Teleological explanations (TEs) account for the existence or properties of an entity in terms of a function: we have hearts because they pump blood, and telephones for communication. While many teleological explanations seem appropriate, others are clearly not warranted-for example, that rain exists for plants to grow. Five experiments explore the theoretical commitments that underlie teleological explanations. With the analysis of [Wright, L. (1976). Teleological Explanations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press] from philosophy as a point of departure, we examine (...) in Experiment 1 whether teleological explanations are interpreted causally, and confirm that TEs are only accepted when the function invoked in the explanation played a causal role in bringing about what is being explained. However, we also find that playing a causal role is not sufficient for all participants to accept TEs. Experiment 2 shows that this is not because participants fail to appreciate the causal structure of the scenarios used as stimuli. In Experiments 3-5 we show that the additional requirement for TE acceptance is that the process by which the function played a causal role must be general in the sense of conforming to a predictable pattern. These findings motivate a proposal, Explanation for Export, which suggests that a psychological function of explanation is to highlight information likely to subserve future prediction and intervention. We relate our proposal to normative accounts of explanation from philosophy of science, as well as to claims from psychology and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Unscharfe Grenzen und fließende Übergänge kommen in allen Registern der Erfahrung vor. Von einer positiven Unbestimmtheit kann indes nur dort die Rede sein, wo diese gleichsam zur Sache selbst gehört und nicht nur unserem begrenzten Erkenntnisstand oder mangelnden Realisierungsmöglichkeiten zuzu-rechnen ist. Die gewachsene technologische Verfügungsmacht des Menschen, die sich mittlerweile auf die menschliche Lebenssubstanz selbst erstreckt, hat zu tiefgreifenden Veränderungen des Naturbegriffs geführt, in deren Verlauf die Grenzen zwischen Naturprodukten und Artefakten ständig verschoben werden. Damit tauchen neue Formen von Unbestimmtheit (...) auf, deren begriffliche Bewältigung uns vor besondere Probleme stellt. Wann genau beginnt das zu schützende menschliche Leben? Sind Hirntote wirklich tot? Kann ich eine Gehirntransplantation überleben, meine Existenz sogar in einem Klon fortsetzen? (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo principal presentar y discutir el concepto de las hiperescrituras del yo como prácticas de producción de memorias. A partir de estas escrituras, practicadas y compartidas en la pandemia, se pretende pensar la ficción como táctica de (re)existencia. Finalmente se presenta una experiencia en la plataforma Moodle, diseñada con estudiantes durante el 2020, que tuvo la ficción como punto de partida de la propuesta didáctica.

O objetivo deste ensaio é retomar a importância vital que a formação ética do sujeito tem frente à condição frágil e vulnerável do ser humano. Essa finalidade é, aqui, pensada a partir da leitura que Pierre Hadot faz da Filosofia Antiga e, especialmente, da figura de Sócrates. Nos propomos a investigar a noção de “diálogo socrático” enquanto um exercício espiritual que o faz ser autor de sua própria formação. Assim, o diálogo pode ser entendido como um princípio pedagógico-formativo suficientemente eficiente (...) para deslocar a preocupação com o conhecimento para a preocupação com o sujeito do conhecimento. Sem esse deslocamento, a formação ética do sujeito mantem-se fragilizada. Palavras-chave : Formação humana. Diálogo. Exercício espiritual. Formação ética. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 110 Heft: 3 Seiten: 719-748.

Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir o processo de inclusão de alunos com deficiência/necessidades educacionais especiais no Ensino Superior, destacando algumas questões sobre a prática pedagógica que vem sendo realizada na Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná – UNIOESTE. Fundamenta-se na Psicologia Histórico-Cultural que permite compreender como ocorre o processo de desenvolvimento do sujeito a partir do estudo dos fenômenos em sua historicidade, em um processo dialético, contemplando as dimensões da totalidade. A educação desses alunos, embasada numa legislação que (...) vem se ampliando nos últimos anos, necessita, na maioria dos casos, de algum tipo de atendimento educacional especializado como apoio e complementação do trabalho docente. As práticas pedagógicas realizadas, historicamente, na maioria das universidades ainda apresentam uma concepção de desenvolvimento humano sustentada pelo caráter biológico. Compreende-se que tais orientações são coerentes com a formação de um homem que se adequa à sociedade capitalista que preconiza por uma formação unilateral, com aquisição de competências restritas e imediatas. Como resultado, espera-se refletir sobre a importância de uma prática pedagógica inclusiva, que contribua para a construção de um sujeito crítico e consciente, que possa se apropriar do conhecimento científico e concluir seus estudos com qualidade. Palavras-chave: Inclusão; Ensino Superior; Práticas Pedagógicas Inclusivas; Psicologia Histórico-Cultural. Inclusion and higher education: pedagogical practices with students with disabilities/SEN in the perspective of historical- cultural psychology Abstract: The objective of this work is to discuss the process of inclusion of students with disabilities / special educational needs in Higher Education, highlighting some questions about the pedagogical practice that has been carried out at the State University of Western Paraná – UNIOESTE. It is based on Historical-Cultural Psychology that allows to understand how the process of development of the subject occurs from the study of phenomena in their historicity, in a dialectical process, contemplating the dimensions of the totality. The education of these students, based on legislation that has been expanding in recent years, needs, in most cases, some kind of specialized educational assistance as support and complementation of teaching work. The pedagogical practices carried out, historically, in most universities still present a conception of human development sustained by the biological character. It is understood that such guidelines are consistent with the formation of a man who fits the capitalist society that advocates unilateral training, with the acquisition of restricted and immediate skills. As a result, it is expected to reflect on the importance of an inclusive pedagogical practice, which contributes to the construction of a critical and conscioussubject, who can appropriate scientific knowledge and conclude his studies with quality. Keywords: Inclusion; University Education; Inclusive Pedagogical Practices; Historical-Cultural Psychology. Inclusión y enseñanza superior: prácticas pedagógicas con alumnos con deficiencia/NEE en la perspectiva de la psicología histórico-cultural Resumen: El trabajo objetiva discutir el proceso de inclusión de alumnos con deficiencia/Necesidades Educativas Especiales en la enseñanza superior, señalando cuestiones sobre la práctica pedagógica realizada en la Universidad Estatal del Oeste del Paraná. El estudio está fundamentado en la Psicología Histórico-Cultural que permite comprender cómo ocurre el desarrollo del sujeto desde el estudio de los fenómenos en su historicidad, en un proceso dialéctico, considerando las dimensiones en su totalidad. La educación de esos alumnos, basada en una legislación que está siendo desarrollada desde los últimos años, necesita, en la mayoría de los casos, de algún tipo de atendimiento educacional especializado con el apoyo y la complementación del trabajo docente. Históricamente, las prácticas pedagógicas realizadas en la mayoría de las universidades aún presentan una concepción del desarrollo humano apoyada en la característica biológica. Se comprende que esas orientaciones son coherentes con la formación de un hombre que se ajusta a la sociedad capitalista que sigue por una formación unilateral, con obtención de competencias restrictivas e inmediatas. Como resultado, es esperado repensar la importancia de una práctica pedagógica inclusiva, que contribuya para la construcción de un sujeto crítico y consciente, que pueda apropiarse del conocimiento científico y concluir sus estudios con cualidad. Palabras Clave: Inclusión; Enseñanza Superior; Prácticas Pedagógicas Inclusivas; Psicología Histórico-Cultural. Data de registro: 14/04/2021 Data de aceite: 19/01/2022. (shrink)

This paper proposes two interrelated arguments: first, it is argued that agro-commodity traders are uniquely placed at the crossroads of agricultural trade to benefit from agricultural commodity speculation; and second, that the networks constituting their operations are central to their hedging activities. The case of Cargill—the largest privately owned company in the United States and one of the largest agricultural traders in the world—is used to support this argument by unpacking its operations, structure, and hedging strategies. In order to connect (...) the operations of Cargill to its speculating strategies, this paper first traces how agriculture and finance have become increasingly intertwined leading to heightened agricultural commodity speculation. Second, Cargill will be positioned within this process by analyzing how it has financialized its own strategies and its Corporate Platform. Third, Black River Asset Management, Cargill’s private equity arm, will be analyzed to show how it uses the information moving through Cargill’s Platform to engage in hedging and/or speculation. (shrink)

. On June 13, 2013, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, holding that a naturally occurring DNA segment that has merely been “isolated” is not patent eligible, and effectively overturning a longstanding policy that had allowed for patents to be issued on thousands of human genes. Drawing largely on the expert testimony and arguments presented during the court proceedings, this paper provides an overview of the discovery and patenting of the BRCA1 (...) and BRCA2 genes at issue in the case, the impacts of gene patents on biomedical research and innovation and clinical practice, and the legal analysis presented by the plaintiffs throughout the case for how patents issued on genes violate the Patent Act and the U.S. Constitution. Finally, it discusses how the Court’s decision in this case marked an extraordinary victory not only for the plaintiffs directly involved, but more generally for women, patients, researchers, civil liberties, and the future of medicine. (shrink)

Both philosophers and psychologists have argued for the existence of distinct kinds of explanations, including teleological explanations that cite functions or goals, and mechanistic explanations that cite causal mechanisms. Theories of causation, in contrast, have generally been unitary, with dominant theories focusing either on counterfactual dependence or on physical connections. This paper argues that both approaches to causation are psychologically real, with different modes of explanation promoting judgments more or less consistent with each approach. Two sets of experiments isolate the (...) contributions of counterfactual dependence and physical connections in causal ascriptions involving events with people, artifacts, or biological traits, and manipulate whether the events are construed teleologically or mechanistically. The findings suggest that when events are construed teleologically, causal ascriptions are sensitive to counterfactual dependence and relatively insensitive to the presence of physical connections, but when events are construed mechanistically, causal ascriptions are sensitive to both counterfactual dependence and physical connections. The conclusion introduces an account of causation, an "exportable dependence theory," that provides a way to understand the contributions of physical connections and teleology in terms of the functions of causal ascriptions. (shrink)

Recent theoretical and empirical work suggests that explanation and categorization are intimately related. This paper explores the hypothesis that explanations can help structure conceptual representations, and thereby influence the relative importance of features in categorization decisions. In particular, features may be differentially important depending on the role they play in explaining other features or aspects of category membership. Two experiments manipulate whether a feature is explained mechanistically, by appeal to proximate causes, or functionally, by appeal to a function or goal. (...) Explanation type has a significant impact on the relative importance of features in subsequent categorization judgments, with functional explanations reversing previously documented effects of [”]causal status’. The findings suggest that a feature’s explanatory importance can impact categorization, and that explanatory relationships, in addition to causal relationships, are critical to understanding conceptual representation. (shrink)

The ability to generalize from the known to the unknown is central to learning and inference. Two experiments explore the relationship between how a property is explained and how that property is generalized to novel species and artifacts. The experiments contrast the consequences of explaining a property mechanistically, by appeal to parts and processes, with the consequences of explaining the property functionally, by appeal to functions and goals. The findings suggest that properties that are explained functionally are more likely to (...) be generalized on the basis of shared functions, with a weaker relationship between mechanistic explanations and generalization on the basis of shared parts and processes. The influence of explanation type on generalization holds even though all participants are provided with the same mechanistic and functional information, and whether an explanation type is freely generated (Experiment 1), experimentally provided (Experiment 2), or experimentally induced (Experiment 2). The experiments also demonstrate that explanations and generalizations of a particular type (mechanistic or functional) can be experimentally induced by providing sample explanations of that type, with a comparable effect when the sample explanations come from the same domain or from a different domains. These results suggest that explanations serve as a guide to generalization, and contribute to a growing body of work supporting the value of distinguishing mechanistic and functional explanations. (shrink)

In the name of Husserl: nursing in pursuit of the things‐in‐themselves A perceived contradiction between the tenets of humanism and positivism secures phenomenology’s endorsement in nursing as an alternative methodology to the natural sciences. Nursing’s humanistic doctrine of valuing the individual is aligned with phenomenology in the belief that both projects investigate the subjective experiences of others. However, the belief that phenomenology opposes objectifying methods does not account for the different understandings of subjectivity that underpin various philosophic positions, such as (...) humanism, phenomenology, hermeneutics and positivism. What is not recognised in nursing inquiry is that the same characteristics which belong to humanism and are subsequently attributed as belonging to phenomenology are grounded, philosophically, in a view that separates the person from her world. But rather than examining the premises on which phenomenology and humanism are based, nurse‐phenomenologists have simply yoked them together in a mutual alliance against a common enemy — Cartesian dualism. This paper focuses on Husserl and argues that the conceptual link between nursing as a humanistic discipline and Husserlian phenomenology cannot be sustained on philosophic and methodologic grounds. Far from being mutual allies, the philosophic underpinnings of humanism and Husserlian phenomenology offer two incommensurable views on the nature of subjectivity. (shrink)

Entre 1847 y 1874 llegaron al archipiélago cubano miles de chinos en calidad de trabajadores, respaldados por un contrato. Varios investigadores coinciden en que el mismo documento que los protegía sentaba las bases para convertirlos en semiesclavos. Este artículo propone un estudio contrastivo de las versiones en chino y en español de dos contratos firmados por colonos chinos para trabajar en Cuba en 1871. Se emplea una metodología basada en el modelo de Mangirón (2006), que toma en cuenta factores extratextuales (...) y textuales. En el estudio se identifican semejanzas semánticas, aunque con diferente grado de fuerza en la enunciación, y diferencias propias de ambos sistemas lingüísticos y jurídicos, pero no se puede definir con certeza si la traducción al chino logra producir los mismos efectos legales que el texto fuente. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to moral psychology assumed that moral judgments resulted from the application of explicit commitments, such as those embodied in consequentialist or deontological philosophies. In contrast, recent work suggests that moral judgments often result from unconscious or emotional processes, with explicit commitments generated post hoc. This paper explores the intermediate position that moral commitments mediate moral judgments, but not through their explicit and consistent application in the course of judgment. An experiment with 336 participants finds that individuals vary in (...) the extent to which their moral commitments are consequentialist or deontological, and that this variation is systematically but imperfectly related to the moral judgments elicited by trolley car problems. Consequentialist participants find action in trolley car scenarios more permissible than do deontologists, and only consequentialists moderate their judgments when scenarios that typically elicit different intuitions are presented side by side. The findings emphasize the need for a theory of moral reasoning that can accommodate both the associations and dissociations between moral commitments and moral judgments. (shrink)

Taiji – Sport, Meditation, Kampfkunst , Gesundheitserhaltung, Lebensphilosophie und der Weg zur Erleuchtung – ist eines der bekanntesten „Markenzeichen” des chinesischen Daoismus. Der folgende Artikel stellt die Grundbegriffe des philosophischen Daoismus, wie dao , qi und wuwei vor, und verbindet sie mit den Prinzipien des Taiji. Entstanden in der Tradition des philosophischen Daoismus stehen diese Begriffe im Zentrum von Schriften wie Daodejing und Zhuangzi, und dienen als Bausteine der daoistischen Philosophie, die sich gerade durch die Beständigkeit dieser Axiome während einer (...) tausendjährigen Geschichte sozialer, politischer und religiöser Umwälzungen als stabil erwiesen hat. Aus dem regelmäßigen Taiji-Training mit dem Ziel mens sana in corpore sano und unter Beachtung der Prinzipien des dao, qi und wuwei resultieren Weichheit und Stärke des Körpers und Weisheit des Geistes, wodurch sich höhere Ebenen des Bewusstseins eröffnen, in denen es möglich wird, eine Einheit physischer und mentaler Vollkommenheit zu erlangen. Dadurch gewinnt die „Kampfkunst” Taiji eine weitere, transzendente Dimension. (shrink)

Le terme ktitor accompagne souvent la représentation d'un acte de don dans la peinture murale byzantines et post-byzantines. Même si le terme "ktitor" a été traduit le plus souvent par "fondateur", sémantiquement et historiquement, on retrouve dans le mot le sens de possession. Les ktitores - des propriétaires modaux, offrent leurs dons, dont le destinataire final est Dieu. Les panneaux votifs de Théodore Métochite , du sebastokrator Kalojan , de Stefan Uroš III , de Mircea l'Ancien témoignent des droits, des (...) intentions et de la foi du ktitor. Avec le christianisme, le sens du don s'est inversé et out don humain n'est qu'un contre-don à Dieu pour son sacrifice premier. (shrink)

In the last two decades Information and Computer Technology has come to play an increasingly important role in medicine and health care. Many medical practitioners and scholars wonder: will e-health cause a paradigm shift in health care? To answer this question we provide a philosophical analysis of the concept of the 'paradigm shift' through the work of Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn and Larry Laudan. Their work offers key insights to a comprehensive understanding of major evolutions in medicine. Nowadays the long-standing (...) curative paradigm in medicine is facing important challenges due to an aging population, a significant increase in chronic diseases and the development of more expensive diagnostic tools and therapies. This promotes the evolution towards a new paradigm in medicine with an emphasis on preventive, predictive and personalized care. E-health constitutes an essential part of this new paradigm that seeks to solve the challenges presented by an aging population, skyrocketing costs and so forth. On the other hand the characteristics of e-health will be strongly determined by this new paradigm. 'Will e-health cause a paradigm shift in medicine?' might not be the right question to pose. Rather, we should ask how the underlying paradigm shift, from discovery and cure to prevention and prediction, acts as a facilitator to embrace ICT in health care. This analysis is of crucial importance in understanding the impact of digital health care applications and provides a necessary framework for the emerging, dynamic system of e-health. (shrink)

The potential negative impact of sexualized video games on attitudes toward women is an important issue. Studies that have examined this issue are rare and contain a number of limitations. Therefore, it largely remains unclear whether sexualized video games can have an impact on attitudes toward women. This study examined the consequences of sexualized video game content and cognitive load on rape victim blame and rape perpetrator blame, and whether the degree of humanness of the victim and of the perpetrator (...) mediated these effects. Participants played a video game using sexualized or non-sexualized female characters. Cognitive load was manipulated by setting the difficulty level of the game to low or high. After gameplay, participants read a rape date story, and were then asked to judge the victim’s and the perpetrator’s degree of responsibility and humanness. Based on the General Aggression Model, it was hypothesized that playing the video game with a sexualized content would increase the responsibility assigned to the victim and diminish the responsibility assigned to the perpetrator. Further, degree of humanness of the victim and the perpetrator was expected to mediate this relation. The results were partially consistent with these predictions: Playing a video game containing sexualized female characters increased rape victim blame when cognitive load was high, but did not predict degree of humanness accorded to the victim. Concerning the perpetrator, video game sexualization did not influence responsibility, but partly influenced humanness. This study concludes that video games impact on attitudes toward women and this, in part, due to its interactive nature. (shrink)

Religious systems are organised semiotic structures providing people with values and rules, identities, regularity, and meaning. Consequently, a person moving out of a religious system might be exposed to meaning-ruptures. The paper presents the situation of young people who have been in Yeshiva, a rabbinic high-school, and who have to join secular university life. It analyses the changes to which they are exposed. On the bases of this case study, the paper examines the following questions: can the religious symbolic system (...) internalised by a person in a religious sphere of experience be mobilised as a symbolic resource once the person moves to a secular environment? If yes, how do religious symbolic resources facilitate the transition to a secular life? And if not, what other symbolic and social resources might facilitate such transitions? (shrink)

We explore how principles predicting the success of a medical information commons advantaged or disadvantaged three MIC initiatives in three Canadian provinces. Our MIC case examples demonstrate that practices and policies to promote access to and use of health information can help improve individual healthcare and inform a learning health system. MICs were constrained by heterogenous health information protection laws across jurisdictions and risk-averse institutional cultures. A networked approach to MICs would unlock even more potential for national and international data (...) collaborations to improve health and healthcare. (shrink)

The understanding of a wide array of practices related to fraud, bribery, corruption, and more widely, illicit practices have been capturing the attention of practitioners and management researchers worldwide. A substantial portion of the extant research has used university students to measure their actual or intended cheating behaviours and often studies have tested for variations across countries and cultures. We highlight some major concerns in this stream of inquiry and discuss both the definition and some inconclusive results in prior studies, (...) namely those deriving from differences in cheating behaviour across different cultural contexts. We suggest the need to examine intentionality, and further advance that intentionality may assume a reactive or a proactive essence. Depending on the social and formal contexts of different countries, both reactive and proactive intentions lead to distinct moral concerns, which we name in this work omorality (meaning ‘our morality’) or immorality (in the traditional sense). (shrink)

Scientific and ‘intuitive’ or ‘folk’ theories are typically characterized as serving three critical functions: prediction, explanation, and control. While prediction and control have clear instrumental value, the value of explanation is less transparent. This paper reviews an emerging body of research from the cognitive sciences suggesting that the process of seeking, generating, and evaluating explanations in fact contributes to future prediction and control, albeit indirectly by facilitating the discovery and confirmation of instrumentally valuable theories. Theoretical and empirical considerations also suggest (...) why explanations may nonetheless feel intrinsically valuable. The paper concludes by considering some implications of the psychology of explanation for a naturalized philosophy of explanation. (shrink)

In his book Doing Without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that cognitive scientists should reject the concept of “concept” as a natural, psychological kind. I review and critique several of Machery’s arguments, focusing on his definition of “concept” and on claims against the possibility and utility of a unified account of concepts. In particular, I suggest ways in which prototype, exemplar, and theory-theory approaches to concepts might be integrated.

The issue of how to incorporate the individual's first‐hand experience of illness into broader medical understanding is a major question in medical theory and practice. In a philosophical context, phenomenology, with its emphasis on the subject's perception of phenomena as the basis for knowledge and its questioning of naturalism, seems an obvious candidate for addressing these issues. This is a review of current phenomenological approaches to medicine, looking at what has motivated this philosophical approach, the main problems it faces and (...) suggesting how it might become a useful philosophical tool within medicine, with its own individual, but interrelated, contribution to make to current medical debates. After the general background, there is a brief summary of phenomenological ideas and their current usage in a medical context. Next is a critique of four key claims within current phenomenological medical works, concerning both the role phenomenology plays and the supposedly clear divide between phenomenology and other approaches. There are significant problems within these claims, largely because they overlook the complexity of the questions they consider. Finally, there is some more in‐depth examination of phenomenology itself and the true complexity of phenomenological debate concerning subjectivity. The aim is to show that it will be both more productive and truer to phenomenology itself, if we use phenomenology as a philosophical method for explicating and gaining deeper understanding of complex and fundamental problems, which are central to medicine, rather than as providing simple, but flawed solutions. (shrink)

‘Thinking liquid thoughts’ is an essay aiming at the aggregation of ideas and concepts which emerge and float when enquiring if there are characteristics related with the research of fields that artists could explore as new poetic venues for further works. Nanosciences and nanotechnologies will affect almost all features of everybody’s lives in the near future. What are the issues, either desirable or undesirable, we should try to point to considering the specific view related with art, architecture and design. We (...) also have to ask, which are the skills and tools that artists, architects and designers will need for developing research and creating work in these new fields. Opening with the idea of thinking liquid thoughts the essay also speculates about the possibility of creating interactive responsive works of art, extremely sensitive, exploring poetic possibilities for the creation of material products aiming a bi-univocal relationship between the computer simulation and the material realm. There is also research related with educational games and the programming of poetic journeys using virtual reality technologies, pointing to the convergence of silicon with carbon, which will bring about deep implications in the mode of production of things, thoughts ands processes.modelling, animation and VRML, Java Script and Java 3D languages. (shrink)

The Verb and the Paragraph in Biblical Hebrew: A Cognitive-Linguistic Approach. By Elizabeth Robar. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, vol. 78. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. xii + 220. $142.

O presente artigo procura refletir como elementos das tecnologias da informação e comunicação na educação se localizam na epistemologia hermenêutica. Essa realidade acaba gerando um enorme desafio à educação no sentido de encontrar “razões” que justifiquem, não só metodologias, mas o seu sentido de ser no mundo conectado. Partindo da “compreensão” como modo de ser do indivíduo humano e, consequentemente, lócus apropriado para a reflexão e o fazer pedagógico pretende-se apresentar uma abordagem viável da TIC no processo educativo a partir (...) da epistemologia hermenêutica. O trabalho pretende apresentar a racionalidade hermenêutica como uma epistemologia totalmente viável para promover a compreensão teórica-conceitual da utilização das novas tecnologias da comunicação e informação no âmbito dos processos educativos contemporâneos, para tanto se ancora nas noções de compreensão e de linguagem, bem como nas noções de ciberespaço e hipertexto. Resultado de uma pesquisa bibliográfica nos autores já mencionados, bem como seus comentadores, na primeira parte procura apresentar a hermenêutica como alternativa epistemológica em face da crise da razão metafísica e científica, e na segunda parte, busca-se apresentar a relação entre as novas tecnologias da informação e comunicação e a racionalidade hermenêutica. Ao romper com a racionalidade técnico-científica da modernidade, compreende a hermenêutica como um paradigma epistemológico viável com vista à compreensão das tecnologias da informação e comunicação na educação, uma vez que, em função de tais tecnologias, a capacidade do homem contemporâneo de refletir e dizer a realidade requer bases teóricas e metodológicas que preservem as dimensões históricas e culturais nas quais o homem contemporâneo está inserido. Palavras-chave: Filosofia. Educação. Tecnologia. Hermenêutica. (shrink)

Título: La enseñanza de la historia en el Siglo XXI. Desarrollo y evaluación de competencias históricaspara una ciudadanía democráticaEditores: Miralles Martínez, P.; Gómez Carrasco, C. J.; Rodríguez Pérez, R. A.Editorial: Editum. Ediciones de la Universidad de MurciaIdioma: español y portuguésAño: 2017ISBN: 978-84-697-3352-3Páginas: 273.

Use of electronic health records within clinical encounters is increasingly pervasive. The digital record allows for data storage and sharing to facilitate patient care, billing, research, patient communication and quality-of-care improvement—all at once. However, this multifunctionality is also one of the main reasons care providers struggle with the EHR. These problems have often been described but are rarely approached from a philosophical point of view. We argue that a postphenomenological case study of the EHR could lead to more in-depth insights. (...) We will focus on two concepts—transparency and multistability—and translate them to the specific situation of the EHR. Transparency is closely related to an embodiment relation in which the user becomes less aware of the technology: it fades into the background, becoming a means of experience. A second key concept is that of multistability, referring to how a technology can serve multiple purposes or can have different meanings in different contexts. The EHR in this sense is multistable by design. Future EHR design could incorporate multistable information differently, allowing the provider to focus on patient care when interacting with the EHR. Moreover we argue that the use of the EHR in the daily workflow should become more transparent, while awareness of the computer in the specific context of the patient-provider relationship should increase. (shrink)

Musicians generally believe that memory differs from one person to the next. As a result, memorizing strategies that could be useful to almost everyone are not widely taught. We describe how an 18-years old piano student (Grade 7, ABRSM), learned to memorize by recording her thoughts, a technique inspired by studies of how experienced soloists memorize. The student, who had previously ignored suggestions that she play from memory, decided to learn to memorize, selecting Schumann’s “Der Dichter Spricht” for this purpose. (...) Rather than explicitly teaching the student how to memorize, the teacher taught her to record her thoughts while playing by marking them on copies of the score, adapting an approach used previously in research with experienced performers. Over a 6½ week period, the student recorded her thoughts during practice (five times) and while performing from memory for the teacher (three times). The student also video-recorded 3 weeks of practice, three performances, and the reconstruction of the piece from memory after a 9½-weeks break. The thoughts that the student reported were prepared during practice, stable over time, and functioned as memory retrieval cues during reconstruction. This suggests that the student memorized in the same way as the more experienced musicians who have been studied previously and that teaching student musicians to record their thoughts may be an effective way to help them memorize. The speed and durability of her memorization surprised the student, inspiring her to perform in public and to use the same technique for new pieces. (shrink)

Following the “Encountering Human Rights” conference in January 2007, Emily Grabham interviewed Tania Pouwhare, a women’s rights activist working at the Women’s Resource Centre in London. Their discussion engaged with the professionalisation of activism, funding constraints and New Labour policies and their impact on immigrant women. Against a background of financial insecurity and huge demand for their services, many women’s organisations in the United Kingdom struggle to use human rights law to advance women’s rights. Nevertheless, the rhetoric of human (...) rights remains powerful within women’s activism, and law remains relevant as a potential form of ‘direct action’ and “another way of making a really big fuss”. (shrink)

Recent expansions of federal and state law enforcement databanks to include DNA samples and profiles of innocent persons threaten individual privacy, impose unjustifiable costs on society, and may undermine our pursuit of justice. The move to permanently retain DNA from arrestees and proposals for a universal database should be vigorously opposed on matters of principle, legality, and practicality.

Information and computer technology has come to play an increasingly important role in medicine, to the extent that e-health has been described as a disruptive innovation or revolution in healthcare. The attention is very much focused on the technology itself, and advances that have been made in genetics and biology. This leads to the question: What is changing in medicine today concerning e-health? To what degree could these changes be characterized as a ‘revolution’? We will apply the work of Thomas (...) Kuhn, Larry Laudan, Michel Foucault and other philosophers—which offers an alternative understanding of progress and revolution in medicine to the classic discovery-oriented approach—to our analysis. Nowadays, the long-standing curative or reactive paradigm in medicine is facing a crisis due to an aging population, a significant increase in chronic diseases and the development of more expensive diagnostic tools and therapies. This promotes the evolution towards a new paradigm with an emphasis on preventive medicine. E-health constitutes an essential part of this new paradigm that seeks to solve the challenges presented by an aging population, skyrocketing costs and so forth. Our approach changes the focus from the technology itself toward the underlying paradigm shift in medicine. We will discuss the relevance of this approach by applying it to the surge in digital self-tracking through health apps and wearables: the recognition of the underlying paradigm shift leads to a more comprehensive understanding of self-tracking than a solely discovery-oriented or technology-focused view can provide. (shrink)

On November 2, 2004, California voters elected to radically expand their state criminal DNA database through the passage of Proposition 69. The approved ballot initiative authorized DNA collection and retention from all felons, any individuals with past felony convictions – including juveniles – and, beginning in 2009, all adults arrested for any felony offense. This dramatic database expansion threatens civil liberties and establishes a dangerous precedent for U.S. criminal databases.

In pedagogical contexts and in everyday life, we often come to believe something because it would best explain the data. What is it about the explanatory endeavor that makes it essential to everyday learning and to scientific progress? There are at least two plausible answers. On one view, there is something special about having true explanations. This view is highly intuitive: it’s clear why true explanations might improve one’s epistemic position. However, there is another possibility—it could be that the process (...) of seeking, generating, or evaluating explanations itself puts one in a better epistemic position, even when the outcome of the process is not a true explanation. In other words, it could be that accurate explanations are beneficial, or it could be that high-quality explaining is beneficial, where there is something about the activity of looking for an explanation that improves our epistemic standing. The main goal of this paper is to tease apart these two possibilities, both theoretically and empirically, which we align with “Inference to the Best Explanation” and “Explaining for the Best Inference”, respectively. We also provide some initial support for EBI and identify promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Using two samples drawn from contrasting developed and developing countries, this investigation considers the powerful, unique Millennial consumer group and their engagement in ethical consumerism. Specifically, this study explores the levers that promote their ethical consumption and the potential impact of country of residence on cause-related purchase decisions. Three distinct subgroups of ethical consumers emerge among Millennials, providing insight into their concerns and behaviors. Instead of being conceptualized as a single niche market, Millennials should be treated as a collection of (...) submarkets that differ in their levels of awareness of ethical issues, consider discrete motives when making consumption decisions, and are willing to engage in cause-related purchasing to varying degrees. These findings have several critical implications for theory and practice. (shrink)