Edward Nieznanski developed in 2007 and 2008 two different systems in formal logic which deal with the problem of evil. Particularly, his aim is to refute a version of the logical problem of evil associated with a form of religious determinism. In this paper, we revisit his first system to give a more suitable form to it, reformulating it in first-order modal logic. The new resulting system, called N1, has much of the original basic structure, and many axioms, definitions, and (...) theorems still remain; however, some new results are obtained. If the conclusions attained are correct and true, then N1 solves the problem of evil through the refutation of a version of religious determinism, showing that the attributes of God in Classical Theism, namely, those of omniscience, omnipotence, infallibility, and omnibenevolence, when adequately formalized, are consistent with the existence of evil in the world. We consider that N1 is a good example of how formal systems can be applied in solving interesting philosophical issues, particularly in Philosophy of Religion and Analytic Theology, establishing bridges between such disciplines. (shrink)

Edward Nieznański developed two logical systems to deal with the problem of evil and to refute religious determinism. However, when formalized in first-order modal logic, two axioms of each system contradict one another, revealing that there is an underlying minimal set of axioms enough to settle the questions. In this article, we develop this minimal system, called N3, which is based on Nieznański’s contribution. The purpose of N3 is to solve the logical problem of evil through the defeat of a (...) version of religious determinism. On the one hand, these questions are also addressed by Nieznański’s systems, but, on the other hand, they are obtained in N3 with fewer assumptions. Our approach can be considered a case of logic of religion, that is, of logic applied to religious discourse, as proposed by Józef Maria Bocheński; in this particular case, it is a discourse in theodicy, which is situated in the context of the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Realizar uma discussão teórica decorrente da perspectiva ninfomanía em um cenário da pandemia do covid-19, possibilitando o resumo de informações como facilitador do tratamento de pacientes. Trata-se de uma revisão narrativa de aspecto critico discursivo, onde a construção da pesquisa e a formulação foram baseadas em publicações relevantes sobre o tema proposto, conceituando a doença e os fatores que influenciam seu diagnóstico e tratamento. Questionável nos aspectos sociais, religiosos e na perda do controle sexual ao deparar mos em situação de (...) isolamento social, necessitando de tratamento adequado. O aumento da exposição na mídia de pessoas que sofrem de distúrbios ninfomaníacos pode ser negativo, seja refletido no sentimento de preconceitos e incertezas perante a expansão de uma pandemia, onde consultas medicas e informações fornecidas por profissionais habilitados são todas por video chamadas, seguindo o protocolo do distanciamento, resultando na exposição de informações. Ressaltam se que são poucas as publicações sobre o assunto, principalmente em novas perspectivas diante da pandemia do covid-19 dificultando a compreensão. -/- REFERÊNCIAS 1. BARBOSA JPS. A produção de significados em pôsteres de filmes quer: diálogos entre a Análise Crítica do Discurso, os Estudos da Tradução e a Identidade de Gênero. Revista do Centro de Estudos da Linguagem da Universidade Federal de Rondônia,2018; 5(1):197-217. 2. CANTO JAM, PAULA PLD. Ninfomaníaca: Um filme sob a lente da psicanálise. Revista Brasileira de Ciências da Vida, 2017; 6(1): 2525-359X. 3. CZAPLA P. Sexualidade e governo: a produção do perverso pelos discursos médicos. Aedos, Porto Alegre, v. 12, n. 26, ago. 2020. 4. FERREIRA IT, et al. Avaliação da qualidade da consulta de enfermagem em infecções sexualmente transmissíveis. Enfermagem Foco, 2018; 9(3): 42-47. 5. FERREIRA MJP, et al. Preconceito no futebol feminino no Brasil. Revista Diálogos em SaúdeISSN: 2596-206X. 6. GIGLIOTTI A, GUIMARÃES A. Dependência, compulsão e impulsividade. Rio de Janeiro: Rubio, 2007;65-67p. 7. PEREIRA GSM, et al. HIV/aids, hepatites virais e outras IST no Brasil: tendências epidemiológicas. REV BRAS EPIDEMIOL 2019; 22(SUPPL 1): E190001. supl.1. 8. ROQUE MV. Ninfa distante: as estrelas intermitentes de Manuel Bandeira. AfluAfluente, UFMA/CCEL, v.5, n.15, p. 96-121, jan./jun. 2020 ISSN 2525-3441. 9. SANTOS MIDA, PINHEIRO CVQ. Representações da loucura feminina no cinema – Augustine e nimphomaniac. Revista Humanidades, 2016; 31(2): 395-414. 10. SANTOS MACM, SALLES VLR. O fenômeno da histeria e a visão da sexualidade feminina na literatura: realismo/naturalismo europeu. Revista Interdisciplinar em Cultura e Sociedade, São Luís, 2016; 2(1):109-126. 11. SILVA EIC. Relação e efeitos bioquímico-nutricionais sobre o cio ou estro permanente em vacas. Revista AGROPE IFPEBJ – Vol. 1 n° 1. pp. 27-34. 12. SILVA CRO. A escola como lugar de prevenção: educação para a saúde para a paz. Revista Educação, 2018; 13(1):151-161. 13. SILVA VL, et al. Análise da motivação de pessoas: um estudo baseado em princípios da Hierarquia de Necessidades de Maslow. Revista Foco, 2017;10(2):148-166. 14. SOARES FR, et al. Satiríase: o gozo incontrolável e seus desprazeres psíquicos. Faculdade Estácio de Sá de Goiás, 2018; 1(1): 62-66. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary (...) philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

Assessment of marine debris ingestion by sea turtles is important, especially to ensure their survival. From January to December 2011, 23 specimens of five species of sea turtleswere found dead or dying after being rehabilitated, along the coast of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. To detect the presence of marine debris in the digestive tract of these turtles, we conducted a postmortemexamination from the esophagus until the distal portion of the large intestine for each specimen. Of the total (...) number of turtles, 39% had ingested marine debris such as soft plastic, hard plastic, metal, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle caps, human hair, tampons, and latex condoms. Five of the seven sea turtles species are found along the Brazilian coast, where they feed and breed. A large number of animals are exposed to various kinds of threats, including debris ingestion. (shrink)

RESUMO A Transferência de Embrião (TE) em bovinos se trata de uma técnica mundialmente disseminada com objetivo de aumentar a capacidade reprodutiva da fêmea. Mantém vínculo direto com outras técnicas das biotecnologias da reprodução, como, a Ovum Pick-Up (OPU), Produção In Vitro e In Vivo de embriões (PIVE) e Transferência de Embrião em Tempo Fixo (TETF), sendo estas, técnicas que fazem parte de um processo, que vai desde a seleção de doadoras, passando pelo preparo dos embriões até sua inovulação em (...) receptoras criteriosamente selecionadas. Com seu avanço, várias tecnologias de manejo vêm sendo implantadas: formas no transporte de embriões, protocolos de sincronização de doadoras e receptoras, e protocolos de recuperação de oócitos para produção de embriões. Isto infundiu a tecnologia, porém, os investimentos previstos para a produção de um animal de alto mérito genético limita sua utilização. Contudo, esta análise abordou avanços tecnológicos essenciais para o sucesso da TE, incluindo novos protocolos, sexagem de embriões, além do uso de embriões congelados Direct Transfer (DT) e vitrificados. No entanto, é claro que o sucesso do procedimento está no processo como um todo, em destaque ressalta-se que é de grande valia que o profissional apto a executar a técnica esteja sempre preparado e atualizado garantindo qualidade, eficiência e sustentabilidade na pecuária. Esta revisão foi desenvolvida com o propósito de adquirir conhecimento teórico, de forma detalhada e crítica, nas técnicas e procedimentos de Transferência de Embriões em bovinos, incluindo a colheita, manipulação e implantação de embriões. Palavras-chaves: Bovino, doadora, embrião, receptora. ABSTRACT Embryo Transfer (ET) in cattle is a globally widespread technique aimed at enhancing the reproductive capacity of females. It is closely linked to other techniques in reproductive biotechnologies, such as Ovum Pick-Up (OPU), In Vitro and In Vivo Embryo Production (PIVE), and Timed Embryo Transfer (TET), all of which are part of a process that ranges from donor selection, through embryo preparation, to their inoculation into carefully chosen recipients. With its advancement, various management technologies have been implemented: including methods for embryo transport, synchronization protocols for donors and recipients, and oocyte recovery protocols for embryo production. Although technology has been infused, the anticipated investments for producing animals of high genetic merit limit its widespread use. However, this analysis addressed essential technological advances for the success of ET, including new protocols, embryo sexing, as well as the use of frozen-thawed (DT) and vitrified embryos. Nevertheless, it is clear that the success of the procedure lies in the entire process. Notably, it emphasizes the significant value of having a qualified professional who is always prepared and updated to ensure quality, efficiency, and sustainability in livestock farming. This literary review was developed with the purpose of acquiring theoretical knowledge, in a detailed and critical way, on the techniques and procedures of Embryo Transfer in cattle, including the collection, manipulation and implantation of embryos. Keywords: Bovine, donor, embryo, recipient. -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS BARUSELLI, P.S; MADUREIRA, E.H. Controle farmacológico do ciclo estral em ruminantes. 2000, Anais.. São Paulo: Fundação da Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia, USP, 2000. BARUSSELI, P.S. et al. Importância do emprego da eCG em protocolos de sincronização para IA, TE e SOV em tempo fixo. Biotecnologia de reprodução em bovinos (3° Simpósio Internacional de Reprodução Animal Aplicada). 2008. BRANDÃO, G.V.R. Revisão de Literatura: Transferência de Embrião em Bovinos. Curitibanos-SC, 2019. BUENO, A.P.; BELTRAN, M.P.; Produção in vitro de embriões bovinos. Revista Científica Eletrônica De Medicina Veterinária. ISSN 1679-7353, ano VI, n.11, Julho, 2008. CAETANO, S.G; SILVA, N.V.S. Inseminação artificial de bovnos em tempo fixo (IATF) – Revisão de literatura. UNIFUCAMP, Monte Carmelo- M.G, Junho, 2023. CARVALHO, V.H.S. et al. Impactos das biotécnicas da reprodução animal e o melhoramento genético na pecuária de corte. PUBVET, São Luis De Montes Belos, v.17, n.8, p.1-10, 2023 DANTAS, K.S.A.; NUNES, C. C. C.; FERREIRA, J.; DANTAS, R. A. A. Seleção de receptoras em um programa de transferência de embriões (PIVE) em bovinos no Nordeste do Brasil. Ciência Animal, Fortaleza, v. 28, p. 1-14, 2018. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia Clínica do Ciclo Estral de Vacas Leiteiras: Desenvolvimento Folicular, Corpo Lúteo e Etapas do Estro. 2020. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia da Reprodução de Bovinos Leiteiros: Aspectos Básicos e Clínicos. Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva, 2022. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia do ciclo estral dos animais domésticos. Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva, 2021. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Transferência de Embriões nos Animais e a Indústria de Embriões no Brasil. DIAS, L.R.O. Fatores que afetam a produção de embriões pela Transferência Intrafolicular de Ovócitos Imaturos (TIFOI) em bovinos. 2021. 85 f. Tese (Doutorado em [nome do programa]) - Faculdade de Agronomia e Medicina Veterinária, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, 2021. DOMINGUES, P.F.; LANGONI, H. Manejo Sanitário Animal. Editora de Publicações Biomédicas Ltda - EPUB, Rio de Janeiro, 2001. 209 p. EMBRAPA. MINERAIS NA EFICIÊNCIA REPRODUTIVA DE BOVINOS. SÃO CARLOS- SÃO PAULO 2008. FIDELIS, C.A.S. Inseminação artificial em tempo fixo intracornual profunda em bovinos. Dissertação (mestrado acadêmico). Araguaína - TO, 2019. GONÇALVES, R.L.R.; VIANA, J.H.M. Situação atual da produção de embriões bovinos no Brasil e no mundo. In: Anais do XXIII Congresso Brasileiro de Reprodução Animal, 2019, Gramado, RS, 2019, p. 156-159. GOUVEIA, F.F. A Produção in vitro de embriões Bovinos. Monografia (Conclusão do curso de Medicina Veterinária) – Faculdade de Agronomia e Medicina Veterinária, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 2011. GREGIANINI, J.T.F. et al. Avaliação de embriões bovinos utilizando sêmen sexado e convencional. In: SEMINÁRIO DA EMBRAPA ACRE DE INICIAÇÃO CIENTÍFICA E PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO, 4., 2021, Rio Branco, AC. Atividades agropecuárias e florestais para o desenvolvimento sustentável da Amazônia: Anais... Rio Branco, AC: Embrapa Acre, 2022. Pôster. GUARDA, A.C.A. Biotecnologia na reprodução animal: Uma visão teórico/prática de produção in vitro de embriões bovino. 2023. 28p. Trabalho de Conclusão de curso (Bacharelado de Zootecnia). Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia Goiano – Câmpus Rio Verde, Rio Verde, GO, 2023. HAFEZ, E.S.E.; HAFEZ. Reprodução animal / [coordenador de tradução da 7. ed. original Renato Campanarut Barnabe]. – Barueri, SP : Manole, 2004, il.; HONORATO, M.T. et al. Importância da escolha de receptoras em um programa de transferência de embriões em bovinos. PUBVET, Londrina, V. 7, N. 19, Ed. 242, Art. 1601, Outubro, 2013. HOPPER, R.M. Bovine Reproduction. Wiley Blackwell, Capítulo 78, p. 723-733, 2015. LIMA, Fabio Junior Arruda. Transferência de embriãos em tempo fixo em bovinos: Relato de Caso. Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (graduação em medicina veterinária)- Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina-Campus Curitibanos. Curitibanos, 2018. MACHADO, R. et al. Metodologia para obtenção de concepto bovino. Embrapa Pecuária Sudeste, ISSN 1981-2078, São Carlos-SP, 2009. Disponível em:. Acessado em 11 de outubro, 2023 BASTOS, M.R. et al. Criopreservação de embriões bovinos produzidos in vitro. In: MENDONÇA, P. P. et al. (Org.). Tópicos Especiais em Ciência Animal XI. 1. ed. Alegre: CAUFES, 2022. Capítulo 13. MELO, R. et al. Utilização de ECG e FSH em protocolos de superovulação em bovinos. Manejo, Nutrição e Produção Animal: Tópicos Atuais em Pesquisa, v. 1, n. 1, p. 110-116, 2023. OLIVEIRA, C.S. et al. Biotécnicas da Reprodução em Bovinos. EMBRAPA, 2014. PASA, C. Transferência de embriões em bovinos. Biodiversidade, v. 7, n. 1, 2008. PAZZIM, L.V.L. Transferencia de embriões em bovinos: Revisão de literatura. Monografia (Trabalho conclusão de curso) - Universidade federal de Santa Catarina. Curitibanos, 2021. PENITENTE FILHO, J.M. et al. Produção de embriões bovinos in vivo e in vitro. Revista CFMV, Ano XX, p. 73-82, 2014. PENITENTE FILHO, J.M. Produção de Embriões Bovinos In Vivo e In Vitro. 2011. 22 f. Monografia (Especialização) - Curso de Medicina Veterinária, UFV, Viçosa, 2011. PILLA, L.F.C. Congelamento ultra-rapido de embriões bovinos com etilenoglicol associado ou não a trealose. 2005. 37f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Area de concentração em Fisiopatologia da Reprodução), Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria. RIBEIRO, L.V.P.; RIGOLON, L.P.; CAVALIERI, F.L.B.; SEKO, M.B.; MARTINEZ, A.C.; RIBEIRO, M.G.; MARTINS, R.R.; ÁVILA, M.R.; DE CONTI, J.B. Recuperação de oócitos e recuperação in vitro de embriões de vacas estimuladas com FSH ou eCG. Archivos de zootecnia. v. 60, n. 232, p. 1021-1029, 2011. ROCHA, J.R.; SANTOS, L.M. As vantagens da sexagen de embriões em bovinos. Revista científica eletrônica de medicina veterinária, ano IV, n.8, janeiro de 2007. RUBIN, M.I.B; Histórico dos 20 anos da Sociedade Brasileira de Tecnologia de Embriões, 2005. SANTOS, P.H. Impactos da superestimulação ovariana sore a diferenciação das celulas da grranulosa bovina. Dissertação de Mestrado em Farmacologia e Biotecnologia - UNESP. 2017. SEIDEL, G.E.J.; SEIDEL, S. M. Training manual for embryo transfer in cattle 2005. SENEDA, M.M.; ESPER, C.R.; GARCIA, J.M.; ANDRADE, E.R. Aspecto técnicos e biológicos da obtenção de oócitos bovinos: Revisão de Literatura. Ciências agrárias, Londrina, v. 23, n. 1, p. 101-110, 2002. SILVA, D.P.; TOLEDO, H.R.P.; SILVA, R.A.B.; CARVALHO, G.F.; MELO, A.F.; GARCIA, M.S.; et al. Transferência Intrafolicular de Ovócitos Imaturos (TIFOI): revisão de literatura. Zootecnia: Pesquisa e práticas contemporâneas - volume 2, 255-266, 2021. SPELL, A.R.; BEAL, W.E.; CORAH, L.R.; LAMB, G.C. Evaluating recipient and embryo factors that affect pregnancy rates of embryo transfer in beef cattle. Theriogenology, v. 56, p. 287-297, 2001. SPRÍCIGO, J.F.W.; DODE, M.A.N. Transferência Intrafolicular de Ovócitos Imaturos (TIFOI): uma Alternativa para Produção de Embriões Bovinos. Embrapa Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia, Brasília, 2016. VALLE, E.R. O ciclo estral de bovinos e os métodos de controle. EMBRAPA, 1991. VIANA, J.H.M. Classificação de embriões bovinos produzidos in vivo. Comunicado Técnico (EMBRAPA). ISSN 1678-3131, Juiz De Fora-MG, Novembro, 2009. VIANA, J.H.M. 2017 Statistics of embryo production and transfer in domestic farm animals: Is it a turning point? In 2017 more in vitro-produced than in vivo-derived embryos were transferred worldwide. Embryo Transfer Newsl, v.36(4), p.8-25, 2018. VIANA, J.H.M.; SIQUEIRA, L.G.; PALHAO, M.P.; CAMARGO, L.S.A.; Features and perspectives of the Brazilian in vitro embryo industry. Anim Reprod, v.9, p.12-18, 2012. WÜNSCHE JÚNIOR, A.G et al. Avaliação de uma segunda lavagem uterina sobre a recuperacão de embriões em vacas Nelore. Semina: Ciências Agrárias, Londrina, v. 29, n.3, p. 677-684, jul./set. 2008. (shrink)

A critical review of the main themes arising out of recent literature on the semantics of ordinary event talk. The material is organized in four sections: (i) the nature of events, with emphasis on the opposition between events as particulars and events as universals; (ii) identity and indeterminacy, with emphasis on the unifier/multiplier controversy; (iii) events and logical form, with emphasis on Davidson’s treatment of the form of action sentences; (iv) linguistic applications, with emphasis on issues concerning aspectual phenomena, the (...) telicity/atelicity distinction, the treatment of statives, and temporal quantification. (shrink)

This work introduces the reader to the central issues and theories in Western environmental ethics, and against this background develops a Buddhist environmental philosophy and ethics. Drawing material from original sources, there is a lucid exposition of Buddhist environmentalism, its ethics, economics and Buddhist perspectives for environmental education. The work is focused on a diagnosis of the contemporary environmental crisis and a Buddhist contribution for positive solutions. Replete with stories and illustrations from original Buddhist sources, it is both informative and (...) engaging. (shrink)

It is a widely held principle that no one is able to do something that would require the past to have been different from how it actually is. This principle of the fixity of the past has been presented in numerous ways, playing a crucial role in arguments for logical and theological fatalism, and for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the ability to do otherwise. I will argue that, assuming bivalence, this principle is in conflict with standard views about (...) knowledge and the semantics for ‘actually’. I also consider many possible responses to the argument. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pruss proves the validity of the rule beta-2 relative to Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals, which is a significant step forward in the debate about the consequence argument. Yet, we believe there remain intuitive counter-examples to beta-2 formulated with the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. We offer a novel and two-dimensional formulation of the Lewisian semantics for counterfactuals and prove the validity of a new transfer rule according to which a new version of the consequence argument can (...) be formulated. This new transfer rule is immune to the counter-examples involving the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. However, we show that counter-examples to this new rule can also be generated, demanding that the Lewisian semantics be generalized for higher dimensions where counter-examples can always be generated. (shrink)

Este Dossier está compuesto por dos textos: la traducción de la reseña que Dewey escribe en 1926 sobre el libro de Albert C. Barnes (1925) The Art in Painting, titulada “Art in Education – Education in Art”, en primer lugar; un artículo que escribimos (Educación y Arte. Acerca de John Dewey) que toma parte de la temática planteada en la reseña interpretándola a la luz de la filosofía del ilustre pragmatista clásico, en segundo lugar.

Los propósitos de este artículo son dos: en primer lugar, presentar los rasgos característicos tanto de la filosofía de la educación como de la estética de Dewey y su íntima vinculación; en segundo lugar, señalar la relevancia que la influencia de Albert C. Barnes tiene para el desarrollo de las concepciones de arte y de educación del autor de Art as Experience. Para mostrar la influencia de Barnes en Dewey, tópico pasado por alto por la literatura secundaria o solo tratado (...) superficialmente, utilizamos diversos elementos, especialmente la reseña que Dewey escribe sobre el libro de Barnes, The Art in Painting (1925), titulada “Art in Education - Education in Art” (1926) y que traducimos en este número de la revista. (shrink)

A description of consciousness leads to a contradiction with the postulation from special relativity that there can be no connections between simultaneous event. This contradiction points to consciousness involving quantum level mechanisms. The Quantum level description of the universe is re- evaluated in the light of what is observed in consciousness namely 4 Dimensional objects. A new improved interpretation of Quantum level observations is introduced. From this vantage point the following axioms of consciousness is presented. Consciousness consists of two distinct (...) components, the observed U and the observer I. The observed U consist of all the events I is aware of. A vast majority of these occur simultaneously. Now if I were to be an entity within the space-time continuum, all of these events of U together with I would have to occur at one point in space-time. However, U is distributed over a definite region of space-time (region in brain). Thus, I is aware of a multitude of space-like separated events. It is seen that this awareness necessitates I to be an entity outside the space-time continuum. With I taken as such, a new concept called concept A is introduced. With the help of concept A a very important axiom of consciousness, namely Free Will is explained. (shrink)

In a recent article, P. Roger Turner and Justin Capes argue that no one is, or ever was, even partly morally responsible for certain world-indexed truths. Here we present our reasons for thinking that their argument is unsound: It depends on the premise that possible worlds are maximally consistent states of affairs, which is, under plausible assumptions concerning states of affairs, demonstrably false. Our argument to show this is based on Bertrand Russell’s original ‘paradox of propositions’. We should then opt (...) for a different approach to explain world-indexed truths whose upshot is that we may be morally responsible for some of them. The result to the effect that there are no maximally consistent states of affairs is independently interesting though, since this notion motivates an account of the nature of possible worlds in the metaphysics of modality. We also register in this article, independently of our response to Turner and Capes, and in the spirit of Russell’s aforementioned paradox and many other versions thereof, a proof of the claim that there is no set of all true propositions one can render false. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of evil from the perspective of saint Thomas Aquinas. It is argued that the nature of moral evil is in the individual who for some reason lost it departs from the pursuit of the good that is inherent to being. Synderesis is the only indissoluble bridge that man has with natural law and even with eternal. Converted into noluntas will guide man intrinsically evil acts but the synderesis, as a power with a natural habit, is (...) the best guide for the contingent decision-making under the rubric of the first practical principles from transcendent. (shrink)

Contemporary Darwinian medicine is a still-expanding new discipline whose principal aim is to arrive at an evolutionary understanding of aspects of the body that leave it vulnerable to disease. Historically, there was a precedent; between 1880 and 1940 several scientists tried to develop a general evolutionary theory of disease as arising from deleterious traits that escape elimination by natural selection. In contrast, contemporary Darwinian medicine uses evolutionary theory to consider all the possible reasons why selection has left human vulnerable to (...) a disease. (shrink)

Los procesos de globalización constituyen un vasallaje cultural para la identidad regional de los pueblos originarios, por ello, aun cuando la identidad sea un concepto polisémico, ciertas actividades son necesarias para mantenerla o, incluso, acrecentarla. Los idiomas autóctonos, la preservación de su cosmovisión, sus tradiciones y la defensa de su patrimonio biocultural pueden ser elementos constitutivos de identidad, no para un aislamiento de los pueblos, sino para la construcción de una visión glocal.

INTRODUÇÃO A FORMAÇÃO DO ESTADO E DA POLÍTICA -/- Não existe a fixação exata de quando se formou a primeira organização política, entendida esta como uma relação assimétrica, em que um, ou alguns, governam e a grande maioria é governada. Pode ter sido em Jericó, na Palestina, onde se encontrou uma velha muralha de pedra, de dez mil anos atrás, supondo-se ter abrigado de dois a três mil habitantes. A diferença possível de se fixar era de que, antes, havia apenas (...) aldeias cujas organizações eram tribais ou de clãs, onde as relações eram simétricas, cujo chefe apenas representava o grupo enquanto expressasse a vontade do mesmo. Existe, então, uma grande diferença, entre uma organização política, ainda que representando apenas o povo de uma cidade, e as organizações não políticas, pois na primeira existe um governo, responsável pelo destino de todos, enquanto nessas outras o chefe trata-se apenas da exteriorização da vontade do grupo. -/- Da primeira cidade palestina, a outras que se formaram, principalmente na Suméria, surgiram as primeiras organizações políticas. Das cidades independentes da região, ao Egito antigo e aos impérios da Ásia Menor, cada vez mais o poder político exteriorizava uma diferenciação social profunda, em que a grande maioria produzia para alguns poucos e a produção era organizada pelo poder estatal. De forma análoga, houve os regimes políticos no -/- subcontinente indiano, na China e na Mesoamérica. -/- Depois, ocorreu o alvorecer das polis gregas, inicialmente governadas por monarquias, em seguida por aristocracias, até que algumas chegaram às democracias antigas, como o caso de Atenas. A função política aí era vista como um dever da cidadania e, não, como um privilégio, tanto que diversos cargos eram atribuídos por meio de sorteios e a instância máxima era uma assembleia, dos cidadãos, excluindo mulheres, estrangeiros e escravos. A sofisticação cultural e política grega permitiu que houvesse diversos pensadores incumbidos de entender o enigma da política. -/- O Império romano, também, teve alto grau de sofisticação, especialmente quanto às funções públicas. Houve, inicialmente, uma realeza, depois um sistema aristocrático até que se chegou muito perto das democracias representativas, no chamado governo misto, em que existiam dois cônsules, para representar a monarquia, o senado dos patrícios, relativo à aristocracia, e a assembleia da plebe, tido como o elemento democrático. O modelo acima criou diversas influências, principalmente para o Mundo Ocidental, em instituições como o Município. -/- O Völkerwanderugen, as invasões bárbaras nas áreas do Império romano, destruíram as instituições tradicionais, mas conservaram algumas, como o commendatio, o beneficium e o immunitas, que colaboraram com o perfil das organizações feudais. Por outro lado, o mundo germânico, ainda baseado num sistema de clã e, não, na forma estatal, contribuiu com o gefolgschaft, ou séquito, um vínculo pessoal de lealdade e afeição entre um líder guerreiro e sua comitiva de colaboradores. O mundo feudal nasceu desses institutos, em que cada castelo converteu-se em um centro de governo independente do poder central. -/- O sistema acima confluiu para o ständestaat, entendida como uma comunidade política de estados, significando estes como ordem ou classe social representada nas antigas assembleias -/- ou cortes. O ingresso de cidades independentes do castelo feudal, muitas vezes comprando ou lutando pela liberdade, mudou o cenário político, com aquelas se voltando para o poder central, contra o poder fracionado que lhes ameaçavam mais. -/- Houve, então, um fortalecimento do governo central e absorção de territórios menores e mais fracos pelos maiores e mais fortes, chegando à formação de um número pequeno de Estados independentes entre si, cada um se afirmando como soberano. O poder político, então, aí pode ser entendido como uma relação simétrica entre os Estados soberanos e uma relação assimétrica entre o Estado e os súditos. Houve, com isso, a formação dos Estados absolutistas, cuja “autoridade assentava agora exclusivamente no monarca, que tinha reunido em si todas as prerrogativas públicas de governo efetivo”. A própria denominação Estado nasceu, na Itália, a partir da palavra status, que indicava a situação pessoal do dirigente que formara em torno de si uma organização política territorial. O Estado moderno, o absolutista, ou nacional, em que todas expressões que significam um novo tipo de organização, jamais visto antes, tinha o poder político como em decorrência de uma decisão racional da sociedade, para melhor se defender dos perigos da anarquia e da violência. -/- Do sistema absolutista, houve um processo de aquisição de cidadania, entendida esta como uma situação concernente aos membros integrais de uma comunidade, com iguais direitos obrigações. A cidadania civil, inicialmente, concedia direitos necessários à liberdade individual, começando a ser atribuída nos séculos XVII a XVIII, a partir da Revolução Inglesa, em 1688, da Revolução Americana, em 1776, e da Revolução Francesa, em 1789. Foi a época em que o discurso político esteve voltado para a ideia do contrato social, com suas diversas matizes, mas caracterizado pelo processo de constitucionalização do Estado. -/- Depois, veio a chamada cidadania política, com o poder de escolher e ser escolhido representante no governo ou no parlamento e, também, de se manifestar sobre o comportamento das instituições, inicialmente no século XVIII, mas que se consolidou no século XIX até o século XX, quando finalmente as mulheres passaram a ter direito ao voto. A forma de democratizar o Estado foi, então, se atribuir a cidadania política a cada vez maior número de pessoas, sendo esta a principal preocupação do pensamento liberal, contestado pelo pensamento marxista, visto como insuficiente para a igualdade social. -/- Por fim, veio a cidadania social, entendida como o direito ao bem-estar econômico, com direito a remunerações compatíveis com a dignidade humana, bem como os benefícios do sistema educacional e de saúde e dos serviços sociais, direitos pleiteados no século XIX, mas só reconhecidos devidamente no século XX. Não foi um processo simples, mas complexo, que assistiu a consolidação em textos constitucionais como a Constituição mexicana, em 1917, a Declaração do Povo Oprimido e Trabalhador da Rússia, em 1918, e, finalmente, a Constituição de Weimar, em 1919. Todas as lutas pela cidadania acabaram mudando o aspecto do Estado e, em consequência, do poder político. Já agora, no século XXI, existe uma preocupação com a forma pela qual o poder é exercido. Em primeiro lugar, aparece a racionalização técnica como a forma de discurso e de comunicação, cuja informática e a Internet são sua exteriorização mais evidente. Em segundo lugar, as fusões das grandes instituições econômicas fazem com que elas superem em poder econômico a grande maioria dos Estados independentes. Em terceiro lugar, ocorre o processo de massacre da individualidade, em nome da chamada globalização. Em quarto, surge a ameaça física à espécie humana, em razão da poluição e da violação dos ecossistemas, gerando uma nova pressão de cidadania pelos direitos de última geração. Por fim, existe a visível mudança das organizações políticas, através de macroestruturas, inicialmente de conteúdo econômico, mas que mudam para novas formas políticas, como a União Europeia e, talvez, o Unasul, na América do Sul. -/- Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva - Técnico em Agropecuária pelo Instituto Federal de Pernambuco campus Belo Jardim. Normalista pela Escola Frei Cassiano Comacchio. (shrink)

In this paper I critically evaluate the value neutrality thesis regarding technology, and find it wanting. I then introduce the various ways in which artifacts can come to influence moral value, and our evaluation of moral situations and actions. Here, following van de Poel and Kroes, I introduce the idea of value sensitive design. Specifically, I show how by virtue of their designed properties, artifacts may come to embody values. Such accounts, however, have several shortcomings. In agreement with Michael Klenk, (...) I raise epistemic and metaphysical issues with respect to designed properties embodying value. The concept of an affordance, borrowed from ecological psychology, provides a more philosophically fruitful grounding to the potential way(s) in which artifacts might embody values. This is due to the way in which it incorporates key insights from perception more generally, and how we go about determining possibilities for action in our environment specifically. The affordance account as it is presented by Klenk, however, is insufficient. I therefore argue that we understand affordances based on whether they are meaningful, and, secondly, that we grade them based on their force. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an exposition and critique of Johnson and Noorman’s (2014) three conceptualizations of the agential roles artificial systems can play. I argue that two of these conceptions are unproblematic: that of causally efficacious agency and “acting for” or surrogate agency. Their third conception, that of “autonomous agency,” however, is one I have reservations about. The authors point out that there are two ways in which the term “autonomy” can be used: there is, firstly, the engineering sense (...) of the term, which simply refers to the ability of some system to act independently of substantive human control. Secondly, there is the moral sense of the term, which has traditionally grounded many notions of human mor-al responsibility. I argue that the continued usage of “autonomy” in discussions of artificial agency complicates matters unnecessarily. This occurs in two ways: firstly, the condition of autonomy, even in its engineering sense, fails to accurately describe the way “autonomous” systems are developed in practice. Secondly, the continued usage of autonomy in the moral sense introduces unnecessary meta-physical baggage form the free will debate into discussions about moral agency. In order to understand the debate surrounding autonomy, we would therefore first need to settle many seemingly intractable metaphysical questions regarding the existence of free will in human beings. (shrink)

The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification is the distinction between having justification to believe P (= propositional justification) versus having a justified belief in P (= doxastic justification). The focus of this paper is on doxastic justification and on what conditions are necessary for having it. In particular, I challenge the basing demand on doxastic justification, i.e., the idea that one can have a doxastically justified belief only if one’s belief is based on an epistemically appropriate reason. This demand (...) has been used to refute versions of coherentism and conservatism about perceptual justification as well as to defend phenomenal “conservatism” and other views besides. In what follows I argue that there is virtually no reason to think there is a basing demand on doxastic justification. I also argue that even if the basing demand were true, it would still fail to serve the dialectical purposes for which it has been employed in arguments concerning coherentism, conservatism, and phenomenal “conservatism”. I conclude by discussing the fact that knowledge has a basing demand and show why this needn’t raise the same sort of problems for coherentism and conservatism that doxastic justification’s basing demand seemed to. (shrink)

When a belief is self-fulfilling, having it guarantees its truth. When a belief is self-defeating, having it guarantees its falsity. These are the cases of “self-impacting” beliefs to be examined below. Scenarios of self-defeating beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack sufficient reason to have any belief whatsoever. Scenarios of self-fulfilling beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack reason to have any one belief over another. Both scenarios have been used (...) independently to challenge Evidentialism, on which what we may rationally believe is all and only what fits our current evidence. Here we tie the two scenarios together and explore what a knowledge-sensitive evidentialist approach to one implies for the other. (shrink)

En este artículo se plantean algunas consideraciones clásicas que santo Tomás de Aquino formuló sobre la fundamentación de la ley como producto de la razón y su relación con las leyes de los hombres. Se analiza el papel de la sindéresis como vínculo del individuo con la ius naturae y se concluye que la vida buena tiene un referente en el “estado de derecho” y en la práctica sistemática de las virtudes morales.

In this paper, I argue that the temporal connective prima (‘before’) is a comparative adverb. The argument is based on a number of grammatical facts from Italian, showing that there is an asymmetry between prima and dopo (‘after’). On the ground of their divergent behaviour, I suggest that dopo has a different grammatical status from prima. I propose a semantic treatment for prima that is based on an independently motivated analysis of comparatives which can be traced back to Seuren (in: (...) Kiefer and Ruwet (eds.) Generative grammar in Europe, 1973). Dopo is analyzed instead as an atomic two-place predicate which contributes a binary relation over events to the sentence meaning. The different semantic treatments of the two connectives provide an explanation for the grammatical asymmetries considered at the outset; interestingly, they also shed some light on other asymmetries between prima and dopo, which are known to hold for the English temporal connectives before and after as well: these asymmetries are related to the veridicality properties, the distribution of NPIs, and the logical properties of these connectives first described in Anscombe (Philos Rev 73:3–24, 1964). (shrink)

Evolutionary Debunking Arguments are defined as arguments that appeal to the evolutionary genealogy of our beliefs to undermine their justification. Recently, Helen De Cruz and her co-authors supported the view that EDAs are self-defeating: if EDAs claim that human arguments are not justified, because the evolutionary origin of the beliefs which figure in such arguments undermines those beliefs, and EDAs themselves are human arguments, then EDAs are not justified, and we should not accept their conclusions about the fact that human (...) arguments are unjustified. De Cruz's objection to EDAs is similar to the objection raised by Reuben Hersh against the claim that, since by Gödel's second incompleteness theorem the purpose of mathematical logic to give a secure foundation for mathematics cannot be achieved, mathematics cannot be said to be absolutely certain. The response given by Carlo Cellucci to Hersh's objection shows that the claim that by Gödel's results mathematics cannot be said to be absolutely certain is not self-defeating, and can be adopted to show that EDAs are not self-defeating as well in a twofold sense: an argument analogous to Cellucci's one may be developed to face De Cruz's objection, and such argument may be further refined incorporating Cellucci's response itself in it, to make it stronger. This paper aims at showing that the accusation of being self-defeating moved against EDAs is inadequate by elaborating an argument which can be considered an EDA and which can also be shown not to be self-defeating. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are ubiquitous. From social media timelines, video recommendations on YouTube, and the kinds of adverts we see online, AI, in a very real sense, filters the world we see. More than that, AI is being embedded in agent-like systems, which might prompt certain reactions from users. Specifically, we might find ourselves feeling frustrated if these systems do not meet our expectations. In normal situations, this might be fine, but with the ever increasing sophistication of AI-systems, this (...) might become a problem. While it seems unproblematic to realize that being angry at your car for breaking down is unfitting, can the same be said for AI-systems? In this paper, therefore, I will investigate the so-called “reactive attitudes”, and their important link to our responsibility practices. I then show how within this framework there exist exemption and excuse conditions, and test whether our adopting the “objective attitude” toward agential AI is justified. I argue that such an attitude is appropriate in the context of three distinct senses of responsibility (answerability, attributability, and accountability), and that, therefore, AI-systems do not undermine our responsibility ascriptions. (shrink)

Interview with Stathis Psillos regarding realism in the philosophy of science and recent realist trends in Continental Philosophy.

In response to the many social impacts of automated mobility, in September 2020 the European Commission published Ethics of Connected and Automated Vehicles, a report in which recommendations on road safety, privacy, fairness, explainability, and responsibility are drawn from a set of eight overarching principles. This paper presents the results of an interdisciplinary research where philosophers and engineers joined efforts to operationalize the guidelines advanced in the report. To this aim, we endorse a function-based working approach to support the implementation (...) of values and recommendations into the design of automated vehicle technologies. Based on this, we develop methodological tools to tackle issues related to personal autonomy, explainability, and privacy as domains that most urgently require fine-grained guidance due to the associated ethical risks. Even though each tool still requires further inquiry, we believe that our work might already prove the productivity of the function-based approach and foster its adoption in the CAV scientific community. (shrink)

I provide a novel knowledge-first account of justification that avoids the pitfalls of existing accounts while preserving the underlying insight of knowledge-first epistemologies: that knowledge comes first. The view I propose is, roughly, this: justification is grounded in our practical knowledge (know-how) concerning the acquisition of propositional knowledge (knowledge-that). I first refine my thesis in response to immediate objections. In subsequent sections I explain the various ways in which this thesis is theoretically superior to existing knowledge-first accounts of justification. The (...) upshot is a virtue-theoretic, knowledge-first view of justification that is internalist-friendly and able to explain more facts about justification than any other available view. (shrink)

Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles. Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected vacuism, she has offered an argument in favour of it, which Edward Wierenga has defended as providing strong support for vacuism that is independent of the orthodox semantics for counterfactuals, mainly developed by David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker. In this paper I show that argument to be sound only relative to the orthodox semantics, which entails vacuism, and give (...) an example of a semantics for counterfactuals countenancing impossible worlds for which it fails. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic and thorough philosophical analysis of the ways in which driving automation crosses path with ethical values. Upon introducing the different forms of driving automation and examining their relation to human autonomy, it provides readers with in-depth reflections on safety, privacy, moral judgment, control, responsibility, sustainability, and other ethical issues. Driving is undoubtedly a moral activity as a human act. Transferring it to artificial agents such as connected and automated vehicles necessarily raises many philosophical questions. When (...) driving is automated, what happens to its ethical dimensions? Could artificial agents accomplish ethical objectives on our behalf, take moral decisions in our place, and drive us into a more ethical transportation future? In doing so, would they be “moral” as we are or in a way that is similar to, but also remarkably different from, our own? And what role is yet to be played by human responsibility and commitment? The book addresses these questions with the aim of stimulating an interdisciplinary dialogue between different stakeholders. They include automotive engineers, computer scientists, and moral philosophers, as well as industry representatives, policymakers, regulators, transportation experts, and the general public. Indeed, connected and automated vehicles will not take the high road for us . We must drive them there. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present and analyze the relationship between the concept of State (Staat) and the concept of freedom (Freiheit) as expounded by the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) in his Lectures on Philosophy of History (Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte), published posthumously for the first time in 1837. The article’s exposition will generally follow the second chapter of the work in question – called the Determination of the Spirit in Universal History (Bestimmung (...) der Geistes in der Weltgeschichte) – and more precisely, the subchapter The form of its realization (Die Gestalt dieser Realisierung). (shrink)

It is one thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is _sometimes_ insufficient for rational belief, as in typical lottery and profiling cases. It is another thing to hold that merely statistical evidence is _always_ insufficient for rational belief. Indeed, there are cases where statistical evidence plainly does justify belief. This project develops a dispositional account of the normativity of statistical evidence, where the dispositions that ground justifying statistical evidence are connected to the goals (= proper function) of objects. There (...) are strong intuitive motivations for doing this. For we can turn almost any case of _non-justifying_ merely statistical evidence into a case of _justifying_ merely statistical evidence by adding information about the dispositions and goals of the objects involved. The resulting view not only helps us understand when and why merely statistical evidence is normatively significant, but it also helps us understand how statistical evidence relates to more standard forms of evidence (perceptual, testimonial). The emerging view also has surprising applications, as it imposes limitations on the epistemic value of fine-tuning arguments for theism as well as undermines a standard class of case-based arguments for moral encroachment. (shrink)

The basing demand on doxastic justification is a widely held and highly intuitive dogma of contemporary epistemology. In Silva [2015, AJP], I argued that the dialectical significance of this dogma is severely limited by our lack of independent grounds for endorsing it. Oliveira [2015, AJP] sought to defend the basing demand on doxastic justification. Here I explain why Oliveira’s attempted defense of the basing demand misses its mark. I also briefly suggest that there is an alternative way of defending (...) the basing demand. The alternative way is reconciliatory: it shows that most epistemologists may have been right to insist on such a demand, but perhaps still wrong to treat it as a dialectically powerful tool in the assessment of certain substantive epistemological theories. (shrink)

This article presents a challenge that those philosophers who deny the causal interpretation of explanations provided by population genetics might have to address. Indeed, some philosophers, known as statisticalists, claim that the concept of natural selection is statistical in character and cannot be construed in causal terms. On the contrary, other philosophers, known as causalists, argue against the statistical view and support the causal interpretation of natural selection. The problem I am concerned with here arises for the statisticalists because the (...) debate on the nature of natural selection intersects the debate on whether mathematical explanations of empirical facts are genuine scientific explanations. I argue that if the explanations provided by population genetics are regarded by the statisticalists as non-causal explanations of that kind, then statisticalism risks being incompatible with a naturalist stance. The statisticalist faces a dilemma: either she maintains statisticalism but has to renounce naturalism; or she maintains naturalism but has to content herself with an account of the explanations provided by population genetics that she deems unsatisfactory. This challenge is relevant to the statisticalists because many of them see themselves as naturalists. (shrink)

O Primeiro Império Persa (550-330 a.C.) representava a maior e a mais populosa organização política até então erguida. A crise e a dissensão provocada pelo militarismo agressivo dos assírios permitiram que esse Império pudesse dominar a Ásia Central. A ocupação de toda Anatólia fez com que os gregos habitantes do litoral fossem submetidos aos persas, quebrando-lhes a autonomia política. Não obstante, não se submeteram facilmente revoltando-se sob a liderança de Mileto e pedindo aos outros gregos que os ajudasse. Logo, em (...) 499 a.C., o Imperador Dario (m. Egito, 486 a.C.) dominou a revolta. Concluiu, então, que 2 deveria invadir a própria Grécia continental, por meio da Trácia. As cidades gregas foram sendo conquistadas pelos persas uma a uma, mas, na planície de Maratona, em 490 a.C., os atenienses surpreenderam e derrotaram os adversários, praticamente sozinhos. -/- O filho de Dario, Xerxes (c. 519 – Persépolis, 465 a.C.), dez anos depois da famosa batalha, 3 começou um novo ataque, invadindo a Grécia. Os espartanos concordaram em enviar um exército para manter o desfiladeiro de Termópilas, enquanto a frota ateniense enfrentava os persas no mar. Liderado pelo Rei Leônidas (m. Termópolis, 480 a.C.), trezentos filhos de Esparta enfrentaram uma multidão e só foram derrotados pelo ardil de um traidor. Vencido o obstáculo, o grande rei persa marchou para Atenas, tomando-a e saqueando-a. Não obstante, na batalha naval de Salamina, em 480 a.C., a força naval dos atenienses conseguiu indiscutível vitória, o que forçou os invasores a recuarem da Grécia Continental. HERÔDOTOS4 nasceu em Halicarnasso, cidade grega da Ásia Menor, em 484-479 a.C., em uma família envolvida com a política, por conta da qual foi exilado com a idade de trinta e dois anos. Daí, deu início às várias viagens, que lhe serviram de pano de fundo para sua obra História. Foi, primeiro, para a Fenícia e, dela para o Egito, onde chegou até a ilha de 5 Elefantina, pelo rio Nilo. Depois seguiu para Cirene, na Líbia. Em seguida, foi até Susa, no coração do Império Persa. Rumou ao Norte, para as cidades gregas do Mar Negro. De suas viagens, pesquisas e diálogos, ele criou sua fascinante obra História, que também recebera a influência da obra de Hecateu e outras anteriores. Em 447 a.C., fixou residência em Atenas, 6 onde lia publicamente trechos de seus livros. De tal modo agradou aos atenienses, elevando seus homens na guerra contra os persas, que lhe recompensaram com doze talentos, uma soma hoje que daria para comprar um bom modelo da Mercedes Benz.7 HERÔDOTOS, durante o seu período em Atenas, conviveu com Péricles (495-415 a.C.), 8 por quem demonstrou admiração em História, Anaxágora (500-428 a.C.), grande filósofo 9 pré-socrático, e SÓFOCLES (496/4-406 a.C.). Durante 464 e 496 a.C., foram enviados 10 colonos atenienses à Itália, para fundar uma nova cidade, Túria, na costa do Golfo de Tarento, no local onde existia Síboris, destruída por sua vizinha Crotara. Ele se juntou aos colonos e tornou-se cidadão local, que teve a constituição elaborada por Protágoras de Ábdera,11 resultando na existência de ideias com influência sofista. HERÔDOTOS viveu em Túria, 12 por vinte anos, e lá morreu, em 420 a.C. (shrink)

Conservatism about perceptual justification tells us that we cannot have perceptual justification to believe p unless we also have justification to believe that perceptual experiences are reliable. There are many ways to maintain this thesis, ways that have not been sufficiently appreciated. Most of these ways lead to at least one of two problems. The first is an over-intellectualization problem, whereas the second problem concerns the satisfaction of the epistemic basing requirement on justified belief. I argue that there is at (...) least one Conservative view that survives both difficulties, a view which has the further ability to undercut a crucial consideration that has supported Dogmatist views about perceptual justification. The final section explores a tension between Conservatism and the prospects of having a completely general account of propositional justification. Ironically, the problem is that Conservatives seem committed to making the acquisition of propositional justification too easy. My partial defense of Conservatism concludes by suggesting possible solutions to this problem. (shrink)

We consider a natural-language sentence that cannot be formally represented in a first-order language for epistemic two-dimensional semantics. We also prove this claim in the “Appendix” section. It turns out, however, that the most natural ways to repair the expressive inadequacy of the first-order language render moot the original philosophical motivation of formalizing a priori knowability as necessity along the diagonal.

In the last decades two different and apparently unrelated lines of research have increasingly connected mathematics and evolutionism. Indeed, on the one hand different attempts to formalize darwinism have been made, while, on the other hand, different attempts to naturalize logic and mathematics have been put forward. Those researches may appear either to be completely distinct or at least in some way convergent. They may in fact both be seen as supporting a naturalistic stance. Evolutionism is indeed crucial for a (...) naturalistic perspective, and formalizing it seems to be a way to strengthen its scientificity. The paper shows that, on the contrary, those directions of research may be seen as conflicting, since the conception of knowledge on which they rest may be undermined by the consequences of accepting an evolutionary perspective. (shrink)

Il problema della rappresentazione, connaturato ad ogni mediazione linguistica del rapporto di mente e mondo, è nelle sue molteplici forme un tema antico della riflessione filosofica. La rappresentazione letteraria appartiene alla stessa categoria e pone problemi analoghi al pensiero. Che cosa significa rappresentare poeticamente? Il concetto di finzione letteraria può avere solo un senso peggiorativo o limitante nei confronti della comunicazione dell’universale, o ne può essere una modalità? Il tema del saggio è il rapporto tra realtà e finzione letteraria che (...) pare emergere da I falsari di André Gide. Seguendo le intuizioni e i suggerimenti dello scrittore, si proverà a tracciare le linee principali di un’interpretazione positiva della finzione letteraria, che ne riconosca la potenza espressiva senza soffocarne i caratteri distintivi. Non è detto, poi, che ciò che vale per la rappresentazione poetica non possa avere un senso anche sotto punti di vista più generali. (shrink)

The special composition question asks, roughly, under what conditions composition occurs. The common sense view is that composition only occurs among some things and that all and only ‘ordinary objects’ exist. Peter van Inwagen has marshaled a devastating argument against this view. The common sense view appears to commit one to giving what van Inwagen calls a ‘series-style answer’ to the special composition question, but van Inwagen argues that series-style answers are impossible because they are inconsistent with the transitivity of (...) parthood. In what follows I answer this objection in addition to other, less troubling objections raised by van Inwagen. (shrink)

In scientific communications, journal articles, and philosophical aesthetic debates the words “art”, “creativity”, and “machine” are put together more and more frequently. Since some machines are designed to, or happens to, imitate human artistic creativity, it seems natural to use the same words to talk about human artists and machines which imitate them. However, the evolution of language in light of technology may conceal specific features of the phenomena it is supposed to describe. This makes it difficult to understand what (...) machine creativity actually is and how it is connected to human creativity. The aim of the paper is to investigate why, and in what sense, the functioning of some machines may be described in terms of artistic creativity and what is the relation between machine creativity and its human archetype. I start (§1) by introducing some general ideas concerning how language evolves alongside new technologies and focusing on the case of machine creativity. In §2 I review how some creative machines have been presented to the public, thus showing that a linguistic habit which connects machines to artistic creativity has already formed. In §3 I survey the debate on machine aesthetics and I highlight the main traits of the issue. In §4 I submit a primary scheme of machine creativity which draws on the concept of functional autonomy. Finally (§5), I argue that machine creativity cannot be mistaken for a substitute of the human kind, despite the fact that the word is the same. Creative machines are technological mediums by which new forms of human aesthetic experience can be explored. The kind of creativity machines enjoy displays a functional nature. (shrink)

Recent research in the field of social robotics has shed light on the considerable role played by biases in the design of social robots. Cues that trigger widespread biased expectations are implemented in the design of social robots to increase their familiarity and boost interaction quality. Ethical discussion has focused on the question concerning the permissibility of leveraging social biases to meet the design goals of social robotics. As a result, integrating ethically problematic social biases in the design of robots-such (...) as, e.g., discriminatory gender stereotypes-has been opposed as morally unacceptable. Building on this debate, the present paper explores a related but different question: would it be permissible to design social robots in ways that intentionally challenge widespread discriminatory social biases, thus fostering moral education? The analysis shows that, while the potential benefits of such a design strategy could be significant, its practical endorsement raises important ethical issues. Hence, caution and further discussion are advised. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhat conditions must be satisfied if a group is to count as having a justified belief? Jennifer Lackey has recently argued that any adequate account of group justification must be sensitive to both the evidence actually possessed by enough of a group's operative members as well as the evidence those members should have possessed. I first draw attention to a range of objections to Lackey's specific view of group justification and a range of concrete case intuitions any plausible view of (...) group justification must explain. I then offer an alternative view of group justification where the basic idea is that group justification is a matter of groups responsibly responding to their total evidence. This view both avoids the problems facing Lackey's account and also explains the relevant concrete case intuitions. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to advance a philosophically justifiable account of Artificial Moral Agency (AMA). Concerns about the moral status of Artificial Intelligence (AI) traditionally turn on questions of whether these systems are deserving of moral concern (i.e. if they are moral patients) or whether they can be sources of moral action (i.e. if they are moral agents). On the Organic View of Ethical Status, being a moral patient is a necessary condition for an entity to qualify as (...) a moral agent. This view claims that because artificial agents (AAs) lack sentience, they cannot be proper subjects of moral concern and hence cannot be considered to be moral agents. I raise conceptual and epistemic issues with regards to the sense of sentience employed on this view, and I argue that the Organic View does not succeed in showing that machines cannot be moral patients. Nevertheless, irrespective of this failure, I also argue that the entire project is misdirected in that moral patiency need not be a necessary condition for moral agency. Moreover, I claim that whereas machines may conceivably be moral patients in the future, there is a strong case to be made that they are (or will very soon be) moral agents. Whereas it is often argued that machines cannot be agents simpliciter, let alone moral agents, I claim that this argument is predicated on a conception of agency that makes unwarranted metaphysical assumptions even in the case of human agents. Once I have established the shortcomings of this “standard account”, I move to elaborate on other, more plausible, conceptions of agency, on which some machines clearly qualify as agents. Nevertheless, the argument is still often made that while some machines may be agents, they cannot be moral agents, given their ostensible lack of the requisite phenomenal states. Against this thesis, I argue that the requirement of internal states for moral agency is philosophically unsound, as it runs up against the problem of other minds. In place of such intentional accounts of moral agency, I provide a functionalist alternative, which makes conceptual room for the existence of AMAs. The implications of this thesis are that at some point in the future we may be faced with situations for which no human being is morally responsible, but a machine may be. Moreover, this responsibility holds, I claim, independently of whether the agent in question is “punishable” or not. (shrink)

[This papers explores a novel case for the normativity of knowledge for belief – something that is compatible with the knowledge/factual awareness distinction I've explored elsewhere.] There are two different kinds of enkratic principles for belief: evidential enkratic principles and normative enkratic principles. It’s frequently taken for granted that there’s not an important difference between them. But evidential enkratic principles are undermined by considerations that gain no traction at all against their normative counterparts. The idea that such an asymmetry exists (...) between evidential and normative enkratic principles is surprising all on its own. It is also something that calls out for explanation. Similarly, the considerations that undermine evidential enkratic principles also undermine certain narrow-scope evidential principles. This too generates explanatory questions. I show how a knowledge-first view of rationality can easily address these explanatory questions. Thus we have one more reason to put knowledge first in [some areas of] epistemology. (shrink)

An argument is epistemically self-defeating when either the truth of an argument’s conclusion or belief in an argument’s conclusion defeats one’s justification to believe at least one of that argument’s premises. Some extant defenses of the evidentiary value of intuition have invoked considerations of epistemic self-defeat in their defense. I argue that there is one kind of argument against intuition, an unreliability argument, which, even if epistemically self-defeating, can still imply that we are not justified in thinking intuition has evidentiary (...) value. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to determine the domain of validity of the notions developed in Machine Ethics [ME]. To this aim, I analyse the epistemological and methodological presuppositions that lie at the root of such technological project. On this basis, I then try and develop the theoretical means to identify and deconstruct improper applications of these notions to objects that do not belong to the same epistemic context, focusing in particular on the extent to which ME is supposed (...) to feedback onto moral philosophy. By highlighting the inadequacy of many approaches to the supposed philosophical implications of ME, I wish to redirect attention to its actual scope and to stress its relevance for the social acceptance of autonomous technologies. The essay is structured as follows. After a brief introduction (§ 1), in § 2 I shed light upon the link between the current trend of robotic development toward greater degrees of autonomy and the corresponding need for artificial moral agents that fuels research in ME. I then present the epistemological profile of ME in § 3, focusing on its main component, i.e., the modelling of human moral agency in the language of robotics and computer science. In § 4 I deal with cases in which such model is brought to bear on human ethics and moral philosophy as well, whilst in § 5 I develop a criticism of this extension based on an account of the actual epistemological relations that obtain between philosophical and technological knowledge in the context of the ME project. In § 6 I discuss the role that the ordinary use of language plays in the process of extending machinerelated notions to other domains of knowledge and, finally, I clarify what the appropriate scope of machine ethics is notwithstanding its many utopian or dystopian misinterpretations. (shrink)