and opinions about the current situation, such as the coronavirus pandemic. It is considered the most significant streaming data source for machine learning research in terms of analysis, prediction, knowledge extraction, and opinions. Sentiment analysis is a text analysis method that has gained further significance due to social networks’ emergence. Therefore, this paper introduces a real-time system for sentiment prediction on Twitter streaming data for tweets about the coronavirus pandemic. (...) The proposed system aims to find the optimal machine learning model that obtains the best performance for coronavirus sentiment analysis prediction and then uses it in real-time. The proposed system has been developed into two components: developing an offline sentiment analysis and modeling an online prediction pipeline. The system has two components: the offline and the online components. For the offline component of the system, the historical tweets’ dataset was collected in duration 23/01/2020 and 01/06/2020 and filtered by #COVID-19 and #Coronavirus hashtags. Two feature extraction methods of textual data analysis were used, n-gram and TF-ID, to extract the dataset’s essential features, collected using coronavirus hashtags. Then, five regular machine learning algorithms were performed and compared: decision tree, logistic regression, k-nearest neighbors, random forest, and support vector machine to select the best model for the online prediction component. The online prediction pipeline was developed using Twitter Streaming API, Apache Kafka, and Apache Spark. The experimental results indicate that the RF model using the unigram feature extraction method has achieved the best performance, and it is used for sentiment prediction on Twitter streaming data for coronavirus. (shrink)

The idea that an adequate semantics of ordinary language calls for some theory of events has sparked considerable debate among linguists and philosophers. On the one hand, so many linguistic phenomena appear to be explained if (and, according to some authors, only if) we make room for logical forms in which reference to or quantification over events is explicitly featured. Examples include nominalization, adverbial modification, tense and aspect, plurals, and singular causal statements. On the other hand, a number of deep (...) philosophical questions arise as soon as we take events into consideration. Are events entities of a kind? What are their identity and individuation criteria? How does semantic theorizing depend on such metaphysical issues? The aim of this book is to address such issues in some depth, with emphasis precisely on the interplay between linguistic applications and philosophical implications. Contributors: N. Asher, P. M. Bertinetto, J. Brandl, D. Delfitto, R. Eckardt, J. Higginbotham, A. Lenci, T. Parsons, A. ter Meulen, H. Verkuyl. A comprehensive introductory essay (pp. 3-47) is included. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to influence people’s lives in various ways as it is increasingly integrated into important decision-making processes in key areas of society. While AI offers opportunities, it is also associated with risks. These risks have sparked debates about how AI should be regulated, whether through government regulation or industry self-regulation. AI-related risk perceptions can be shaped by national cultures, especially the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance. This raises the question of whether people in countries with (...) higher levels of uncertainty avoidance might have different preferences regarding AI regulation than those with lower levels of uncertainty avoidance. Therefore, using Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance scale and data from ten European countries (N = 7.855), this study investigates the relationships between uncertainty avoidance, people’s AI risk perceptions, and their regulatory preferences. The findings show that people in countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance are more likely to perceive AI risks in terms of a lack of accountability and responsibility. While people’s perceived AI risk of a lack of accountability exclusively drives their preferences for government regulation of AI, the perceived AI risk of a lack of responsibility can foster people’s requests for government regulation and/or industry self-regulation. This study contributes to a better understanding of which mechanisms shape people’s preferences for AI regulation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought by Michael LAMBMichael J. S. BrunoLAMB, Michael. A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2022. xiii + 431 pp. Cloth, $39.95In his comprehensive study of Augustinian hope, Michael Lamb seeks to provide a corrective to the common characterization, especially promoted in the last century, of Augustine as politically and socially pessimistic. Lamb asserts that Augustine’s work (...) leads us, rather, to a “realistic hope,” as he argues for a more “hopeful, this-worldly” reading of the Doctor of Grace. After tracing the path of contemporary Augustinian interpretation, Lamb begins an interdisciplinary study of Augustine’s understanding of hope, which he argues allows us to understand how Augustine “advocated and modeled engagement in public life,” as “bishop, theologian, and citizen.”In part 1, “The Virtue of Hope,” Lamb systematically discusses Augustine’s understanding of virtue, and the relationship within his theology of the theological virtues. In chapter 1, Lamb utilizes the Enchiridion to explore Augustine’s understanding of the objects and grounds of hope, as “the orientation of will” toward objects that “engage our desire and spark an affective movement for union with what we love.” In chapter 2, Lamb explores hope’s integral connection to love and integrally captures key concepts in Augustine’s thought, particularly the consequences of the Fall in human pride, the presence of the libido dominandi, and the often-discussed debate of uti-frui, noting that Augustine is fundamentally concerned with love being rightly ordered. In chapter 3, he responds to the criticism of Augustine’s hope as “otherworldly,” explaining how Augustine does not dismiss temporal goods but, rather, “chastens disordered desires for them.” Lamb also makes clear that Augustine “challenges the either/or dualism” that locates [End Page 154] eternal goods in a purely transcendent realm. In chapter 4, Lamb analyzes the grounds of faith and its objects, outlining Augustine’s treatment of faith’s relation to both authority and neighbor, who for Augustine must be included as an object of faith. In chapter 5, relying on Augustine’s Confessions, Lamb underscores the condemnation of Pelagianism while demonstrating that similar to love, we might hope in neighbors as “a way to hope in the invisible God.” He also examines the epistemological challenges presented by the vices of presumption and despair, noting how for Augustine “a deficient or disordered faith leads to disordered hope.”Part 2 of Lamb’s work turns to Augustine’s rhetoric and how Augustine’s pedagogical concerns undergird both his sermons and other works, especially the often-cited City of God. In chapter 6, Lamb notes the need within political interpretations of Augustine for a greater grasp of “his rhetorical and pedagogical purposes,” especially his moral teaching offered to a wide and diverse audience both in his preaching and letters. In chapter 7, Lamb turns to City of God, noting its aim as both instruction and encouragement, and confronts the limits of the binary view of optimism and pessimism as “anachronistic and conceptually confining.” Lamb, on the contrary, posits a “more capacious triad of presumption, hope, and despair” as capturing the true “posture” of Augustine’s City of God, especially book 22.In part 3, Lamb focuses on the place of political goods as objects of hope within Augustine’s thought. Chapter 8 focuses on the political implications of Augustine’s eschatology and ecclesiology and, through engagement with numerous interpreters, examines Augustine’s saeculum as “a passing age in which members of both cities—earthly and heavenly—share proximate goods and build a common life together.” In chapter 9, Augustine’s epistolary is examined in order to demonstrate that, while “fulfilling his duties and embodying active citizenship, [Augustine] did not make an idol of politics or see it as the ultimate source of salvation.” In chapter 10, Lamb proposes an alternative account to the “antipolitical, otherworldly exclusivist” Augustine, namely, an Augustine who both is slow to judge the virtue and vice of others and acknowledges “some form of genuine, if incomplete, virtue in those without faith.” In this chapter, Lamb’s nuances of Augustine’s understanding of “true virtue” are well grounded... (shrink)

The increasing use of algorithms in allocating resources and services in both private industry and public administration has sparked discussions about their consequences for inequality and fairness in contemporary societies. Previous research has shown that the use of automated decision-making (ADM) tools in high-stakes scenarios like the legal justice system might lead to adverse societal outcomes, such as systematic discrimination. Scholars have since proposed a variety of metrics to counteract and mitigate biases in ADM processes. While these metrics focus on (...) technical fairness notions, they do not consider how members of the public, as most affected subjects by algorithmic decisions, perceive fairness in ADM. To shed light on subjective fairness perceptions of individuals, this study analyzes individuals’ answers to open-ended fairness questions about hypothetical ADM scenarios that were embedded in the German Internet Panel (Wave 54, July 2021), a probability-based longitudinal online survey. Respondents evaluated the fairness of vignettes describing the use of ADM tools across different contexts. Subsequently, they explained their fairness evaluation providing a textual answer. Using qualitative content analysis, we inductively coded those answers (_N_ = 3697). Based on their individual understanding of fairness, respondents addressed a wide range of aspects related to fairness in ADM which is reflected in the 23 codes we identified. We subsumed those codes under four overarching themes: _Human elements in decision-making_, _Shortcomings of the data_, _Social impact of AI_, and _Properties of AI_. Our codes and themes provide a valuable resource for understanding which factors influence public fairness perceptions about ADM. (shrink)

"--Brian Greene, Columbia University "This book includes material that is intellectually innovative and comes as a surprise even to specialists in the field.

We attempt to clarify the main conceptual issues in approaches to ‘objectification’ or ‘measurement’ in quantum mechanics which are based on superselection rules. Such approaches venture to derive the emergence of classical ‘reality’ relative to a class of observers; those believing that the classical world exists intrinsically and absolutely are advised against reading this paper. The prototype approach (K. Hepp, Helv. Phys. Acta45 (1972), 237–248) where superselection sectors are assumed in the state space of the apparatus is shown to be (...) untenable. Instead, one should couple system and apparatus to an environment, and postulate superselection rules for the latter. These are motivated by the locality of any observer or other (actual or virtual) monitoring system. In this way ‘environmental’ solutions to the measurement problem (H.D. Zeh, Found. Phys.1 (1970), 69–76; W. H. Zurek, Phys. Rev.D26 (1982), 1862–1880 and Progr. Theor. Phys.89 (1993), 281–312) become consistent and acceptable, too. Points of contact with the modal interpretation are briefly discussed. We propose a minimal value attribution to observables in theories with superselection rules, in which only central observables have properties. In particular, the eigenvector-eigenvalue link is dropped. This is mainly motivated by Ockham's razor. (shrink)

Looking to the popularity of superheroes, true crime stories, and anti-heroic characters like Tony Soprano, we investigated whether moral extremity, especially moral badness, piques curiosity. Across five experiments (N = 2429), we examine moral curiosity, testing under what conditions the moral minds of others spark explanation-seeking behavior. In Experiment 1, we find that among the most widely watched Netflix shows in the US over a five-month period, the more immoral the protagonist, the more hours people spent watching. In Experiments 2a (...) and 2b, we find that when given a choice to learn more about morally good, bad, ambiguous, or average others, people preferred to learn more about morally extreme people, both good and bad. Experiment 3 reveals that people are more curious for explanations about (vs. descriptions of) morally bad and ambiguous people compared to morally good ones. Finally, Experiment 4 tests the uniqueness of curiosity for moral ambiguity. We find that people are more drawn to moral rather than aesthetic ambiguity, suggesting that ambiguity, which is cognitively taxing and sometimes avoided, preferentially engenders information seeking in the moral domain. These findings suggest deviations from moral normativity, especially badness, spur curiosity. People are curious about immorality and agents who differ from the norm. (shrink)

Explores intellectual and philosophical evolution of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, focusing on period after World War II. Analyzes how Heidegger s ideas, particularly his notion of being, influenced and were influenced by postwar context, including confrontation with Nazism and emergence of new philosophical currents. Argues that Heidegger s work offers relevant insights for contemporary philosophical debates and calls for a critical dialogue with his legacy. Discusses Heidegger s philosophy in the context of French and German philosophical schools, highlighting relevance of (...) his ideas and impact they had on contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Design: Qualitative interview study. Participants: Fifty-nine patients with a family history of cancer who attend a regional cancer genetics clinic in the UK were interviewed about their current and previous research experiences. Findings: Interviewees gave a range of explanations for research participation. These were categorised as social—research participation benefits the wider society by progressing science and improving treatment for everyone; familial—research participation may improve healthcare and benefit current or future generations of the participant’s family; and personal—research participation provides therapeutic or (...) non-therapeutic benefits for oneself. Conclusions: We discuss the distinction drawn between motives for research participation focused upon self and others, and observe that personal, social and familial motives can be seen as interdependent. For example, research participation that is undertaken to benefit others, particularly relatives, may also offer a number of personal benefits for self, such as enabling participants to feel that they have discharged their social or familial obligations. We argue for the need to move away from simple, static, individualised notions of research participation to a more complex, dynamic and inherently social account. (shrink)

Fruto de una convergencia de motivos e intereses procedentes de diversas disciplinas, los estudios sobre la argumentación han adquirido sus propias señas de identidad como conocimiento, análisis y evaluación del discurso argumentativo a través de sus dimensiones o proyecciones lógica, dialéctica, retórica y socio-institucional. La presente obra trata de reunir, precisar y articular las nociones básicas y los conceptos determinantes de los desarrollos que hoy tienen lugar en ese campo. Este Compendio de lógica, argumentación y retórica se ofrece como una (...) obra de referencia, una herramienta de trabajo y un estímulo para los estudiantes de —y los interesados o los preocupados por— la argumentación, tanto en el plano internacional como, primordialmente, en el medio cultural hispánico e hispanoamericano. No existía hasta ahora una publicación de estas características, a pesar de su necesidad tanto desde el punto de vista didáctico, y en atención a intereses prácticos, como desde el punto de vista teórico. Su elaboración ha ocupado a 59 autores, especialistas y estudiosos de diversos medios académicos y nacionalidades, en la confección de las 176 entradas de las que consta. (shrink)

I start with a detailed but partial analysis of a case regarding grade inflation. The case is inspired by the discussion in Crumbley et al. (2010) and its elaboration in Roberts (2016). I supplement the case description by introducing certain facts that are not in the original discussion. The subsequent analysis is based on this enriched case description. I then raise a number of objections against my analysis. An important metaethical, methodological question emerges while responding to these objections. To what (...) extent are characterizations of moral situations and their descriptions independent from moral commitments? Is there a neutral concept of moral relevance? I argue that we do not have a theory-neutral concept of moral relevance, and that case descriptions essentially presuppose moral commitments. From my moral perspective, as this perspective is reflected in the enriched case description I utilize, the original case description of grade inflation already involves utilizing the wrong moral perspective or theory. (shrink)

Das Vorhandensein bilateraler Asymmetrie bei Organismen ist an und für sich biophysikalisch verständlich. Schwierigkeiten entstehen jedoch beim Versuch die auffallende Ungleichheit in den Häufigkeiten des Vorkommens von Rechts- und Linksasymmetrie biophysikalisch zu deuten. Es werden zwei Möglichkeiten für solch'eine Deutung besprochen. Die eine stützt sich auf die fundamentale Asymmetrie des elektromagnetischen Feldes, und wird als biologisch weniger geeignet angesehen. Die andere, welche dem Verfasser als wahrscheinlicher erscheint, beruht auf der Asymmetrie der organischen Moleküle.L'existence d'une asymétrie bilaterale en général chez des (...) organismes divers n'offre pas de difficulté particulière du point de vue biophysique. Mais les difficultés surgissent quand on tâche de comprendre l'inégalité très prononcée des cas d'asymétrie droite et gauche. Deux possibilités sont discutées dans ce mémoire. L'une repose sur l'asymétrie fondamentale du champs électromagnétique. Cette explication est considérée comme moins probable. Une autre explication qui nous apparaît plus probable, est fondée sur l'asymétrie moléculaire. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEmotion regulation comprises attempts to influence when and how emotions are experienced and expressed. It has mostly been conceived of as proactive or reactive, but it may also be retroactive and involve memory. I term such past-oriented activity mnemonic emotion regulation and propose that it involves increasing or decreasing access to or altering the characteristics of a memory. People may increase access to a memory and make it more likely that it will be retrieved in the future, for example by (...) rehearsing a pleasant memory. They may decrease access to a memory and make it less likely that intrusions will be experienced in the future, for example by repeatedly trying to stop an unpleasant memory from being retrieved. Finally, people may alter the characteristics of a memory and change its content or context, for example by replacing a negative impression with a productive interpretation. I discuss how mnemonic emotion regulation may be i... (shrink)

The sensation of red light falling on your eyes has something in common with the experience of looking at a cartoon in the New Yorker. The phenomenal quality of the sensation and the funniness of the joke are both properties of your subjective take on an external event and both arise in two steps. With sensations, your brain responds to signals from bodily sense organs with an internalized evaluative response; your mind reads this response and represents what it's like as (...) the subjective property of redness. With jokes, the cartoonist creates a clever drawing; your mind takes in the drawing and represents what it's like as the subjective property of funniness. This analogy -- deliberately deflationary -- helps elucidate the nature of phenomenal consciousness and its neural correlates, and exposes the 'hard problem' as a conceptual error. (shrink)