Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy ‘at the bedside’? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions – about what we should do in any given situation – are (...) embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case, what it is that we feel we can claim to know, as well as the meaning we ascribe to different aspects of the situation or to our perception of it. Philosophy concerns fundamental questions: it is a discipline requiring us to examine the underlying assumptions we bring with us to our thinking about practical problems. Traditional academic philosophers divide their discipline into distinct areas that typically include logic: questions about meaning, truth and validity; ontology: questions about the nature of reality, what exists; epistemology: concerning knowledge; and ethics: how we should live and practice, the nature of value. Any credible attempt to analyse clinical reasoning will require us to think carefully about these types of question and the relationships between them, as they influence our thinking about specific situations and problems. So, the answers to the question we posed, about the role of philosophy at the bedside, are numerous and diverse, and that diversity is illustrated in the contributions to this thematic edition. (shrink)

In recent years, a new generation of activists has reinvigorated debate over the public commemorative landscape. While this debate is in no way limited to statues, it frequently crystallizes around public representations of historical figures who expressed support for the oppression of certain groups or contributed to their past or present oppression. In this paper, I consider what should be done about such representations. A number of philosophers have articulated arguments for modifying or removing public monuments. Joanna Burch-Brown (2017) grounds (...) her argument for removal in what I call the “honorific” function of such representations—the ways in which they express and tend to cultivate admiration for their subjects. In the first two sections of the paper, I develop a novel argument for modifying these representations based on this insight. I argue that leaving such representations unmodified in the public space tends to undermine the dignity of members of oppressed groups as well as their assurance that society and government are committed to their rights and constitutional entitlements. In the paper’s third section, I develop a “balancing test” for determining whether the relevant moral and pragmatic considerations favor making a particular representation inaccessible to the public, or recontextualizing it for public consumption. Unlike some of the existing philosophical treatments of honorific representations that focus on particular monuments, this balancing test is designed for general application to any honorific representation that satisfies the presumptive case for modification. To conclude, I offer some reasons why weak forms of recontextualization that do not involve altering institutional context may often be an insufficient remedy for the problems I describe. (shrink)

The motivational constraint on normative reasons says that a consideration is a normative reason for an agent to act only if it is logically possible for the agent to act for that reason, or at least to be moved so to act. The claim figures Zelig-like in philosophical debates about practical reasons: on hand, occasionally prominent, but never the focus of discussion. However, because it is entailed by a number of prominent views about normative reasons—including various forms of internalism and (...) some views that closely connect reasons to good practical reasoning—its truth or falsehood has important implications. Mark Schroeder (2007) and Julia Markovits (2014) have recently criticized the Motivational Constraint on the grounds of so-called “elusive reasons”: reasons for some agent to act that are such that it is logically impossible both that they are normative reasons for that agent and the agent is moved to act for those reasons. In response, a number of philosophers (Sinclair 2016; Ridge and McKeever 2012; Paakkunainen 2017) have attempted to reconcile blindspot reasons with the motivational constraint. My aim in this paper is to show that these conciliatory strategies fail to overcome the challenge posed by elusive reasons. First, I examine each strategy and argue that it unsuccessful on its own terms. Second, I adduce another type of elusive reason not heretofore discussed in the literature, and I argue that these strategies also cannot make this kind of reason consistent with the motivational constraint. Finally, I defend the existence of this kind of reason against an important objection. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy, Volume 63, Issue 2, Page 131-136, June 2022.

Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems. For one thing, (...) there are questions about how deliberation can succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume—both about agents and about the processes of reasoning they engage in—to make sense of the fact that deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a form of reasoning? For another, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action are binding on us as deliberating agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms yield valid standards for reasoning about action? The first set of issues is addressed in sections §§1–3 of the present article, while sections §§4–6 cover the second set of issues. (shrink)

Locates, discusses, and explains the transition between Nietzsche's middle and late periods represented by the first four books of _The Gay Science_.

Loneliness in medicine is a serious problem not just for patients, for whom illness is intrinsically isolating, but also for physicians in the contemporary condition of medicine. We explore this problem by investigating the ideal physician-patient relationship, whose analogy with friendship has held enduring normative appeal. Drawing from Talbot Brewer and Nir Ben-Moshe, we argue that this appeal lies in a dynamic form of companionship incompatible with static models of friendship-like physician-patient relationships: a mutual refinement of embodied virtue that draws (...) both persons together. The ideal physician-patient relationship has a dialectical character that fosters each member's improvement of phenomenologically recognizing and embodying moral virtues. A key component of this dynamic is a commitment to the common goal of the patient's health, realized through joint interactivities and conversations over time. The physician's presence to the patient's suffering—understood best as an alienating phenomenological condition for the patient—orients and discloses possibilities for virtuous caregiving by structuring the meanings of the goals, conversations, and joint narrative constitutive of their relationship. Presence to suffering, paradoxically, is perhaps an important prerequisite for this dynamic partnership. These activities dialectically build an interpretive horizon of understanding through which moral goods and character refinement—in and for the other—may become revealed for both persons in their shared being-in-the-world. This analysis of suffering, mood, and revealing of (possible) moral goods has implications for addressing the modern problem of loneliness for patients and physicians, who are increasingly inhibited from building flourishing relationships with each other. (shrink)

It is unknown to what extent medical researchers generalize study findings beyond their samples when their sample size, sample diversity, or knowledge of conditions that support external validity do not warrant it. It is also unknown to what extent medical researchers describe their results with precise quantifications or unquantified generalizations, i.e., generics, that can obscure variations between individuals. We therefore systematically reviewed all prospective studies (n = 533) published in the top four highest ranking medical journals, Lancet, New England Journal (...) of Medicine (NEJM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the British Medical Journal (BMJ), from January 2022 to May 2023. We additionally reviewed all NEJM Journal Watch clinical research summaries (n = 143) published during the same time. Of all research articles reporting prospective studies, 52.5% included generalizations beyond specific national study populations, with the numbers of articles with generics varying significantly between journals (JAMA = 12%; Lancet = 77%) (p < 0.001, V = 0.48). There was no evidence that articles containing broader generalizations or generics were correlated with larger or more nationally diverse samples. Moreover, only 10.2% of articles with generalizations beyond specific national populations reported external validity strengthening factors that could potentially support such extrapolations. There was no evidence that original research articles and NEJM Journal Watch summaries intended for practitioners differed in their use of broad generalizations, including generics. Finally, from the journal with the highest citation impact, articles containing broader conclusions were correlated with more citations. Since there was no evidence that studies with generalizations beyond specific national study populations or with generics were associated with larger, more nationally diverse samples, or with reports of population similarity that may permit extensions of conclusions, our findings suggest that the generalizations in many articles were insufficiently supported. Caution against overly broad generalizations in medical research is warranted. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 64-66.

G. A. Cohen conceptualizes socialism as luck egalitarianism constrained by a community principle. The latter mitigates certain inequalities to achieve a shared common life. This article explores the plausibility of the community constraint on inequality in light of two related problems. First, if it is voluntary, it fails as a response to “the abandonment objection” to luck egalitarianism, as it would not guarantee imprudent people sufficient resources to avoid deprivation and to function as equal citizens in a democratic society. (...) Contra Cohenite socialism, this appears unjust. Second, if it is instead enforced, coercive equalization beyond sufficiency-constrained luck egalitarianism, which is possibly necessary to achieve a shared common life, seems to require unjustified restrictions on liberty. I therefore argue that the constraint is most plausibly specified as requiring enforcement of sufficiency and only voluntary equalization thereafter. I also note, skeptically, why this constraint might be morally preferable to a purely sufficientarian alternative. (shrink)

To enable microbial colonisation of the gut mucosa, the intestinal immune system must not only react to danger signals but also recognize cues that indicate safety. Safety recognition, paradoxically, is mediated by the same environmental sensors that are involved in signalling danger. Indeed, in addition to their well established role in inducing inflammation in response to stress signals, pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and a variety of metabolic sensors also promote gut-microbiota symbiosis by responding to "microbial symbiosis factors", "resolution-associated molecular patterns", (...) markers of energy extraction and other signals indicating the absence of pathogenic infection and tissue damage. Here we focus on how the paradoxical role of immune receptors and other environmental sensors define the microbiota signature of the individual. (shrink)

Vaccination complacency occurs when perceived risks of vaccine-preventable diseases are sufficiently low so that vaccination is no longer perceived as a necessary precaution. Disease outbreaks can once again increase perceptions of risk, thereby decrease vaccine complacency, and in turn decrease vaccine hesitancy. It is not well understood, however, how change in perceived risk translates into change in vaccine hesitancy. -/- We advance the concept of vaccine propensity, which relates a change in willingness to vaccinate with a change in perceived risk (...) of infection—holding fixed other considerations such as vaccine confidence and convenience. (shrink)

Background Consent policies for post-mortem organ procurement (OP) vary throughout Europe, and yet no studies have empirically evaluated the ethical implications of contrasting consent models. To fill this gap, we introduce a novel indicator of governance quality based on the ideal of informed support, and examine national differences on this measure through a quantitative survey of OP policy informedness and preferences in seven European countries. -/- Methods Between 2017–2019, we conducted a convenience sample survey of students (n = 2006) in (...) Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Greece (GR), Slovenia (SI) and Spain (ES), asking participants about their donation preferences, as well as their beliefs and views about the policy in place. From these measures, we computed indices of informedness, policy support, and fulfilment of unexpressed preferences, which we compared across countries and consent systems. -/- Results Our study introduces a tool for analyzing policy governance in the context of OP. Wide variation in policy awareness was observed: Most respondents in DK, DE, AT and BE correctly identified the policy in place, while those in SI, GR and ES did not. Respondents in opt-out countries (AT, BE, ES and GR) tended to support the policy in place (with one exception, i.e., SI), whereas those in opt-in countries (DE and DK) overwhelmingly opposed it. These results reveal stark differences in governance quality across countries and consent policies: We found a preponderance of informed opposition in opt-in countries and a general tendency towards support–either informed or uninformed–in opt-out countries. We also found informed divergence in opt-in countries and a tendency for convergence–either informed or uninformed–among opt-out countries. -/- Conclusion Our study offers a novel tool for analyzing governance quality and illustrates, in the context of OP, how the strengths and weaknesses of different policy implementations can be estimated and compared using quantitative survey data. (shrink)

Hypocrisy is widely thought to be morally objectionable in a way that undermines the hypocrite’s moral standing to blame others. To wit, we seem to intuitively accept the “Nonhypocrisy Condition:” R has the standing to blame S for some violation of a moral norm N only if R’s blaming S is not hypocritical. This claim has been the subject of intensifying philosophical investigation in recent years. However, we can only understand why hypocrisy is morally objectionable and has an effect on (...) standing to blame if we can correctly characterize hypocrisy itself. Unfortunately, some recent discussions fail to do this, which fatally undermines subsequent arguments concerning the effect of hypocrisy on the standing to blame. This paper’s central aim is to develop and defend a better account of hypocrisy. The hope is that with such an account in hand, we can explain and perhaps justify our moral aversion to hypocrisy in general as well as the Nonhypocrisy Condition in particular. (shrink)

Many researchers experiment with participatory settings to increase public engagement in research and innovation (R&I). Because of their temporary nature, it often remains unclear how such participatory experiments can contribute to structural change. This paper empirically explores options for bridging this gap. It analyzes how participants can be supported to act as institutional entrepreneurs to actively promote public engagement in R&I. To draw lessons, we analyze empirical material gathered on nineteen Social Labs which were set up to promote the uptake (...) of Responsible Research and Innovation in a European R&I funding program (Horizon 2020). Involvement of motivated participants, insight in their institutional context, and specific methods and management choices that enhance a sense of agency are identified as essential for organizing change. These findings and the resulting framework of interventions may prove valuable for further (action) research into the institutionalization of public engagement in R&I. (shrink)

This article offers a history of the German concept of translation in four stages, moving from Luther’s Verdeutschung to Mendelssohn’s translation of the Psalms, and from the re-elaboration of the translation concept by Freud, Rosenzweig and Benjamin to Derrida’s Des tours de Babel. During the postwar years, many philosophers have studied different aspects of the Classical and Romantic elaboration of the German concept of translation. The contribution of this article is not to revisit these analyses, that are by now (...) well known, but to shed light on the role played by certain Jewish thinkers in the history of the Germanic concept of translation at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th, and also, later, within the French philosophy of the years 1960-1990. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the objections that have been raised against the view that equality is intrinsically valuable also provide objections to the view that all practical reasons can be explained in terms of value. Plausible egalitarian principles entail that under certain conditions people have claims to an equal share. These claims entail reasons to distribute goods equally that cannot be explained by value if equality has no intrinsic value.

This article tackles an epistemic puzzle formulated by R. Smullyan that we call the ‘Surprise Deception Paradox'. On the morning of April 1st 1925, his brother announced that he would deceive him during the day, but apparently nothing happened. Since R. Smullyan waited all day to be deceived by some action, he was actually deceived, but by the lack of an action, that is to say by omission. Afterwards, Smullyan felt immediately puzzled: because he expected to be deceived, he was (...) not deceived; but since he was not deceived the way he expected, he was actually deceived. We use dynamic belief revision logic to look more clearly into this puzzle. We argue that Smullyan's reasoning is not a self-referential paradox but shares common features with the more famous Surprise Examination Paradox. In Smullyan's riddle, we show that a misleading default mechanism makes R. Smullyan surprised by the deception he has been preyed to. We also use this solution to discuss whether such defaults, compared to other forms of truth-telling deception, may qualify as lies or not. (shrink)

Many feminists (e.g. T. Bettcher and B. R. George) argue for a principle of first person authority (FPA) about gender, i.e. that we should (at least) not disavow people's gender self-categorisations. However, there is a feminist tradition resistant to FPA about gender, which I call "radical feminism”. Feminists in this tradition define gender-categories via biological sex, thus denying non-binary and trans self-identifications. Using a taxonomy by B. R. George, I begin to demystify the concept of gender. We are also able (...) to use the taxonomy to model various feminist approaches. It becomes easier to see how conceptualisations ofgender which allow for FPA often do not allow for understanding female subjugation as being rooted in reproductive biology. I put forward a conceptual scheme: radical FPA feminism. If we accept FPA, but also radical feminist concerns, radical FPA feminism is an attractive way of conceptualising gender. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin teaches us that books have a Nachreife, a “maturing process” in their afterlife during which they leave their original but limited historical and cultural context in order to take part in a process that is not defined by the intention of the author or the reader. Through their interaction, writers and readers transform the relationships among the times, places, languages, and schools of thought that informed a literary or philosophical work when it was born. Don Isaac Abravanel’s (...) critical reception of Gersonides is an interesting example of such a transformation, in that it both disassembled the Provençal scholar’s initial scientific and theological project and established new links and interpretations. Don Isaac’s critique of Gersonides did not derive only from a historical process within the Jewish intellectual sphere; it also followed Christian and Humanist trends, including Petrarch’s development of a Humanist defense of religion, more independent of science. Abravanel’s critical reception of Gersonides is an interesting meeting point of Jewish and Christian literary and philosophical trends. In that sense, the cultural and historical processes that informed Abravanel’s attitude towards Gersonides helped create the conditions for a belated literary encounter between two great scholars who had lived in the same geographical and cultural environment of the papal court at Avignon: Gersonides and Petrarch. This new connection produced by the reception process is what our comparative study of Abravanel’s reading of Gersonides in both Jewish and Christian contexts attempts to demonstrate. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin teaches us that books have a Nachreife, a “maturing process” in their afterlife during which they leave their original but limited historical and cultural context in order to take part in a process that is not defined by the intention of the author or the reader. Through their interaction, writers and readers transform the relationships among the times, places, languages, and schools of thought that informed a literary or philosophical work when it was born. Don Isaac Abravanel’s (...) critical reception of Gersonides is an interesting example of such a transformation, in that it both disassembled the Provençal scholar’s initial scientific and theological project and established new links and interpretations. Don Isaac’s critique of Gersonides did not derive only from a historical process within the Jewish intellectual sphere; it also followed Christian and Humanist trends, including Petrarch’s development of a Humanist defense of religion, more independent of science. Abravanel’s critical reception of Gersonides is an interesting meeting point of Jewish and Christian literary and philosophical trends. In that sense, the cultural and historical processes that informed Abravanel’s attitude towards Gersonides helped create the conditions for a belated literary encounter between two great scholars who had lived in the same geographical and cultural environment of the papal court at Avignon: Gersonides and Petrarch. This new connection produced by the reception process is what our comparative study of Abravanel’s reading of Gersonides in both Jewish and Christian contexts attempts to demonstrate. (shrink)

At the end of one side of a manuscript entitled “On Kant” and housedin the Scholem Archive in Jerusalem, one reads the following pro-nouncement: “it is impossible to understand Kant today.” 1 Whatever it might mean to “understand” Kant, or indeed, whatever “Kant” is heremeant to be understood, it is certain, according to the manuscript,that such understanding cannot come about by way of purporting tohave returned to or spoken in the name of “Kant.” For “[t]oday,” sothe document begins, “there are (...) many people who call themselvesKantians, and who profess to have—or actually do have—cognitions inKantian terminology.” Whatever the degree of truth or falsity to suchcognitions, however, neither those who produce these cognitions nor aphilosophy consisting in these cognitions have a right to call themselves“Kantian,” since it is “obvious” that “such terminology is not equivalent to Kantian language” but is abstracted from “language” as innovationstowards the better description of the world. (shrink)

One of the disadvantages of redistributive taxation is that it reduces people’s financial incentives to increase national wealth and benefit others by engaging in productive activities. It is natural to suppose that the severity of this disadvantage will be proportional to the socially prevailing level of human selfishness. Thus several advocates of redistribution (G.A. Cohen, Ha-Joon Chang among others) have argued that this disadvantage of redistribution need not be as severe as critics often suggest, because human beings need not (...) be so selfish. My aim in this paper is to argue that, even in a society entirely composed of unselfish and impartially beneficent individuals, redistributive taxation would still discourage activities that contribute to national wealth, because differing individuals have different views about what counts as benefiting themselves and others. I also relate my discussion to G.A. Cohen’s influential ‘camping trip’ argument for socialism (from Why Not Socialism?). (shrink)

This paper critically examines color relationalism and color relativism, two theories of color that are allegedly supported by variation in normal human color vision. We mostly discuss color relationalism, defended at length in Jonathan Cohen's The Red and the Real, and argue that the theory has insuperable problems.

Since late antiquity, a connection was made between Jews and the psychological state of despondency based, in part, on the link between melancholy and Saturn, and the further association of the Hebrew name of that planet, Shabbetai, and the Sabbath. The melancholic predisposition has had important anthropological, cosmological, and theological repercussions. In this essay, I focus on various perspectives on melancholia in thinkers as diverse as Kafka, Levinas, Blanchot, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, Bloch, Scholem, and Derrida. A common thread that links (...) these thinkers is the hopelessness of hope imparted by the messianic belief in a future that must be perpetually deferred. (shrink)

One of the more obscure arguments for Rawls’ difference principle dubbed ‘the Pareto argument for inequality’ has been criticised by G. A. Cohen (1995, 2008) as being inconsistent. In this paper, we examine and clarify the Pareto argument in detail and argue (1) that justification for the Pareto principles derives from rational selfinterest and thus the Pareto principles ought to be understood as conditions of individual rationality, (2) that the Pareto argument is not inconsistent, contra Cohen, and (3) (...) that the kind of bargaining model required to arrive at the particular unequal distribution that the difference principle picks out is a model that is not based on bargaining according to one’s threat advantage. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between personality traits and coping styles among college students in private higher educational institution. Hence, employing correlational design to assess the relationship between coping styles and personality of 150 college students. The statistical analysis reveals that the r coefficient of 0.54 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 coping style and (...) personality traits among fourth-year college students in a private state university. (shrink)

In this piece I respond to commentaries by Julio De Rizzo & Benjamin Schnieder, Erwin Tegtmeier and William Vallicella on my book Metaphysics of States of Affairs (Springer, 2018).

This paper argues that the principle of continuity that underlies Benjamin’s understanding of what makes the reality of a thing thinkable, which in the Kantian context implies a process of “filling time” with an anticipatory structure oriented to the subject, is of a different order than that of infinitesimal calculus—and that a “discontinuity” constitutive of the continuity of experience and (merely) counterposed to the image of actuality as an infinite gradation of ultimately thetic acts cannot be the principle on (...) which Benjamin bases the structure of becoming. Tracking the transformation of the process of “filling time” from its logical to its historical iteration, or from what Cohen called the “fundamental acts of time” in Logik der reinen Erkenntnis to Benjamin’s image of a language of language (qua language touching itself), the paper will suggest that for Benjamin, moving from 0 to 1 is anything but paradoxical, and instead relies on the possibility for a mathematical function to capture the nature of historical occurrence beyond paradoxes of language or phenomenality. (shrink)

Ernest Nagel played a key role in bridging the gap between American philosophy and logical empiricism. He introduced European philosophy of science to the American philosophical community but also remained faithful to the naturalism of his teachers. This paper aims to shed new light on Nagel’s intermediating endeavors by reconstructing his philosophical development in the late 1920s and 1930s. This is a decisive period in Nagel’s career because it is the phase in which he first formulated the principles of his (...) naturalism and spent a year in Europe to visit the key centers of logical empiricism. Building on a range of published and unpublished papers, notes, and correspondence—including hundreds of pages of letters to his close friend Sidney Hook—I reconstruct Nagel’s philosophical development, focusing especially on the philosophical influence of John Dewey, Morris R. Cohen, Rudolf Carnap, and Hans Reichenbach. (shrink)

A partir do século XIX, a teoria democrática foi desenvolvida com base no confronto entre duas doutrinas políticas: o liberalismo e o socialismo. O liberalismo é um projeto que defende as limitações dos poderes governamentais, buscando a proteção dos direitos econômicos, políticos, religiosos e intelectuais dos membros da sociedade. Ou seja, para os liberais o poder do Estado deve ser limitado, pois eles acreditam que a verdadeira liberdade depende da menor interferência possível do Estado e das leis nesses direitos. A (...) defesa do liberalismo tem como principal representante Benjamin Constant. Membro da Assembleia Nacional Francesa, escreveu a obra A liberdade dos antigos comparada com a dos modernos, na qual afirma que a liberdade dos modernos, que deve ser promovida e desenvolvida, é a liberdade individual na relação com o Estado (ou seja, as liberdades civis e políticas), enquanto a liberdade dos antigos, que se tornou impraticável, é a liberdade de participação direta na formação das leis.1 Outros autores como, como o francês Alexis de Tocqueville2 e o inglês John Stuart Mill3 , defenderam a ideia de que a única estrutura democrática compatível com o Estado liberal seria a democracia representativa. Uma passagem interessante para o nosso debate sobre a democracia é o princípio do dano, de Stuart Mill. Por esse princípio, cada indivíduo tem o direito de agir como quiser desde que suas ações não prejudiquem outras pessoas. Se a ação afeta diretamente apenas a pessoa que a está realizando, a sociedade em tese não tem o direito de intervir, mesmo que o indivíduo esteja prejudicando a si próprio. Contudo, se os indivíduos fizerem algo ruim para si mesmos ou para sua propriedade podem indiretamente prejudicar a coletividade, já que ninguém vive isolado, devendo por isso ser impedidos de fazê-lo. Stuart Mill isenta desse princípio aqueles que são incapazes de se governar. Em síntese, todo o processo de democratização, como se deu nos Estados liberais democráticos, consiste numa transformação mais quantitativa do que qualitativa do regime representativo. Ou seja, o avanço da democracia nesses regimes ocorre em duas direções: no alargamento gradual do direito do voto e na multiplicação dos órgãos representativos. Para a doutrina socialista, o sufrágio universal é apenas o ponto inicial do processo de democratização do Estado, enquanto para o liberalismo é o ponto de chegada. Alguns dos principais teóricos do socialismo, como Antonio Gramsci4 e Rosa Luxemburgo5 , afirmam que o aprofundamento do processo de democratização na perspectiva das doutrinas socialistas ocorre de dois modos: por meio da crítica à democracia representativa (e da retomada de alguns temas da democracia direta) e pela ampliação da da participação popular e do controle do poder por meio dos chamados “conselhos operários”. Em outras palavras, a diferença crucial entre a democracia dos conselhos e a democracia parlamentar é que a primeira reconhece ter havido um deslocamento dos centros de poder dos órgãos tradicionais do Estado para a grande empresa, na sociedade capitalista. Por isso, o controle que o cidadão pode exercer por meio dos canais tradicionais da democracia política não é suficiente para impedir os abusos de poder. Logo, o controle deve acontecer nos próprios lugares de produção, e seu protagonista é o trabalhador real, não o cidadão abstrato da democracia formal. Mais recentemente, na metade do século XX, surgiu a corrente pluralista. Os pluralistas, em particular Robert Dahl6 , cientista político estadunidense, não procuravam estabelecer uma definição abstrata e teórica acerca da democracia, mas, por meio da observação das experiências de sistemas políticos, estipularam alguns requisitos mínimos: funcionários eleitos, eleições livres justas e frequentes, liberdade de expressão, fontes de informação diversificadas, autonomia para associações e cidadania inclusiva. Com base nesses critérios são caracterizadas quatro estruturas de governo: hegemonias fechadas, que são regimes em que não há disputa de poder e a participação política é limitada; hegemonias inclusivas, regimes em que não há disputa de poder, mas ocorre participação política; oligarquias competitivas, regimes nos quais há disputa de poder, mas com limitada participação política; e poliarquias, regimes em que não há disputa de poder e participação política ampliada. Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950), economista austríaco, criticou as teorias clássicas de democracia, especialmente na relação estabelecida entre a democracia e a soberania popular7 . Para o autor, a definição clássica de democracia supõe duas ficções incapazes de resistir a uma análise realista: a existência do bem comum e a universalidade da racionalidade dos indivíduos. Para Schumpeter, a unidade da vontade geral, que constituiria o bem comum, e a racionalidade dos indivíduos seriam mitos, porque, para ele, esses elementos se tornaram irracionais por não conseguirem definir coerentemente suas preferências diante da influência da propaganda e de outros métodos de persuasão. Dessa forma, Schumpeter rompe com a ideia de democracia como soberania popular para propô-la como método, um tipo de arranjo institucional (de governos) para alcançar decisões políticas. Assim, sugere a superação do impedimento provocado pela irracionalidade das massas, reduzindo sua participação na política ao ato da produção de governos (ato de votar). As atribuições político-administrativas ficariam a cargo das elites eleitas. Essa é uma postura polêmica, na medida em que propõe uma redução da participação popular. Contrário a essa visão, o cientista político canadense C. B. Macpherson8 , sustenta que a liberdade e o desenvolvimento individual só podem ser alcançados plenamente com a participação direta e contínua dos cidadãos na regulação da sociedade e do Estado. Macpherson defende uma transformação estruturada em um sistema que combine partidos competitivos e organizações de democracia direta, que criam uma base real para a existência da democracia participativa. Mas, para que esse modelo pudesse se desenvolver, seria necessário que os partidos políticos se democratizassem, com princípios e procedimentos de democracia direta, complementada e controlada por organizações geridas por pessoas comuns, em seus locais de trabalho e nas comunidades locais. Na teoria das elites, o poder político pertence ao restrito círculo de pessoas que toma e impõem decisões a todos os membros que tenha de recorrer, como ação radical, à força. Ainda na doutrina liberal, mas opondo-se ao pluralismo, existem os elitistas, que utilizam o termo “elite” como referência a grupos sociais superiores de vários tipos. O termo seria empregado no pensamento social e político somente no final do século XIX. Essas teorias sociológicas, propostas pelos pensadores Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), sociólogo e economista francês; Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941), cientista político italiano, e Robert Michels (1876-1936), sociólogo alemão radicado na Itália, defendem que em toda sociedade existe apenas uma minoria, que, por diversos motivos, vem a se tornar detentora do poder. Pareto afirmava que existe uma “circulação das elites”, ou seja, uma minoria de pessoas que se alternam no poder. Mosca justifica o poder das elites governamentais pelo fato de serem uma minoria articulada e organizada, enquanto os governos seriam uma classe numerosa, mas dividida e desorganizada. Ao estudar as formações partidárias, Michels destacou como a própria estrutura das organizações favorecia o surgimento das elites e sua longa permanência no poder. Nas palavras de Michels, essa estabilidade das elites no poder é a “lei de ferro das oligarquias”. Ao longo dos últimos séculos foram construídas diversas interpretações e teorias acerca dos objetivos e conteúdos da democracia. Na prática, a democracia pode ser um modelo de governo que amplia as capacidades de desenvolvimento social, político e econômico, com base em princípios de igualdade e cidadania, ou se tornar uma simples “regra” para formar governos que não priorizem necessariamente o atendimento das demandas sociais. REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS CONSTANT, B. A liberdade dos antigos comparada à dos modernos. 1. ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2015. DAHL, R. Poliarquia: participação e oposição. São Paulo: Edusp, 1987. ________. Um prefácio à teoria democrática. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 1989. LUXEMBURGO, R. Têxteis. Paris: Editions Socieles, 1982. MACPHERSON, C. B. A teoria política do individualismo possessivo, de Hobbes e Locke. Tradução de Nelson Dantas. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1979. MICHELS, R. Sociologia dos partidos políticos. Brasília: Ed. da UnB, 1982. MILL, J. S. Sobre a liberdade. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1991. SCHUMPETER, J. A. Capitalismo, socialismo e democracia. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 1984. SILVA, A. et. al. Sociologia em movimento. 2. ed. São Paulo: Moderna, 2016. TOCQUEVILLE, A. A democracia na América: leis e costumes. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1998. -/- . (shrink)

Using the method of Descriptive Experience Sampling, some subjects report experiences of thinking that do not involve words or any other symbols [Hurlburt, R. T., and C. L. Heavey. 2006. Exploring Inner Experience. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; Hurlburt, R. T., and S. A. Akhter. 2008. “Unsymbolized Thinking.” Consciousness and Cognition 17 : 1364–1374]. Even though the possibility of this unsymbolized thinking has consequences for the debate on the phenomenological status of cognitive states, the phenomenon is still insufficiently examined. This paper analyzes (...) the main properties of unsymbolized thinking and advances an explanation of its origin. According to our analysis, unsymbolized thoughts appear as propositional states, that is, they are experienced as compositional conceptual phenomena, with semantic and syntactic features analogous to those of the contents of utterances. Based on this characterization, we hypothesize that UT is continuous with the activity of inner speech, in particular, it i... (shrink)

There is no uniquely standard concept of an effectively decidable set of real numbers or real n-tuples. Here we consider three notions: decidability up to measure zero [M.W. Parker, Undecidability in Rn: Riddled basins, the KAM tori, and the stability of the solar system, Phil. Sci. 70(2) (2003) 359–382], which we abbreviate d.m.z.; recursive approximability [or r.a.; K.-I. Ko, Complexity Theory of Real Functions, Birkhäuser, Boston, 1991]; and decidability ignoring boundaries [d.i.b.; W.C. Myrvold, The decision problem for entanglement, in: R.S. (...) Cohen et al. (Eds.), Potentiality, Entanglement, and Passion-at-a-Distance: Quantum Mechanical Studies fo Abner Shimony, Vol. 2, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Great Britain, 1997, pp. 177–190]. Unlike some others in the literature, these notions apply not only to certain nice sets, but to general sets in Rn and other appropriate spaces. We consider some motivations for these concepts and the logical relations between them. It has been argued that d.m.z. is especially appropriate for physical applications, and on Rn with the standard measure, it is strictly stronger than r.a. [M.W. Parker, Undecidability in Rn: Riddled basins, the KAM tori, and the stability of the solar system, Phil. Sci. 70(2) (2003) 359–382]. Here we show that this is the only implication that holds among our three decidabilities in that setting. Under arbitrary measures, even this implication fails. Yet for intervals of non-zero length, and more generally, convex sets of non-zero measure, the three concepts are equivalent. (shrink)

Vlastos, G. Introduction: the paradox of Socrates.--Lacey, A. R. Our knowledge of Socrates.--Dover, K. J. Socrates in the Clouds.--Robinson, R. Elenchus.--Robinson, R. Elenchus, direct and indirect.--Robinson, R. Socratic definition.--Nakhnikian, G. Elenctic definitions.--Cohen, S. M. Socrates on the definition of piety: Euthyphro 10A-11B.--Santas, G. Socrates at work on virtue and knowledge in Plato's Laches.--Burnyeat, M. F. Virtues in action.--Walsh, J. J. The Socratic denial of Akrasia.--Santas, G. Plato's Protagoras and explanations of weakness.--Woozley, A. D. Socrates on disobeying the law.--Allen, R. (...) E. Plato's earlier theory of forms. (shrink)

I examined the proposition that there are psychological limits on what scientific problems can be solved, and that these limits may be based on a failure to be able to produce imagable, observation-based models for any possible solution, a position suggested by philosopher Colin McGinn in an argument attempting to prove that the mind-body problem is unsolvable. I examined another likely candidate for an unsolvable problem -- the ultimate origin of the universe (i.e., what might have preceded the Big Bang (...) or any other starting point; why there should be something rather than nothing) -- by exploring the reasoning of physicists about this problem and measuring visual imagery frequency and vividness, with the expectation that those who most believed the problem unsolvable would be more frequent/vivid imagers and therefore more affected by the apparent impossibility of producing an imagable solution. Eight physicists were interviewed and imagery frequency and vividness measurements performed using Cohen & Saslona's IDQ-IHS and Marks's VVIQ, respectively. All subjects considered the problem unsolvable within today's physics and all but one thought the problem still meaningful, though none were optimistic about a solution. The one subject who dismissed the problem had the lowest imagery frequency score, and there was also a significant rank order correlation (r = 0.83, p < .02) between degree of belief in problem unsolvability (extended to include viewing the problem as meaningful and not already solved) and a composite imagery frequency/vividness score, though the sample was too small to control for some possible confounding factors. (shrink)

Trope theory is a leading metaphysical theory in analytic ontology. One of its classic statements is found in the work of Donald C. Williams who argued that tropes qua abstract particulars are the very alphabet of being. The concept of an abstract particular has been repeatedly attacked in the literature. Opponents and proponents of trope theory alike have levelled their criticisms at the abstractness of tropes and the associated act of abstraction. In this paper I defend the concept of a (...) trope qua abstract particular by rejecting arguments that purport to show that tropes should not be understood as abstract and by arguing that the abstractness of tropes plays an indispensable role in one of our more promising trope-theoretic analyses of universals and of concrete objects. (shrink)

This book addresses the metaphysics of Armstrongian states of affairs, i.e. instantiations of naturalist universals by particulars. The author argues that states of affairs are the best candidate for truthmakers and, in the spirit of logical atomism, that we need no molecular truthmakers for positive truths. In the book's context, this has the pleasing result that there are no molecular states of affairs. Following this account of truthmaking, the author first shows that the particulars in (first-order) states of affairs are (...) bare particulars. He then argues that the properties in states of affairs are simple, non-relational and concrete universals. Next, he argues that (material) relations in states of affairs are external relations. Lastly, he argues that a state of affairs is unified by a distinctive formal relation without giving rise to Bradley’s regress. (shrink)

Despite a recent surge of interest in philosophy as a way of life, it is not clear what it might mean for philosophy to guide one's life, or how a “philosophical” way of life might differ from a life guided by religion, tradition, or some other source. We argue against John Cooper that spiritual exercises figure crucially in the idea of philosophy as a way of life—not just in the ancient world but also today, at least if the idea is (...) to be viable. In order to make the case we attempt to clarify the nature of spiritual exercises, and to explore a number of fundamental questions, such as “What role does reason have in helping us to live well?” Here we distinguish between the discerning and motivational powers of reason, and argue that both elements have limitations as guides to living well. (shrink)

Structural universals are a kind of complex universal. They have been put to work in a variety of philosophical theories but are plagued with problems concerning their compositional nature. In this article, we will discuss the following questions. What are structural universals? Why believe in them? Can we give a consistent account of their compositional nature? What are the costs of doing so?

Does the visual system adapt to number? For more than fifteen years, most have assumed that the answer is an unambiguous “yes”. Against this prevailing orthodoxy, we recently took a critical look at the phenomenon, questioning its existence on both empirical and theoretical grounds, and providing an alternative explanation for extant results (the old news hypothesis). We subsequently received two critical responses. Burr, Anobile, and Arrighi rejected our critiques wholesale, arguing that the evidence for number adaptation remains overwhelming. Durgin questioned (...) our old news hypothesis — preferring instead a theory about density adaptation he has championed for decades — but also highlighted several ways in which our arguments do pose serious challenges for proponents of number adaptation. Here, we reply to both. We first clarify our position regarding number adaptation. Then, we respond to our critics’ concerns, highlighting seven reasons why we remain skeptical about number adaptation. We conclude with some thoughts about where the debate may head from here. (shrink)

When an employee’s off-duty conduct generates mass social media outrage, managers commonly respond by firing the employee. This, I argue, can be a mistake. The thesis I defend is the following: the fact that a firing would occur in a mass social media outrage context brought about by the employee’s off-duty conduct generates a strong ethical reason weighing against the act. In particular, it contributes to the firing constituting an inappropriate act of blame. Scholars who caution against firing an employee (...) for off-duty conduct have thus far focused primarily on due process related issues or legal concerns pertaining to free speech, lifestyle discrimination, and employment at-will. However, these concerns amount to only a partial, and contingent, diagnosis of what is at issue. I argue that even when due process considerations are met, firings in these contexts can be unjustified. Moreover, even if a business is not concerned with the unethical conduct per se, but is rather strictly concerned with PR, the argument I advance nevertheless provides one important ethical reason that counts against firings in mass social media outrage contexts. Given that managers are often under significant pressure to respond swiftly in cases where an employee is at the center of mass social media outrage, it is especially important that scholars begin to clarify the normative issues. This article builds on the burgeoning philosophical literature on the ethics of blame and provides a novel account of a distinctive ethical concern that arises with firings in mass social media outrage contexts. (shrink)

The context for biological emergence is modular hierarchical structures; their existence is what enables functional complexity to arise. Because of the openness of organisms to their environment, complete initial data (position, momentum) of all particles making up their structure is insufficient to determine future outcomes, because unpredictable new matter, energy, and information impacts each organism from the exterior. Consequently, through Darwinian evolution, life has developed processes to handle this issue functionally on short time scales as well on longer developmental timescales. (...) Symbolism and technology are the transforming factors handling this issue at the social levels, which is where the most sophisticated outcomes of openness occur. Considering the cosmological context, the issue is, should the universe itself be regarded as an open system over time? I make the case that is indeed so, because radically new outcomes occur such as the existence of aircraft, iPads, and the internet, which could not plausibly have been encoded in some form of data on the Last Scattering Surface in the expanding universe. (shrink)

An analysis of the recent efforts to define what counts as a "conspiracy theory", in which I argue that the philosophical and non-pejorative definition best captures the phenomenon researchers of conspiracy theory wish to interrogate.

The selected effects or ‘etiological’ theory of Proper function is a naturalistic and realist account of biological teleology. It is used to analyse normativity in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of medicine and elsewhere. The theory has been developed with a simple and intuitive view of natural selection. Traits are selected because of their positive effects on the fitness of the organisms that have them. These ‘selected effects’ are the Proper functions of the traits. Proponents argue that this (...) analysis of biological teleology has the unique advantage that the selected effect function of a trait is also a causal explanation of the trait: the trait exists because it performs this function. We show, however, that selected effect functions as currently defined explain the existence of traits only under highly restrictive assumptions about evolutionary dynamics. In many common scenarios in which traits evolve by natural selection, selected effect functions do not explain those traits. This is because definitions of selected effect function extract from any evolutionary scenario only the information that would be explanatorily relevant in the simple evolutionary scenario implicit in those definitions. When applied to more complex scenarios selected effect functions omit the key information that is explanatorily relevant in those scenarios. The assumptions required for selected effect functions to be explanatory are particularly unlikely to hold in the domain that its proponents care most about - the evolution of representation. A more adequate selected effects theory of Proper functions may be possible, but will require much greater attention to the structure of actual evolutionary explanations. (shrink)

Those who turn to phenomenological psychopathology as an answer to problems in psychiatric healthcare may find a philosophical tradition rooted in the early-mid 20th century that has done little to adapt to modern ideas in psychiatric healthcare and psychiatric research. The Renewing Phenomenological Psychopathology project, funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Professor Matthew Broome and Professor Giovanni Stanghellini, calls for reflection, revitalization and reconstruction of this discipline, diversifying global scholarship and working with lived experience scholars, so that it (...) can pave new paths in psychiatric understanding. The contributions of the current special issue aim to breathe new life into a vital method in psychopathology and to chart its future trajectory. (shrink)

Philosophers of science commonly connect ontology and science, stating that these disciplines maintain a two-way relationship: on the one hand, we can extract ontology from scientific theories; on the other hand, ontology provides the realistic content of our scientific theories. In this article, we will critically examine the process of naturalizing ontology, i.e., confining the work of ontologists merely to the task of pointing out which entities certain theories commit themselves to. We will use non-relativistic quantum mechanics as a case (...) study. We begin by distinguishing two roles for ontology: the first would be characterized by cataloging existing entities according to quantum mechanics; the second would be characterized by establishing more general ontological categories in which existing entities must be classified. We argue that only the first step is available for a naturalistic approach; the second step not being open for determination or anchoring in science. Finally, we also argue that metaphysics is still a step beyond ontology, not contained in either of the two tasks of ontology, being thus even farther from science. (shrink)