Human resource management (HRM) education has tended to focus on specific functions and tasks within organizations, such as compensation, staffing, and evaluation. This task orientation within HRM education fails to account for the bigger questions facing human resource management and employment relationships, questions which address the roles and responsibilities of the HR function and HR practitioners. An educational focus on HRM that does not explicitly address larger ethical questions fails to equip students to address stakeholder concerns about how employees are (...) treated or the ethical dilemmas facing employers with regard to the employment relationship, and ironically makes the HRM function less strategic to the organization. In this paper, we identify some of the key ethical issues within the employment relationship, discuss how extant HRM education often fails to address these issues or help students to become aware of them, and offer a framework for integrating ethics into HRM education. (shrink)

I raise three puzzles concerning self-deception: (i) a conceptual paradox, (ii) a dilemma about how to understand human cognitive evolution, and (iii) a tension between the fact of self-deception and Davidson’s interpretive view. I advance solutions to the first two and lay a groundwork for addressing the third. The capacity for self-deception, I argue, is a spandrel, in Gould’s and Lewontin’s sense, of other mental traits, i.e., a structural byproduct. The irony is that the mental traits of which self-deception is (...) a spandrel/byproduct are themselves rational. (shrink)

Within eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition we can distinguish at least three main theoretical positions: (i) Buffon’s mechanism, (ii) Reimarus’ theory of instincts, and (iii) the sensationalism of Condillac and Leroy. In this paper, I adopt a philosophical perspective on this debate and argue that in order to fully understand the justification Buffon, Reimarus, Condillac, and Leroy gave for their respective theories, we must pay special attention to the theoretical virtues these naturalists alluded to while justifying their position. These theoretical (...) virtues have received little to no attention in the literature on eighteenth-century animal cognition, but figure prominently in the justification of the mechanist, instinctive, and sensationalist theories of animal behavior. Through my philosophical study of the role of theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition, we obtain a deeper understanding of how theoretical virtues were conceptualized in eighteenth-century science and how they influenced the justification of theories of animal cognition. (shrink)

Central limit theorem for the functional of jump Markov process. Nguyễn Văn Hữu, Vương Quân Hoàng và Trần Minh Ngọc. Báo cáo: Hội nghị toàn quốc lần thứ III “Xác suất - Thống kê: Nghiên cứu, ứng dụng và giảng dạy” (tr. 34). Ba Vì, Hà Tây, ngày 12-14 tháng 05 năm 2005. Viện Toán học / Trường Đại học Khoa học tự nhiên / Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội.

Under a policy first enacted in 1988 and expanded in 1996, federally funded public housing authorities (“PHAs”) and private landlords renting their properties to tenants receiving federal housing assistance have been required to include a provision in all leases under which drug-related criminal activity as well as criminal activity that in any way poses a threat to other tenants or nearby residents constitutes ground for initiating eviction proceedings. This strict liability eviction policy, which has become known as the “One-Strike Rule,” (...) was part of a broader congressional effort to combat the “reign of terror” that Congress believed drug dealers were imposing on public housing and assisted housing tenants. Like many of the crime-related policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s, the One-Strike Rule has done little to reduce crime rates, but has been wildly successful in ensuring that the situation of poor households receiving federal assistance remains highly precarious. Calls for reform of the One-Strike Rule are almost as old as the policy itself, but given the political outlook of the current administration, the prospects for reform at the federal level are dim. While federal law and a combination of gridlock and unwillingness in the congressional and executive branches foreclose a range of possible strategies for reform, there is nonetheless room to mitigate the socially corrosive effects of the One-Strike Rule through legislative efforts at the state and local level. Courts in various jurisdictions have upheld state laws that protect vulnerable tenants despite the federal strict liability policy, and these holdings help to provide a framework for how state and local governments seeking to protect tenants can do so without their efforts necessarily falling prey to the Supremacy Clause. This article describes that framework and proposes three concrete measures that fit it. The article is structured as follows: after explaining the One-Strike Rule and the threat it poses to vulnerable tenants (Section II), the article discusses the burden the Rule imposes on tenants and the benefits it is supposed to bring to other parties, and argues that the resulting distribution of burdens and benefits is unjust (Section III). The article then lays out three concrete measures that state and local governments can enact to protect tenants who face eviction for criminal activity under the Rule without falling prey to a federal preemption challenge: requiring “good cause” for eviction, giving tenants the right to cure a breach of their lease, and providing tenants with free counsel in landlord-tenant court (Section IV). (shrink)

The use of computational tools in the humanities for science 2.0 practices is steadily increasing. This paper examines current research practices of a group of philosophers studying the history of philosophical concepts. We explain the methodology and workflow of these philosophers and provide an overview of tools they currently use in their research. The case study highlights a number of fundamental challenges facing these researchers, including: (i) accessing known relevant research content or resources; (ii) discovering new research content or data; (...) (iii) working collaboratively rather than individually. We propose a mash-up of search, visualization, and awareness tools addressing these challenges and discuss the design of the mash-up, its implementation, and evaluation with the target users. Through our case study, we demonstrate the benefits of a user-centered design approach, as well as the benefits of the concrete mash-up for historians of philosophy, and, importantly, the limitations of these tools for conducting historical and philosophical research. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of my recent theoretical work that aims to explain some of the more puzzling properties of life and mind, in particular agency, goal-directedness and consciousness. It contains published papers as well as new material. Table of contents: Preface - PART I: GROUNDWORK - 1. Introduction - 2. The basic mechanism - 3. Inclusive and extensive fitness - 4. Components of F and X - 5. The consequences: a preview - PART II: LIFE - 6. (...) What qualifies as life? - 7. Biological meaning - 8. Biological functions - PART III: MIND - 9. Minimal agency, goal-directedness and value - 10. Intentionality and meaning - 11. Language - 12. Consciousness - 13. The human self - PART IV: PHILOSOPHY - 14. Strong emergence - 15. The real, the true and the good - 16. Philosophical problems of consciousness - Epilogue - Appendix A: Summaries of computational simulations - Appendix B: Examples of minimal intentionality - References. -/- . (shrink)

A computational theory of consciousness should include a quantitative measure of consciousness, or MoC, that (i) would reveal to what extent a given system is conscious, (ii) would make it possible to compare not only different systems, but also the same system at different times, and (iii) would be graded, because so is consciousness. However, unless its design is properly constrained, such an MoC gives rise to what we call the boundary problem: an MoC that labels a system as conscious (...) will do so for some – perhaps most – of its subsystems, as well as for irrelevantly extended systems (e.g., the original system augmented with physical appendages that contribute nothing to the properties supposedly supporting consciousness), and for aggregates of individually conscious systems (e.g., groups of people). This problem suggests that the properties that are being measured are epiphenomenal to consciousness, or else it implies a bizarre proliferation of minds. We propose that a solution to the boundary problem can be found by identifying properties that are intrinsic or systemic: properties that clearly differentiate between systems whose existence is a matter of fact, as opposed to those whose existence is a matter of interpretation (in the eye of the beholder). We argue that if a putative MoC can be shown to be systemic, this ipso facto resolves any associated boundary issues. As test cases, we analyze two recent theories of consciousness in light of our definitions: the Integrated Information Theory and the Geometric Theory of consciousness. (shrink)

There is currently growing interest among occupational stakeholders in the applications of mindfulness in the workplace. In addition to discussing the potential role that mindfulness may have in improving psychological wellbeing inside and outside of work, previous Counselling at Work articles on mindfulness have explored the change management implications associated with rolling out mindfulness interventions at the organisational level.1,2 Following a brief explanation of what we mean by the term ‘mindfulness’, this article complements these earlier perspectives by providing: (i) an (...) up-to-date overview – with a focus on some of our own empirical work – of key developments and findings in occupation-focused mindfulness research, (ii) a discussion of the key mechanisms of action by which mindfulness may improve work-related wellbeing and job performance, and (iii) practical recommendations for the effective teaching of mindfulness in the workplace. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, there was an upsurge of research and innovation in biotechnology and related fields, leading to exciting new discoveries in areas such as the engineering of biological processes, gene editing, stem cell research, CRISPR-Cas9 technology, Synthetic Biology, recombinant DNA, LMOs and GMOs, to mention only a few. At the same time, these advances generated concerns about biosafety, biosecurity and adverse impacts on biodiversity and the environment, leading to the establishment of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) at Higher (...) Education and Research Institutions dedicated to reviewing research with implications for biosafety and the environment. -/- These Biosafety and Environment Research Ethics Committees, referred to as EBRECs, are in the early stages of their establishment and formalisation, and there is much uncertainty about their composition, scope, procedures of decision-making and the principles that should guide their deliberations and assessments. In many respects, EBRECs are venturing into uncharted territory, facing a very wide range of complex research fields, far-reaching research practices and deep concerns new to Review Boards, raising the question to what extent EBRECs can fall back on the fairly well-established principles and procedures of RECs focusing on Human, Health or Animal research, and to what extent they need new or adapted principles and procedures. -/- Against this background, I set out to answer the following three main research questions in this thesis: 1. What is the current state of ethical principles for ethics reviews in the field of environmental and biosafety research ethics? Which principles are currently used in this context, and how? 2. What are the shortcomings of the current principles used by EBRECs and how can they be overcome? 3. What ethical principles must be adopted by environmental and biosafety research ethics committees and guide them in their decision-making? -/- In order to prepare the ground and set the scene for my discussion of these questions, I also formulated four supporting research questions: i. What is environmental research ethics in action? ii. What is biosafety research ethics in action? iii. How are environmental and biosafety ethics related to one another? iv. How should the guidelines and ethical principles related to these two overlapping fields be implemented in the ethics review process? Following my introduction and problem statement in Chapter 1, I devoted Chapters 2 and 3 to an overview of my supporting questions to set the scene for Environmental and Biosafety Research Ethics. In Chapter 4, I turned to my main research question with a discussion of national and international declarations, frameworks and legislation and an investigation of principles in the different research areas to get a picture of applicable principles that can guide EBRECs. -/- The main finding of my thesis is that due to the complexity of EBR, different categories of principles could be the solution for EBRECs. I elaborate on this in Chapter 5, my concluding chapter, in which I also propose a list of core principles that can serve as an accessible and easy-to-use guide for EBRECs in their decision-making. In this proposal, I cluster different kinds of principles in terms of four categories: 1. Principles as a Moral Concept 2. Principles as a Social Concept 3. Principles as a Legal Concept 4. Principles as a Safety Concept . (shrink)

It is fair to say that in contemporary society there is a growing demand amongst consumers for instant gratification and for products and services that can be accessed 24-hours a day. This appears to be the case across numerous sectors of society including (but not limited to) business, education, retail, tourism, health, and recreation. Some examples that come to mind are the: (i) investor looking for a quick-win return on their outlay, (ii) patient demanding a same-day diagnosis and medicine for (...) their latest ailment, (iii) fast-food restaurant goer, (iv) all-inclusive package holiday-maker that can have food, drink, and entertainment any time of day and without having to leave the confines of their hotel, (v) student or professional undertaking an accelerated program of studies or training in order to be awarded the qualification/certificate in the shortest time possible, and (vi) individual using an online dating agency in order to be instantly matched with the “perfect partner”. In addition to the sectors and examples mentioned above, this trend towards wanting immediate reward also appears to be occurring in the spirituality and religion marketplace. For example, one only has to conduct a search on the internet or look at the spiritualty section of a bookshop and it is easy to be overwhelmed by the number of individuals purporting to be spiritual teachers and promising a quick-fix for alleviating suffering. In this post, we examine the benefits and risks of the ‘I want it all, I want it now’ mentality as they relate to the spiritual (and high-street) consumer, and discuss whether it is possible to embody the essence of the Buddha’s teachings whilst living in a “fast-food” society. (shrink)

Thông qua kết quả khảo sát đối với 148 người đang hoạt động tại các doanh nghiệp kiểm toán (DNKT), chi nhánh DNKT trên địa bàn TP. Hồ Chí Minh, bài viết nhằm kiểm định và đánh giá các nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến việc ra quyết định đạo đức của kiểm toán viên (KTV) tại các DNKT. Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy, có 3 nhân tố có ảnh hưởng đến việc ra quyết định đạo đức của KTV tại (...) các DNKT với thứ tự tầm quan trọng là: (i) Nhận thức của KTV; (ii) Luật và quy định nghề nghiệp kiểm toán; (iii) Môi trường làm việc tại DNKT. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly expected to disrupt the ordinary functioning of society. From how we fight wars or govern society, to how we work and play, and from how we create to how we teach and learn, there is almost no field of human activity which is believed to be entirely immune from the impact of this emerging technology. This poses a multifaceted problem when it comes to designing and understanding regulatory responses to AI. This article aims to: (i) (...) defend the need for a novel conceptual model for understanding the systemic legal disruption caused by new technologies such as AI; (ii) to situate this model in relation to preceding debates about the interaction of regulation with new technologies (particularly the ‘cyberlaw’ and ‘robolaw’ debates); and (iii) to set out a detailed model for understanding the legal disruption precipitated by AI, examining both pathways stemming from new affordances that can give rise to a regulatory ‘disruptive moment’, as well as the Legal Development, Displacement or Destruction that can ensue. The article proposes that this model of legal disruption can be broadly generalisable to understanding the legal effects and challenges of other emerging technologies. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented damage to the educational system worldwide. Besides the measurable economic impacts in the short-term and long-term, there is intangible destruction within educational institutions. In particular, teachers – the most critical intellectual resources of any schools – have to face various types of financial, physical, and mental struggles due to COVID-19. To capture the current context of more than one million Vietnamese teachers during COVID-19, we distributed an e- survey to more than 2,500 randomly selected (...) teachers from two major teacher communities on Facebook from 6th to 11th April 2020. From over 373 responses, we excluded the observations which violated our cross-check questions and retained 294 observations for further analysis. This dataset includes: (i) Demographics of participants; (ii) Teachers' perspectives regarding the operation of teaching activities during the pandemic; (iii) Teachers' received support from their schools, government bodies, other stakeholders such as teacher unions, and parents' associations; and (iv) teachers' evaluation of school readiness toward digital transformation. Further, the dataset was supplemented with an additional question on the teachers' primary source of professional development activities during the pandemic. (shrink)

The van Wijngaarden grammars are two-level grammars that present many interesting properties. In the present article I elaborate on six of these properties, to wit, (i) their being constituted by two grammars, (ii) their ability to generate (possibly infinitely many) strict languages and their own metalanguage, (iii) their context-sensitivity, (iv) their high descriptive power, (v) their productivity, or the ability to generate an infinite number of production rules, and (vi) their equivalence with the unrestricted, or Type-0, Chomsky grammars.

In this three-part paper, my concern is to expound and defend a conception of science, close to Einstein's, which I call aim-oriented empiricism. I argue that aim-oriented empiricsim has the following virtues. (i) It solve the problem of induction; (ii) it provides decisive reasons for rejecting van Fraassen's brilliantly defended but intuitively implausible constructive empiricism; (iii) it solves the problem of verisimilitude, the problem of explicating what it can mean to speak of scientific progress given that science advances from one (...) false theory to another; (iv) it enables us to hold that appropriate scientific theories, even though false, can nevertheless legitimately be interpreted realistically, as providing us with genuine , even if only approximate, knowledge of unobservable physical entities; (v) it provies science with a rational, even though fallible and non-mechanical, method for the discovery of fundamental new theories in physics. In the third part of the paper I show that Einstein made essential use of aim-oriented empiricism in scientific practice in developing special and general relativity. I conclude by considering to what extent Einstein came explicitly to advocate aim-oriented empiricism in his later years. (shrink)

This 9,000+ word entry briefly assesses five models of the Trinity, those espoused by (i) Richard Swinburne, (ii) William Lane Craig, (iii) Brian Leftow, (iv) Jeff Brower and Michael Rea, and (v) Peter van Inwagen.

Peter Van Inwagen argues that The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) either leads to contradiction or it leads to necessitarianism. Although I agree with Van Inwagen that the relationship between the PSR and necessitarianism is close, I argue that the PSR is compatible with innocent versions of necessitarianism. In this project my main argument is that modal realism can account for the PSR and integrate it within an innocent version of necessitarianism. My main claim will be that each fact in (...) each possible world is grounded in the principle of plenitude. Also, while each fact is grounded in plenitude, it avoids rigid necessitarianism because (i) actuality is not captured by the PSR, (ii) things could be otherwise because there are other worlds, and due to the principle of recombination (iii) cardinality of possible worlds is maximized and (iv) there are no necessary connections between distinct individuals. As a result, the relationship between modal realism and the PSR is symbiotic. Through modal realism, the PSR also results as: having its scope extended to the realm of all possibilia rather than being confined to mere actuality; it solves indeterminacy problems like Leibniz’s problem of space or the hard problem of consciousness; it accounts for facts in lawless worlds etc. On the other hand, through the PSR, modal realism gets one more benefit in its inventory because it accounts for the PSR. Thus, modal realism still continues on Lewis’ paradoxical path of proving to be highly pragmatic but counterintuitive at the same time. If added benefits are worth the costs for modal realism is still an open question. (shrink)

In a recent paper I argued that agent causation theorists should be compatibilists. In this paper, I argue that compatibilists should be agent causation theorists. I consider six of the main problems facing compatibilism: (i) the powerful intuition that one can't be responsible for actions that were somehow determined before one was born; (ii) Peter van Inwagen's modal argument, involving the inference rule (β); (iii) the objection to compatibilism that is based on claiming that the ability to do otherwise is (...) a necessary condition for freedom; (iv) "manipulation arguments," involving cases in which an agent is manipulated by some powerful being into doing something that he or she would not normally do, but in such a way that the compatibilist's favorite conditions for a free action are satisfied; (v) the problem of constitutive luck; and (vi) the claim that it is not fair to blame someone for an action if that person was determined by forces outside of his or her control to perform that action. And in the case of each of these problems, I argue that the compatibilist has a much more plausible response to that problem if she endorses the theory of agent causation than she does otherwise. (shrink)

Hegel's reading of Hafez as part of his Berlin aesthetics lectures. The jargon of the prosaic world -/- This essay deals with Hegel's reading (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770 - 1831) of Hafez' poetry (Moḥammad Schams ad-Din Hafez Schirazi, around 1315 - 1390) during his lectures on the Aesthetics or Philosophy of Art at the University of Berlin (1820/21; 1823; 1826; 1828/29). Hegel's writings, Lectures on Aesthetics, were published from his remains by Heinrich Gustav Hotho (1802 - 1873) in three (...) volumes (1835 - 1838) and in a second edition from 1842 onwards. The posthumously published writings of Hegel are, considering the preserved archive material and the unreliable editing work by Hotho, a thoroughly complex research topic. Therefore, this problem area also forms the starting point of the present analysis of Hegel's reading of Hafez. -/- Within the framework of this essay, Hegel's categories of historical frameworks (Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic Art), especially that of the "Symbolic Art", are examined in his lectures on Aesthetics . This will do in three steps: starting with the current state of research, problematizing of Hegelian concepts in his Lectures on Aesthetics like "oriental Pantheism" or Vorkunst, ("the threshold of art" or "praeambula": T. M. Knox' translation, 1975, part I); extending the discussion by focusing on similarities and differences between Hegel's reading of Goethe (part II) and Hegel's reading of Hafez (part III) in his Berlin Aesthetics Lectures of the 1820's. For this purpose, material from Goethe's literary remains (II), as well as a masterpiece of Dutch painters van Eyck analyzed by Hegel (Ghent Altarpiece) during his lectures (III), will be included in the analysis and explored from an interdisciplinary and intercultural perspective. In doing so, Goethe's “Space of Experience and Horizon of Expectation” (Koselleck) in imitating Arabic script and calligraphy (II) is linked to Hegel's reading of Hafez during his Berlin lectures on aesthetics (III). Thus, a dialogue of cultures unfolds between poetry and philosophy. The main questions are: How does the German philosopher Hegel interpret and receive Hafiz's poetry in the context of German idealist philosophy as a topic of his lectures on aesthetics? What epistemological aspects can be gained from Hegel's reading of Hafez for a cultural studies analysis, especially regarding the history of the ideas? In addition to analyzing the historical aspects, the aim is also to uncover new perspectives in order to look with Hafez and Rumi at Hegel's problem child of ‘history’. Of particular interest are epistemological aspects and problems of reception and translation studies in sense of interdisciplinary and intercultural research (e. g. connected/entangled histories; boundary objects). Interculturality is understood in the context of the present essay as a cross-disciplinary theoretical framework in the sense of entangled histories research work interwoven with communication, aesthetic and cultural techniques approaches or resilience studies in a historical perspective. (shrink)

Philosophy has long either dismissed or paid only minimal attention to creativity, and even with the rise of research on imagination, the creative imagination has largely been ignored as well. The aim of this volume is to correct this neglect. By bringing together existing research in various sub-disciplines, we also aim to open up new avenues of research. The chapters in Part I provide some framing and history on the philosophical study of imagination and creativity, along with an overview of (...) the empirical literature. Part II explores imagination and creativity as they manifest in, and in turn shape, the individual. Part III surveys the role of imagination and creativity across a wide variety of artistic domains, and the chapters of Part IV turn to societal domains. Part V focuses on the interplay of imagination and creativity with regard to particular features of creative subjects and different kinds of creative subjects. *** -/- Part I: Theories and Approaches 1. Theories of Imagination (Peter Kung) 2. Theories of Creativity (Julia Langkau) 3. Historical Treatments of Imagination in the Western Tradition (Lucia Oliveri) 4. Historical Treatments of Creativity in the Western Tradition (Elliot Paul) 5. Non-Western Treatments of Imagination (Reza Hadisi and Jing Iris Hu) 6. Non-Western Treatments of Creativity (Nicolas B. Verger and Vlad Glăveanu) 7. Empirical Treatments of Imagination and Creativity (Dustin Stokes) 8. Experimental Philosophy of Imagination and Creativity (Michael T. Stuart) 9. The Relationship between Imagination and Creativity (Margherita Arcangeli) -/- Part II: Imagination and Creativity in Mind and Action 10. Imagination, Creativity, and Skill (Amy Kind) 11. Imagination, Creativity, and Attention (Bence Nanay) 12. Imagination, Creativity, and Agency (Caterina Moruzzi) 13. Imagination, Creativity, and Emotion (Julien Deonna and Fabrice Teroni) 14. Imagination, Creativity, and Embodiment (Adriana Clavel-Vázquez and María Jimena Clavel Vázquez) 15. Imagination, Creativity, and Gender (Luke Roelofs) 16. Imagination, Creativity, and Race (Nicholas Whittaker) 17. Imagination, Creativity, and Child Development (Thalia Goldstein, Anna Sofia Caruso, Darian Stapleton, and Lamin Fatty) -/- Part III: Imagination and Creativity in the Arts 18. Imagination, Creativity, and the Visual Arts (Claire Anscomb) 19. Imagination, Creativity, and Music (Matteo Ravasio) 20. Imagination, Creativity, and Fiction (Hannah H. Kim) 21. Imagination, Creativity, and Dance (David Davies and Anna Pakes) 22. Imagination, Creativity, and the Culinary Arts (Patrik Engisch) 23. Imagination, Creativity, and Film (Murray Smith) 24. Imagination, Creativity, and Acting (Tzachi Zamir) 25. Imagination, creativity, and fashion (Laura T. Di Summa) -/- Part IV: Imagination and Creativity in Society 26. Imagination and Creativity in the Scientific Realm (Alice Murphy) 27. Imagination and Creativity in the Moral Realm (Tim Mulgan) 28. Imagination and Creativity in the Political Realm (Avshalom Schwartz) 29. Imagination and Creativity in the Law (Maksymilian Del Mar) 30. Imagination and Creativity in the Religious Realm (Neil Van Leeuwen) 31. Imagination and Creativity in Business (Eric Peterson) 32. Imagination and Creativity in Times of Crisis (Jennifer Fraser and Noah Stemeroff) Part V: Emerging Issues in Imagination and Creativity Research 33. Imagination, Creativity, and Aphantasia (Andrea Blomkvist) 34. Imagination, Creativity, and Neurodivergence (Sofia Ortiz-Hinojosa) 35. Imagination, Creativity, and Non-Human Animals (Henry Shevlin) 36. Imagination, Creativity, and Artificial Intelligence (Peter Langland-Hassan) 37. Collective Imagination and Collective Creativity (Nick Wiltsher) . (shrink)

Drawing upon the recent theoretical framework of Burkean concept of identification (ID), the current study aims at probing the interaction of content and form in two letters penned by Iran’s Supreme Leader and addressed to the Youth on Jan. and Nov. 2015. To this end, the study seeks (i) to determine a role ID takes in the conveyance of intended assumptions to the targeted readers; and (ii) to observe if the writer’s objectives, i.e. to identify himself with the readers and (...) to realize his politically-religiously-infused creeds, result in success or failure; moreover, (iii) it seeks to determine how he achieved his end to attenuate the impacts of blazing inferno of Islamophobia and anti-Islam sentiments in his addressees. The whole corpus (about 3000 words), in light of van Dijk’s Socio-cognitive approach, is critically perused to seek out contextually-coded expressions. The study tries to set out a manner in which political text/talk could be analyzed rhetorically employing ID concept. It was found that ID as a two-way process is a key component for both parties to identify with. It makes the readers align themselves with the writer and helps the writer to associate with the readers and accomplish his goals. (shrink)

Årets Hägerströmföreläsningar i Uppsala gavs i februari av den norske filosofen Dagfinn Føllesdal. Ämnet var "Mening og Erfaring". Dagfinn Føllesdal doktorerade 1961 vid Harvard med Willard Van Quine som handledare på en avhandling om kvantifierad modallogik. Han blev internationellt känd främst för studier om Husserls fenomenologi och dess förhållande till Frege samt för sina arbeten om Quines språkfilosofi. Allt sedan 60-talet har Føllesdal delat sin tid mellan Oslouniversitetet och Stanforduniversitetet i Kalifornien. I sina föreläsningar diskuterade Føllesdal meningsbegreppet med anknytning till (...) teorier formulerade av sådana tidigare Hägerströmföreläsare som Quine, Davidson och Kripke. En utgångspunkt för framställningen var Quines empiristiska syn på språket: Allt vi kan lära om omvärlden och varandra, inklusive språket, är grundat på socialt tillgänglig evidens. Enligt Quines uppfattning är språket väsentligen ett socialt fenomen. Detta innebär att: (i) språket har blivit till genom en social process; (ii) individens inlärning av språket sker på basen av socialt tillgänglig information; och (iii) användningen av språket är en social process. Den centrala frågeställningen som diskuterades i föreläsningarna var: Hur skall vi utifrån en empiristisk syn på språket förstå mening och kommunikation? Quine var den förste att på ett helt explicit sätt formulera denna problemställning. (shrink)

The development of nuclear energy technologies in the second half of the 20th century came with great hopes of rebuilding nations recovering from the devasta-tion of the Second World War or recently released from colonial rule. In coun-tries like France, India, the USA, Canada, Russia, and the United Kingdom, nuclear energy became the symbol of development towards a modern and technologically advanced future. However, after more than six decades of experi-ence with nuclear energy production, and in the aftermath of the (...) Fukushima nuclear disaster, it is safe to say that nuclear energy production is not without its problems.Some of these problems have their origins in the very materiality of the technolo-gies involved. For example, not only does the use of highly radioactive materials give rise to risks for the current generation (e.g., in the potential for disaster when reactors melt down) but high-level radioactive waste from nuclear energy production presents a serious intergenerational problem for which an acceptable final solution or its implementation remains elusive. Moreover, nuclear energy technologies have specific social and political consequences. For example, they have been said to be authoritarian technologies (Winner, 1980), requiring cen-tralized authority, secrecy, and technocratic decision-making. While some of these problems could have been foreseen before nuclear energy technologies were introduced, others only arose after these technologies were already integrated into the social and infrastructural fabric of our lives. Addition-ally, new technologies (e.g., Generation III, III+ and IV reactors) are still being developed, bringing with them new and uncertain hazards and risks. Ignorance and uncertainty about the possible deleterious effects of introducing a new technology are inevitable, especially if the technology is complex, large time-scales are involved, or risks depend on social or political factors unforeseen in the design stage. However, this should not deter us from developing and intro-ducing new technologies. Rather, it should motivate us to organize these ‘exper-iments’ with new technologies in society in such a way that we can learn about their possible hazards and risks as effectively and responsibly as possible (van de Poel, 2011, 2015). In this way, it is possible to minimize risks and avoid unwant-ed moral, social or political developments. However, organizing such experi-ments responsibly also means that one could come to the conclusion that continuing an experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. Should we be prepared for such a scenario, and if so, how could we do that? One possible strategy to tackle this issue is that the technology and its introduction should be reversible. The aim of this thesis is to further explore this strategy by answering the following main research question (RQ) and accompanying subquestions (SQ):RQ: What are the implications of reversibility for the responsible develop-ment and implementation of nuclear energy technologies?SQ1: Under what conditions can nuclear energy technologies be considered reversible?SQ2: Why should nuclear energy technologies be reversible?SQ3: If so, how could the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies be achieved?After the introductory chapter 1, the chapters that form the main body of this dissertation each provide a distinct contribution to answering the three subques-tions and, by extension, the main research question. Guided by three historical case studies of nuclear energy technology development (i.e., India, France and the USA), chapter 2 answers the first subquestion by formulating the two condi-tions under which it can be considered reversible, i.e., 1) the ability to stop the further development and deployment of a that technology in society, and 2) the ability to undo the undesirable outcomes (material, institutional or symbolic) of the development and deployment of the technology. Chapter 3 subsequently tackles the second subquestion by establishing the general desirability of technological reversibility by virtue of its relation to responsibility in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology. It argues that technology development is a legitimate response to responsibility but inevitably falls short of the responsibility that inspires it, incessantly calling for technological and political change in the process. Having thus argued that nuclear energy technologies should ideally be reversible, chap-ters 4 and 5 work towards specific strategies to achieve technological reversibil-ity. Chapter 4 first investigates the processes that make it difficult to stop the further development and implementation of a nuclear energy technology in society, thus provid-ing input on how to fulfill the first condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies. To do so, it presents a phenomenological perspective on technology and its adoption based on the work of Alfred Schutz. It also explores different ways in which technology adoption drives the processes of path depend-ence towards technological lock-in. Chapter 5 examines the history of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste in the USA. It identifies a number of concrete policy pitfalls that could lead to lock-in and that should consequently be avoided. It also presents a number of general design strategies that could facilitate the undoing of undesirable consequences of a technology, thus providing input on how to fulfill the second condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technol-ogies.Chapter 6 summarizes the central findings of the thesis and explains how these help to answer the research questions. On top of this, it reflects on a number of complications connected to reversibility considerations. Based on this, it is concluded that the question of irreversibility and reversibility is context- and technology-specific and a matter of degree. The chapter concludes with a reflec-tion on generalizations and limitations of the results. Finally, chapter 7 discusses the implications of this dissertation’s results for responsibly experimenting with nuclear energy technologies in society. (shrink)

Nghiên cứu rà soát các mô hình phát triển kinh tế, phân tích vai trò nền tảng của hệ thống tài chính với tăng trưởng kinh tế và kiến tạo các quá trình phát triển bền vững. Quan hệ giữa thiết kế hệ thống tài chính và phát triển bền vững kinh tế trong bối cảnh toàn cầu hóa được xem xét ở những điểm cốt lõi: (i) Đầu vào vốn trong các mô hình tăng trưởng; (ii) tác động của (...) quá trình tự hóa và cấu trúc hệ thống tài chính tới tăng trưởng; (iii) xu thế vận động của hệ thống tài chính xây dựng trong bối cảnh toàn cầu hóa; (iv) Đặc trưng của hệ thống tài chính với khởi nghiệp tại các nền kinh tế chuyển đổi; (v) Hệ thống tài chính với khởi nghiệp tại các nền kinh tế chuyển đổi. Kết quả phân tích đóng góp cơ sở lý luận nền tảng để nhận diện và cân nhắc phương hướng, giải pháp điều chỉnh ổn định và/hoặc tái cấu trúc hệ thống tài chính của Việt Nam trong tương lai gần. (shrink)

In 1947 Quine wrote one of the most important and influential articles in the twentieth century philosophy - "On What There Is". One of the aims of this article was a critique of Meinong's Theory of Object. The critique was especially focused upon nonactual possibilities, which (according to Meinong) are some kinds of nonexistent objects. In my paper I want to present Neo-Meinongian refutations of Quine's critique. In order to do this I discuss: (i) the main thesis of "On What (...) There Is" ,(ii) premises of Meinongian Theory, (iii) views of proponents and opponents of the idea of nonexistent objects, (iv) Quine's critique aimed at nonactual possibilities, (v) Terence Parsons' theory, based on the distinction between nuclear and extranucler properties, and (vi) noneism, defended by Richard Routley. I also try to give a reply to the most popular critiques aimed at both Neo-Meinongian theories. The main conclusion is that Quine's critique and his arguments against nonactual possibilities aren't dangerous for theories endorsing Meinong's Theory of Object. Contrary to what Gilbert Ryle once claimed (If Meinongianism isn't dead, nothing is), Meinongian theories are still alive and doing well. (shrink)

Pode-se dizer que desde o início da ciência moderna muito se falou sobre virtudes teóricas tais como simplicidade, unificação, adequação empírica, fecundidade, coerência, etc., isto é, virtudes de uma boa teoria, mas pouco se falou das virtudes dos cientistas enquanto agentes. Todavia, hoje em dia, cada vez mais vem crescendo um interesse sobre qual é o papel das virtudes e dos vícios epistêmicos dos cientistas. Além de diversos artigos, já existem dois importantes livros os quais possuem diversos contribuidores: “Virtue Epistemology (...) Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science” organizado por Abrol Fairweather em 2014 e “Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities” organizado por Jeroen Van Dongen e Paul Herman em 2017. Contudo a atenção maior foi direcionada às virtudes epistêmicas e não aos vícios epistêmicos. Nesses dois livros citados acima, com o total de 29 capítulos, apenas 1 deles é dedicado ao vício epistêmico. O que não é de todo inesperado, se, de maneira análoga, temos em mente que apenas agora com os trabalhos de Quassim Cassam surgiu uma epistemologia do vício. É nesse cenário que Cedric Paternotte e Milena Ivanova entram na discussão com o artigo “Virtues and Vices in Scientific Practice” publicado em 2017. Apesar de eles apontarem o papel das virtudes e dos vícios na prática científica, será contemplado apenas o que eles falam sobre o vício epistêmico na ciência. O que é dito nesse artigo é simples e controverso: o vício epistêmico pode ter função benéfica para o sucesso científico. Na seção I será explicado brevemente o que são as virtudes epistêmicas, em II fala-se um pouco do cenário das virtudes na história da ciência, III será dedicado a argumentação de Paternotte e Ivanova e, por fim, IV fornecerá três breves comentários sobre a posição dos autores. (shrink)

Let us imagine an ideal ethical agent, i.e., an agent who (i) holds a certain ethical theory, (ii) has all factual knowledge needed for determining which action among those open to her is right and which is wrong, according to her theory, and who (iii) is ideally motivated to really do whatever her ethical theory demands her to do (even when she speaks). If we grant that the notions of omniscience and ideal motivation both make sense, we may ask: Could (...) there possibly be an ideal utilitarian, that is, an ideal ethical agent whose ethical theory says that our only moral obligation consists in maximizing utility? I claim that an ideal agent cannot be utilitarian. An ideal utilitarian cannot entertain or communicate the beliefs necessary to being a utilitarian. For if every speech act from her mouth maximizes utility, she cannot be interpreted to utter assertions at all. Her very moral theory undermines the conditions necessary for entertaining it. (shrink)

This article considers two different ways of formulating a desire-satisfaction theory of prudential value. The first version of the theory (the object view) assigns basic prudential value to the state of affairs that is the object of a person’s desire. The second version (the combo view) assigns basic prudential value to the compound state of affairs in which (a) a person desires some state of affairs and (b) this state of affairs obtains. My aims in this article are twofold. First, (...) I aim to highlight that these are not mere notational variants, but in fact have quite different implications, so that this distinction is not one that the theorist of prudential value should ignore. More positively, I argue that the object view is better able to capture what is distinctive and appealing about subjective theories of prudential value, on any plausible account of what the central subjectivist insight is. (shrink)

Epistemic terms of various syntactic categories can uniformly be used to do the same thing—to hedge. This essay clarifies hedging as a phenomenon and explains how hedging happens by advancing the positional theory. The guiding idea is that, in uttering declaratives, speakers signal what their epistemic position is towards the content put into play by the declarative. The default signal is that the speaker knows. But when an epistemic term hedges, the term overrides the default. The non-default signal sent is (...) that the speaker or someone else occupies the position indicated by the term. To make that idea precise, the positional theory treats hedging as a discourse function. Terms hedge because of how a declarative containing an epistemic term is situated within a discourse. (shrink)

Social egalitarianism holds that justice requires that people relate to one another as equals. To explain the content of this requirement, social egalitarians often appeal to the moral equality of persons. This leads to two very different interpretations of social egalitarianism. The first involves the specification of a conception of the moral equality of persons that is distinctive of the social egalitarian view. Social (or relational) egalitarianism can then claim that for people to relate as equals is for the relations (...) between them to conform to this conception of their moral equality. I will argue against this type of view. Instead, I will argue that social egalitarianism should propose a distinctive conception of social equality as a purely sociological phenomenon. I will show how this conception allows us to formulate the types of normative claims social egalitarianism should make. On this picture, social egalitarianism, instead of identifying social hierarchy as a distinctive kind of wrong, makes standard normative claims about a distinctive kind of social phenomenon. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss in what sense physics, chemistry, and the life sciences constitute a systematic unity according to Kant. I start by discussing Christian Wolff’s views on the hierarchy of sciences. I then argue that in one specific sense physics, chemistry and several life sciences constitute a unity: physics and chemistry provide statements that can be used to provide proofs in the life sciences. However, the unity of physics, chemistry, and the life sciences is limited in scope, since (...) Kant claims that the purposeful unity of organisms is mechanically inexplicable. I finally discuss whether there are laws within the life sciences according to Kant. I argue that the fact that Kant acknowledged that physics and chemistry ground the life sciences does not imply that there are laws of life. The reason is that life sciences of Kant’s time were concerned with explaining the purposeful unity of organisms, which is mechanically inexplicable according to Kant, and the regularities discussed by life scientists in Kant’s time lack a priori grounding. (shrink)

The small improvement argument has been said to establish that the standard weak preference or value relation can be incomplete. We first show that the argument is one of three possible ‘small amendment arguments’, each of which would yield the same conclusion. Generalizing the analysis thus, we subsequently present a strong and a weak version of small amendment arguments and derive the exact rationality conditions under which they reveal incompleteness. The results show that the arguments (in any of their variants) (...) need not reveal a problem for the possibility of rational choice. In fact, it can be argued that they only reveal such a problem if the underlying relation is complete rather than incomplete. (shrink)

De burgemeester van Etterbeek liet tijdens de afgelopen periode van vrieskou daklozen van straat halen. Soms tegen hun wil in. Omdat het soms nodig is om mensen tegen zichzelf te beschermen.

I identify two versions of the scientific anti-realist’s selectionist explanation for the success of science: Bas van Fraassen’s original and K. Brad Wray’s newer interpretation. In Wray’s version, psycho-social factors internal to the scientific community – viz. scientists’ interests, goals, and preferences – explain the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success. I argue that, if Wray’s version were correct, then science should resemble art. In art, the artwork-selection practices that explain artwork-success appear faddish. They are prone to radical change over time. (...) Theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science are however not faddish. They are mostly stable; that is, long-lived and consistent over time. This is because scientists (explicitly or implicitly) subscribe to what I will call the testability norm: scientific theories must make falsifiable claims about the external physical world. The testability norm and not psycho-sociology explains the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science. Contra Wray, scientific anti-realists can then maintain that the external physical world (as expressed in the testability norm) explains theory-success. (shrink)

Janette Dinishak’s work has helped shed critical light on the scientifically questionable and ethically troubling tendency in psychology and philosophy of mind to theorize autistic people as deficient empathizers. In a recently published reply on the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, Dinishak (2024) brings her important perspective on this topic to bear on our paper “AAC Technology, Autism, and the Empathic Turn” (2022). Dinishak is largely sympathetic to our view while also raising a number of rich and thoughtful philosophical (...) questions. Since each of these questions is capable of jumpstarting a lengthy exchange, we focus our response on those questions that, we hope, are particularly fruitful for advancing further conversation. With this aim in mind, we also engage with some of Dinishak’s own insights from her 2016 chapter “Empathy, Like-mindedness, and Autism.” … [please read below the rest of the article]. (shrink)

Toon van Eijk: Spinoza in het licht van bewustzijnsontwikkeling De beroemde filosoof Spinoza is moeilijk te doorgronden. Emeritus hoogleraar Maarten van Buuren heeft in 2016 twee boeken over Spinoza gepubliceerd, waarin hij diens filosofie op nauwgezette en verhelderende manier analyseert. Volgens Van Buuren is de kern van Spinoza’s ethiek de bevrijding van bevoogding en het streven om in overeenstemming te leven met de wereld en met zichzelf. Een aantal sleutelbegrippen in Spinoza’s filosofie zijn de immanente, in de natuur-inwonende God, zelfbeschikking, (...) de rede, intuïtie, macht en zelftoe-eigening. In dit boek bespreekt Toon van Eijk deze sleutelbegrippen aan de hand van de analyse van Van Buuren en de filosofie van Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, de grondlegger van de Transcendente Meditatie (TM) techniek. Filosofische begrippen blijven echter tandeloos zonder mogelijkheden om deze ideeën te verwerkelijken. Een synthese van filosofisch redeneren en praktijken voor bewustzijnsontwikkeling is nodig. Hoewel Spinoza een ethiek zonder metafysica voorstond, is Van Eijk van mening dat daadwerkelijk wijs handelen moeilijk zonder enige metafysische bagage kan. (shrink)

Assertion is widely regarded as an act associated with an epistemic position. To assert is to represent oneself as occupying this position and/or to be required to occupy this position. Within this approach, the most common view is that assertion is strong: the associated position is knowledge or certainty. But recent challenges to this common view present new data that are argued to be better explained by assertion being weak. Old data widely taken to support assertion being strong has also (...) been challenged. This paper examines such challenges and finds them wanting. Far from diminishing the case for strong assertion, carefully considering new and old data reveals that assertion is as strong as ever. (shrink)

Trước những lo ngại về khí hậu toàn cầu ngày càng gia tăng, các quốc gia trên thế giới đã ký kết thỏa thuận toàn cầu nhằm thể hiện sự cam kết mạnh mẽ để chung tay tìm kiếm các giải pháp sáng tạo để giảm thiểu phát thải khí nhà kính và tác động của nó đối với môi trường. Việt Nam là một trong những thành viên tích cực tham gia và có trách nhiệm, nhưng đồng thời cũng (...) là một nước bị ảnh hưởng nặng nề nhất của biến đổi khí hậu. Nhận thấy sự cần thiết phải giải quyết vấn đề biến đổi khí hậu, Việt Nam đang triển khai nghiên cứu việc thành lập thị trường các-bon trong nước, trong đó việc xây dựng và vận hành một hệ thống lưu ký các-bon được coi là một trụ cột quan trọng, trên cơ sở học hỏi kinh nghiệm từ các mô hình trên thế giới. Bài viết này đi sâu vào việc phân tích, đánh giá điều kiện, bối cảnh của Việt Nam và rút ra bài học kinh nghiệm từ các hệ thống lưu ký trên thế giới để đề xuất các giải pháp xây dựng một hệ thống lưu ký các- bon hiệu quả cho Việt Nam. (shrink)

Nghiên cứu xác định các nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến Vận dụng kế toán môi trường của các doanh nghiệp sản xuất tỉnh Hưng Yên. Kết quả nghiên cứu xác định có 5 nhân tố ảnh hưởng, bao gồm: Lĩnh vực hoạt động sản xuất của doanh nghiệp; Nguồn lực tài chính; Nhận thức của chủ thể doanh nghiệp và Áp lực của các bên liên quan; Quy mô doanh nghiệp ảnh hưởng đến việc vận dụng kế toán môi trường. (...) Trong đó, nhân tố Lĩnh vực hoạt động sản xuất tác động mạnh nhất đến việc Vận dụng kế toán môi trường trong các doanh nghiệp sản xuất tại tỉnh Hưng Yên. (shrink)

Three puzzles about self-deception make this mental phenomenon an intriguing explanatory target. The first relates to how to define it without paradox; the second is about how to make sense of self-deception in light of the interpretive view of the mental that has become widespread in philosophy; and the third concerns why it exists at all. In this paper I address the first and third puzzles. First, I define self-deception. Second, I criticize Robert Trivers' attempt to use adaptionist evolutionary psychology (...) to solve the third puzzle (existence). Third, I sketch a theory to replace that of Trivers. Self-deception is not an adaptation, but a spandrel in the sense that Gould and Lewontin give the term: a byproduct of other features of human (cognitive) architecture. Self-deception is so undeniable a fact of human life that if anyone tried to deny its existence, the proper response would be to accuse this person of it. (Allen Wood, 1988). (shrink)

Als Plato de hedendaagse academie zou aanschouwen, zou hij niet alleen stomverbaasd zijn over de massificatie en de byzantijnse bureaucratie, maar gezien het ethische doel van de universiteit zou hij ook reden hebben om bezorgd te zijn.

Speakers offer testimony. They also hedge. This essay offers an account of how hedging makes a difference to testimony. Two components of testimony are considered: how testimony warrants a hearer's attitude, and how testimony changes a speaker's responsibilities. Starting with a norm-based approach to testimony where hearer's beliefs are prima facie warranted because of social norms and speakers acquire responsibility from these same norms, I argue that hedging alters both components simultaneously. It changes which attitudes a hearer is prima facie (...) warranted in forming in response to testimony, and reduces how much responsibility a speaker undertakes in testifying. A consequence of this account is that speakers who hedge for strategic purposes deprive their hearers of warrant for stronger doxastic attitudes. (shrink)

Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that religious people, in a matter-of-fact way, simply think their deities exist. Others say yes: that religious beliefs are more compartmentalized, less certain, and less responsive to evidence. Little research to date has explored whether lay people themselves recognize such a difference. We addressed this question in a series of sentence completion tasks, conducted in five settings that differed both in religious traditions and in language: the US, Ghana, (...) Thailand, China, and Vanuatu. Participants everywhere routinely used different verbs to describe religious versus matter-of-fact beliefs, and they did so even when the ascribed belief contents were held constant and only the surrounding context varied. These findings support the view that people from diverse cultures and language communities recognize a difference in attitude type between religious belief and everyday matter-of-fact belief. (shrink)

In the Inner Chapters, arguments for a variety of different philosophical positions are present, including skepticism, relativism, particularism, and objectivism. Given that these are not all mutually consistent, we are left with the problem of reconciling the tensions among them. The various positions are described and passages from the Inner Chapters are presented illustrating each. A detailed commentary is offered on the opening of the Inner Chapters, arguing that it is best understood in an objectivist fashion. An interpretation is presented (...) of Zhuangzi's view of sagehood that reconciles the various arguments in the text. (shrink)

A philosophical analysis of the future of art must explicate art’s nature, as well as discuss the historical nature of art practice. Only so can one explain those contemporary developments in art which have led many people to doubt whether art even has a future. Arguably, art practice as we know it started with the installing of the modern system of the fine arts. I explain the pragmatics of art so understood, and suggest that we can define art, internally. We (...) need not resort to a nominalist approach that claims that something is a work of art if some representative of the art world says it is. Instead of such empty proceduralism, I explain how all art’s focal objects, persons and activities are mutually adjusted and can only be understood in light of the whole. Within that whole of art practice, the contemporary samples of art’s alleged failure can be assessed. Now the modern system treats the arts as aesthetic, and prescribes that to judge a work one has to experience it for oneself. Why this should be so, I explain in terms of the perceivability of the artist in the work. Next, art develops as a whole rather than in a piecemeal manner. Particular contemporary works may alienate the audience from art practice, yet once they are recognisably in a procedure which has clear artistic potency they can be incorporated fruitfully in the modern system as explained. In all, the future of art is the future of the modern system, unless the system as a whole goes. We see this happen with the Taliban, but do not ourselves seem to be vulnerable to such onslaught. Yet, our culture may be in the process of eliminating the human mind from the objective reality, and if nothing stops us, art too will come to an end. Luckily, by then we will not be such as to lament that demise. (shrink)

As artefacts, the worlds of digital games are designed and developed to fulfil certain expressive, functional, and experiential objectives. During play, players infer these purposes and aspirations from various aspects of their engagement with the gameworld. Influenced by their sociocultural backgrounds, sensitivities, gameplay preferences, and familiarity with game conventions, players construct a subjective interpretation of the intentions with which they believe the digital game in question was created. By analogy with the narratological notion of the implied author, we call the (...) figure to which players ascribe these intentions ‘the implied designer’. In this article, we introduce the notion of the implied designer and present an initial account of how appreciators ascribe meaning to interactive, fictional gameworlds and act within them based on what they perceive to be the designer’s intentions. (shrink)

This essay surveys the main objections to aesthetic hedonism, the view that aesthetic value is reducible to the value of aesthetic pleasure or experience. Hedonism is the dominant view of aesthetic value, but a spate of recent criticisms has drawn its accuracy into question. I introduce some distinctions crucial to the criticisms, before using the bulk of the essay to identify and review six major lines of argument that hedonism's critics have employed against it. Whether or not these arguments suffice (...) to refute hedonism decisively, I argue that its privileged status, as the sole contender in aesthetic value theory, is detrimental to downstream research on aesthetic phenomena. The essay concludes with an overview of current work and promising avenues of inquiry into non-hedonic alternatives. (shrink)

A speaker's use of a declarative sentence in a context has two effects: it expresses a proposition and represents the speaker as knowing that proposition. This essay is about how to explain the second effect. The standard explanation is act-based. A speaker is represented as knowing because their use of the declarative in a context tokens the act-type of assertion and assertions represent knowledge in what's asserted. I propose a semantic explanation on which declaratives covertly host a "know"-parenthetical. A speaker (...) is thereby represented as knowing the proposition expressed because that is the semantic contribution of the parenthetical. I call this view parentheticalism and defend that it better explains knowledge representation than alternatives. As a consequence of outperforming assertoric explanations, parentheticalism opens the door to eliminating the act-type of assertion from linguistic theorizing. (shrink)