Previous studies have explored the impact of magic tricks on different basic cognitive processes yet there is a need of examining effectiveness of a cognitive training program through magic tricks for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The present study examines the effectiveness and feasibility of the MAGNITIVE program, a manualized intervention for cognitive training through the learning of magic tricks. A total of 11 children with ADHD participated in separated groups of two different community settings, and were assessed at (...) pre-treatment, post-treatment, and a 3-month later follow-up in different tasks involving processing speed, sustained attention, selective attention, and mental flexibility. Using non parametric statistical analyses and Reliable Change Index, the results showed that these children receiving MAGNITIVE particularly improved their performance in sustained attention, shifting attention, and mental flexibility, changes were also observed in processing speed performance yet further research is needed in terms of selective attention and inhibition, given the great individual differences within this sample. Changes were maintained when the program was finished. In terms of viability, the study proved a good treatment integrity in different contexts, adherence to the curriculum, and high levels of engagement satisfaction. In this second clinical trial, MAGNITIVE program appears to be a feasible training program for children with ADHD, as an alternative for medication when possible. (shrink)

This paper compares tracking and phenomenal intentionality theories of intentionality with respect to the issue of naturalism. Tracking theories explicitly aim to naturalize intentionality, while phenomenal intentionality theories generally do not. It might seem that considerations of naturalism count in favor of tracking theories. We survey key considerations relevant to this claim, including some motivations for and objections to the two kinds of theories. We conclude by suggesting that naturalistic considerations may in fact support phenomenal intentionality theories over tracking theories.

Scientific explanations must bear the proper relationship to the world: they must depict what, out in the world, is responsible for the explanandum. But explanations must also bear the proper relationship to their audience: they must be able to create human understanding. With few exceptions, philosophical accounts of explanation either ignore entirely the relationship between explanations and their audience or else demote this consideration to an ancillary role. In contrast, I argue that considering an explanation’s communicative role is crucial to (...) any satisfactory account of explanation. (shrink)

David Papineau’s _The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience_ is deep, insightful, refreshingly brisk, and very readable. In it, Papineau argues that sensory experiences are intrinsic and non-relational states of subjects; that they do not essentially involve relations to worldly facts, properties, or other items (though they do happen to correlate with worldly items); and that they do not have truth conditions simply in virtue of their conscious (i.e., phenomenal) features. I am in enthusiastic agreement with the picture as described so far. (...) But Papineau also argues that sensory experiences are in no interesting sense essentially representational and that what is responsible for their truth conditions is their correlations with the environment. Here, I disagree. Indeed, I think Papineau does not follow his arguments to their proper conclusions. For if sensory experiences are intrinsic, non-relational, and only contingently correlated with worldly conditions (as Papineau and I agree they are), then the phenomenal features of sensory states are representational in an important sense: they constitute what we think, perceptually experience, or otherwise entertain, making up how things seem to us from a first-person perspective. Because of this, the truth conditions of perceptual experiences cannot be entirely independent of their phenomenal features. They cannot merely be a matter of environmental correlations. If we follow Papineau’s arguments to their proper conclusions, we end up with a view much closer to a version of representationalism that Papineau dismisses, a view he calls “pure phenomenal intentionalism”. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, the dominant approach to explaining intentionality has been a naturalistic approach, one appealing only to non-mental ingredients condoned by the natural sciences. Karen Neander’s A Mark of the Mental (2017) is the latest installment in the naturalist project, proposing a detailed and systematic theory of intentionality that combines aspects of several naturalistic approaches, invoking causal relations, teleological functions, and relations of second-order similarity. In this paper, we consider the case of perceptual representations of colors, which (...) is a challenging case for Neander’s theory. This case will brings out a general methodological concern with Neander’s and other naturalistic theories: these theories generally rest on the assumption that the mental intentionality we are acquainted with in everyday life—the phenomenon exhibited by desires for cups of coffee, perceptual experiences of dogs playing in yards, and thoughts about the weather—is the very same kind of phenomenon that cognitive science studies under labels such as “mental representation” and, in some cases, “information processing.” This assumption is dubious, as the case of Neander’s theory illustrates. (shrink)

Perceptual experiences seem to in some sense have singular contents. For example, a perceptual experience of a dog as fluffy seems to represent some particular dog as being fluffy. There are important phenomenological, intuitive, and semantic considerations for thinking that perceptual experiences represent singular contents, but there are also important phenomenological, epistemic, and metaphysical considerations for thinking that they do not. This paper proposes a two-tier picture of the content of singular perceptual experiences that is based on phenomenal intentionality theories (...) of intentionality combined with self-ascriptivism about derived representation, a combination of views that allows mental states to have two types of contents: phenomenal contents and derived contents. On the proposed picture, singular perceptual experiences represent singular phenomenal contents, which do not involve worldly objects, as well as singular derived contents, which do involve worldly objects. This picture accommodates and reconciles the considerations for and against thinking that perceptual experiences have singular contents. (shrink)

Can aesthetic judgements legitimately be linked to the success of scientific theories? I suggest that a satisfactory answer to this question should account for the persistent attraction that aesthetic considerations seem to have for scientists, while also explaining the apparent instability of the link between the beauty of a theory and its truth. I argue that two widespread tendencies in the literature, Pythagorean and subjectivist approaches, have difficulties meeting this twofold challenge. I propose a Kantian conception of aesthetic judgements as (...) second‐order considerations, related to our own intellectual capacities for making sense of the world, and argue that it fares better. (shrink)

In the wake of Brexit and Trump, the debate surrounding post-truth fills the newspapers and is at the center of the public debate. Democratic institutions and the rule of law have always been constructed and legitimized by discourses of truth. And so the issue of "post-truth" or "fake truth" can be regarded as a contemporary degeneration of that legitimacy. But what, precisely, is post-truth from a theoretical point of view? Can it actually change perceptions of law, of institutions and political (...) power? And can it affect our understanding of society and social relations? What are its ideological premises? What are the technical conditions that foster it? And most importantly, does it have anything to teach lovers of the truth? Pursuing an interdisciplinary perspective, this book gathers both well-known and newer scholars from a range of subject areas, to engage in a philosophical interrogation of the relationship between truth and law. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical analysis of the strategic use of biomedical models of mental illness as a means of challenging stigma. Likening mental illnesses to physical illnesses (1) reinforces notions that persons with mental illnesses are of a fundamentally “different kind,” (2) entrenches misperceptions that they are inherently more violent, and (3) promotes overreliance on diagnostic labeling and pharmaceutical treatments. I conclude that too much has been invested in the claim that the body is somehow morally neutral, and that (...) advocates of this approach oversimplify, misrepresent, and underestimate the personal and social costs of physical illness. (shrink)

There is broad agreement that humans can be wronged independently of their incurring any harm, that is, when their welfare is not affected. Examples include unnoticed infringements of privacy, ridiculing unaware individuals, or disregarding individuals’ autonomous decision-making in their best interest. However, it is less clear whether the same is true of animals—that is, whether moral agents can wrong animals in situations that do not involve any harm to the animals concerned. In order to answer this question, I concentrate on (...) the illustrative case of treating animals in a demeaning yet harmless way that would be disrespectful if humans were concerned. I discuss whether such actions are permissible or unjustifiably discriminatory from a moral point of view. I conclude that moral agents cannot directly wrong animals without harming them and thus do not owe it to a particular animal to refrain from such actions. However, if the actions increase the likelihood that animal abuse will occur, this presents a strong indirect reason against performing them. Thus, the reasons for refraining from such actions are merely indirect rather than direct. (shrink)

Kant's views on the laws of nature in the physical and life sciences.

In his Kant on Laws, Eric Watkins presents an account of reason on which the principles of specification and continuity are regulative instructions to search for different kinds of the unconditioned. I suggest that we correct Watkins’ account in two ways. First, we need to complete Watkins’ claim to the plurality of the unconditioned: reason aims for three kinds of the unconditioned, associated with the lowest, next and highest concepts. Second, we need to look beyond reason’s search for the unconditioned (...) in order to properly understand the nature of the aim of reason. I argue that we construe reason’s aim as the systematic unity of cognition considered as a whole or, in Kant’s teleological terms, as the realization of an ‘idea’, or a ‘purposive unity’. (shrink)

When we evaluate artworks, we often point to what an artist could have done or what a work could have been in order to say something about the work as it actually is. Call this counterfactual reasoning in art criticism. On my account, counterfactual claims about artworks involve comparative aesthetic judgments between actual artworks and hypothetical variations of those works. The practice of imagining what an artwork could have been is critically useful because it can help us understand how artworks (...) achieve specific aesthetic effects. I conclude by responding to an objection to my account on the basis that it violates the widely accepted acquaintance principle in aesthetics, on which aesthetic judgments must be based on firsthand perceptual encounters with their objects. (shrink)

Recent debate by feminist scholars in philosophy of sport has been focused on the status of women’s sport as a protected category. Positions have varied significantly, from no need for a protected category anymore—to allow women’s sport to flourish and to give them a fair opportunity, given that men’s sport still dominates, just as it has in the past.It will be argued that: i) the concept of a ‘protected category’ is tied logically to the concept of fair play and has (...) been defined and enforced through the rules in sport and generally requires some kind of certification for inclusion. These specific rules will be analyzed in detail. Having separate women’s events means that logically it must be possible to exclude, and exclusion is not a popular stance as many have argued that the onus is on inclusion from a human rights perspective. Thus, sport policy makers are truly in an intractable position. On the one hand, no qualifying athlete should have to ‘dope down’ (or ‘dope up’) to compete in the Olympic Games. On the other hand, women athletes have argued that sex equality in competitive sport is a legitimate goal and that separating athletes in competition by biological sex traits is the only way to achieve this goal. It seems criminal to ask athletes to ‘dope down’ to be able to compete in the Olympic Games, however, although a new auxiliary rule creating new sub-classification of women athletes with testosterone higher than the stipulated cut off seems logical on the face of it, these cases are statistically rare. It is concluded that the community of women athletes should have the most significant voice, as historically, the criteria for the women’s sport-protected category have been predominantly determined by men. That is not to say that men’s voices, or voices outside of the women’s sports community of practitioners, cannot be heard, but they should not be the deciding factor. (shrink)

it is common to praise the beauty of theories, the elegance of proofs, and the pleasing simplicity of explanations. We may admire, for example, the beauty of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the simplicity of Darwin’s idea of natural selection, and the elegance of a geometrical proof of Pythagoras’s theorem. Aesthetic judgments such as these have much currency among scientists, and they are employed in the search for knowledge more broadly. But while the use of aesthetic judgments in science is (...) widespread, it is not uncontroversial.1 On one side, such judgments are often inspired by the Platonic vision that beauty and truth are ultimately one. As Henri Poincaré saw it, science is the “disinterested pursuit... (shrink)

Notions of care for humans and more-than-humans appear at the margins of the sustainability transformations debate. This paper explores the merits of an ethics of care approach to sustainability tr...

Positing levels of explanation has played an important role in philosophy of science. This facilitated the advocacy of antireductionism of explanations, which, at its most basic, is the idea that scientific explanations citing large (i.e. non-microphysical) entities will persist. The idea that explanations come in levels captures important features of explanatory practices, and it also does well at helping to define different positions one might take regarding explanatory reductionism or antireductionism. Yet the idea that explanations come in levels has also (...) led philosophers astray. This systematically misconstrues the relationship different explanations bear to one another, suggests candidate explanations are less numerous than they in fact are, and occludes recognition of how the selection of explanations can vary across research projects. Antireductionists about explanation should move on from talk of levels. Or so I will argue. (shrink)

Social capital has as its key element the value of social relationships to generate positive outcomes, both for the key parties involved and for wider society. Some authors have noted that social capital nevertheless has a dark side. There is a moral element to such a conceptualisation, yet there is scarce discussion of ethics within the social capital literature. In this paper ethical theory is applied to four traditions or approaches to economic social capital: neo-capitalism; network/reputation; neo-Tocquevellian; and development. Each (...) is considered in detail and subject to ethical analysis by the application of utilitarianism, Kantianism, justice and rights, and ethic of care. Accordingly, the assumption that social capital is either value-neutral or a force for good is critiqued, and a framework for understanding social capital from an ethics perspective is presented. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis have highlighted the power of governments in relation to people and the societies in which they live. This article looks at two sociological approaches that together capture the core features of the relationship between sovereignty, society and individual safety. Sociologists of human rights point to the importance of sovereignty for the enforcement of human rights and draw on the work of Arendt, who argues all rights are lost to those who find themselves outside the (...) protection of the state. Wickham’s Hobbesian sociology adds an important social dimension to these ideas. He adopts Hobbes’ argument that sovereignty secures both society and the protection of people. The article recovers additional ideas in Hobbes’ theory of rights that further link these two approaches. For Hobbes, governments hold a responsibility to protect their citizens’ right to survive. The article discusses the relevance of these ideas to the coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis. It argues sociology is well-placed to explore ways in which the continued exercise of sovereign power in relation to society and human survival is shaping humanity’s response to these global crises. (shrink)

Precision medicine is an emerging approach to treatment and disease prevention that relies on linkages between very large datasets of health information that is shared amongst researchers and health professionals. While studies suggest broad support for sharing precision medicine data with researchers at publicly funded institutions, there is reluctance to share health information with private industry for research and development. As the private sector is likely to play an important role in generating public benefits from precision medicine initiatives, it is (...) important to understand what the concerns are and how they might be mitigated. This study reports outcomes of a deliberative method of citizen engagement in Singapore that asked whether sharing precision medicine data with private industry would be permissible, and if so, under what circumstances. Findings from this citizens’ jury suggest sharing with industry would be permissible under certain conditions that are set out in nine recommendations. Implications of the recommendations and their underlying assumptions for policy decision makers are discussed. This study aligns with prior international studies which found conditional acceptance for data sharing with private industry, a public benefit requirement, specific reluctance to share with insurance companies and an emphasis on accountability and transparency to demonstrate trustworthiness. However, our results differ from prior studies in that opt-in consent did not dominate the deliberations as jurors were able to set it aside as an assumed prerequisite for participation in a precision medicine programme. (shrink)

Previous literature has documented the general issues psychologists often face while balancing their personal and professional lives. The struggle stems from attempting to satisfy the need to maintain a life outside of work while having the professional obligation to follow the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (Ethics Code) to prevent their personal lives from interfering with their professional roles and relationships. The present article analyzes the subject of psychologists taking a public position on (...) controversial public issues. Although the APA Ethics Code does not restrict how psychologists conduct themselves during their personal time, taking a public stance on a controversial issue could potentially strain professional relationships and inadvertently reflect negatively on the profession. The present article examines ethical issues that (a) should be taken into account before psychologists take a public position on a controversial issue and (b) are in conflict with APA’s Ethics Code or current research. (shrink)

Scientific realism is a thesis about the success of science. Most traditionally: science has been so successful at prediction and guiding action because its best theories are true (or approximately true or increasing in their degree of truth). If science is in the business of doing its best to generate true theories, then we should turn to those theories for explanatory knowledge, predictions, and guidance of our actions and decisions. Views that are popular in contemporary philosophy of science about scientific (...) modeling and the centrality of idealization create several challenges for this traditional form of scientific realism. Yet the basic idea behind scientific realism that science has been and will continue to be epistemically successful is deeply appealing. This chapter explores the challenges posed by idealization and scientific modeling to motivate a scientific realism fully divorced from the idea that science is in the business of generating true theories. On the resulting view, the objects of scientific knowledge are causal patterns, so this knowledge only ever provides partial, simplified accounts of a complex reality. This variety of selective realism better accommodates the nature of our present-day scientific successes and offers an interpretation of scientific progress that resists the antirealist’s pessimism. (shrink)

Human and animal interests are often in conflict. In many situations, however, it is unclear how to evaluate and weigh competing human and animal interests, as the satisfaction of the interests of one group often inevitably occurs at the expense of those of the other group. Human-animal conflicts of this kind give rise to ethical questions. If animals count morally for their own sake, then we must ask in which cases the satisfaction or frustration of the interests of humans and (...) animals in conflict situations is justified or unjustified from an ethical perspective. In this article, we argue that limited aggregation accounts represent a promising means for resolving interspecies conflicts. The reason for this is that they can appropriately consider the qualitative relevance of interests, their relative importance to each other, and the number of individuals affected. For our argument, we start from the premise that animals count morally for their own sake, albeit to a lesser extent than humans. That is, we accept the view that animals may be used, for example, as a source of food or in animal research. However, as we will show, many basic interests of animals are sufficiently similar to human interests and can thus be compared to them. Hence, they ought to be aggregated in cases of conflict with human interests. We illustrate our account and its practical implications with the real-world example of a human-animal conflict during the outbreak of a zoonotic disease among farmed animals. We conclude that, in many cases, animal interests ought to be given more importance than they currently receive, which includes distributing the burdens and risks of farming practices more fairly. (shrink)

In his chapter in this volume, Christopher Pincock develops an argument for scientific realism based on scientific understanding, and he argues that Giere’s (2006) and my (2017, 2020) commitment to the context-dependence of scientific understanding or knowledge renders our views unable to account for an essential step in how scientists come to know. Meanwhile, in my chapter in this volume, I motivate a view that I call "causal pattern realism." In this response to Pincock's chapter, I will sketch a revised (...) version of Pincock’s argument for realism that is consistent with causal pattern realism. Then I will respond to Pincock’s concern that the context-dependence of understanding on my view would interfere with the scientific community’s ability to extrapolate from specific experimental and observational contexts as needed to develop knowledge. My goal is not to convince anyone to be a causal pattern realist but rather to create the space for such a view, taking into account the concerns motivating Pincock. (shrink)

"Gender" is a term that refers to the behavioral, social and psychological traits typically associated with being male or female. This article examines some central issues in the study of gender in film, including the link between filmic conventions and social ideology; gender and the viewer's emotional response to film; and challenges by cognitivist philosophers of film to the claim that movies effect the viewer through mobilizing unconscious responses.

The debate on “safer by design” has primarily been focused on strategies to render products safer during the design process. This article focuses on correlated basic legal rights of citizens. The reference to “trump rights” is helpful in highlighting two normative claims: Firstly, products that are “safer by design” are suitable instruments to protect the bodily integrity and health of potential users. Both figure as trump rights in Ronald Dworkin’s sense. In this perspective, “safer by design” strategies can guarantee some (...) most basic rights of citizens. Secondly, the debate on trump rights also suggests that safety needs to be regarded as part of a more comprehensive normative framework. Even trump rights are competitive in that a plurality of rights needs to be respected. A final section gives evidence that both claims resonate with recent insights in debate on the precautionary principle. This section also highlights the recent emphasis on environmental concerns. (shrink)

A careful observation of the phenomenon of human life allows us to understand that from the beginning of the human life cycle until its destruction, the existence of each subject is deeply marked b...

Specificities associated with chromosomal linearity are not restricted to telomeres. Here, recent results obtained on fission and budding yeast are summarized and an attempt is made to define subtelomeres using chromatin features extending beyond the heterochromatin emanating from telomeres. Subtelomeres, the chromosome domains adjacent to telomeres, differ from the rest of the genome by their gene content, rapid evolution, and chromatin features that together contribute to organism adaptation. However, current definitions of subtelomeres are generally based on synteny and are largely (...) gene‐centered. Taking into consideration both the peculiar gene content and dynamics as well as the chromatin properties of those domains, it is discussed how chromatin features can contribute to subtelomeric properties and functions, and play a pivotal role in the emergence of subtelomeres. (shrink)

Why Democracy Needs Public Goods provides arguments for a new theoretical perspective in favor of public goods. Kallhoff details the benefits of public goods for any democratic state: they contribute to social inclusion, help generate the public forum, and foster national identity. These arguments are supplemented by reconsidering major counter-arguments against this approach, both from political theory and from theories on public finance. Political philosophers, political theorists, and political economists will benefit most from this perspective.

This paper uses the advent of human-animal hybrids, created though somatic cell nuclear transfer experiments in America and Australia, as a tool to deconstruct and challenge the dualistic belief that humans are morally distinct and superior to animals. The view that moral value corresponds to species membership creates a scientific and cultural environment that prohibits or restricts human embryo experimentation whilst permitting the extensive use of animals for research. The dualistic premise therefore motivates the creation of human-animal hybrids for research (...) as a way for scientists to side-step restrictive legislation. Furthermore, ethical frameworks that incorporate the dualistic assumption have been incapable of objectively assessing the moral value of hybrid embryos. This failure indicates the arbitrariness of the moral dichotomy between animals and humans. Moral dualism, based on species membership, should be replaced with a liberal ethical framework based on a consistent standard such as interests. (shrink)

Religion’s sudden re-appearance on the scene of international politics has resulted in a creative challenge for the discipline of International Relations. Although the leading tendencies suggest that religion is once again present in international relations, this article will carry out an exercise of introspection within the discipline based on the idea of religious continuity. As a result, questions arise concerning secularization as the foundational myth of modern international relations. This, in turn, will require a genealogical revision of categories such as (...) international society and the state. (shrink)

Suele ser decepcionante asistir a la conferencia de algún/a filósofo/a u otro/a pensador/a, artista si es que uno ya lo ha leído, estudiado o seguido su obra por algún tiempo. Leer Sin miedo no ha sido la excepción. De ahí el valor de una reseña de libro, a saber: definir la audiencia para la cual el texto comentado podría ser un aporte. En este sentido, Sin miedo es perfecto para un público poco familiarizado con la obra de Butler o que (...) todavía no la ha estudiado en profundidad, aunque sí le interesa conocerla. Probablemente este libro abre el apetito por ahondar en la propuesta de Butler, que se desarrolla prolíficamente en su vasta escritura. Sin miedo es una publicación que agrupa cinco conferencias que la filósofa dictó entre los años 2018 y 2019, en ciudades como Berlín, Guadalajara, Ciudad de México, La Habana, Buenos Aires y Santiago de Chile. En cada una de ellas, Judith Butler hace un guiño al lugar en el que habla. Es respetuosa de la audiencia y eso marca sus dichos, que concilian el pensamiento elaborado y complejo con una escucha menos enmarcada en el canon académico. Es fácil detectar en estas conferencias ciertos temas que las recorren transversalmente y de los que la autora ha dado cuenta en sus últimas publicaciones: la violencia política que se ejerce hacia determinados grupos de nuestra sociedad, la común vulnerabilidad como un factor que pone en evidencia tanto la interdependencia como la posibilidad de la acción política, y el énfasis que expone respecto de la desigual distribución de la vulnerabilidad, así como de la necesidad de luchar por una democracia que Butler define como radical. (shrink)

En este artı́culo se examinan los usos, significados y la actualidad de la noción de crisis. Esta revisión se basa en el análisis de la polisemia del concepto (I), ası́ como en una revisión no exhaustiva del tratamiento que hacen de este concepto algunos autores como Jürgen Habermas y Bolı́var Echeverria (II). Finalmente, en base a las lecturas de Foucault y Butler, se sostiene la potencialidad de la noción de crisis como herramienta analı́tica para comprender nuestro presente marcado en Chile (...) por la revuelta de octubre de 2019 y luego por la pandemia mundial (III). (shrink)

This article examines Leon Kass's contention that a choice for physician-assisted suicide is “undignified.” Although Kass is Jewish rather than Christian, he argues for positions that most Christians share, and he argues for these positions without presupposing the truth of specific religious claims. I argue that although Kass has some important intuitions, he too readily assumes that these intuitions will be shared by his audience, and that this assumption diminishes the force of his argument. An examination of the limitations of (...) Kass's argument is helpful insofar as it illustrates the real challenge faced by religious believers who wish to defend their beliefs in the “public forum.” For it illustrates that what needs to be made “accessible” is the Judeo-Christian understanding of man and his place in the world. While I do not wish to claim that this task is impossible, I do think that it is far more difficult than most realize. Like all important tasks, however, unless we wrestle with the difficulties it raises, our arguments will strike many as unconvincing. (shrink)

Decision-making is an integral part of business meetings in an organization. Research has suggested that a participant’s engagement in the decision-making process has direct relevance to his or her role in the team or organization. This study extends the investigation of communicative behavior in decision-making to a special meeting setting where all participants assume similar organizational roles and where there is no designated chair. In particular, it draws on conversation analytic methods and a recently developed framework of participant roles to (...) examine discursive strategies and discourse roles on a moment-by-moment basis in the process of consensus negotiation. Findings show that participants’ choices of discursive strategies and the display of discourse roles vary as the discussion proceeds. A limited range of discursive strategies and discourse roles are identified when the discussion fails to lead to consensus. Our analysis also suggests that certain discourse roles appear to have a greater impact on reaching consensus decisions. (shrink)

En este artículo se desarrolla una reflexión acerca del suicidio hetero-referido o no-personal. Se lo analiza en tanto forma de voluntad e instrumento de presión política que tensiona críticamente los modos en que se organiza la vida en nuestras sociedades. Se indaga en el potencial de contra-soberanía que supone en tanto intenta desactivar el poder al que se enfrenta. Se tematiza cierta ética de la pasividad que surge en esta acción y se examina la lógica que recorre el acto de (...) darse muerte. Finalmente, el artículo contribuye a complejizar el debate en torno al suicidio hetero-referido en tanto se destacan sus límites y potencialidades, así como las paradojas que plantean a nuestras democracias liberales las diversas demandas de grupos minorizados. (shrink)

One of the central aims of science is explanation: scientists seek to uncover why things happen the way they do. This chapter addresses what kinds of explanations are formulated in biology, how explanatory aims influence other features of the field of biology, and the implications of all of this for biology education. Philosophical treatments of scientific explanation have been both complicated and enriched by attention to explanatory strategies in biology. Most basically, whereas traditional philosophy of science based explanation on derivation (...) from scientific laws, there are many biological explanations in which laws play little or no role. Instead, the field of biology is a natural place to turn for support for the idea that causal information is explanatory. Biology has also been used to motivate mechanistic accounts of explanation, as well as criticisms of that approach. Ultimately, the most pressing issue about explanation in biology may be how to account for the wide range of explanatory styles encountered in the field. This issue is crucial, for the aims of biological explanation influence a variety of other features of the field of biology. Explanatory aims account for the continued neglect of some central causal factors, a neglect that would otherwise be mysterious. This is linked to the persistent use of models like evolutionary game theory and population genetic models, models that are simplified to the point of unreality. These explanatory aims also offer a way to interpret many biologists’ total commitment to one or another methodological approach, and the intense disagreements that result. In my view, such debates are better understood as arising not from different theoretical commitments, but commitments to different explanatory projects. Biology education would thus be enriched by attending to approaches to biological explanation, as well as the unexpected ways that these explanatory aims influence other features of biology. I suggest five lessons for teaching about explanation in biology that follow from the considerations of this chapter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pragmatist Aesthetics and New Visions of the Contemporary Art Museum:The Tate Modern and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary ArtAngela Marsh (bio)John Dewey mandated the repositioning of our experience of art within the realm of the everyday, and recognized the importance of art objects principally with regard to how they operate within an experience as "carriers of meaning."1 In this quote from Art as Experience, Dewey illustrates the segue between (...) art and the perceiver, and his belief that within the profound art experience, lived dichotomies are healed:In art as an experience, actuality and possibility or ideality, the new and the old, objective material and personal response, the individual and the universal, surface and depth, sense and meaning, are integrated in an experience in which they are all transfigured from the significance that belongs to them when isolated in reflection.2Although the ephemeral nature of Dewey's definition of art-as-experience — hinged upon immediacy and the subjective heuristics of the perceiver — may seem difficult to capture and apply, the practicality of the concept, Richard Shusterman argues, lies in its "transformative potential," as a way to reconceive the place of art and its function in our world:Defining art as experience, I argue, also has value in widening the realmof art by challenging the rigid definition between art and action that is supported by definitions that define art as mimesis, poiesis, or the narrow practice as defined by the institutional art world. In other words, I argue that Dewey's definition of art as experience has a very fruitful transformational potential.3By defining art as experience, Dewey also sought to dissolve the binary structures of aesthetic rifts: art and life, high art and low art, body and mind, subject and object, self and world, emphasizing the holistic action in our engagement with art.4 But according to Dewey, the divisor of art from life and thus to blame for the aesthetic barrenness of our lived reality is the museum institution, as Shusterman describes: [End Page 91]The compartmentalization and spiritualization of art as an elevated "separate realm" set "upon a far-off pedestal," divorced from the materials and aims of other human effort, has removed art from the lives of most of us, and thus impoverished the aesthetic quality of our lives.(PA, 19)However, we must keep in mind that Art as Experience was published in 1934. Today, new approaches towards encounter and engagement within public museums are taking form and gaining momentum, with unprecedented directorial visions and mandates designed to nurture and make accessible art-based experiences among diverse audiences — where art and life can meet via multiple approaches. Theoretical synchronicities between pragmatist approaches to aesthetics and fruitful museum experiences can be suggested upon consideration of various innovative programs and approaches initiated at the Tate Modern in London and the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. The overwhelming success of both venues could signify a reengagement of the general public with contemporary art, fed by "democratic," participatory approaches to exhibiting and programming art that make the museum more accessible to the various mixed publics it serves. In light of these new museological developments, Dewey's polemic oppositions between his conceptualizations of the museum experience and "art-as-experience" should be reexamined and possibly redefined.Dewey was entirely opposed to the concept of "art for art's sake." By exonerating art of any functional value — deeming it "fine" — art was elevated to a position separate from life, and thus rendered impotent to effect a lived aesthetic experience (which is how, Dewey would argue, the arts function most powerfully — as the purveyors of heightened experience). As Shusterman describes:The underlying motive for such attempts to purify art from any functionality was not to denigrate it as worthlessly useless, but to place its worth apart from and above the realm of instrumental value...and this freedom from use would be its defining and ennobling feature.(PA, 9)Dewey (and Shusterman) thus maintained that the very power construct that put the "fine" in art did so by removing the aspect of function from it. As previously stated, Dewey blamed museum institutions for removing art from its... (shrink)

At the level of the individual, current research suggests that most of our daily actions are done out of habit. At the same time, individuals are part of larger social units, and their behavior gives rise to customs and institutions. Hume recognized the indispensable role of custom and habit in human life in his science of the mind, a science which aims to form the most general principles possible. Custom and habit are singled out by Hume as particularly potent general (...) principles of human nature, describing them as the “great guide of life” and essential to human affairs. The aim of this paper is to explore the role custom and habit play in Hume’s work, especially as it concerns his political philosophy and experimental method, while considering intersections with contemporary discussions in political science. (shrink)