Der berühmte Ameisenmann E.O. Wilson war schon immer einer meiner Helden - nicht nur ein hervorragender Biologe, sondern eine der winzigen und verschwindenden Minderheit von Intellektuellen, die es zumindest wagt, die Wahrheit über unsere Natur anzudeuten, die andere nicht verstehen oder, soweit sie es verstehen, aus politischen Gründen unermüdlich vermeiden. Leider beendet er seine lange Karriere auf äußerst schäbige Weise als Partei eines ignoranten und arroganten Angriffs auf die Wissenschaft, der zumindest teilweise durch die religiöse Inbrunst seiner Harvard-Kollegenmotiviertist. Es (...) zeigt die abscheulichen Folgen, wenn Universitäten Geld von religiösen Gruppen annehmen, Wissenschaftszeitschriften von großen Namen so bewundert sind, dass sie eine ordnungsgemäße Peer Review vermeiden und wenn Egos außer Kontrolle geraten dürfen. Es führt uns in die Natur der Evolution, die Grundlagen der wissenschaftlichen Methodik, wie Mathematik mit Wissenschaft zusammenhängt, was eine Theorie ausmacht, und sogar, welche Einstellungen zu Religion und Großzügigkeit angemessen sind, wenn wir uns unaufhaltsam dem Zusammenbruch der industriellen Zivilisation nähern. Ich fand Abschnitte in 'Conquest' mit dem üblichen prägnanten Kommentar (obwohl nichts wirklich Neues oder Interessantes, wenn man seine anderen Werke gelesen hat und auf biologie im Allgemeinen ist) in der oftgestylten Prosa, die sein Markenzeichen ist, aber war ziemlich überrascht, dass der Kern des Buches seine Ablehnung inklusiver Fitness (die seit über 50 Jahren ein Standbein der Evolutionsbiologie ist) zugunsten der Gruppenauswahl ist. Man nimmt an, dass von ihm kommen und mit den articles er bezieht sich auf veröffentlicht von sich selbst und Harvard Mathematik Kollege Nowak in großen Peer-Review-Zeitschriften wie Nature, muss es ein wesentlicher Fortschritt sein,, trotz der Tatsache, dass ich wusste, Gruppenauswahl wurde fast überall abgelehnt, da mit jeder großen Rolle in der Evolution. Ich habe zahlreiche Rezensionen im Netz gelesen und viele haben gute Kommentare, aber die, die ich am meisten sehen wollte, war, dass von renommierten Wissenschaftsautor und Evolutionsbiologe Richard Dawkins. Im Gegensatz zu den meisten von Fachleuten, die in Zeitschriften nur für diejenigen mit Zugang zu einer Universität zur Verfügung stehen, ist es leicht im Netz verfügbar, obwohlanscheinend, entschied er sich, es nicht in einer Zeitschrift zu veröffentlichen, da es angemessen abscheulich ist. Leider findet man eine vernichtende Ablehnung des Buches und den acerbic Kommentar über einen wissenschaftlichen Kollegen, den ich je von Dawkins gesehen habe -- über alles in seinem vielen Austausch mit dem verstorbenen und unbeklagten Demagogen und Pseudowissenschaftler Stephan Jay Gould. Obwohl Gould für seine persönlichen Angriffe auf seinen Harvard-Kollegen Wilson berüchtigt war, stellt Dawkins fest, dass ein Großteil von "Conquest" einen unbequem an Goulds häufige Verfehlungen in "bland, unfocussed ecumenicalis" erinnert. Dasselbe gilt mehr oder weniger für Wilsons populäres Schreiben, einschließlich seines jüngsten Buches "The Meaning of Human Existence" – eine weitere schamlose Eigenwerbung seiner diskreditierten Ideen zu Inklusiver Fitness (IF). Dawkins weist darauf hin, dass das berüchtigte 2010-Papier von Nowak, Tarnita und Wilson in Nature von über 140 Biologen, die einen Brief unterzeichnet haben, fast überall abgelehnt wurde und dass es in Wilsons Buch kein Wort darüber gibt. Auch in den folgenden 4 Jahren mit Artikeln, Vorträgen und mehreren Büchern haben sie dies nicht korrigiert. Es gibt keine andere Wahl, als Dawkins trenchant Kommentar zuzustimmen: "Für Wilson nicht zu zugeben, dass er für sich selbst gegen die große Mehrheit seiner professionellen Kollegen spricht - es schmerzt mich, dies von einem lebenslangen Helden zu sagen -- ein Akt mutwilligen Arroganz." Angesichts von Nowaks späterem Verhalten muss man ihn auch einbeziehen. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass einer der fassungslosen Menschen, die man im Fernsehen sieht, interviewt wird, nachdem der nette Mann von nebenan, der seit 30 Jahren alle Kinder babysitten, als Serienmörder entlarvt wird. Dawkins weist auch darauf hin (wie er und andere seit vielen Jahren), dass inklusive Fitness mit dem Neo-Darwinismus (d.h. logischerweise folgt) entsteht und nicht abgelehnt werden kann, ohne die Evolution selbst abzulehnen. Wilson erinnert uns erneut an Gould, der Kreationisten von der einen Seite seines Mundes anprangerte, während er ihnen Trost spendete, indem er endlosen ultraliberalen marxistisch gefärbten Kauderwelsch über Spandrels, unterbrochenes Gleichgewicht und Evolutionspsychologie von der anderen ausspeist. Die Unbestimmtheit und mathematische Opazität (für die meisten von uns) der Mathematik der Gruppen- oder Mehrebenenauswahl ist genau das, was die Sanftmütigen ihnen ermöglichen wollen, dem rationalen Denken in ihren endlosen antiwissenschaftlichen Gerüchten und (in der Wissenschaft) postmodernen Wortsalate zu entkommen. Schlimmer noch, Wilsons "Eroberung" ist ein schlecht durchdachtes und schlampig geschriebenes Durcheinander voller Nonsequiturs, vager Streifzüge, Verwirrungen und Inkohärenz. Eine gute Bewertung, die einige davon im Detail ist, dass von Absolvent Gerry Carter, die Sie im Netz finden können. Wilson hat auch nichts mit unserem gegenwärtigen Verständnis der Evolutionspsychologie (EP) zu tun (siehe z.B. die letzten 300 Seiten von Pinkers 'The Better Angels of our Nature'). Wenn Sie eine seriöse Buchlänge Bericht über die soziale Evolution und einige relevante EP von einem Experten wollen, siehe 'Principles of Social Evolution' von Andrew F.G. Bourke, oder ein nicht ganz so ernster und zugegebenermaßen fehlerhafter und irrender Bericht, aber ein Muss,das Robert Trivers dennoch lesen muss—'The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life' und ältere, aber immer noch aktuelle und durchdringende Werke wie 'The Evolutionof Cooperation':Revised Edition by Robert Axelrod and 'The Biology ofMoral Systems' von Richard Alexander. (shrink)

Despite the frequency of stillbirths, the subsequent implications are overlooked and underappreciated. We present findings from comprehensive, systematic literature reviews, and new analyses of published and unpublished data, to establish the effect of stillbirth on parents, families, health-care providers, and societies worldwide. Data for direct costs of this event are sparse but suggest that a stillbirth needs more resources than a livebirth, both in the perinatal period and in additional surveillance during subsequent pregnancies. Indirect and intangible costs of stillbirth are (...) extensive and are usually met by families alone. This issue is particularly onerous for those with few resources. Negative effects, particularly on parental mental health, might be moderated by empathic attitudes of care providers and tailored interventions. The value of the baby, as well as the associated costs for parents, families, care providers, communities, and society, should be considered to prevent stillbirths and reduce associated morbidity. (shrink)

Academics do not only teach but they also research. Research cannot be up-taken unless there is a means of dissemination. One of the ways of research report dissemination is the conference. The academic conference is an opportunity for scholars to assemble and engage in conversations that aim at improving the practice of teaching and learning. It provides a forum for the sharing of ideas and experiences that enhance education and, by extension, human life. One of the challenges that academics face (...) is rarely what to present at conferences, but how to present for impact. This paper justifies conference attendance and proposes strategies for the reengineering of conference presentations for national development. (shrink)

The emphasis in contemporary democratic theory and in the history of political thought on the peculiarly abstract theory of popular sovereignty of Locke and his twentieth-century intellectual descendants obscures a crucial relationship between constitutional self-government and nationalism. Through a Hobbesian and Filmerian critique of Locke and an examination of the political writings of George Lawson , the article shows the necessary connections between popular sovereignty, constitutionalism and a form of national consciousness that renders concrete the otherwise abstract and airy notion (...) of the pre-political community to which government is to be held accountable, and, through amyth of national origin, memories of native traditions of self-government, and stories of heroic ancestors who successfully defended those traditions against usurpers and tyrants, gives substance to theories of constitutional government. (shrink)

For more than one decade, Andy Clark has defended the now-famous extended mind thesis, the idea that cognitive processes leak into the world. In this paper I analyse Clark’s theoretical justification for the thesis: explanatory simplicity. I argue that his way of justifying the thesis leads into contradiction, either at the level of propositional attitude ascriptions or at the theoretical level. I evaluate three possible strategies of dealing with this issue, concluding that they are all likely to fail and that (...) therefore, as regards explanatory simplicity, the burden of proof is on Clark’s side. The paper divides into two main sections: in “Simplicity and Coherence”, I define the two concepts that are important in this context (simplicity and explanatory coherence). In “How to Cope with Coherence”, these two concepts are applied to the central thought experiment, the Inga/Otto case. It will be shown that justifying the extended mind thesis by reference to simplicity may cause trouble, because ‘extended’ behavioural descriptions are likely to yield rather complicated explanations. (shrink)

The Repugnant Conclusion served an important purpose in catalyzing and inspiring the pioneering stage of population ethics research. We believe, however, that the Repugnant Conclusion now receives too much focus. Avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion should no longer be the central goal driving population ethics research, despite its importance to the fundamental accomplishments of the existing literature.

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that the (...) OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)

Em sua Filosofia do Direito, Hegel, ao tratar da instituição da família e de seu papel na educação dos filhos, intuiu um traço característico da subjetividade infantil: no coração das crianças haveria um desejo de pertencer ao mundo dos adultos. Trata-se de um desejo que poderíamos qualificar de mimético, no sentido da teoria de René Girard, já que as crianças adotam os pais como seus primeiros modelos. Na teoria hegeliana, esse elemento mimético adquire, junto à educação infantil, uma importante função (...) na formação da personalidade moral. A educação é uma exigência da própria criança, que possui de maneira inata o sentimento de não estar satisfeita em ser aquilo que é e o desejo de pertencer ao mundo adulto. Hegel, por isso, é um crítico da pedagogia que estagna as crianças na subjetividade infantil. Representando-as como perfeitas no estado de imperfeição em que se encontram, essa pedagogia perturba a espontânea carência do estado infantil, traço que impele naturalmente a criança ao autodesenvolvimento. O erro desse tipo de abordagem pedagógica está em não conceber o papel da mediação na formação da personalidade moral. Se o adulto, enquanto modelo, valoriza a criança em seu estado de infantilidade, é natural que ela adote essa mesma estima sobre si mesma, seguindo a opinião exterior. Logo, a valoração subjetiva, que deveria centrar-se no modelo ético, volta-se, pela mediação do modelo adulto, ao próprio Eu vazio da criança, que cresce concebendo- se como realidade autônoma, independente dos demais, gerando nela o desinteresse pelas relações substanciais do “mundo do espírito”. O narcisismo infantil seria, pois, uma decorrência da perda de referência ao modelo ético da vida adulta. Desse vazio “ontológico” da criança surge a necessidade de sua formação por meio do processo pedagógico. Os pais, que constituem o modelo imediato das crianças, não só devem estimular nelas a adoção do comportamento ético, como também punir as suas transgressões morais. A finalidade da punição não é a justiça enquanto tal. Trata-se, antes, de uma intimidação subjetiva e moral exercida contra a liberdade ainda encerrada na natureza, tendo como escopo elevar, na consciência e na vontade, a esfera da universalidade e da razão. Portanto, na educação dos filhos, o ético e o mimético são indissociáveis. Lendo Hegel a partir de René Girard, poder-se-ia usar o termo “mimeticidade” para designar essa unidade entre a imitação natural (subjetividade) e a promoção pedagógica e cultural de modelos comportamentais voltados ao Bem (moral objetiva). Pela adoção de modelos éticos, a criança tem a oportunidade de vivenciar a “eticidade” ainda sem oposição, como seu sentimento mais imediato, mais íntimo e “próprio”, vindo a adquirir, na vida adulta, a autonomia moral concreta de uma personalidade livre e racional, exercida em coerência com as demais. (shrink)

Verteilungsgerechtigkeit befasst sich mit der Verteilung von Gütern innerhalb einer Gruppe, wobei verschiedene Verteilungsprinzipien und -ergebnisse als mögliche Ideale einer solchen Verteilung verhandelt werden. Diese normativen Ansätze sind oft rein verbal formuliert, wodurch ihre Anwendung auf unterschiedliche konkrete Verteilungssituationen, die hinsichtlich ihrer Gerechtigkeit beurteilt werden sollen, häufig schwer fällt. Eine Möglichkeit, fein abgestufte Gerechtigkeitsbeurteilungen verschiedener Verteilungen präzise erfassen zu können, besteht in der formalen Modellierung solcher Ideale durch Maße oder Indizes. Die Auswahl eines geeigneten Maßes, das ein gewisses Ideal abbilden (...) soll, muss ihrerseits eine Fundierung erfahren, was durch die Forderung von begründeten Axiomen erreicht werden kann, denen ein Maß genügen soll. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden solche Axiome für Maße der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit am Beispiel von Bedarfsgerechtigkeit eingeführt. Ferner werden exemplarische Maße der Bedarfsgerechtigkeit vorgestellt. Damit wird für die Beurteilung und Modellierung von Maßen der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit eine erste diskutable Grundlage gelegt. (shrink)

Os autores estudam um caso de linchamento ocorrido na cidade de Guarujá. Formulam sua hipótese a partir da teoria mimética de René Girard, demonstrando, no caso concreto, a presença de sinais vitimários que tornam um indivíduo suscetível a ser tomado como bode expiatório de uma comunidade em crise. Problematizam sobre a questão da mentalidade persecutória, justiça comunitária e sistema judiciário.

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

It is widely held that counterfactuals, unlike attitude ascriptions, preserve the referential transparency of their constituents, i.e., that counterfactuals validate the substitution of identicals when their constituents do. The only putative counterexamples in the literature come from counterpossibles, i.e., counterfactuals with impossible antecedents. Advocates of counterpossibilism, i.e., the view that counterpossibles are not all vacuous, argue that counterpossibles can generate referential opacity. But in order to explain why most substitution inferences into counterfactuals seem valid, counterpossibilists also often maintain that counterfactuals (...) with possible antecedents are transparency‐preserving. I argue that if counterpossibles can generate opacity, then so can ordinary counterfactuals with possible antecedents. Utilizing an analogy between counterfactuals and attitude ascriptions, I provide a counterpossibilist‐friendly explanation for the apparent validity of substitution inferences into counterfactuals. I conclude by suggesting that the debate over counterpossibles is closely tied to questions concerning the extent to which counterfactuals are more like attitude ascriptions and epistemic operators than previously recognized. (shrink)

A tragédia de Orestes, escrita pelo tragediógrafo grego Ésquilo, influenciou decisivamente o pensamento ético-político de Hegel. Em seu ensaio sobre o Direito Natural (1802-1803), o filósofo alemão associa seu conceito de absoluto com sua interpretação da tragédia grega, ato com o qual expõe sua concepção da vida ética absoluta, dando continuidade à ideia que havia esboçado, no âmbito teológico, em "O Espírito do cristianismo e seu destino", i.e., a de que o destino e a justiça trágica forneceriam os termos de (...) uma alternativa aos conceitos jurídicos kantianos e cristãos de justiça. Mas, em "Sobre as maneiras de tratar cientificamente o direito natural", Hegel vai além. Ele demonstra que o gênero trágico apresenta uma concepção de ética e política que pode ser uma alternativa às concepções modernas do direito natural, o que permite a Hegel opor a representação trágica da unidade da vida ética absoluta ao dualismo e às dicotomias que estruturam as teorias políticas de seu tempo. Essa intuição da tragédia propiciou ao filósofo compreender a vida ética absoluta como o verdadeiro fundamento da ética e da política. Enquanto tal, ela pressupõe, necessariamente, todas as teorias do Direito Natural. Hegel denomina essa representação da unidade da vida ético-política como "a representação da tragédia da vida ética". A obra emblemática e talvez até mesmo inspiradora dessa compreensão do direito natural é "Eumênides", de Ésquilo, peça que encerra a trilogia "Oresteia". A partir dela, Hegel desenvolve, no capítulo intitulado “a ciência especulativa e o direito natural”, sua concepção trágica da vida ética absoluta. É que a tragédia de Orestes expõe o problema político que Hegel quer resolver: as relações entre o universal e o particular, o todo e as partes, o Estado e o indivíduo, etc. Além de explicitar o problema político, a obra de Ésquilo também expõe a solução do que Hegel considera ser o conflito absoluto, i.e., o jogo das oposições (universal/particular, todo/partes, Estado/indivíduos) que consiste na essência da vida ética e política. Tal solução se dá, na peça, com o julgamento do herói, Orestes, e a consequente pacificação das Erínias, transformadas em Eumênides. Esse movimento é a culminação da trilogia "Oresteia" e ilustra o tipo de reconciliação que Hegel procurava produzir com sua Filosofia do Direito: a (re)organização da totalidade ética. (shrink)

Introduction in chapter viii of book ii of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke provides various putative lists of primary qualities. Insofar as they have considered the variation across Locke's lists at all, commentators have usually been content simply either to consider a self-consciously abbreviated list (e.g., "Size, Shape, etc.") or a composite list as the list of Lockean primary qualities, truncating such a composite list only by omitting supposedly co-referential terms. Doing the latter with minimal judgment about what (...) terms are co-referential gives us the following list of eleven qualities (in the order in which they appear in this chapter of the Essay): solidity, extension, figure, mobility, motion or rest, number, bulk, texture, motion, size, and situation. Perhaps surprisingly given the attention to the primary/secondary distinction since Locke, Locke's primary qualities themselves have received little more than passing mention in the bulk of the subsequent literature. In particular, no discussion both offers an interpretation of Locke's conception of primary qualities and makes sense of Locke's various lists as lists of primary qualities. A central motivation for this paper is the idea that these two tasks are not independent. (shrink)

Resumo: Objetivando compreender as ideologias que conformaram os regimes totalitários do século XX, o autor investiga a origem da ideia de progresso da história, especialmente para expor um tipo de racionalidade que está no cerne das ideologias progressistas, cujo elemento comum ´e a hipóstase do fim da história como um evento espiritual imanente ao processo histórico. Para tanto, observa na imanentização escatológica de Joaquim de Fiore uma das mais importantes manifestações da ideia de progresso na história, expondo sua influência nas (...) ideologias modernas. -/- Palavras-chave: Progresso em ideia de hist´oria. Ideologias progressistas. Gnosticismo em Joaquim de Fiore. (shrink)

The dual role of olfaction in both smelling and tasting, i.e. flavour perception, makes it an important test case for philosophical theories of sensory individuation. Indeed, the psychologist Paul Rozin claimed that olfaction is a “dual sense”, leading some scientists and philosophers to propose that we have not one, but two senses of smell: orthonasal and retronasal olfaction. In this paper I consider how best to understand Rozin’s claim, and upon what grounds one might judge there to be one or (...) two distinct olfactory modalities. I conclude that while Rozin may be right that humans have dual occurrences of an olfactory ‘sense’, the concept of a sense-modality, and hence the ‘sense’ of smell, is ambiguous between two different notions: a physiological sensory channel and an experiential modality, along the lines suggested by J. J. Gibson. Furthermore, recognising that these are complementary rather than competing conceptions of a sense-modality enables the formulation of a powerful ‘dual-concept’ framework for posing and addressing questions concerning the complex architecture of human multisensory experience. (shrink)

This volume of twelve specially commissioned essays about species draws on the perspectives of prominent researchers from anthropology , botany, developmental psychology , the philosophy of biology and science, protozoology, and zoology . The concept of species has played a focal role in both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology , and the last decade has seen something of a publication boom on the topic (e.g., Otte and Endler 1989; Ereshefsky 1992b; Paterson 1994; lambert and Spence 1995; Claridge, Dawah, (...) and Wilson 1997; Wheeler and Meier 1999; Howard and Berlocher 1998). (shrink)

No capítulo 1, “Do escudo de Aquiles à capa do Batman: o heroísmo togado e seus riscos à democracia”, discutimos a ascensão do protagonismo político no Poder Judiciário a partir da categoria antropológica do herói, expondo a delicada relação entre heroísmo e instituições democráticas. Para isso, traçamos um breve histórico do heroísmo e suas características, apresentando, posteriormente, uma analogia entre elas e a atuação do Ministro Joaquim Barbosa no curso da Ação Penal nº 470 do STF (Caso Mensalão). Tecemos também (...) alguns apontamentos sobre o Estado Democrático de Direito, a função do Poder Judiciário e os riscos que a propagação de escândalos públicos e a flexibilização de regras e princípios jurídicos podem trazer às instituições do Estado Democrático de Direito. O tema de fundo dessa análise é a relação simbiótica entre a violência e a produção mítica de heróis, segundo a teoria de Girard. No capítulo 2, “Satã: a violência na fundação da cultura”, analisamos a obra “Vejo Satã cair como um relâmpago”, de René Girard, apresentando sua teoria (mimética) e seu estudo antropológico da Bíblia e dos Evangelhos. O intuito é demonstrar a possibilidade de interpretar racionalmente dados antes percebidos como sobrenaturais, explorando, com Girard, as contribuições da revelação judaico-cristãs para a relação entre o homem, a violência e a organização político-religiosa do mundo antigo. O principal tema exposto na resenha é o da violência fundadora, base da cultura e da sociedade, que Girard identifica na figura bíblica de Satã. Mais do que mero símbolo religioso, Satã é a representação de um mecanismo de pacificação deflagrado em situações de crise social. Seu modus operandi consiste na reunião da sociedade contra um inimigo comum, um bode expiatório contra o qual levantam-se falsas acusações que sustentam sua perseguição e assassinato. Consideramos esse tema fundamental para a moderna e contemporânea compreensão dos processos de perseguição e vitimização político-social. A revelação cristã é a entrada em cena, no campo histórico, de um pensamento que se coloca francamente ao lado da vítima acusada pela comunidade. As ideologias penais da proteção do débil, os direitos individuais e os direitos humanos são efeitos políticos e jurídico do triunfo da cruz sobre a cultura satânica do assassínio de bodes expiatórios. No capítulo 3, “A violência no Direito: confissão e produção de bodes expiatórios”, aplicamos a teoria mimética para compreender o instituto jurídico da confissão do ponto de vista antropológico. Com base no Livro de Jó, investigamos a origem religiosa da extração forçada de confissões e demonstramos sua íntima relação com os rituais religiosos praticados na antiguidade, que usavam da assunção de culpa como um instrumento para legitimar a violência contra seus bodes expiatórios. Com isso, pretendemos apontar para a necessidade de mitigação do valor probatório da assunção de culpa no contexto de um Estado Democrático de Direito. Incorporada às intuições jurídicas, a confissão deve ser tomada como instrumento laico e totalmente desvinculado das práticas expiatórias que lhe deram origem. No capítulo 4, “Direito penal e preocupação pelas vítimas: a renovação dos princípios de ofensividade e proteção de bens jurídicos após a experiência do totalitarismo", analisamos o surgimento e desenvolvimento da ideia de crime como ofensa a bens jurídicos. Trata-se de um ensaio de história das ideias jurídicas em que traçamos a evolução histórica das ideias de ofensividade e proteção de bens jurídicos, desde sua gênese na experiência liberal e iluminista, passando por seu enfraquecimento durante o Direito Penal nacional-socialista, até culminar em seu ressurgimento e renovação nos dias atuais. O intuito desta análise é situar o princípio da ofensividade, enquanto garantia assegurada nas Constituições do Pós-guerra, no quadro histórico da moderna preocupação pelas vítimas, efeito cultural da religião cristã que discutimos no capítulo 2 (“Satã: a violência na fundação da cultura”). Por fim, no quinto e último capítulo, “O Direito após a revelação do mecanismo vitimário”, procuramos rematar a temática do Direito no quadro da antropologia de Girard, explorando o papel desempenhado pela revelação cristã do mecanismo expiatório na cultura ocidental, especialmente no que diz respeito à formação de uma ética de proteção das vítimas, eixo fundamental dos Direitos Humanos. Por isso, demonstramos como o Direito Penal, no ocidente, está dividido entre o sacrifício e o perdão. Resultado da lógica do cristianismo sacrificial, o moderno Direito constitui-se na forma híbrida de um Katéchon: ou seja, como racionalização do mecanismo vitimário, re-direcionado, por meio das instituições jurídicas e políticas, contra atos de perseguição de minorias e vulneráveis . (shrink)

The recent literature abounds with accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of so-called predicates of personal taste, i.e. predicates whose application is, in some sense or other, a subjective matter. Relativism and contextualism are the major types of theories. One crucial difference between these theories concerns how we should assess previous taste claims. Relativism predicts that we should assess them in the light of the taste standard governing the context of assessment. Contextualism predicts that we should assess them in the (...) light of the taste standard governing the context of use. We show in a range of experiments that neither prediction is correct. People have no clear preferences either way and which taste standard they choose in evaluating a previous taste claim crucially depends on whether they start out with a favorable attitude towards the object in question and then come to have an unfavorable attitude or vice versa. We suggest an account of the data in terms of what we call hybrid relativism. (shrink)

The Cell Ontology (CL) is designed to provide a standardized representation of cell types for data annotation. Currently, the CL employs multiple is_a relations, defining cell types in terms of histological, functional, and lineage properties, and the majority of definitions are written with sufficient generality to hold across multiple species. This approach limits the CL’s utility for cross-species data integration. To address this problem, we developed a method for the ontological representation of cells and applied this method to develop a (...) dendritic cell ontology (DC-CL). DC-CL subtypes are delineated on the basis of surface protein expression, systematically including both species-general and species-specific types and optimizing DC-CL for the analysis of flow cytometry data. This approach brings benefits in the form of increased accuracy, support for reasoning, and interoperability with other ontology resources. 104. Barry Smith, “Toward a Realistic Science of Environments”, Ecological Psychology, 2009, 21 (2), April-June, 121-130. Abstract: The perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson embraces a radically externalistic view of mind and action. We have, for Gibson, not a Cartesian mind or soul, with its interior theater of contents and the consequent problem of explaining how this mind or soul and its psychological environment can succeed in grasping physical objects external to itself. Rather, we have a perceiving, acting organism, whose perceptions and actions are always already tuned to the parts and moments, the things and surfaces, of its external environment. We describe how on this basis Gibson sought to develop a realist science of environments which will be ‘consistent with physics, mechanics, optics, acoustics, and chemistry’. (shrink)

The relationship of eugenics to science is intricate and many-layered, starting with Sir Francis Galton’s original definition of eugenics as “the science of improving stock”. Eugenics was originally conceived of not only as a science by many of its proponents, but as a new, meliorative science emerging from findings of a range of nascent sciences, including anthropology and criminology in the late 19th-century, and genetics and psychiatry in the early 20th-century. Although during the years between the two World Wars many (...) central claims made by eugenicists were critiqued by scientists in these disciplines, in more recent years forms of eugenics (e.g., liberal eugenics”) have been defended as an inevitable outcome of biotechnologies and respect for autonomous choice. Understanding the shifting and varied roles that science has played in eugenics requires an appreciation of the ways in which science and values are intertwined. (shrink)

This paper focuses on an early Chinese conception of genealogical argumentation in the late Warring States text Han Feizi and a possible response it has to the problem of genealogical self-defeat as identified by Amia Srinivasan —i.e., the genealogist cannot seem to support their argument with premises their interlocutor or they themselves can accept, given their own argument. The paper offers a reading of Han Fei’s genealogical method that traces back to the meditative practice of an earlier Daoist text the (...) Zhuangzi and its communicative strategy, providing a conception of genealogy aimed at undoing fixations on political systems in order to bring about a more adaptive state—specifically, genealogy that does not require epistemological commitment to its premises. (shrink)

This thesis develops a detailed account of the emergence of for all practical purposes continuous, quasi-classical world histories from the discontinuous, stochastic micro dynamics of Minimal Bohmian Mechanics (MBM). MBM is a non-relativistic quantum theory. It results from excising the guiding equation from standard Bohmian Mechanics (BM) and reinterpreting the quantum equilibrium hypothesis as a stochastic guidance law for the random actualization of configurations of Bohmian particles. On MBM, there are no continuous trajectories linking up individual configurations. Instead, individual configurations (...) are actualized independently of each other, carving out the decoherence-induced branching structure of the universal wave function. Yet, by contrast to the Everett interpretation, branches of the universal wave function are not actualized in parallel, i.e. all at the same time. Rather, world branches, on MBM, are actualized sequentially. -/- For an introduction to MBM, the transition from BM to MBM is described, and their empirical equivalence is established. I present the conditions under which MBM can be classified as a primitive ontology (PO) theory, regarded as crucial for the acceptance of a theory as Bohmian by many proponents of BM. While rendering MBM compatible with the PO approach, it must not fall prey to the problem of communication, arising from the two-space reading of BM. -/- The issue of temporal solipsism, identified by Bell as a serious problem for his “Everett (?) theory” – the historic predecessor of MBM – is discussed. I argue that Barbour’s time capsule approach does not provide a satisfactory solution. In particular, his adopting a more than minimal psychophysical parallelism between brain processes and experience of macroscopic change is argued to be reasonable in light of our current best neuroscience, yet problematic for theories relying solely on time capsules, understood as highly structured, individual, internally static configurations. As a solution, I introduce worlds, and world histories, as key concepts in providing a link between MBM’s micro dynamics and macroscopic phenomena. Worlds, other than time capsules, are coarse-grained regions in phase- or configuration space, defined as sets of possible micro states satisfying a relation of sufficient similarity from a macroscopic perspective, with respect to a given micro state. Hence, worlds may overlap. -/- I argue that worlds thus construed are a reasonable option for replacing the disjoint macro regions of phase space, resulting from the usual way of partitioning phase space in the standard framework of Boltzmannian statistical mechanics. This move solves the issue of discontinuous change of macro variables upon the micro state crossing the boundary between different macro regions. -/- I adapt this move for MBM’s discontinuous micro dynamics in configuration space. Issues revolving around the microscopic-macroscopic distinction, particle identity, impenetrability and haecceity in light of the desideratum of particle number conservation, etc., are discussed. I provide a detailed explanation of how overlapping worlds in MBM form world histories, thereby linking up macroscopically distinct worlds. Thus, the problem of temporal solipsism is resolved in a way that is compatible with a more than minimal psychophysical parallelism. (shrink)

Significant associations have been found between specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and organ transplant rejection, autoimmune disease development, and the response to infection. Traditional searches for disease associations have conventionally measured risk associated with the presence of individual HLA alleles. However, given the high level of HLA polymorphism, the pattern of amino acid variability, and the fact that most of the HLA variation occurs at functionally important sites, it may be that a combination of variable amino acid sites shared (...) by several alleles (shared epitopes) are better descriptors of the actual causative genetic variants. Here we describe a novel approach to genetic association analysis in which genes/proteins are broken down into smaller sequence features and then variant types defined for each feature, allowing for independent analysis of disease association with each sequence feature variant type. We have used this approach to analyze a cohort of systemic sclerosis patients and show that a sequence feature composed of specific amino acid residues in peptide binding pockets 4 and 7 of HLA-DRB1 explains much of the molecular determinant of risk for systemic sclerosis. (shrink)

Hyperlogic is a hyperintensional system designed to regiment metalogical claims (e.g., “Intuitionistic logic is correct” or “The law of excluded middle holds”) into the object language, including within embedded environments such as attitude reports and counterfactuals. This paper is the first of a two-part series exploring the logic of hyperlogic. This part presents a minimal logic of hyperlogic and proves its completeness. It consists of two interdefined axiomatic systems: one for classical consequence (truth preservation under a classical interpretation of the (...) connectives) and one for “universal” consequence (truth preservation under any interpretation). The sequel to this paper explores stronger logics that are sound and complete over various restricted classes of models as well as languages with hyperintensional operators. (shrink)

We present a game mechanic called pseudo-visibility for games inhabited by non-player characters (NPCs) driven by reinforcement learning (RL). NPCs are incentivized to pretend they cannot see pseudo-visible players: the training environment simulates an NPC to determine how the NPC would act if the pseudo-visible player were invisible, and penalizes the NPC for acting differently. NPCs are thereby trained to selectively ignore pseudo-visible players, except when they judge that the reaction penalty is an acceptable tradeoff (e.g., a guard might accept (...) the penalty in order to protect a treasure because losing the treasure would hurt even more). We describe an RL agent transformation which allows RL agents that would not otherwise do so to perform some limited self-reflection to learn the training environments in question. (shrink)

Destaca-se a importância da vítima no processo de perfilamento de criminosos, pois é com base na averiguação dos traços físicos e psicológicos deixados na pessoa que sofreu o delito que é possível traçar o perfil criminal do ofensor. Constata-se a estagnação do ensino do criminal profiling no Brasil.

Background: Many people with aphasia and people without brain injury talk to themselves in their heads, i.e., have “inner speech.” Inner speech may be more preserved compared with spoken speech for some people with aphasia and may serve a variety of functions (e.g., emotion regulation), which motivates us to provide a high-fidelity characterization of it. Researchers have used multiple methods to measure this internal phenomenon in the past, which we combine here for the first time in a single study. -/- (...) Aims: We compare performance between individuals with and without aphasia on inner speech tasks that assess inner speech “inthe- moment” to general subjective impressions of inner speech to tease apart the relationship of aphasia severity to inner speech. Methods and Procedures: Twenty people with mild-moderate aphasia and twenty neurotypical controls completed several inner speech tasks, including objective silent rhyme judgements (picture, written, and auditory), subjective reports of inner speech during naming, and subjective rating scales about inner speech experience more generally. -/- Outcomes and Results: In-the-moment inner speech during silent rhyming tasks was associated with aphasia severity only for picture and written rhyming but not auditory rhyming. In-the-moment inner speech reports during silent naming were not associated with aphasia severity, nor were the subjective ratings about general inner speech experience. Individuals with and without aphasia demonstrated a variety of subjective general inner speech experiences, demonstrating heterogeneity of this phenomenon more broadly. -/- Conclusions: Methods of measuring inner speech complement each other and speak to different facets of the inner speech phenomenon, and clinicians and researchers must carefully choose the method(s) that will provide the information about inner speech that they desire. (shrink)

The electronic and muonic hydrogen energy levels are calculated very accurately [1] in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) by coupling the Dirac Equation four vector (c ,mc2) current covariantly with the external electromagnetic (EM) field four vector in QED’s Interactive Representation (IR). The c -Non Exclusion Principle(c -NEP) states that, if one accepts c as the electron/muon velocity operator because of the very accurate hydrogen energy levels calculated, the one must also accept the resulting electron/muon internal spatial and time coordinate operators (ISaTCO) (...) derived directly from c without any assumptions. This paper does not change any of the accurate QED calculations of hydrogen’s energy levels, given the simplistic model of the proton used in these calculations [1]. The Proton Radius Puzzle [2, 3] may indicate that new physics is necessary beyond the Standard Model (SM), and this paper describes the bizarre, and very different, situation when the electron and muon are located “inside” the spatially extended proton with their Centers of Charge (CoCs) orbiting the proton at the speed of light in S energy states. The electron/muon center of charge (CoC) is a structureless point that vibrates rapidly in its inseparable, non-random vacuum whose geometry and time structure are defined by the electron/muon ISaTCO discrete geometry. The electron/muon self mass becomes finite in a natural way due to the ISaTCOs cutting off high virtual photon energies in the photon propagator. The Dirac-Maxwell-Wilson (DMW) Equations are derived from the ISaTCO for the EM fields of an electron/muon, and the electron/muon “look” like point particles in far field scattering experiments in the same way the electric field from a sphere with evenly distributed charge “e” “looks” like a point with the same charge in the far field (Gauss Law). The electron’s/muon’s three fluctuating CoC internal spatial coordinate operators have eight possible eigenvalues [4, 5, 6] that fall on a spherical shell centered on the electron’s CoM with radius in the rest frame. The electron/muon internal time operator is discrete, describes the rapid virtual electron/positron pair production and annihilation. The ISaTCO together create a current that produce spin and magnetic moment operators, and the electron and muon no longer have “intrinsic” properties since the ISaTCO kinematics define spin and magnetic moment properties. (shrink)

Mark Jago has presented a dilemma for truthmaker non-maximalism—the thesis that some but not all truths require truthmakers. The dilemma arises because some truths that do not require truthmakers by the non-maximalist’s lights (e.g., that Santa Claus does not exist) are necessitated by truths that do (e.g., that Barack Obama knows that Santa Claus does not exist). According to Jago, the non-maximalist can supply a truthmaker for such a truth only by conceding the primary motivation for the view: that it (...) allows one to avoid positing strange ‘negative’ entities without adopting a non-standard account of the necessary features of ordinary things. In this paper, I sketch out and defend two plausible non-maximalist proposals that evade Jago’s dilemma. (shrink)

Many of my first students at Anzaldúa’s alma mater read Borderlands/La Frontera and concluded that Anzaldúa was not a philosopher. Hostile comments suggested that Anzaldúa’s intimately personal and poetic ways of writing were not philosophical. In response, I created “American Philosophy and Self-Culture” using backwards course design and taught variations of it in 2013, 2016, and 2018. Students spend nearly a month exploring Anzaldúa’s works, but only after reading three centuries of U.S.-American philosophers who wrote in deeply personal and literary (...) ways about self-transformation, community-building, and world-changing. The sections of this chapter: 1) describe why my first students rejected Anzaldúa as a philosopher in terms of the discipline’s parochialism; 2) present Anzaldúa’s broader understanding of herself as a philosopher; 3) summarize my reconstructed Anzaldúa-inspired American Philosophy course and outline some assignments; 4) discuss how my students respond to Borderlands/La Frontera when we read it through the lens of self-culture; and 5) explain my attempt to shape the subdiscipline of American Philosophy by teaching Anzaldúa to specialists at the 2017 Summer Institute in American Philosophy. (shrink)

In the *Science of Logic*, Hegel states unequivocally that the category of “life” is a strictly logical, or pure, form of thinking. His treatment of actual life – i.e., that which empirically constitutes nature – arises first in his *Philosophy of Nature* when the logic is applied under the conditions of space and time. Nevertheless, many commentators find Hegel’s development of this category as a purely logical one especially difficult to accept. Indeed, they find this development only comprehensible as long (...) as one simultaneously assumes that Hegel breaks his promise to let the logic do the leading. However, if Hegel were to in fact allow the logical development to be led by biological analogies at this point, problems would ensue. Not only would it contradict his own speculative method, which should secure the necessity of the categories, but it would also endanger the ontological generality of the category of life itself. Beyond undermining his method and the logical integrity of the category, however, I will argue that such a reading makes the transition to the next category of “cognition” unintelligible and problematic. My aim in the first part of this paper is to argue how logical life can be read as a pure category. I then argue in the second part how my reconstruction makes the transition to cognition intelligible without resorting to profane or supernatural interpretations. (shrink)

RESUMO: As novas tecnologias revolucionaram tanto as relações humanas quanto as formas de exploração. Com o uso massivo e a dependência das redes sociais, muitas pessoas descobriram fontes de ganhos fnanceiros a partir da exposição da imagem, seja da sua ou de outrem. Nesse cenário, a intimidade de centenas de crianças é exposta por seus pais ou responsáveis em troca de audiência, fama e recursos fnanceiros. Partindo dessa problemática, o presente artigo investiga os impactos do trabalho infantil mediante a exploração (...) da imagem e da intimidade da criança nas plataformas digitais. Por se tratar de uma nova modalidade de produção abundante de artistas mirins, suas consequências têm impactado a atual geração, sobretudo na saúde biopsicossocial. -/- PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Trabalho Infantil. Exposição Virtual. Exploração da Imagem. Redes Sociais. -/- ABSTRACT: New technologies have revolutionized both human relationships and forms of exploitation. With the massive use and dependence on social networks, many people have discovered sources of fnancial gain from the exposure of the image, whether theirs or someone else’s. In this scenario, the intimacy of hundreds of children is exposed by their parents or guardians in exchange for audience, fame and fnancial gain. Based on this problem, this article investigates the impacts of child labor through the exploitation of the image and intimacy of the child on digital platforms. As it is a new modality of abundant production of child artists, its consequences have impacted the current generation, especially in biopsychosocial health. -/- KEYWORDS: Child Labor. Virtual Exposure. Image Exploitation. Social networks. (shrink)

This article argues, against contemporary experimentalist criticism, that conceptual analysis has epistemic value, with a structure that encourages the development of interesting hypotheses which are of the right form to be valuable in diverse areas of philosophy. The article shows, by analysis of the Gettier programme, that conceptual analysis shares the proofs and refutations form Lakatos identified in mathematics. Upon discovery of a counterexample, this structure aids the search for a replacement hypothesis. The search is guided by heuristics. The heuristics (...) of conceptual analysis are similar to those in other interesting areas of scholarship, and so hypotheses generated by it are of the right form to be applicable to diverse areas. The article shows that the explanationist criterion in epistemology was developed and applied in this way. The epistemic value of conceptual analysis is oblique because it contributes not towards the main purpose of conceptual analysis but towards the reliable development of epistemically valuable hypotheses in philosophy and scholarship. (shrink)

RESUMO Versa o presente artigo sobre a regulação do linchamento no Direito Romano do período antigo, em especial sobre o artigo 9º da Tábua III das Leis das XII Tábuas. A partir de uma metodologia de análise qualitativa, revisão bibliográfica e interpretação textual, os autores objetivam ampliar a visão tradicional sobre o linchamento, compreendendo a institucionalização de sua prática no Direito Romano e sua função no contexto de formação da cultura jurídica do período antigo. A hipótese de trabalho é a (...) de que o artigo 9º da Tábua III das Leis das XII Tábuas apresenta, historicamente, uma forma de punição intermediária entre a linchamento popular extralegal e a pena criminal prevista em lei. Do ponto de vista jurídico-antropológico, a comprovação da hipótese permitiria concluir a ideia de que a pena praticada na antiguidade é uma evolução do controle social informal da violência. Palavras-chave: Linchamento; Direito Romano; XII Tábuas; Pena criminal. ABSTRACT The following paper is about the lynching regulation in Roman law in Ancient Era, especially in what comes about the article 9 of Table Three from Twelve Tables. Making use of a methodology based in qualitative analisys, literature review and interpretation, the auctor aim to expande the traditional view about lynching, understanding the institutionalization of their practice in Roman Law and it’s function in the legal culture in Ancient Era. The working hipothesis is that the article 9 of Table Three of Twelve Tables presents, in a historical context, a intermediate form of punishment between extralegal collective lynching and criminal penalty provided by law. From a legal-anthropological point of view, the proof of the hypothesis would allow us to conclude the idea that the penalty practiced in antiquity is an evolution of informal social control of violence. Keywords: Lynching; Roman Law; Twelve Tables; Criminal Penalty. (shrink)

Individualist subjectivism is a position in metaethics which states that moral claims are descriptions of attitudes, e.g. 'murder is wrong' means 'I disapprove of murder'. In this short article I present a novel argument against it by appealing to the conversion between first-person and third-person claims. I argue that individualist subjectivism, and more broadly, any propositions which refer to the self without a word like 'I' or me', fail to account for the fact that person with the name X saying (...) 'I' could be rephrased as anybody saying 'X', a process I call 'personalisation'. (shrink)

Esta investigação tem por objetivo geral promover uma exposição do estado da arte do conceito de dolo eventual na dogmática penal, e, como objetivo específico, estabelecer bases metodológicas de como esse conceito pode ser construído, sistematizado e delimitado em relação à culpa consciente. A delimitação dos conceitos jurídico-penais é um importante instrumento para o estabelecimento de limites ao exercício do poder punitivo estatal. O conceito de dolo, na medida em que autoriza a aplicação de penas mais rigorosas em comparação à (...) culpa, demanda que a dogmática estabeleça claramente seus limites. Tarefa necessária não apenas para o conceito geral de dolo, mas também para o controverso “dolo eventual”, figura jurídica cuja conceituação e aplicação tem propiciado intensos debates na doutrina especializada, que, há pelo menos 200 anos, discute o problema de sua distinção com relação à outra figura não menos debatida, a da culpa (consciente). Devido à dificuldade de sua resolução, o pai do finalismo, Hans Welzel, considerou a distinção entre dolo eventual e culpa consciente uma das questões mais tormentosas do direito penal. Visando contribuir para o esclarecimento do tema, esta investigação apresenta dialeticamente os principais critérios e argumentos formulados na resolução desse intrincado problema jurídico, abrangendo, para este fim, tanto a discussão do período clássico da dogmática alemã (que legou vários conceitos até hoje debatidos e usados nesta matéria) quanto da moderna dogmática jurídico-penal, que tenta, a partir de novas abordagens, resolver a “tormentosa” questão. (shrink)

Joint attention is a social-cognitive phenomenon in which two or more agents direct their attention together towards the same object. Definitions range from this rather broad conception to more specific definitions which require that, in addition, attention be directed to the same aspect of that object and that agents need to be mutually aware of their jointly attending. Joint attention is an important coordination mechanism in joint action. The capacity for engaging in joint attention, in particular in the sense of (...) this narrower definition, is frequently taken to indicate the presence of theory of mind in the participating agents, and is also implicated in the development of theory of mind. However, the prominence of sensorimotor components in establishing and sustaining episodes of joint attention — e.g., eye and head movements, pointing and vocalizations — suggests that sensorimotor approaches to social interaction may be well-placed to account for important parts of joint attention without invoking theory-of-mind abilities, and may therefore provide a valuable alternative to approaches emphasizing theory of mind. In particular, sensorimotor accounts may explain aspects of joint attention through the dynamics and regularities in the sensorimotor processes that coordinate the activities of the agents. (shrink)

Sentences about logic are often used to show that certain embedding expressions, including attitude verbs, conditionals, and epistemic modals, are hyperintensional. Yet it not clear how to regiment “logic talk” in the object language so that it can be compositionally embedded under such expressions. This paper does two things. First, it argues against a standard account of logic talk, viz., the impossible worlds semantics. It is shown that this semantics does not easily extend to a language with propositional quantifiers, which (...) are necessary for regimenting some logic talk. Second, it develops an alternative framework based on logical expressivism, which explains logic talk using shifting conventions. When combined with the standard S5π+ semantics for propositional quantifiers, this framework results in a well-behaved system that does not face the problems of the impossible worlds semantics. It can also be naturally extended with hybrid operators to regiment a broader range of logic talk, e.g., claims about what laws hold according to other logics. The resulting system, called hyperlogic, is therefore a better framework for modeling logic talk than previous accounts. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of the phrase ‘acting on behalf of another.’ To do this, acting on behalf is first distinguished from ‘acting for the sake of another,’ the latter being a matter of other-directed motivation, the former of what we call ‘normative other-directedness’—i.e., acting on the claims and duties of the other. Second, we provide a distinction between two kinds of acting on behalf of another: representation as other-directedness plus normative replacement, and normative support as other-directedness without normative (...) replacement. Third, the paper offers conditions of appropriateness for both types of acting on behalf. (shrink)

In § 35 of Sein und Zeit Heidegger’s denunciation of Gerede, idle talk, is confident and scathing. It sounds so sinister and threatening. What could Heidegger be talking about? One could cite numerous fictional characters (e.g., Pecksniff, Mrs. Gamp, Skimpole, Podsnap – all in Dickens), characters whose speech is very nearly an idiolect of bad faith. And yet there is something so fascinating and creative in their speech, an exuberance in their dissimulation, that one wouldn’t want to miss them. Could (...) idle talk in Heidegger’s sense contribute to the theoretization of Bakhtin's idea of the dialogic and heteroglossia and to the notion of discours as it has been developed by Benveniste, Barthes, and Genette? In prose fiction language is valorized (often implicitly) in terms of meaning/nonsense, serious/non-serious, full/empty. When in fiction language that is deemed low, formulaic, or “empty”-- gossip, chatter, prattle, idiotismes – comes to the fore the narrative elements falters, “nothing much” is said. But a kind of speech as act and process is foregrounded. It is this kind of inadvertence in language, its “idling” state, that Gerede points to. (shrink)

O utopianismo científico de Neurath é a proposta para que as ciências sociais se envolvam na elaboração, desenvolvimento e comparação de cenários contrafactuais, as ‘utopias’. Tais cenários podem ser entendidos como peças centrais de experimentos de pensamento científicos, isto é, em exercícios da imaginação que não apenas promovem a revisão conceitual, mas também estimulam a criatividade para lidar com problemas vivenciados, já que utopias são esforços para imaginar como o futuro poderia ser. Ademais, experimentos de pensamento utópicos podem oferecer conhecimento (...) científico para informar debates e decisões políticas, contribuindo para formatar a sociedade. Este ensaio reconstrói um evento histórico como um exemplo da metodologia utopianista de Neurath. No final dos anos 1970 e início dos anos 1980, uma comissão científica e política designada pelo parlamento da Alemanha Ocidental inventou e comparou quatro cenários para políticas energético-econômicas futuras. Conclusões da comissão informaram decisões políticas que puseram a Alemanha Ocidental (e depois reunificada) em um caminho para se tornar uma potência industrial verde. Uma parte fundamental do trabalho da comissão envolveu um apelo à imaginação, permitindo a caracterização sob a metodologia de Neurath. (shrink)

In the article, based on the philosophical analysis of the concept of "three-dimensional space", a model of multidimensional space is constructed, reflecting the properties of intersections of multidimensional spaces. The model reveals some unusual aspects of multidimensional spaces.

There is an important sense in which one can be sure without being certain, i.e., without assigning unit probability. I will offer an explication of this sense of sureness, connecting it with the level of credence that a rational agent would need to have to be confident that she won’t ever lose her confidence. A simple formal result then gives us an explicit formula connecting the threshold α for credence needed for confidence with the threshold needed for being sure: one (...) needs 1−(1−α) to be sure. I then suggest that stepping between α and 1−(1−α) gives a procedure that generates an interesting hierarchy of credential thresholds. (shrink)

Few things have impacted our lives as much as science and technology, but how we developed science and civilisation is one of the most challenging questions that has not yet been well explained. Attempting to identify the central driver, leading scientists have highlighted the role of culture, cooperation and geography. They focus thus on broad factors that are important basic preconditions but that we cannot directly influence. To better address the question, this paper integrates evidence from evolutionary biology, cognitive science, (...) methodology, archaeology and anthropology. The paper identifies 9 main preconditions necessary for contemporary science, which include 6 main preconditions for civilisation. Using a kind of quasi-experimental research design we observe that some cultures (experimental groups) met the preconditions while other cultures (control groups) did not. Among the preconditions, we explain how our mind's evolved methodological abilities (to observe, solve problems and experiment) have directly enabled acquiring knowledge about the world and collectively developing increasingly sophisticated methods (such as mathematics and more systematic experimentation) that have enabled science and civilisation. We have driven the major revolutions throughout our history – the palaeolithic technological and agricultural revolutions and later the so-called scientific, industrial and digital revolutions – by using our methodological abilities in new ways and developing new methods and tools, i.e. through methodological revolutions. Viewing our methods as the main mechanism through which we have directly developed scientific and technological knowledge, and thus science and civilisation, provides a new framework for understanding science and the history of science. Viewing humans as homo methodologicus, using an expanding methodological toolbox, provides a nuanced explanation of how we have been directly able to meet our needs, solve problems and develop vast bodies of technological and scientific knowledge. By better understanding the origin and foundations of science, we can better understand their limits and, most importantly, how to push those limits. We can do so especially by addressing the evolved cognitive constraints and biases we face and improving the methods we use. (shrink)

O autor analisa os postulados do finalismo e retira suas consequências para a delimitação do conceito de dolo. Dentre essas consequências, defende que o reconhecimento do dolo eventual na estrutura finalista do delito acontece de forma incoerente, devido, sobretudo, aos postulados que fizeram do finalismo uma das teorias mais aceitas pela doutrina, a saber: o respeito às estruturas lógico-objetiva e a inclusão do dolo no tipo subjetivo.