In the context of reproductive health, policies focused on decriminalising abortion that resulted in religious beliefs, attitudes and behaviours being affected. The main purpose of this article was to identify the religious beliefs of abortion in the emergency situations such as COVID-19. Although there is no general consensus regarding abortion, there is almost ‘general opposition to causing harm to life’ in most religions. In the current study, 28 indicators and four factors (seven for each factor) related to pregnancy termination were (...) explored through an exploratory factor structure. The study was therefore non-experimental, cross-sectional and exploratory, with 100 students selected in a non-probabilistic way. Contribution: The main contribution of this research is to find the variable effects on abortion in emergency conditions regarding religious beliefs. Given the results, behavioural intentions determine a structural model, but religious beliefs explain the solution. Furthermore, data generalisation is not possible due to the context, sample selection and type of analysis. In the local population, a confirmatory factor analysis should be performed with a probabilistic sample selection. (shrink)

Victor Verdejo’s paper ‘On Having the Same First Person Thoughts’ introduces an interesting and fruitful framework for applying the type-token distinction to first person thoughts. He draws a three-way distinction between types, instantiable types, and instantiated types, and uses that distinction to open up a conceptual space for the possibility of shareable first person thoughts. This note distinguishes two types of interpersonal shareability and argues that Verdejo’s suggestions about instantiable types can only secure shareability of the first kind, but not (...) the second. The author then shows how his own account of what he terms the token-sense of “I” succeeds in making possible this second type of interpersonal shareability, despite the criticisms in Verdejo’s paper. (shrink)

Two hundred and twenty-six state employees completed a structured questionnaire that investigated their ethical values and training needs. Top management were more likely to have attitudes against cronyism and giving advantage to others. Individuals higher in the organizational hierarchy, and female employees were more likely to believe that discriminatory practices were an ethical concern. In addition, employees with a larger number of clients outside of the organization were more supportive of the need to maintain strict confidentiality in business dealings. Employees'' (...) awareness and use of the organization''s code of conduct generally proved to be poor predictors of ethical values. Other analyses revealed that a variety of sociodemographic factors, job characteristics and ethical values predicted specific areas of training needs in ethics. (shrink)

This second volume completes the biography of the influential philosopher, following Whitehead's move first from Trinity College, Cambridge to London, and then, at the age of 63, to America, where the focus of his work shifted from mathematics to philosophy. Lowe (philosophy emeritus, Johns Hopkins U.) died in 1988 with this biography not quite completed. Vol.2 was edited and seen through publication by J.B. Schneewind, chairman of the Philosophy Department at Johns Hopkins. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The concept of vulnerability is widely used in bioethics, particularly in research ethics and public health ethics. The traditional approach construes vulnerability as inherent in individuals or the groups to which they belong and views vulnerability as requiring special protections. Florencia Luna and other bioethicists continue to challenge traditional ways of conceptualizing and applying the term. Luna began proposing a layered approach to this concept and recently extended this proposal to offer two new concepts to analyze the concept of vulnerability, (...) namely understanding external conditions that trigger vulnerability and layers of vulnerability with cascading effects. Luna's conception of vulnerability is useful, which we demonstrate by applying her layered view and the new analyses in multiple contexts. We begin by outlining Luna's view and we use vignettes from healthcare involving transgender patients, the care of patients in psychiatric contexts, and research involving prisoners to illustrate how each part of Luna's concept elucidates important moral issues. (shrink)

This book explores three worlds shared by the humans in their collective experiences. It identifies and explores the world of commonsense, the world of religion, and the world of science as three essential dimensions of human experience. The book helps understand that humans can gain comfort and pleasure in commonsense, achieve meaning and purpose from religion, and attain truth and rationality through science. It actively applies theories to and develops theoretical explanations from different domains or situations of human existence. This (...) book is of interest to theorists, researchers, instructors, and students across major academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

Violence is somehow equivalent to Be Right? How can I be fair and non-violent? It depends on the receptor, in terms of social comunication.

Achieving a comfortable thermal situation within buildings with an efficient use of energy remains still an open challenge for most buildings. In this regard, IoT (Internet of Things) and KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Databases) processes may be combined to address these problems, even though data analysts may feel overwhelmed by heterogeneity and volume of the data to be considered. Data analysts could benefit from an application assistant that supports them throughout the KDD process and aids them to discover which are (...) the relevant variables for the matter at hand, or informing about relationships among relevant data. In this article, the EEPSA (Energy Efficiency Prediction Semantic Assistant) ontology which supports such an assistant is presented. The ontology is developed on the basis that a proper axiomatization shapes the set of admitted models better, and therefore, establishes the ground for a better interoperability. On the contrary, underspecification facilitates the admission of non-isomorphic models to represent the same state which hampers interoperability. This ontology is developed on top of three ODPs (Ontology Design Patterns) which include proper axioms in order to improve precedent proposals to represent features of interest and their respective qualities, as well as observations and actuations, the sensors and actuators that generate them, and the procedures used. Moreover, the ontology introduces six domain ontology modules integrated with the ODPs in such a manner that a methodical customization is facilitated. (shrink)

new treatie on human understanding, pursuing Spinoza and Locke.

Un certain nombre de critiques ont affirmé que dans la doctrine de Descartes il n’y a aucune possibilité d’une esthétique. La plupart des autres ont pensé qu’il y avait, dans cette doctrine, tout au moins une esthétique implicite et que cette esthétique, dont ils empruntaient les traits, non à Descartes lui-même, mais à des critiques comme Boileau, d’Aubignae, Bosse, de Chambray, etc., était rigoureusement rationaliste, Descartes ayant « confondu le Beau dans le Vrai ».J’ai essayé de montrer qu’il y a (...) une esthétique cartésienne explicite : que 1° cette esthétique est moins pauvre qu’on ne Ta dit, si Ton tient compte de tout ce qui dans les Lettres du philosophe est relatif à l’art ; que 2° le Compendium musicæ est plus riche en théorie qu’on ne l’a cru et que les vues qu’y développe Descartes ne valent pas seulement pour la musique ; que 3° ces vues ne sont pas rigoureusement intellectualistes, mais que la part qui y est faite à la sensation et à l’association est au moins égale à celle revendiquée pour la raison ; que 4° s’étant posé la question de savoir ce qu’est le Beau en général, Descartes a conclu qu’il est impossible de le déterminer, qu’il n’y a pas d’évidence esthétique et que, en dernière analyse, « ce qui plaira à plus de gens pourra être nommé simplement le plus beau ». (shrink)

This article is about reductionism; as a tendency of thought, reductionism tells us that the hole can be explained as the sum of its parts. From this principle, one can deduce that the properties and laws of complex systems can be explained by the laws and properties of simple systems. On the other ..

In the light of partial (mis)understanding, we examine the thesis that concepts are individuated in terms of possession conditions and show that adherents face a fatal dilemma: Either concept‐individuating possession conditions include cases of partially (mis)understood concepts or not. If yes, possession conditions do not individuate concepts. If no, the thesis is too restricted and lacks a minimally satisfactory level of generalization.

Over-flexibility in the definition of Friston blankets obscures a key distinction between observational and interventional inference. The latter requires cognizers form not just a causal representation of the world but also of their own boundary and relationship with it, in order to diagnose the consequences of their actions. We suggest this locates the blanket in the eye of the beholder.

Introduction.- Conclusions.- Chronology.- Political activities of Barlow.- Political writings of Barlow.- An evaluation.- Bibliography.- Appendix: The conspiracy of kings, by Joel Barlow.

The story is frequently told about how with the publication of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) in 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus (d. 1543) looked beyond the vanity of human self-centeredness and perceived that Earth was just one of several planets revolving around the sun. In doing so, he triggered the modern scientific revolution as people began to look at themselves and their place in the universe in a more objective light.

Since the beginning of the scientific revolution, believers have had to reconcile their beliefs with science. This has always proved difficult. If an all-perfect God created the universe and its physical laws, why would he have to step in to perform miracles and answer prayers? If, as all the evidence indicates, the universe, including humans and their brains, is matter and nothing more, how can we possibly live forever? Theologians try hard, but never come up with satisfactory answers.

Naturalists who conceive of knowledge as a natural kind are led to treat ‘knowledge’ as a natural kind term. ‘Knowledge,’ then, must behave semantically in the ways that seem to support a direct reference theory for other natural kind terms. A direct reference theory for ‘knowledge,’ however, appears to leave open too many possibilities about the identity of knowledge. Intuitively, states of belief count as knowledge only if they meet epistemic criteria, not merely if they bear a causal/historical relation to (...) the term. I will develop this objection and show that it is grounded in modal considerations central to Kripke’s work on reference. I will also argue that a more plausible externalist semantics for natural kind terms disarms the objection. (shrink)

All the social sciences are now in flux and Soviet studies even more so. Many traditional approaches prove to be useless for understanding the changed world and there is a search for new explanatory models, and even for “alternative organizing myths.” All this fosters confusion and during such periods of “paradigm change” debates assume predictable characteristics. First of all, there appears a large gap between, in John Stuart Mill's words, “the meaning which a term bears in common acceptation” and that (...) which the writer “intends to annex to it.” It provides a great opportunity for sniping and passionately accusing opponents of lack of conceptual rigor. (shrink)

In the Spanish-Indian controversies, special attention was given to the subject of the education of the Indians, understood in a first approach as the necessary procedure to enable them to overcome their barbarianism, that is, to better adapt themselves to the natural law. This generated a philosophy of education which, in spite of being directly inspired by the circumstances of the Indians, nonetheless had permanent value by virtue of its anthropological soundness and its classical approach. This article deals with the (...) notions of barbarianism, education, natural law, and their interplay in the educational works of Bartolomé de las Casas and José de Acosta. (shrink)

Certain distinctively patristic and medieval features may be traced in Spanish-Renaissance thought, a tradition in which Aristotelianism played an otherwise dominant role. The study of these features may help to better understand the place of Hispanic thought in Renaissance intellectual history. I focus on one such a feature, providentialism, as it can be seen in two representative authors of sixteenth-century Spanish historiography. By discussing their differing providentialist views, and their motives for adopting them in each author’s historical and political circumstances, (...) it is argued that the zeal for justice constitutes a distinctive trait of Spanish-Renaissance thought. (shrink)