The objective of Working Group 4 of the COST Action NET4Age-Friendly is to examine existing policies, advocacy, and funding opportunities and to build up relations with policy makers and funding organisations. Also, to synthesize and improve existing knowledge and models to develop from effective business and evaluation models, as well as to guarantee quality and education, proper dissemination and ensure the future of the Action. The Working Group further aims to enable capacity building to improve interdisciplinary participation, to promote knowledge (...) exchange and to foster a cross-European interdisciplinary research capacity, to improve cooperation and co-creation with cross-sectors stakeholders and to introduce and educate students SHAFE implementation and sustainability. To enable the achievement of the objectives of Working Group 4, the Leader of the Working Group, the Chair and Vice-Chair, in close cooperation with the Science Communication Coordinator, developed a template to map the current state of SHAFE policies, funding opportunities and networking in the COST member countries of the Action. On invitation, the Working Group lead received contributions from 37 countries, in a total of 85 Action members. The contributions provide an overview of the diversity of SHAFE policies and opportunities in Europe and beyond. These were not edited or revised and are a result of the main areas of expertise and knowledge of the contributors; thus, gaps in areas or content are possible and these shall be further explored in the following works and reports of this WG. But this preliminary mapping is of huge importance to proceed with the WG activities. In the following chapters, an introduction on the need of SHAFE policies is presented, followed by a summary of the main approaches to be pursued for the next period of work. The deliverable finishes with the opportunities of capacity building, networking and funding that will be relevant to undertake within the frame of Working Group 4 and the total COST Action. The total of country contributions is presented in the annex of this deliverable. (shrink)

Sheep production is the most representative livestock activities in Brazil and in the world. However, the reproductive performance of these animals is determined by factors genetic, physical environment, management and, especially, nutritional. Thirty half-breed lambs from Dorper × Santa Inês were used, with initial weight and age of 31.87 ± 0.5 kg and 157 days, respectively. These animals were prepared on a diet with three food levels (ad libitum, 30% and 70%). Morphometric measurements were measured at intervals of 16 to (...) 20 days in 56 experimental days. The measurements performed were scrotal circumference (CE), chest circumference (CT), body condition score (ECC), withers height (AC) and scrotal bag thickness (EBE), body weight (CP) and semen collection. Interaction occurrence for biometric measurements between food levels and age (p <0.05). The TC and ECC values were higher in animals fed ad libitum (p <0.001). EBE had higher values in animals ad libitum and at 211 days of age (p <0.001). The CP was increasing for the animals ad libitum and (p <0.05) throughout the experiment, while the T30 was only in the initial period. T70 animals did not grow during the whole experiment. CE was influenced by diet (p <0.001) and age (p <0.001) independently. So that animals under food restriction had less development and was higher in older animals. The AC values were influenced only by age (p <0.001), demonstrating the effect of age growth. We conclude that it is not advantageous to submit lambs, it corrects food reproduction. Although it was not possible to assess whether initial malnutrition would bring future problems for the animal's seminal quality, it proved to be immensely negative for the onset of puberty and the development of reproductive structures. -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS AKUMBUGU, F. E., et al. 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Prediction of postpubertal reproductive potential according to prepubertal body weight, testicular size, and testosterone concentration using multiple regression analysis in Kıvırcık ram lambs. Turkish journal of veterinary and animal sciences, v. 32, n. 5, p. 335-343, 2008. JUCÁ, A. F. et al. Performance of the Santa Ines breed raised on pasture in semiarid tropical regions and factors that explain trait variation. Tropical animal health and production, v. 46, n. 7, p. 1249-1256, 2014. FOURIE, P. J. et al. Scrotal, testicular and semen characteristics of young Dorper rams managed under intensive and extensive conditions. Small Ruminant Research, v. 54, n. 1-2, p. 53-59, 2004. GUNN, R. G.; SIM, D. A.; HUNTER, E. A. Effects of nutrition in utero and in early life on the subsequent lifetime reproductive performance of Scottish Blackface ewes in two management systems. Animal Science, v. 60, n. 2, p. 223-230, 1995. HÖTZEL, M. J. et al. Morphometric and endocrine analyses of the effects of nutrition on the testis of mature Merino rams. Reproduction, v. 113, n. 2, p. 217-230, 1998. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). Produção Pecuária municipal. Rio de Janeiro, v. 46, p.1-8, 2018. KENYON, P. R.; MALONEY, S. K.; BLACHE, D. Review of sheep body condition score in relation to production characteristics. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, v. 57, n. 1, p. 38-64, 2014. KHERADMAND, A.; BABAEI, H.; ALI BATAVANI, R. Effect of improved diet on semen quality and scrotal circumference in the ram. Veterinarski arhiv, v. 76, n. 4, p. 333-341, 2006. KORKMAZ, M. K.; EMSEN, E. Growth and reproductive traits of purebred and crossbred Romanov lambs in Eastern Anatolia. Anim. Reprod., v. 13, n. 1, p. 3-6, 2016. KRIDLI, R. T. et al. Age at puberty and some biological parameters of Awassi and its first crosses with Charollais and Romanov rams. Italian journal of animal science, v. 5, n. 2, p. 193-202, 2006. LOUW, D. F. J.; JOUBERT, D. M. Puberty in the male Dorper sheep and Boer goat. S. Afr. J. Agric. Sci, v. 7, p. 509-520, 1964. MAIA, A. S. C.; SILVA, R. G.; ANDRADE, P. C. Efeitos da temperatura e da movimentação do ar sobre o isolamento térmico do velo de ovinos em câmara climática. Revista Brasileira de Zootecnia, v. 38, n. 1, p. 104-108, 2009. MARTINS, R. D. et al. Avaliação da sazonalidade reprodutiva de carneiros Santa Inês criados no Distrito Federal. R. Bras. Zootec., Viçosa, v. 32, n. 6, supl. 1, p. 1594-1603, Dec. 2003. MENDES, A. M. P. et al. Zoneamento bioclimático para a raça ovina Dorper no Estado de Pernambuco. Pesquisa Agropecuária Brasileira, v. 49, n. 12, p. 986-993, 2014. MOULLA, F. et al. Characterization of the onset of puberty in Tazegzawt lambs, an endangered Algerian sheep: Body weight, thoracic perimeter, testicular growth, and seminal parameters. Veterinary world, v. 11, n. 7, p. 889, 2018. NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (NRC). Nutrient Requirements of Small Ruminants: Sheep, Goats, Cervids, and New World Camelids. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2007. NOTTER, D. R.; LUCAS, J. R.; MCCLAUGHERTY, F. S. Accuracy of estimation of testis weight from in situ testis measures in ram lambs. Theriogenology, v. 15, n. 2, p. 227-234, 1981. SEJIAN, V. et al. Effect of body condition score on the allometric measurements and reproductive performance of Garole X Malpura ewes under hot semi-arid environment. Journal of Dairy, Veterinary & Animal Research, v. 2, n. 6, p. 1-4, 2015. PACHECO, A.; MADELLA-OLIVEIRA, A. F.; QUIRINO, C. R. Biometria e formas dos testículos em cordeiros da raça Santa Inês explorados em regime de manejo intensivo. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Agrárias, v. 5, n. 1, p. 123-128, 2010. REGO NETO, A. A. et al. Population genetic structure of Santa Inês sheep in Brazil. Tropical animal health and production, v. 50, n. 3, p. 503-508, 2018. RHIND, S. M. Effects of maternal nutrition on fetal and neonatal reproductive development and function. Animal Reproduction Science, v. 82, p. 169-181, 2004. RIBEIRO, E. L. A.; GONZÁLEZ-GARCÍA, E. Indigenous sheep breeds in Brazil: potential role for contributing to the sustainability of production systems. Tropical animal health and production, v. 48, n. 7, p. 1305-1313, 2016. RIBEIRO, M. S. et al. Repeatability and effect of age on reproductive characteristics in Santa Ines rams. Archivos de zootecnia, v. 67, n. 257, p. 143-147, 2018. RUSSEL, A. J. F.; DONEY, J. M.; GUNN, R. G. Subjective assessment of body fat in live sheep. The Journal of Agricultural Science, v. 72, n. 3, p. 451-454, 1969. SILVA, N. V. et al. Medidas in vivo e da carcaça e constituintes não carcaça de ovinos alimentados com diferentes níveis do subproduto agroindustrial da goiaba. Revista Brasileira de Saúde e Produção Animal, v. 17, n. 1, p. 101-115, 2016. SILVA, P. et al. Influence of placentally mediated fetal growth restriction on the onset of puberty in male and female lambs. Reproduction, v. 122, n. 3, p. 375-383, 2001. SIQUEIRA FILHO, E. R. Influência dos níveis protéicos fornecidos na dieta sobre o sistema reprodutivo de carneiros. 2007. 75 f. Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual Paulista, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia de Botucatu, 2007. SOUZA, J. S da et al. Biometric measurements of Santa Inês meat sheep reared on Brachiaria brizantha pastures in Northeast Brazil. Plos one, v. 14, n. 7, p. e0219343, 2019. (shrink)

ÍNDICE Prefacio. Pensamientos sobre la violencia. Un libro como un bricolage. Ana Belén Blanco – María Soledad Sánchez | 9 Prólogo. La violencia como “objeto”. Una Aproximación Teórica. Sergio Tonkonoff | 19 I. Violencia, mito y religión. Rubén Dri | 35 II. Violencia, religión y mesianismo: reflexiones desde la filosofía judía. Emmanuel Taub | 53 III. Religión y violencia. Una mirada desde lo implícito y lo relacional. Gustavo A. Ludueña | 65 IV. Escrito en el cuerpo: la pregunta por (...) la violencia en algunas ficciones contemporáneas. VII. Política y Violencia: Una Introducción. Miguel Ángel Rossi | 129 VIII. Reflexiones sobre la violencia (y la política). Ezequiel Ipar | 147 IX. Variables de la violencia generalizada: real de la época. Carlos Gustavo Motta | 159 X. La función de la cópula Y en el título “violencia y espectáculo”. Daniel Mundo | 169 XI. Muerte, violencia y prohibición: ¿vínculo histórico o constitutivo? Martina Lassalle | 179 XII. Criminalización, Juventud y Delito. Algunas consideraciones teórico-metodológicas. Sergio Tonkonoff | 205 XIII. Activismo de los derechos humanos, tribunales y policías. Sofía Tiscornia | 233 El Docke. Ensayo fotográfico. Henrik Malmström | 247. (shrink)

Reseña al libro de María Rosa Palazón Mayoral titulado "La estética en México. Siglo XX. Diálogo entre filósofos". El libro reseñado es de gran importancia al compilar las propuestas teóricas sobre el tema de pensadores tan destacados como Antonio Caso, José Vasconcelos, Alfonso Reyes, Samuel Ramos, Eduardo Nicol, María Zambrano, Ramón Xirau, Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, Joaquín Sánchez Mcgrégor, Bolívar Echeverría, Néstor García Canclini, María Noël Lapoujade, Ana María Martínez de la Escalera, Silvia Durán Payán y muchos otros.

Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations. Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on (...) concrete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller argued about a fundamental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-homogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished in the radical one, while a moderate version can reconcile vulnerability with human enhancement. Thus, vulnerability, a concept that has recently gained much importance as an anthropological category in contemporary ethics, is not necessarily at odds with any transhumanist project. (shrink)

I present a novel position vis-à-vis the views in the Latin American philosophy literature regarding whether subjects more aptly use "Hispanic" or "Latinx" to refer to Hispanic- or-Latinx people. To this end, I will argue (C) the term "Afro-Latinx" is more apt than "Hispanic" or "Latinx" in a significant number of cases. This conclusion is based on three premises. The first premise (P1) is that use of "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black racism, US (...) society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The second premise (P2) is that that neither the term "Hispanic" nor the term "Latinx" provide subjects with this understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black racism, US society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The third premise (P3) is that the term "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with more understanding of these events than the terms, "Hispanic" and "Latinx.” I present three cases which feature the experiences of Afro-Dominican people. The 1992 murder of Dominican man Kiko García by New York Police officer O’Keefe is first case. The second case is the Washington Heights Uprising that ensued Kiko García’ murder. An instance where a nightclub bouncer in the Dominican Republic denies a Dominican women entry because of her hair texture composes the third case. (shrink)

The recent health crisis experienced by all nations in the world created detrimental change in the countenance of educational sector especially in the new mode of delivering the instructions as measure in containing the virus and as well as continuing education. In the works of literature, little to no attention was given to the formulation of the most essential learning competencies (MELCs) as strategic measure for modular learning. This paves the way to probe the lived experiences of the teachers pertaining (...) to the compromised competencies under MELCs. Anchoring to the Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development by Vgotsky, this study utilized Interpretative Phenomenological Research Design with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) popularized by Moustakas and modified by Van Kaam as approach to analyzed the transcripts. Using purposive sampling, there were 7 informants participated the study. They are all qualified according to the inclusion criteria set by the study. The study generated three themes which are: The Compromised, The Cut-short, and The Champion. These themes elaborated the lived experiences of the teachers using the Most Essential Learning Competencies forwarded to the students. It is recommended that the learning support should be magnified in the new learning modality. Hence, the Most Essential Learning Competencies will be not be compromised. (shrink)

La crisis en la que estamos inmersos tiene entre sus causas una profunda crisis de relaciones entre las personas y los Estados. Si superamos esta crisis de relaciones, asumiendo nuevos paradigmas políticos y sociales, aseguraremos la base de una nueva convivencia democrática, integradora y solidaria, que responda al reto de la globalización y la interdependencia. Sólo se saldrá de la crisis de relaciones desde valores basados en la solidaridad, asentada en la confianza mutua. Algunas propuestas para regenerar el sistema de (...) valores apelan el paradigma de la fraternidad: la globalización de la solidaridad como respuesta a la crisis de la globalización. (shrink)

Giere’s analysis of the epistemic role of fiction in science and literature is the representative of antifictionists. Our research finds the three inconsistencies in his main paper regarding the comparison of fiction in scientific models and literary works. We analyze his argument and offer our solution to the issue favoring the perspective of fictionalism. Further, we support a typological differentiation of false representation in science into fictional and fictitious. The value of this differentiation we demonstrate by giving the example of (...) digital organisms in system biology. The paper aims to help better understanding of fiction in science and to avoid the oversimplification of literary fiction. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper delves into the inadequacy of attempting to reduce community-based benefits solely to individual goods, highlighting the intricate dynamics shaping the well-being of both individuals and the collective. Grounded in Aristotelian distinctions, the argument challenges Hartney's stance by emphasizing the intrinsic value of corrective justice within communities. It explores the interplay between distributive and corrective justice, asserting that the enforcement of corrective measures, essential for societal harmony, transcends individual benefits. The discussion extends to the multifaceted nature of community-based (...) benefits, encompassing shared values, common goods, social cohesion, and collective efforts. Overlooking these complexities oversimplifies the rich tapestry of societal interactions, diminishing the inherent value of communities in promoting the well-being of their members. The abstract advocates for a holistic understanding that appreciates the interconnected and collective nature of these benefits for a comprehensive comprehension of societal flourishing. (shrink)

I discuss an aspect of the relation between accounts of de se thought and the phenomenon of immunity to error through misidentification. I will argue that a deflationary account of the latter—the Simple Account, due to Evans —will not do; a more robust one based on an account of de se thoughts is required. I will then sketch such an alternative account, based on a more general view on singular thoughts, and show how it can deal with the problems I (...) raise for the Simple Account. (shrink)

The paper defends a version of Direct Reference for indexicals on which reference-fixing material (token-reflexive conditions) plays the role of an ancillary presupposition.

Trope theory is an increasingly prominent contender in contemporary debates about the existence and nature of properties. But it suffers from ambiguity concerning the nature of a trope. Disambiguation reveals two fundamentally different concepts of a trope: modifier tropes and module tropes. These types of tropes are unequally suited for metaphysical work. Modifier tropes have advantages concerning powers, relations, and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes have advantages concerning perception, causation, character-grounding, and the ontology of substance. Thus, the choice between modifier (...) tropes and module tropes is significant and divides the advantages of trope theory simpliciter. In addition, each resulting trope theory is unstable: modifier trope theory threatens to collapse into realism and module trope theory threatens to collapse into austere nominalism. This invites reflection on the stability of trope theory in general. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to show that the existing Spanish secular model should be defined in terms of collaboration. Religious freedom is interpreted by Spanish judges in a Catholic framework, as an implementation of the Second Vatican Council's Declarations and Constitutions. In this sense, the Catholic Church has managed to impose its authority through privileged agreements with the Spanish State. _Keywords:_ religious freedom, secularism, Spain, religious law.

In a recent paper, Peacocke (2001) continues an ongoing debate with McDowell and others, providing renewed arguments for the view that perceptual experiences and some other mental states have a particular kind of content, nonconceptual content. In this article I want to object to one of the arguments he provides. This is not because I side with McDowell in the ongoing debate about nonconceptual content; on the contrary, given the way I understand it, my views are closer to Peacocke’s, and (...) have been strongly influenced by him. It is just that I am not persuaded by the particular argument I will be questioning here. (shrink)

In 2020, the European Union announced the award of the contract for the biometric part of the new database for border control, the Entry Exit System, to two companies: IDEMIA and Sopra Steria. Both companies had been previously involved in the development of databases for border and migration management. While there has been a growing amount of publicly available documents that show what kind of technologies are being implemented, for how much money, and by whom, there has been limited engagement (...) with digital methods in this field. Moreover, critical border and security scholarship has largely focused on qualitative and ethnographic methods. Building on a data feminist approach, we propose a transdisciplinary methodology that goes beyond binaries of qualitative/quantitative and opacity/transparency, examines power asymmetries and makes the labour of coding visible. Empirically, we build and analyse a dataset of the contracts awarded by two European Union agencies key to its border management policies – the European Agency for Large-Scale Information Systems (eu-LISA) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). We supplement the digital analysis and visualisation of networks of companies with close reading of tender documents. In so doing, we show how a transdisciplinary methodology can be a device for making datafication ‘intelligible’ at the European Union borders. (shrink)

There is a largely unrecognized ambiguity concerning the nature of a trope. Disambiguation throws into relief two fundamentally different conceptions of a trope and provides two ways to understand and develop each metaphysical theory that put tropes to use. In this paper I consider the relative merits that result from differences concerning a trope’s ability to ground the character of ordinary objects. I argue that on each conception of a trope, there are unique implications and challenges concerning character-grounding.

In this paper I explore Michael Loux’s important distinction between “tropes” and “tropers”. First, I argue that the distinction throws into relief an ambiguity and discrepancy in the literature, revealing two fundamentally different versions of trope theory. Second, I argue that the distinction brings into focus unique challenges facing each of the resulting trope theories, thus calling into question an alleged advantage of trope theory—that by uniquely occupying the middle ground between its rivals, trope theory is able to recover and (...) preserve the insights of these views. Ultimately, the distinction suggests that trope theory is a divided house. (shrink)

I examine the meaning and merits of a premise in the Exclusion Argument, the causal closure principle that all physical effects have physical causes. I do so by addressing two questions. First, if we grant the other premises, exactly what kind of closure principle is required to make the Exclusion Argument valid? Second, what are the merits of the requisite closure principle? Concerning the first, I argue that the Exclusion Argument requires a strong, “stringently pure” version of closure. The latter (...) employs two qualifications concerning the physical sufficiency and relative proximity of the physical cause required for every physical effect. The second question is addressed in two steps. I begin by challenging the adequacy of the empirical support offered by David Papineau for closure. Then I assess the merits of “level” and “domain” versions of stringently pure closure. I argue that a domain version lacks adequate and non-question-begging support within the context of the Exclusion Argument. And I argue that the level version leads to a puzzling metaphysics of the physical domain. Thus, we have grounds for rejecting the version of closure required for the Exclusion Argument. This means we can resist the Exclusion Argument while avoiding the implausible implications that come with rejecting one of its other premises. That is, because there are grounds to reject causal closure, one can reasonably affirm the non-overdeterminative causal efficacy of conscious mental states while denying that the latter are identical with physical states. (shrink)

There are propositions constituting the content of fictions—sometimes of the utmost importance to understand them—which are not explicitly presented, but must somehow be inferred. This essay deals with what these inferences tell us about the nature of fiction. I will criticize three well-known proposals in the literature: those by David Lewis, Gregory Currie, and Kendall Walton. I advocate a proposal of my own, which I will claim improves on theirs. Most important for my purposes, I will argue on this basis, (...) against Walton’s objections, for an illocutionary-act account of fiction, inspired in part by some of Lewis’s and Currie’s suggestions, but (perhaps paradoxically) above all by Walton’s deservedly influential views. (shrink)

Breast cancer remains a significant health concern worldwide, necessitating the development of effective diagnostic tools. In this study, we employ a neural network-based approach to analyze the Wisconsin Breast Cancer dataset, sourced from Kaggle, comprising 570 samples and 30 features. Our proposed model features six layers (1 input, 1 hidden, 1 output), and through rigorous training and validation, we achieve a remarkable accuracy rate of 99.57% and an average error of 0.000170 as shown in the image below. Furthermore, our investigation (...) identifies the most influential features in breast cancer diagnosis, shedding light on the key determinants of malignancy. Notably, we find that factors such as fractal dimension_se, symmetry worst, compactness_worst, symmetry_se, and smoothness_se play pivotal roles in distinguishing between benign and malignant cases. This research contributes to the ongoing efforts to enhance breast cancer diagnosis, providing valuable insights into feature importance and showcasing the potential of neural networks in medical applications. Our findings have implications for improving early detection and treatment strategies, ultimately contributing to improved patient outcomes. (shrink)

El presente artículo analiza la asimilación en la obra de Tomás de Aquino de los principios fundamentales del necesitarismo físico aristotélico así como la introducción, desde el punto de vista de la cosmología cristiana, dos tipos de fenómenos ajenos a la filosofía de la naturaleza de Aristóteles: las operaciones ocultas de la naturaleza y los milagros. Se estudia la postura del Aquinate en torno al magnetismo, las mareas, las propiedades terapéuticas de los compuestos y el origen de los poderes de (...) las figuras nigrománticas y reliquias. -/- . (shrink)

This paper discusses the proper taxonomy of the semantics-pragmatics divide. Debates about taxonomy are not always pointless. In interesting cases taxonomic proposals involve theoretical assumptions about the studied field, which might be judged correct or incorrect. Here I want to contrast an approach to the semantics-pragmatics dichotomy, motivated by a broadly Gricean perspective I take to be correct, with a contemporary version of an opposing “Wittgensteinian” view. I will focus mostly on a well-known example: the treatment of referential uses of (...) descriptions and descriptive uses of indexicals. The paper is structured as follows. I will start by characterizing in the first section the version of the Gricean approach I favor; in the second section, I will illustrate the differences between the two views by focussing on the example, and in the third section I will object to what I take to be the main Wittgensteinian consideration. (shrink)

Schiffer has given an argument against supervaluationist accounts of vagueness, based on reports of vague contents. Suppose that Al tells Bob ‘Ben was there’, pointing to a certain place, and later Bob says, ‘Al said that Ben was there’, pointing in the same direction. According to supervaluationist semantics, Schiffer contends, both Al’s and Bob’s utterances of ‘there’ indeterminately refer to myriad precise regions of space; Al’s utterance is true just in case Ben was in any of those precisely bounded regions (...) of space, and Bob’s is true just in case Al said of each of them that it is where Ben was. However, while the supervaluationist truth-conditions for Al’s utterance might be satisfied, those for Bob’s cannot; for Al didn’t say, of any of those precisely delimited regions of space, that it is where Ben was. In an earlier version of the material presented here (García-Carpintero 2000) I replied to Schiffer’s argument that supervaluationism has an independently well-motivated defense. The response is essentially based on the point that the occurrence of ‘there’ in Bob’s utterance (and of ‘tall’ in Wright’s argument) occurs in indirect discourse, and supervaluationists may allow that it shifts its referent there. Schiffer’s reply to this response shows that it was not made sufficiently clearly. In this paper I will try to improve on that score. In his more recent reply, Schiffer (2000b, 325) dismisses a proposal like the one I will make, mainly because it “undermines … a leading virtue of supervaluationism … its implication that vagueness is … not a feature of the world.” I will argue that my reply does not undermine the fundamental contentions of the supervaluationist account. (shrink)

I argue racial injustice undermines the reliability of news source reports in the information domain of racial injustice. I argue that this in turn undermines subjects’ doxastic justification in inferences they base on these news sources in the racial injustice information domain. I explain that racial injustice does this undermining through the effect of racial prejudice on news organizations’ members and the effect of society's racially unjust structure on non-dominant racial group-controlled news sources.

My general aim in this paper is to shed light on the controversial concept of a bare particular. I do so by arguing that bare particulars are best understood in terms of the individuative work they do within the framework of a realist constituent ontology. I argue that outside such a framework, it is not clear that the notion of a bare particular is either motivated or coherent. This is suggested by reflection on standard objections to bare particulars. However, within (...) the framework of a realist constituent ontology, bare particulars provide for a coherent theory of individuation—one with a potentially significant theoretical price tag, but one that also has advantages over rival theories. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Künne’s Modest Theory of truth, and develop a variation on a worry that Field expresses with respect to Horwich’s related view. The worry is not that deflationary accounts are false, but rather that, because they take propositions as truth-bearers, they are not philosophically interesting. Compatibly with the intuitions of ordinary speakers, we can understand proposition so that the proposals do account for a property that such truth-bearers have. Nevertheless, we saliently apply the truth-concept also to (...) entities such as utterances or assertions , and the de flationary accounts do not provide a similarly deflationary account for those applications. In fact, there are good reasons to suspect that no such account would be forthcoming; we need something more substantive or in flationary there. (shrink)

Since the publication of Hartry Field’s influential paper “Tarski’s Theory of Truth” there has been an ongoing discussion about the philosophical import of Tarski’s definition. Most of the arguments have aimed to play down that import, starting with that of Field himself. He interpreted Tarski as trying to provide a physicalistic reduction of semantic concepts like truth, and concluded that Tarski had partially failed. Robert Stalnaker and Scott Soames claimed then that Field should have obtained a stronger conclusion, namely that (...) Tarski’s failure in his allegedly intended physicalistic reduction was total. From another front, Hilary Putnam argued for an even more sweeping thesis: “[a]s a philosophical account of truth, Tarski’s theory fails as badly as it is possible for an account to fail.” Scott Soames followed suit also on this count, endorsing Putnam’s argument in section iii of the aforementioned paper; and John Etchemendy used a very similar argument to contend that “a Tarskian definition of truth [...] cannot possibly illuminate the semantic properties of the object language.” The paper argues that these contentions are based on several misunderstandings about the nature of a definition like Tarski’s. Regarding the Putnam-Soames-Etchemendy argument, we must apply a distinction Frege found natural to draw—and is natural to draw anyway—between what he called “constructive” definitions, definitions properly so called, which are mere stipulations, and what he described as “analytic” definitions, definitions which aim to make explicit the meaning of a term already in use. Regarding the Field-Soames-Stalnaker criticism, the paper contends that the true aims of a Tarskian truth definition are perfectly well fulfilled without Field’s amendments. (shrink)

Online education has become an essential component of education. Thus, several factors, such as the student’s learning strategy and motivation, generally contribute to their academic success. This study investigates the relationship between learning strategies, motivation, and online learning environment among 150 first-year college students. Employing correlational design, the statistical findings of the study reveal that the r coefficient of 0.59 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision (...) to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between learning strategies, motivation, and the online learning environment. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to contribute to the larger project of assessing the relative merits of different theories of substance. An important preliminary step in this project is assessing the explanatory resources of one main theory of substance, the so-called bundle theory. This article works towards such an assessment. I identify and explain three distinct explanatory challenges an adequate bundle theory must meet. Each points to a putative explanatory gap, so I call them the Gap Challenges. I consider (...) three bundle-theoretic strategies for meeting these challenges. I argue that none of them goes very far. The upshot is that, absent other strategies for meeting the challenges, bundle theory involves a significant amount of stipulation. This black box makes bundle theory relatively weak with respect to its explanatory power—unless, of course, rival theories of substance are unable to do better. (shrink)

I aim to synthesize two issues within theistic metaphysics. The first concerns the metaphysics of creaturely properties and, more specifically, the nature of unshareable properties, or tropes. The second concerns the metaphysics of providence and, more specifically, the way in which God sustains creatures, or sustenance. I propose that creaturely properties, understood as what I call modifier tropes, are identical with divine acts of sustenance, understood as acts of property-conferral. I argue that this *theistic conferralism* is attractive because it integrates (...) trope theory and the doctrine of sustenance in a mutually enhancing way. Taking modifier tropes to be divine acts mitigates certain weaknesses of trope theory and safeguards divine sustenance from the threat of both deism and occasionalism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to contextualize the study of metaphors within constructivist-informed research, in the hope that this process will orient cognitive scientists to the usefulness of implementing qualitative research methodologies, especially to using the person of the researcher as the primary research instrument. First, I explore some of the differences between Johnson and Lakoff’s Contemporary Metaphor Theory (CMT) and approaches evolving from it on one hand, and the clinical approach to metaphor based on a constructivist therapy model, (...) on the other. CMT has been one of the most significant forces that helped shift cognitive science toward an embodied approach to cognition. While it has succeeded to place physical experience back where it belongs in reason and meaning, CMT has, however, also fallen into some positivist traps which lead to problems such as a dualism, a split between the knower and the known, and with that, to a distrust of introspective, first-person accounts. In the process of finding conceptual metaphors — generalizations that govern metaphorical expressions — CMT often deletes the idiosyncratic characteristics and presuppositions implicit in linguistic metaphors; it divorces them from people’s sensory experiences, the “here and now” and the intent of their communications. The constructivist approach to metaphor that I present here accepts as a priori assumptions much of what workers of CMT are out to prove. In particular, it takes the correlation of conceptual metaphors and physical experience, as well as the unity of language and thought as pragmatic givens. Emulating the constructivist therapist’s approach to metaphors, I show how it is possible to deconstruct conceptual metaphors into minute sensory distinctions, using one’s own person as the main tool, for the purpose of helping people change their experiences in desired ways, at will. I illustrate this process by numerous examples from a wide field of applications, including mathematics education and psychotherapy. (shrink)

As the subtitle “A Syncretistic Account of Fictional Entities” makes clear, Alberto Voltolini intends in this book to argue for a syncretic view of the ontology and the semantics of fiction. In the process, he offers sympathetic and clear presentations of the main contenders in the field, discussing first ontological matters (chapters 1–4) and then semantic questions (chapters 5–6), and concluding with an ‘ontological’ argument for the allegedly syncretic brand of realism about fictional entities he has by then endorsed. The (...) book will therefore be very useful for all those who want to have a guided overview of the state of the art in the field, and very helpful if used as a main text for an introductory graduate course. (shrink)

This is a review of Umberto Eco's novel La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana (2004) with a special focus on its portrayal of the self and memory, and reflections on the way the novel's treatment reveals the intertextual makeup of personal identity and of ideology, and their grounding in a specific cultural and discursive environment. -/- Note: Downloadable file is in Spanish: "La identidad intertextual: La misteriosa llamada de la reina Loana".

I argue that Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda differed in their conclusions regarding the status of Indigenous persons at least partly because las Casas had significant, yet incomplete, understanding of Indigenous persons, culture and societies and Sepúlveda had mere knowledge of them. To this end, I show that the epistemic state of understanding explains why Las Casas properly concluded that Indigenous persons deserve the same moral status afforded to Europeans. And I show how las Casas’ understanding (...) of Indigenous persons, culture and societies related to what he got wrong about Indigenous persons. (shrink)

To naturalize the concept of teleological causality in biology it is not enough to avoid assuming backward causation or positing the existence of an inscrutable te- leological essence like the élan vital. We must also specify how the causality of or- ganisms is distinct from the causality of designed artifacts like thermostats or asym- metrically oriented processes like the ubiquitous increase of entropy. Historically, the concept of teleological causality in biology has been based on an analogy to the familiar experience (...) of purposeful action. This is experienced by us as a disposition to achieve a general type of end that is represented in advance, and which regulates the selection of efficient means to achieve it. Inspired by this analogy, to bridge the gap between biology and human agency we describe a simple molecular pro- cess called autogenesis that shows how two linked complementary self-organizing processes can give rise to higher-order relations that resemble purposeful disposi- tions, though expressed in terms of constraints on molecular processes. Because the autogenic model is described in sufficient detail to be empirically realizable, it provides a proof of principle demonstrating a simple form of teleological causality. (shrink)

As touch remains commonly defined by the closeness it physically implies and it rhetorically evokes, the mere notion of distant touch and of distal haptic perception seems peculiar. But Aristotle’s perspective, which I wish to take as a point of departure, is firm: we perceive the objects of touch, the hot and the cold, the hard and the soft, the curved and the sharp, through other things: δι' ἑτέρων. In this article, I would like to explore this ἕτερος by showing (...) how the otherness of perception always implies an intermediary, a middle point (μέσος), i.e. an other not so other, an other that is able to translate the much more distant otherness of the perceived object. To explore these forgotten layers of alterity that fall into what we commonly conceive of as the impalpable emptiness of distance, I propose to study the idea of distant touch from the perspective of phenomenological aesthetics. In order to do so, I will first examine some aspects of the Husserlian account of perception and will then focus on the phenomenology of distant touch in Alejandra Costamagna’s novel El Sistema del Tacto [The System of Touch] (2018). (shrink)

This commentary is devoted to offer a rejoinder to an argument by Schiffer against semantic accounts of vagueness (typically relying on supervaluationist techniques) based on indirect discourse. A short sketch of the argument can be found on pp. 246-48 of ‘Vagueness and Partial Belief’ ; a more elaborated presentation occurs in “TWOIs sues of Vagueness”.

I critically discuss some aspects of Mark Sainsbury's Reference without Referents, from an otherwise sympathetic viewpoint. My objections focus on the adequacy of the truth-conditional framework that Sainsbury presupposes. I argue that, as semantic theories, truth-conditional accounts are both too ambitious, and too austere to be fully explanatory, and that both problems have consequences for an account of reference. The latter problem has to do with the difficulties to capture in a truth-conditional framework the descriptive contribution of indexicals and, in (...) my view, proper names. The former has to do with the non-semantic contribution of context to the determination of truth-conditions in general and reference in particular. /// En este artículo discuto críticamente algunos aspectos del libro de Mark Sainsbury Reference without Referents, desde una perspectiva por lo demás próxima. Mis objeciones se centran en la adecuación del marco que Sainsbury presupone: la semántica de condiciones de verdad. Argumento que tales propuestas son, en tanto que teorías semánticas, a la vez demasiado ambiciosas y demasiado austeras para ser genuinamente explicativas, y que ambos problemas tienen consecuencias en lo que respecta a la explicación de la referencia. El segundo problema tiene que ver con las dificultades para representar la contribución descriptiva de los deícticos y, en mi opinión, de los nombres propios también en el marco de condiciones de verdad. El primero tiene que ver con la contribución no semántica del contexto a la determinación de las condiciones de verdad en general y la referencia en particular. (shrink)

The post-Marxist stance against class politics unearths significant political demands often neglected by Marxism. However, in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s approach, this step forward is followed by two steps back. They deny that class struggle against capitalist exploitation has any political significance for the masses or any essential link with the socialist-democratic project. But they do so at the cost of misrepresenting Marxian theory and underestimating the global phenomenon of labour exploitation. This faux pas is due to two misconceptions (...) at the core of the Laclau-Mouffean critique: an ambiguity in the use they make of the economic concept of surplus, and an incorrect identification of working-class and productive workers. With Laclau and Mouffe, I share the firm conviction in the necessity of a post-Marxian theory. Nevertheless, post-Marxism will be just as robust as our Marxist bedrocks. (shrink)

There is a relationship between touch and language at the heart of which lies the philosophical problem of the secret. As Derrida points out, since Aristotle touch has been qualified as ἄδηλον: secret, nocturnal, barely apparent. After some brief etymological remarks, in this article, I explore the mystery that touch represents for language through Levinas’ concept of the secret, thematizing two levels: first, that of the contemporary critique of ocularcentrism, then the level of the tactile experiences that can hardly be (...) put into words. (shrink)

This paper tries to address the ethical question of Nazism from the point of view of social relations. That implies linking the fulfilment of the fascist ideology with its economic conditions. In this sense, the main proposal is to highlight that, crimes such as those committed by the Nazi regime, are not only possible based on a monstrous bureaucratic formation but also from a permissive dynamic of production and exchange. However, the relative autonomy that we can claim over the ideological (...) factor of the phenomenon faces severe limits. In the "National-socialist" case, those limits are the declining demand, the increase in government debt and the inhibition of the productive investment of capital. It is as if Evil incarnated only at the cost of eroding its conditions of possibility. (shrink)

In Charles Mills’ essay, “White Ignorance,” and his trail-blazing monograph, The Racial Contract, he developed a view of how Whiteness or anti-Black-Indigenous-and-Latinx racism causes individuals to hold false beliefs or lack beliefs about racial injustice in particular and the world in general. I will defend a novel exegetical claim that Mills’ view is part of a more general view regarding how racial injustice can affect a subject’s epistemic standing such as whether they are justified in a belief and whether their (...) degree of confidence in the belief is rational given their evidence. Then, in light of this novel exegetical claim, I show how this interpretation of Mills’ view that racial injustice causes ignorance relates to how epistemically justified philosophers and social scientists are in the views that dominate their respective scholarly literature. (shrink)

This paper delves into the character concept as applied to reproduction. Our argument is that the prevailing functional-adaptationist perspective falls short in explaining the evolution of reproductive traits, and we propose an alternative organismal-relational approach that incorporates the developmental and interactive aspects of reproduction. To begin, we define the functional individuation of reproductive traits as evolutionary strategies aimed at enhancing fitness, and we demonstrate how this perspective influences the classification of reproductive characters and modes, the comprehension of shared traits as (...) resulting from conflicts of evolutionary interest between individuals, and the explanation of reproductive diversity. After outlining the shortcomings of this framework, we introduce an organismal-relational approach grounded in evolutionary developmental studies of reproduction. This view provides a revised classification for reproductive characters and modes and offers a new understanding of interorganismal traits that takes into account their inherently relational nature. Lastly, we present the research agenda that emerges from this approach, which addresses the core explanatory gaps left by the adaptationist perspective, including the explanation of reproductive homologies and homoplasies, the developmental constraints associated with the evolution of reproductive modes, and the evolvability of reproductive characters. (shrink)

I will argue that just and accurate assessment must involve taking into account how racial injustice affects students’ performance in their work. To this end, I will motivate what I call the RACIAL-INJUSTICE-ASSESSMENT THESIS. According to this thesis, instructors must account for how racial injustice affects a student’s work for an instructor’s judgment of her work to count as just. To motivate the RACIAL-INJUSTICE ASSESSMENT THESIS, I will defend the ACCURACY THESIS and the JUSTICE THESIS. According to the ACCURACY THESIS, (...) the accuracy of an instructor’s judgment of a student’s work will covary with the degree to which she considers how racial injustice affects the performance enshrined in the student’s the work. According to the JUSTICE THESIS, the justness of instructors’ judgments of student work covary with the degree to which instructors consider racial injustice’s effect on student work. (shrink)

The structuralist reconstruction of the metabolic biochemistry here presented is a more complete and revised version than the one presented in Donolo, Federico & Lorenzano (2006). This version, as the previous one, continues with the reconstructive task initiated by César Lorenzano (2002), but advances further on those elements which remained pendent of reconstruction: applications subsequent to the paradigmatic one, for being these “too diversified and numerous” (p. 210).In line with which is said before, the objective of this new reconstruction is (...) to make the theoretical network of the biochemistry wider, in order to be able to capture the many successful applications (paradigmatic examples or exemplars) which appear in modern university textbooks. In order to accomplish this, major conceptual precisions are being introduced which will have repercussions in a modification and increased complexity of the fundamental law implicit in the text books, but still conserving the previous basic idea. Because of all this we can say that the present article goes further into the reconstruction task of the metabolic biochemistry theory. (shrink)

A modal logic for representing analogical proportions is presented. This logic is a modal interpretation of H. Prade and G. Richard's homogeneous analogy. A tableaux system is given with some examples an intuitions.