La categoría ‘arte conceptual’ se aplica a una gran cantidad de obras de arte contemporáneo. El artista Sol LeWitt introdujo el término en la jerga del arte al describir obras de arte donde “la idea o el concepto es el aspecto más importante de la obra” (LeWitt 1967: 79, traducción mía). Inicialmente, el término se utilizó para referirse a obras producidas entre finales de los años sesenta y principios de los setenta por artistas como Sol LeWitt, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner, (...) On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, John Baldessari, el grupo Art & Language y otros (véase Lippard 1973). En España fueron relevantes el Grup de Treball, Zaj o Esther Ferrer entre otros. Más tarde se hizo evidente no solo que obras como Fuente (1917) de Marcel Duchamp – un urinario de porcelana, que fue firmado “R. Mutt” y presentado para una exposición de la Sociedad de Artistas Independientes – tenían mucho en común con aquellas producidas a finales de la década de 1960 y principios de la de 1970, sino también que obras de arte conceptual continuaron siendo producidas a lo largo de la década de 1970 y las décadas siguientes, hasta el punto de que podría argumentarse que gran parte del arte contemporáneo es, en cierta medida, conceptual. -/- Es característico de los primeros autores conceptuales el uso del lenguaje natural en obras que son en principio visuales o plásticas, como las frases de Weiner, las definiciones de Kosuth o los ensayos de Art&Language. Se trata de un interés por el significado y el lenguaje heredado de la semiótica y la filosofía analítica de la época. También señala el énfasis (a menudo exclusivo) de todas las obras de arte conceptual en el elemento conceptual, como ocurre en los dibujos y pinturas murales de LeWitt, donde el artista produjo las instrucciones para su ejecución, luego las realizó en colaboración con otros, o transfirió completamente a otros esta tarea. Otra característica de las primeras obras de arte conceptual es que los artistas no manipularon ningún material para producir un objeto (como en Fuente de Duchamp) o usaron materiales excéntricos como el lenguaje natural, su propio cuerpo -como en I am the locus (# 1) (1975) de Adrian Piper, una performance en la que la artista se pegó un bigote en la cara, se puso una peluca Afro y anteojos redondos con montura de alambre y caminó en las calles actuando como un hombre-, o el chocolate con el que Anya Gallaccio revistió las paredes de un viejo edificio agrícola en Stroke (2004), dejando que el público las tocara y que el chocolate se pudriese. -/- Debido a sus características inusuales, el arte conceptual plantea muchas preguntas filosóficas: sobre la definición de arte, sobre la ontología y los medios de las obras de arte y sobre nuestra experiencia apreciativa de ellas. En lo que sigue, presentaré brevemente cada uno de estos temas. (shrink)

In this paper, with reference to Vito Acconci’s Following Piece (1969) and Sophie Calle’s Take care of yourself (2007), I show that some works of conceptual art rely on exemplification to convey ideas, and I defend the following claims about those works. In the first place, I argue that the kinds of events and of objects they present us with are relevant for appreciating the views the works convey. In the second place, siding with Elisabeth Schellekens (2007) and Peter Goldie (...) (2007), I argue, contra James Young (2001), that those artworks can yield experiential knowledge. In the third place, I argue that those artworks also possess probatory value. Finally, I maintain that those artworks can be valuable instruments for the education of the emotions. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the knowledge management processes and their role in achieving competitive advantage at Al-Quds Open University. The study was based on the descriptive analytical method, and the study population consists of academic and administrative staff in each of the branches of Al-Quds Open University in (Tulkarm, Nablus and Jenin). The researchers selected a sample of the study population by the intentional non-probability method, the size of (70) employees. A questionnaire was prepared and supervised by a number (...) of specialists in order to obtain the results of the study. The study concluded that there is a positive direct relationship, that is, the higher the degree of application of knowledge management processes, the greater the degree of competitive advantage. Knowledge Technology came first with a score of 80.02% on all items. Competitive advantage came second with 81.74%. In the third place came "knowledge generation" where the total score on all paragraphs in this area (78.24%). In the fourth place, "knowledge transfer" (77.21%). "Developing and storing knowledge" came in fifth place (77.13%). "Acquisition of knowledge" came in sixth place (76.45%). Knowledge Organization ranked seventh (74.26%). The study recommended that the university should enable the employees to benefit from the experiences and expertise available to help generate knowledge. The University encourages the creation of knowledge through the system of incentives and open the way for creators to apply their creations and spread and invest in excellence and creativity. The university should design work performance levels based on the integration of knowledge and organize it according to policies that support freedom of research. The need for Palestinian universities to adopt a knowledge management approach. The need to adopt a system of incentives that rewards cognitive efforts, and give workers enough freedom to enable them to apply their knowledge. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper are two views: on the one hand, two general claims about street art – a broad art category encompassing works of spray painting as well as of yarn bombing, paste ups as well as sculptural interventions, tags as well as stickers, and so on – and, on the other hand, a much more specific view about certain contemporary tags produced, roughly, over the past twenty years. The two general claims are, first, that all works (...) of street art are subversive (see, e.g., Bacharach 2015; 2018; Chackal 2016; Baldini 2015; 2016; 2017; 2018; Willard 2016), second, that works of street art are the result of acts of self-expression (Riggle 2016). The specific view about certain contemporary tags is that they are artworks, although they are not presented, mainly, for appreciation of aesthetic properties grounded in their perceptual properties, because they are works of conceptual street art (see Lewisohn 2010; JAK 2012). The key question of the paper concerns, however, not contemporary tags, but “very early tags” (VETs) – a term that I shall use to designate the extremely simple, unadorned tags that first appeared in the late 1960s and that some scholars consider as the historical predecessors of the various practices that today we group under the category “street art” (see, e.g., Young 2014; Gastman et al. 2015): should we regard VETs as artworks? On the one hand, VETs writers tend to answer this question in the negative, since they stress that they didn’t cast themselves as artists and often identify the first tags that are artworks with the graphically elaborated tags that begun to be seen around New York City and Philadelphia just a few years after the appearance of the first tags. On the other hand, already in the early 1970s, artists and intellectuals such as Norman Mailer and Gordon Matta-Clark seemed to hold the view that it was appropriate to regard both VETs and later tags as art, although they didn’t defend this thesis with argument. The view that some contemporary tags that are not presented, mainly, for appreciation of their aesthetic properties might be candidates for appreciation as works of conceptual art suggests a strategy for assessing the issue whether VETs are candidates for art appreciation: can we defend the claim that the extremely simple, unadorned VETs were presented for appreciation as works of conceptual street art? I argue that we have good reasons to hold this view. (shrink)

The re-use of publicly available (personal) data for originally unanticipated purposes has become common practice. Without such secondary uses, the development of many AI systems like large language models (LLMs) and ChatGPT would not even have been possible. This chapter addresses the ethical implications of such secondary processing, with a particular focus on data protection and privacy issues. Legal and ethical evaluations of secondary processing of publicly available personal data diverge considerably both among scholars and the general public. While some (...) of these uses are met with opposition and criticism, others are quite unanimously viewed as unproblematic. Often, proponents and opponents of such practices invoke the same ethical and legal standards for their opposite conclusions. This state of affairs shows that other considerations besides the public availability of data must play a role. It calls for a theoretical clarification of the additional criteria that should guide decisions about the (legally informed) ethical acceptability of re-processing practices. In order to make a contribution towards this goal, the present chapter maps the ongoing debate and systematises the existing contributions around three lines of argument: a consent-centred position, an approach that focuses on the distinction between data and information, and finally a line of argument that focuses on the contextual norms that govern the flows of information. The chapter further relates these arguments to three underlying conceptions of privacy and data protection: rights-based, structural and contextual, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each position in the light of concrete examples. It concludes by arguing for a mixed approach that combines core elements of the structural and contextual approaches. The chapter aims to contribute to existing research in the fields of data, AI and research ethics, and to reconnect the debate with ethical and legal scholarship on privacy and data protection. In doing so, it aims to make a theoretical contribution towards refining existing conceptions of privacy and data protection in order to make them more fit to ‘drive our digital world’ as far as the use of publicly available data is concerned. (shrink)

During the French Revolution, Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) campaigned for the rights of women, enslaved people and other politically marginalised and underprivileged groups. Conceptually, her reflection is located within the tradition of the social contract. However, she made a theoretical and practical break with this by abolishing the separation between the political and private spheres and universally expanding political participation and belonging.

There is growing debate about what is the correct methodology for research in the ontology of artworks. In the first part of this essay, I introduce my view: I argue that semantic descriptivism is a semantic approach that has an impact on meta-ontological views and can be linked with a hermeneutic fictionalist proposal on the meta-ontology of artworks such as works of music. In the second part, I offer a synthetic presentation of the four main positive meta-ontological views that have (...) been defended in philosophical literature about artworks and of some criticisms that can be lodged against them: Amie Thomasson’s global descriptivism, Andrew Kania’s local descriptivism, Julian Dodd’s folk-theoretic modesty, and David Davies’ rational accountability view. In the conclusion, I show the advantages of my view. (shrink)

Several contemporary architects have designed architectural objects that are closely linked to their particular sites. An in-depth study of the relevant relationship holding between those objects and their sites is, however, missing. This paper addresses the issue, arguing that those architectural objects are akin to works of site-specific art. In section (1), I introduce the topic of the paper. In section (2), I critically analyse the debate on the categorisation of artworks as site-specific. In section (3), I apply to architecture (...) the lesson learned from the analysis of the art debate. (shrink)

An analysis of three pictorial works by Ugo Nespolo is put forward: "Barbe posticce" (1977); "Guardar Manzoni" (1974); "Il museo: Fontana" (1975). It is claimed that such works embody meditations on the concept and the varieties of representation, that they prompt critical reflections on the role of museums in art-making, and that they suggest an alternative route to that of the 'dematerialization' of the art object for the understanding of contemporary art.

This article focuses on the so-called “Area of Freedom, Security and Justice” (ASFJ), namely the policy field of the European Union (EU) that covers judicial and police cooperation, migration and asylum policies and the control of external borders. The article explores how the AFSJ has emerged and how, within it, the relationship between freedom and security has evolved over time and brought about a shift towards a “Security Union”.

Digitalisation has lent the right to privacy increasing philosophical and legal relevance. However, privacy’s epistemic status and associated normative values are constantly subject to radical criticisms. This article investigates the validity, in theory and practice, of three radical critiques of privacy. A review of the philosophical and interdisciplinary discourse on privacy during the last half century is followed by analyses of recent legal developments within the EU. Privacy emerges as a highly differentiated and powerful tool to protect individuals and social (...) relations and to limit and redistribute power. However, the right to privacy remains far from realising its practical potential. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the experience of works of installation art with sculptural and architectural experience and argues that installation art is an interactive art form.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and molecular biotechnologies (MB) are among the most promising, but also ethically hotly debated emerging technologies. In both fields, several ethics reports, which invoke lists of ethics principles, have been put forward. These reports and the principles lists are technology specific. This article aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on ethics of emerging technologies by comparatively analysing four European ethics reports from the two technology fields. Adopting a qualitative and in-depth approach, the article highlights how ethics (...) principles from MB can inform AI ethics and vice versa. By synthesizing the respective ethical cores of the principles included in the analysed reports, the article derives, moreover, a unified list of principles for assessing emerging technologies. The suggested list consists of nine principles: autonomy; individual and social well-being and prevention of harm; reliability, safety and security; informational privacy; transparency; accountability; communication, participation and democracy; justice, fairness, and non-discrimination; sustainability. (shrink)

On the possibilities and limits of the ethics of artificial intelligence. An overview of current developments and debates with a focus on language processing systems. -/- Driven by the success of artificial intelligence (AI), the ethics of AI is currently enjoying a boom. Advice from ethics experts is increasingly being sought by policymakers and industry to proactively identify the risks associated with new AI technologies and to propose solutions. But how realistic are the expectations placed on AI ethics to make (...) technological development more equitable and acceptable? Doesn't AI ethics itself run the risk of becoming a fig leaf in the service of pre-determined economic and political goals? Based on these questions, this article presents and discusses some of the most current debates and proposals for dealing with the opportunities and risks of AI technologies, with a particular focus on language technologies. Although the danger of instrumentalization is present, the article concludes, the ethics of AI currently represents an important opportunity to identify problematic developments at an early stage and to initiate societal debates, political processes, and legal regulations that can make future AI developments more equitable and environmentally sound. (shrink)

Particular applications of Privacy by Design (PbD) have proven to be valuable tools to protect privacy in many technological applications. However, PbD is not as promising when applied to technologies used for surveillance. After specifying how surveillance and privacy are understood in this paper, I will highlight the shortcomings of PbD when applied to surveillance, using a web-scanning system for counter-terrorism purposes as an example. I then suggest reworking PbD into a different approach: the Minimum Harm by Design (MHbD) model. (...) MHbD differs from PbD principally in that it acknowledges that the potential harms of surveillance bear not only upon privacy but also values that define the very constitution of a society and its political character. MHbD aims to identify and systematise the different categories of such harms and links them to current theories on surveillance on the one hand and on possible design measures on the other. (shrink)

This chapter illustrates through the analysis of some examples how philosophical research can illuminate the improvisational aspects of installation art. There is little philosophical research on improvisation in the visual arts. Similarly, there is little philosophical research on installation art – in section 2, I mention some key claims that have been put forward. Not surprisingly, then, philosophers have not yet focussed – at least to my knowledge – on improvisation in installation art. The issue, though, is timely. Not only (...) some installation artists have explored improvisation in their practice, both solo and collaboratively (see section 3) but, as I shall argue, it can be claimed that some works of installation art represent or express improvisation (section 4), that some invite the public to engage in improvisation (section 5), and that curatorial teams responsible for the displays of certain installation artworks have the opportunity to introduce improvisational elements in their practice, if they so wish (section 6). (shrink)

The Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive has introduced a pre-emptive, risk-based approach in the landscape of European databases and information exchange for security purposes. The article contributes to ongoing debates on algorithmic security and data-driven decision-making by fleshing out the specific way in which the EU PNR-based approach to security substantiates core characteristics of algorithmic regulation. The EU PNR framework appropriates data produced in the commercial sector for generating security-related behavioural predictions and does so in a way that gives rise (...) to a paradoxical normativity directly dependent on empirical states. Its ‘securitisation move’ is moreover characterised by an inherent tendence to expand. As a result, the PNR Directive poses challenges for existing check and balance mechanisms and for human autonomy. These challenges could be partially addressed by strengthening ex-post control procedures and independent auditing. Yet in the decision to adopt a risk-based security model, something more fundamental seems to be at stake, namely, the preservation of the idea of human beings as moral agents able to direct and modify their behaviour in accordance with an intelligible, reliable and predictable normative order. (shrink)

--- abstract is not requested by the Editors.

A hard choice is a situation in which an agent is unable to make a justifiable choice from a given menu of alternatives. Our objective is to present a systematic treatment of the axiomatic structure of such situations. To do so, we draw on and contribute to the study of choice functions that can be indecisive, i.e., that may fail to select a non-empty set for some menus. In this more general framework, we present new characterizations of two well-known choice (...) rules, the maximally dominant choice rule and the top-cycle choice rule. Together with existing results, this yields an understanding of the circumstances in which hard choices arise. (shrink)

The Research Domani Criteria framework (RdoC) encourages research on specific impairments present across traditional nosological categories and suggests a list of biological and behavioral measures for assessing them. After a description of RdoC, in this article we focus on impairments of the ability of understanding others, specifically in Theory of Mind and empathy. We illustrate recent evidence on brain anomalies correlating with these deficits in Schizophrenia, Addiction Disorders and Mood Disorders populations. In the last section, we zoom out and consider (...) this kind of research vis-à-vis the objection of being reductionistic that is, in favoring mechanistic accounts of mental disorders. We argue that metaphysical reductionism and explanatory reductionism are not conceptually entailed by the RdoC framework. (shrink)

Our investigative question is what part of the human psyche is active when we are sleeping. We use the single-counter-example method, extracted from Classical Logic, to prove that it could not be the case that one of our existing models for the human psyche could explain the human sleep. The models of the human psyche that we consider are the Freudian, the Jungian, and our own. By proving that no known part could be active whilst we sleep, and we prove (...) all by presenting known facts, we reach the conclusion that we need a new model of psyche to account for the entire complexity of our beings. We associate sleep with dreams. Upon discussing the human dreams in more details, we end up applying the principles of the inference to the best explanation to explain the human dreams by means of references to the spiritual world. That makes us think about how the spiritists would describe our psyche, and we then present a new model. The new model is obviously a fruit of speculation. This time, the model involves all Freudian elements, our extensional elements, body, and soul. We use the synthetic method to construct our new model. Since our sleep time is so important, to the point of obliging us to build a new model for the human psyche, we worry about protecting it. We then use studies on the impact of noise on humans to talk about how bad the consequences of having a person speaking to us during sleep are. This trivially extends to people that are in hypnotic state. We try to make a case against hypnosis and interference with the sleep of human beings by referring to health, spiritual, and world consequences. Our main result is then a new model for the human psyche, and this time a model that has to do with what is beyond what has already been formally acknowledged by us. A secondary result is that we should not allow people to hypnotize others or to speak to them as they sleep. Our conclusions are that there is definitely something beyond our rationality that happens during our sleep time and this something has not been identified by Freud, Jung or us this far. Besides, that we should not allow people to hypnotize others or speak to them as they sleep. (shrink)

Este capítulo presenta dos versiones de la teoría según la cual deberíamos centrarnos en ciertas acciones realizadas por los artistas para comprender qué tipo de objetos son las obras de arte: la propuesta de Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art, 1989) y la de David Davies (Art as Performance, 2004). Si bien estas teorías no están exentas de problemas, es cierto que estas proporcionan una guía completa de algunos de los temas en los que uno debería meditar al evaluar y (...) desarrollar teorías sobre qué son las obras de arte. Además, Currie y Davies presentan algunos de los argumentos más refinados contra los puntos de vista contextualistas y estructuralistas sobre la metafísica de las obras de arte, así como contra el empirismo estético. (shrink)

In real-time, Twitter strongly imprints world events, popular culture, and the day-to-day; Twitter records an ever growing compendium of language use and change; and Twitter has been shown to enable certain kinds of prediction. Vitally, and absent from many standard corpora such as books and news archives, Twitter also encodes popularity and spreading through retweets. Here, we describe Storywrangler, an ongoing, day-scale curation of over 100 billion tweets containing around 1 trillion 1-grams from 2008 to 2020. For each day, we (...) break tweets into 1-, 2-, and 3-grams across 150+ languages, record usage frequencies, and generate Zipf distributions. We make the data set available through an interactive time series viewer, and as downloadable time series and daily distributions. We showcase a few examples of the many possible avenues of study we aim to enable including how social amplification can be visualized through ‘contagiograms’. (shrink)

The article addresses the treatment given to the notion of subject in Slavoj Žižek and Robert Kurz. Without aiming at a synthesis between the two radically opposed positions, they are played against one another in order to reveal the unidimensional stances and false steps in the field of the constitution of the struggle for a concrete negation of capitalist society.

This paper addresses issues regarding perceptions of surveillance technologies in Europe. It analyses existing studies in order to explore how perceptions of surveillance affect and are affected by the negative effects of surveillance and how perceptions and effectiveness of surveillance technologies relate to each other. The paper identifies 12 negative effects of surveillance including, among others, privacy intrusion, the chilling effect and social exclusion, and classifies them into three groups. It further illustrates the different ways in which perceptions and effectiveness (...) of surveillance interact with each other, distinguishing between perceived security and perceived effectiveness. Finally, the paper advances a methodology to take into account perception issues when designing new surveillance technologies. By doing so, it rejects manipulative measures aiming at improving perceptions only and suggests measures that address the background conditions affecting perceptions. (shrink)

This Article aims to demonstrate that the WTO jurisprudence on science-related trade disputes has become imbued with a specific vision of science that has prevented any possible application of the precautionary principle. This situation is due both to the WTO’s specific dispute settlement procedures and to the substantive nature of precautionary measures. Indeed, such measures’ foundation on “insufficient scientific evidence” dramatically undermines the probative value of science in WTO adjudication and creates a seeming contradiction: The system requires defendants to provide (...) legal evidence of the absence of sufficient scientific evidence. The reasoning of the Panel on the EC–Biotech case was riddled with this apparent paradox. For the first time, the US–Continued Suspension case has opened a gateway to address this fundamental issue. (shrink)

l volume di Gustavo Gozzi "Diritti e civiltà. Storia e filosofia del diritto internazionale (Bologna, il Mulino, 2010) ha a nostro avviso colmato una lacuna importante nel panorama filosofico-giuridico italiano. Si tratta infatti della prima pubblicazione in lingua italiana che, da un punto di vista insieme storico e filosofico, affronta in modo sistematico lo sviluppo del diritto internazionale dall’età moderna ai giorni nostri. Questo primato è già un eccellente motivo per discutere Diritti e civiltà. Ma c’è di più. Una parte (...) consistente del saggio è dedicata alla ricostruzione e discussione di contributi non-occidentali al dibattito contemporaneo sulla natura e il ruolo del diritto internazionale. Si può anzi dire che Gozzi fa proprio il punto di vista di questi autori: il volume si distingue infatti per un approccio critico nei confronti della pretesa universalità delle dottrine occidentali del diritto internazionale. Questo scetticismo si fonda sulla tesi fondamentale del volume, secondo la quale il diritto internazionale è caratterizzato dalla “continuità del discorso dell’egemonia occidentale dalla prima età moderna fino alla realtà contemporanea” (p. 11). Prendendo avvio dall’approccio sistematico e insieme critico del volume e dai temi in esso trattati, questo forum intende (ri)discutere temi chiave della storia e filosofia del diritto internazionale e metterne a fuoco un programma di ricerca. (shrink)

Lo sviluppo del diritto internazionale penale è stato accolto con entusiasmo da attivisti per i diritti umani, giuristi e studiosi di questioni internazionali. La punizione dei crimini internazionali più gravi, come i crimini di guerra, quelli contro l’umanità e il genocidio è considerata un importante passo avanti verso l’effettiva protezione dei diritti umani e l’affermazione della pace. Questo entusiasmo sembra però aver lasciato sullo sfondo alcune domande fondamentali: come si giustifica l’esercizio del potere punitivo internazionale? Chi ne è il titolare (...) e in virtù di cosa? Il tribunale del mondo prova a rispondere a queste domande, indagando da una prospettiva filosofico-politico-giuridica la giustificazione del diritto internazionale penale e assumendo come punto di partenza le specificità del contesto internazionale. L’autrice auspica il superamento del diritto internazionale penale a favore di un sistema plurale di risposta alle gravi violazioni dei diritti elementari: un sistema che comprenda anche soluzioni non penali e che in alternativa all’universalismo del diritto penale internazionale offra meccanismi orientati alle esigenze delle comunità coinvolte. (shrink)

The relationship between power, law and consent is a key feature of the Western debate on criminal law. On the one side, defining the legitimate ways of exercising the punitive power has been a critical question since the Enlightenment thought onwards and especially as to the rule of law doctrine. On the other side, the role played by public punishment in shaping consent and its communicative potential have been crucial questions for critical, as well as non-critical approaches to criminal law (...) in contemporary thought. These questions gain in strength and radicalism when it comes to international criminal law (ICL). In this case the filter of the state is not present anymore to mediate between power, law and consent, and the power to punish individuals is directly exercised by international institutions. This means, on the one hand, that traditional justifications of the power to punish and which are elaborated on in the domestic sphere are not useful anymore in legitimating international punishment. International criminal norms are not framed by an international democratically elected parliament, and their exercise is not controlled by the complex system of checks and balances typical of the rule of law. On the other hand, having not being created by a sovereign, international criminal law cannot be conceived as an instrument to build or consolidate consent around the sovereign. A double-sided dilemma therefore arises: traditional explanations are no longer apt to answer the question whether ICL is legitimate, while ICL itself can no longer be considered an instrument to build consent around the traditional power exercising it, namely the state. Although I consider both sides of the dilemma equally interesting and stimulating, I will focus here only on one side of the coin: the ability to build consent of the ICL institutions, and in particular the International Criminal Court (ICC). In other words, instead of asking whether the consent around the ICC is broad enough for the Court to be considered legitimate, I shall ask whether the ICC is able to build consent around the world order it embodies. (shrink)

This is the first record of nesting in the soil by the ant Camponotus sericeiventris (Guérin-Méneville, 1838), which has arboreal habit. The study was conducted in southeastern Brazil, in an ant colony located in a subterranean site. This study describes, for the first time, the ability of this arboreal species to vary its nesting site by the occupation of an unusual place in an urban environment; and this study demonstrates that this species is an interesting model for studies in urban (...) environments. (shrink)

Pregnancy has a profound impact on individuals’ lives, yet the subjective experience is often absent from the discourse on reproductive rights and ethics. Although pregnancy is an epistemically transformative experience, phenomenology can help us describe common structures in the many different subjective experiences of pregnancy. Doing so shows us that the effects of pregnancy go beyond the physical symptoms; they invade the experience of the self and the world and transform identity. If someone wants to formulate an argument against abortion, (...) they will have to include the existential impact of pregnancy. In this paper I will further explore the impact of pregnancy through a phenomenological analysis of birth and birthmothers and show that the existential impact of pregnancy does not cease to exist after birth. Giving birth fundamentally changes the world of the pregnant person and leads to irreversible changes in identity. Their world will never return to the way it was before pregnancy. Arguments against abortion would have to take these existential implications into account as well. Finally, I will argue that a similar argument will also become relevant in the discourse on ectogenesis. (shrink)

This article examines the possibility of philosophizing about mathematics with children. It aims at outlining the nature of the practice of philosophy of mathematics with children in a mainly theoretical and exploratory way. First, an attempt at a definition is proposed. Second, I suggest some reasons that might motivate such a practice. My thesis is that one can identify an intrinsic as well as two extrinsic goals of philosophizing about mathematics with children. The intrinsic goal is related to a presumed (...) inherent importance of presenting children with some philosophical questions about mathematics. The extrinsic goals consist of first the positive effects such a practice can have on mathematical learning and abilities and second the fostering of children's understanding of philosophical method of inquiry and thinking and therefore of their philosophical thinking competences. Third, some examples found in the literature of previously developed ways of practising philosophy of mathematics with children are presented. This article aims at giving a general outlining picture of the issues surrounding the practice of philosophy of mathematics with children and should therefore be read as an encouragement to further development and studies. (shrink)

Although brain size and the concept of intelligence have been extensively used in comparative neuroscience to study cognition and its evolution, such coarse-grained traits may not be informative enough about important aspects of neurocognitive systems. By taking into account the different evolutionary trajectories and the selection pressures on neurophysiology across species, Logan and colleagues suggest that the cognitive abilities of an organism should be investigated by considering the fine-grained and species-specific phenotypic traits that characterize it. In such a way, we (...) would avoid adopting human-oriented, coarse-grained traits, typical of the standard approach in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that this standard approach can fail in some cases, but can, however, work in others, by discussing two major topics in contemporary neuroscience as examples: general intelligence and brain asymmetries. (shrink)

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) poses a significant challenge to an individual’s mental well-being. The obsessive preoccupation with perceived defects in one’s appearance affects individuals’ daily functioning and can result in serious risks, including suicidal ideation and self-surgery. While treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy and serotonin reuptake inhibitors can provide relief, they do not achieve complete remission. It has been suggested that therapy should not only interrupt the harmful behaviour, but should also address their sense of self, and that after (...) addressing their internalised values, individuals with BDD will be able to incorporate their perceived defect in a manner similar to how individuals with real deformities often do. Phenomenology of psychopathology analyses subjectivity in cases of pathology, and analyses of BDD show that the perceived defect has become a locus of shame. This implies that individuals with BDD have permanently incorporated the gaze of the Other and constantly experience their body as a body-for-others. This paper further explores the sense of self in individuals with BDD through Jenny Slatman’s interpretation of bodily integrity: bodily integrity as a never-ending process of identification. By comparing the experiences of individuals with BDD to those with real deformities and to those who have undergone cosmetic surgery, I will show that re-identification does not occur in individuals with BDD. This suggests that their bodily integrity is fundamentally disturbed and that addressing their internalised values alone will probably not be sufficient for the disorder to go into remission. (shrink)

Early Chinese thought enjoys a wide appeal, in the scholarly world as much as elsewhere, as people are keen on learning about the ideas of Confucius, Mencius, and other thinkers whose views have shaped traditional Chinese culture. In the study of early Chinese thought, emphasis has long been on what thinkers said, not on how they proffered their views. Even studies that do consider the how, tend to focus on logic and argumentation, rather than rhetoric. Fortunately, in the past few (...) decades growing attention has been paid to Chinese rhetoric which has led to an impressive number of publications. This work briefly outlines rhetoric in the West and in China. (shrink)

The review is available online on Estudos Kantianos.

Розкрито сутність поняття «рейтинг». Доведено значущість рейтингової оцінки для суб’єктів фінансового ринку, зокрема для страхових компаній, потенційних страхувальників, інвесторів та кредиторів.

According to Peter Galison, the coordination of different “subcultures” within a scientific field happens through local exchanges within “trading zones.” In his view, the workability of such trading zones is not guaranteed, and science is not necessarily driven towards further integration. In this paper, we develop and apply quantitative methods (using semantic, authorship, and citation data from scientific literature), inspired by Galison’s framework, to the case of the disunity of high-energy physics. We give prominence to supersymmetry, a concept that has (...) given rise to several major but distinct research programs in the field, such as the formulation of a consistent theory of quantum gravity or the search for new particles. We show that “theory” and “phenomenology” in high-energy physics should be regarded as distinct theoretical subcultures, between which supersymmetry has helped sustain scientific “trades.” However, as we demonstrate using a topic model, the phenomenological component of supersymmetry research has lost traction and the ability of supersymmetry to tie these subcultures together is now compromised. Our work supports that even fields with an initially strong sentiment of unity may eventually generate diverging research programs and demonstrates the fruitfulness of the notion of trading zones for informing quantitative approaches to scientific pluralism. (shrink)

A longish (12 page) discussion of Richard Sorabji's excellent book, with a further discussion of what it means for a theory of emotions to be a cognitive theory.

This reply to an ongoing debate between conspiracy theory researchers from different disciplines exposes the conceptual confusions that underlie some of the disagreements in conspiracy theory research. Reconciling these conceptual confusions is important because conspiracy theories are a multidisciplinary topic and a profound understanding of them requires integrative insights from different fields. Specifically, we distinguish research focussing on conspiracy *theories* (and theorizing) from research of conspiracy *belief* (and mindset, theorists) and explain how particularism with regards to conspiracy theories does not (...) mean we cannot define a problematic subclass of conspiracy beliefs, while avoiding the problems of generalism. We hope this reply helps conspiracy theory researchers recognize the differences between studying conspiracy theories and conspiracy beliefs and appreciate the possibilities for fruitful, integrative, and interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a harm, and that – for all of us unfortunate enough to have come into existence – it would be better had we never come to be. We contend that if one accepts Benatar’s arguments for the asymmetry between the presence and absence of pleasure and pain, and the poor quality of life, one must also accept that suicide is preferable to continued existence, and that his view therefore implies both anti-natalism (...) and pro-mortalism . This conclusion has been argued for before by Elizabeth Harman – she takes it that because Benatar claims that our lives are ‘awful’, it follows that ‘we would be better off to kill ourselves’ (Harman 2009: 784). Though we agree with Harman’s conclusion, we think that her argument is too quick, and that Benatar’s arguments for non-pro-mortalism deserve more serious consideration than she gives them. We make our case using a tripartite structure. We start by examining the prima facie case for the claim that pro-mortalism follows from Benatar’s position, presenting his response to the contrary, and furthering the dialectic by showing that Benatar’s position is not just that coming into existence is a harm, but that existence itself is a harm. We then look to Benatar’s treatment of the Epicurean line, which is important for him as it undermines his anti-death argument for non-pro-mortalism. We demonstrate that he fails to address the concern that the Epicurean line raises, and that he cannot therefore use the harm of death as an argument for non-pro-mortalism. Finally, we turn to Benatar’s pro-life argument for non-pro-mortalism, built upon his notion of interests, and argue that while the interest in continued existence may indeed have moral relevance, it is almost always irrational. Given that neither Benatar’s anti-death nor pro-life arguments for non-pro-mortalism work, we conclude that pro-mortalism follows from his anti-natalism, As such, if it is better never to have been, then it is better no longer to be. -/- . (shrink)

Epileptogenesis involves an increase in excitatory synaptic strength in the brain in a manner similar to synaptic potentiation. In the present study we investigated the mechanisms of short-term synaptic potentiation in patients with focal epilepsy by using 5 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a non invasive neurophysiological technique able to investigate the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in humans. Ten patients with focal idiopathic cortical epilepsy were studied. 5 Hz-rTMS (10 stimuli-trains, 120% of motor threshold, RMT) was delivered over the (...) first dorsal interosseus (FDI) motor area of both (affected and unaffected) hemispheres. Changes in the motor evoked potential (MEP) size in the FDI muscle during the trains and the RMT were measured and compared between the hemispheres. 5 Hz-rTMS was also delivered in a group of healthy subjects over both hemispheres. 5 Hz-rTMS in patients elicited a reduced MEP facilitation compared to normal subjects. The reduced MEP amplitude was more evident in the affected hemisphere than in the unaffected hemisphere. RMT in the affected hemisphere was higher than in the unaffected hemisphere and in healthy subjects. Our findings showing a decreased response to 5 Hz-rTMS over the affected hemisphere, differently from the expected results suggest a reduced cortical excitability in epileptic patients. We hypothesize an altered balance between excitatory and inhibitory circuits in epileptic patients under chronic therapy. (shrink)

Applied to evaluative properties the supervenience thesis is customarily understood as expressing two intuitions: (i) the idea that there is some kind of dependence between the (supervenient) value of an object and some (or all) of the natural properties of the object; (ii) the idea that if you assert that x is valuable and if you agree that y is relevantly similar to x, with regard to natural properties, you must be prepared to assert that y too is valuable. It (...) is argued that the influential account of supervenience by R. M. Hare is problematic in that it only expresses the latter but not the former intuition. Two solutions to this problem are outlined, one of which ought to be endorsable by a prescriptivist such as Hare. (shrink)

The role of intuition in Kant’s account of experience receives perennial philosophical attention. In this essay, I present the textual case that Kant also makes extensive reference to what he terms “images” that are generated by the imagination. Beyond this, as I argue, images are fundamentally distinct from empirical and pure intuitions. Images and empirical intuitions differ in how they relate to sensation, and all images (even “pure images”) actually depend on pure intuitions. Moreover, all images differ from intuitions in (...) their structure or format. I then turn to a question that naturally arises on the resulting view: if the imagination produces images, and if images are fundamentally distinct from intuitions, then how do intuitions relate to the imagination? I outline reasons for thinking that intuitions and their essential features do not depend on the imagination at all. Though this essay does not decisively argue for this thesis, the resulting view provides a clear account of the distinction between the senses and the imagination in Kant’s theory of sensibility. (shrink)

We show that five important elements of the ‘nomological package’— laws, counterfactuals, chances, dispositions, and counterfactuals—needn’t be a problem for the Growing-Block view. We begin with the framework given in Briggs and Forbes (in The real truth about the unreal future. Oxford studies in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012 ), and, taking laws as primitive, we show that the Growing-Block view has the resources to provide an account of possibility, and a natural semantics for non-backtracking causal counterfactuals. We show (...) how objective chances might ground a more fine-grained concept of feasibility, and furnished a places in the structure where causation and dispositions might fit. The Growing-Block view, thus understood, provides the resources to explain the close link between modality and tense, so that it predicts modal change as time passes. This account lets us capture not only what the future might hold for us, and also what might have been. (shrink)