The world of entrepreneurship has historically been linked with taking risks and the potential for significant rewards. However, there persists a notable gender imbalance in the entrepreneurial landscape, wherein women entrepreneurs remain a minority. Women navigating the entrepreneurial path encounter distinct challenges, setting their experiences apart from their male counterparts. In Balayan, Batangas, despite strides towards gender equality, women entrepreneurs continue to face challenges in the entrepreneurial landscape. This qualitative study delves into the experiences of 10 successful female entrepreneurs who (...) met specific criteria. Accordingly, semi-structured interviews are conducted, exploring various aspects of participants' experiences and revealing their motivations, achievements, challenges, and strategies. Thematic analysis reveals the connection between familial, community-driven, and personal motivations that drive these entrepreneurs forward. Despite facing obstacles such as financial constraints and gender biases, they prioritize financial gains and personal growth. With resilience, innovation, and dedication, these women overcome challenges and achieve success, utilizing support networks and online marketing strategies to their advantage. Recommendations include empowering women in entrepreneurship, strengthening support networks, introducing tailored financial literacy programs, and advocating against gender biases. Implement skill development initiatives and provide specialized education in online marketing. Engage in policy advocacy, celebrate success stories, and continuously research challenges and successes. Foster collaborative partnerships between businesses, educational institutions, and communities, and advocate for increased funding opportunities for sustainable growth. This research emphasizes the strength and capabilities of women entrepreneurs in Balayan, Batangas, affirming that "pink doesn't mean weak.". (shrink)

Due to the emergence of ICT in ELT sector, seasoned English teachers find it resistant to such a shift despite having a positive attitude towards its use. This quasi-experimental study aimed to examine the extent to which seasoned English language teachers developed their ICT skills through a Service-Learning Activity (SLA). Using a one-group pre- and post-test design, this study collected the data through a modified Needs Assessment Survey (NAS) distributed to fourteen purposively selected participants. It was administered to examine what (...) professional ICT development would greatly benefit them. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and themes according to the Service-Learning Activity (SLA) topics. A Post Evaluation Survey (PES) was administered, and its result was compared to the initial test. The results showed that the seasoned teachers gained significant learning gains in terms of (1) sharing of knowledge from other teachers; (2) being encouraged to use ICT tools; (3) training opportunities; (4) working with other colleagues; and 5) attending professional workshops which include SLA. However, this study unveiled that the English teachers had no significant difference in perceptions regarding the roles of computers in teaching before and after the intervention. Limitations and recommendations for future studies were discussed. (shrink)

The traditional use of conventional media by businesses for audience targeting has shifted with the rise of influencer marketing, notably on platforms like TikTok, posing challenges in content adaptation and technological adaptation. Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory examines factors shaping purchasing behavior, particularly relevant for young professionals. A quantitative correlational study focused on young professionals engaging with TikTok and influenced by Filipino TikTok creators, revealing education level as a key determinant of purchasing behavior. Extended TikTok engagement positively correlates with increased (...) purchasing likelihood. Filipino TikTok influencers significantly impact young professionals' purchasing decisions, emphasizing the need for tailored marketing strategies targeting this demographic. Recommendations were provided for effective influencer and digital marketing strategies targeting young professionals. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers nearly unanimously endorse knowledge reliabilism, the view that knowledge must be reliably produced. Leading reliabilists have suggested that reliabilism draws support from patterns in ordinary judgments and intuitions about knowledge, luck, reliability, and counterfactuals. That is, they have suggested a proto-reliabilist hypothesis about “commonsense” or “folk” epistemology. This paper reports nine experimental studies (N = 1262) that test the proto-reliabilist hypothesis by testing four of its principal implications. The main findings are that (a) commonsense fully embraces the possibility (...) of unreliable knowledge, (b) knowledge judgments are surprisingly insensitive to information about reliability, (c) “anti-luck” intuitions about knowledge have nothing to do with reliability specifically, and (d) reliabilists have mischaracterized the intuitive counterfactual properties of knowledge and their relation to reliability. When combined with the weakness of existing arguments for reliabilism and the recent emergence of well supported alternative views that predict the widespread existence of unreliable knowledge, the present findings are the final exhibit in a conclusive case for abandoning reliabilism in epistemology. I introduce an alternative theory of knowledge, abilism, which out-performs reliabilism and well explains all the available evidence. (shrink)

Girolamo Saccheri (1667--1733) was an Italian Jesuit priest, scholastic philosopher, and mathematician. He earned a permanent place in the history of mathematics by discovering and rigorously deducing an elaborate chain of consequences of an axiom-set for what is now known as hyperbolic (or Lobachevskian) plane geometry. Reviewer's remarks: (1) On two pages of this book Saccheri refers to his previous and equally original book Logica demonstrativa (Turin, 1697) to which 14 of the 16 pages of the editor's "Introduction" are devoted. (...) At the time of the first edition, 1920, the editor was apparently not acquainted with the secondary literature on Logica demonstrativa which continued to grow in the period preceding the second edition \ref[see D. J. Struik, in Dictionary of scientific biography, Vol. 12, 55--57, Scribner's, New York, 1975]. Of special interest in this connection is a series of three articles by A. F. Emch [Scripta Math. 3 (1935), 51--60; Zbl 10, 386; ibid. 3 (1935), 143--152; Zbl 11, 193; ibid. 3 (1935), 221--333; Zbl 12, 98]. (2) It seems curious that modern writers believe that demonstration of the "nondeducibility" of the parallel postulate vindicates Euclid whereas at first Saccheri seems to have thought that demonstration of its "deducibility" is what would vindicate Euclid. Saccheri is perfectly clear in his commitment to the ancient (and now discredited) view that it is wrong to take as an "axiom" a proposition which is not a "primal verity", which is not "known through itself". So it would seem that Saccheri should think that he was convicting Euclid of error by deducing the parallel postulate. The resolution of this confusion is that Saccheri thought that he had proved, not merely that the parallel postulate was true, but that it was a "primal verity" and, thus, that Euclid was correct in taking it as an "axiom". As implausible as this claim about Saccheri may seem, the passage on p. 237, lines 3--15, seems to admit of no other interpretation. Indeed, Emch takes it this way. (3) As has been noted by many others, Saccheri was fascinated, if not obsessed, by what may be called "reflexive indirect deductions", indirect deductions which show that a conclusion follows from given premises by a chain of reasoning beginning with the given premises augmented by the denial of the desired conclusion and ending with the conclusion itself. It is obvious, of course, that this is simply a species of ordinary indirect deduction; a conclusion follows from given premises if a contradiction is deducible from those given premises augmented by the denial of the conclusion---and it is immaterial whether the contradiction involves one of the premises, the denial of the conclusion, or even, as often happens, intermediate propositions distinct from the given premises and the denial of the conclusion. Saccheri seemed to think that a proposition proved in this way was deduced from its own denial and, thus, that its denial was self-contradictory (p. 207). Inference from this mistake to the idea that propositions proved in this way are "primal verities" would involve yet another confusion. The reviewer gratefully acknowledges extensive communication with his former doctoral students J. Gasser and M. Scanlan. ADDED 14 March 14, 2015: (1) Wikipedia reports that many of Saccheri's ideas have a precedent in the 11th Century Persian polymath Omar Khayyám's Discussion of Difficulties in Euclid, a fact ignored in most Western sources until recently. It is unclear whether Saccheri had access to this work in translation, or developed his ideas independently. (2) This book is another exemplification of the huge difference between indirect deduction and indirect reduction. Indirect deduction requires making an assumption that is inconsistent with the premises previously adopted. This means that the reasoner must perform a certain mental act of assuming a certain proposition. It case the premises are all known truths, indirect deduction—which would then be indirect proof—requires the reasoner to assume a falsehood. This fact has been noted by several prominent mathematicians including Hardy, Hilbert, and Tarski. Indirect reduction requires no new assumption. Indirect reduction is simply a transformation of an argument in one form into another argument in a different form. In an indirect reduction one proposition in the old premise set is replaced by the contradictory opposite of the old conclusion and the new conclusion becomes the contradictory opposite of the replaced premise. Roughly and schematically, P,Q/R becomes P,~R/~Q or ~R, Q/~P. Saccheri’s work involved indirect deduction not indirect reduction. (3) The distinction between indirect deduction and indirect reduction has largely slipped through the cracks, the cracks between medieval-oriented logic and modern-oriented logic. The medievalists have a heavy investment in reduction and, though they have heard of deduction, they think that deduction is a form of reduction, or vice versa, or in some cases they think that the word ‘deduction’ is the modern way of referring to reduction. The modernists have no interest in reduction, i.e. in the process of transforming one argument into another having exactly the same number of premises. Modern logicians, like Aristotle, are concerned with deducing a single proposition from a set of propositions. Some focus on deducing a single proposition from the null set—something difficult to relate to reduction. (shrink)

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. (...) Needs assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of religion has been fascinated with questions of the rationality of religious belief. Alvin Plantinga—a prominent Christian philosopher—has contributed greatly to the exploration of these questions. Plantinga’s epistemology is rooted in the intuitions of Thomas Reid’s “common-sense” philosophy and has developed into a distinctive outlook that we may coin, Plantingian (Calvinist) Reidianism. This chapter aims to propose that, in fact, the central ideas of that outlook can be seen prior to Reid (and John Calvin), beyond the confines (...) of exclusively Christian and European circles, in the theological epistemology of the Damascene Islamic theologian, Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328 CE). In exploring the contours of a Taymiyyan worldview, primed upon the notion of fiṭra, Ibn Taymiyya can be seen to have developed a faculty-based account of knowledge, moderate foundationalism, and a distinct “Reformed” epistemology. Within the midst of these developments, Ibn Taymiyya offers a potential framework for a “common-sense” philosophical methodology. Taken together these ideas form the basis for the intuitions of Plantingian Reidianism. Therefore, Plantinga might have looked to an earlier figure working in another tradition for historical support and inspiration for his religious epistemology. (shrink)

Susan Schneider (2019) has proposed two new tests for consciousness in AI (artificial intelligence) systems, the AI Consciousness Test and the Chip Test. On their face, the two tests seem to have the virtue of proving satisfactory to a wide range of consciousness theorists holding divergent theoretical positions, rather than narrowly relying on the truth of any particular theory of consciousness. Unfortunately, both tests are undermined in having an ‘audience problem’: Those theorists with the kind of architectural worries that motivate (...) the need for such tests should, on similar grounds, doubt that the tests establish the existence of genuine consciousness in the AI in question. Nonetheless, the proposed tests constitute progress, as they could find use by some theorists holding fitting views about consciousness and perhaps in conjunction with other tests for AI consciousness. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

Psychopaths routinely disregard social norms by engaging in selfish, antisocial, often violent behavior. Commonly characterized as mentally disordered, recent evidence suggests that psychopaths are executing a well-functioning, if unscrupulous strategy that historically increased reproductive success at the expense of others. Natural selection ought to have favored strategies that spared close kin from harm, however, because actions affecting the fitness of genetic relatives contribute to an individual’s inclusive fitness. Conversely, there is evidence that mental disorders can disrupt psychological mechanisms designed to (...) protect relatives. Thus, mental disorder and adaptation accounts of psychopathy generate opposing hypotheses: psychopathy should be associated with an increase in the victimization of kin in the former account but not in the latter. Contrary to the mental disorder hypothesis, we show here in a sample of 289 violent offenders that variation in psychopathy predicts a decrease in the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders; that is, psychopathy predicts an increased likelihood of harming non-relatives. Because nepotistic inhibition in violence may be caused by dispersal or kin discrimination, we examined the effects of psychopathy on (1) the dispersal of offenders and their kin and (2) sexual assault frequency (as a window on kin discrimination). Although psychopathy was negatively associated with coresidence with kin and positively associated with the commission of sexual assault, it remained negatively associated with the genetic relatedness of victims to offenders after removing cases of offenders who had coresided with kin and cases of sexual assault from the analyses. These results stand in contrast to models positing psychopathy as a pathology, and provide support for the hypothesis that psychopathy reflects an evolutionary strategy largely favoring the exploitation of non-relatives. (shrink)

In Gorgias, Socrates stands accused of argumentative "foul play" involving manipulation by shame. Polus says that Socrates wins the fight with Gorgias by shaming him into the admission that "a rhetorician knows what is right . . . and would teach this to his pupils" . And later, when Polus himself has been "tied up" and "muzzled" , Callicles says that he was refuted only because he was ashamed to reveal his true convictions. These allegations, if justified, directly undermine Socrates' (...) claim to be improving his interlocutors by argument. For if Socrates' use of shame tends to produce insincere assertion, then elenchus cannot serve as a tool for moral reform. In an important recent paper, Jessica Moss presents a new apologia for Socrates on these old charges. According to Moss, although Socrates adopts a strategy of shaming rather than reasoning his interlocutors into agreement, this is legitimate because his appeals to shame function as appeals to a moral sense, which connect a person to his own "deep" convictions. Moreover, she claims that shame "can be a more effective tool of persuasion than reason," for it is capable, where reason is not, of dislodging a person's "intuitive" moral beliefs. This essay argues that each of these points is mistaken. (shrink)

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

In Plato’s Philebus, Socrates’ second account of ‘false’ pleasure (41d-42c) outlines a form of illusion: pleasures that appear greater than they are. I argue that these pleasures are perceptual misrepresentations. I then show that they are the grounds for a methodological critique of hedonism. Socrates identifies hedonism as a judgment about the value of pleasure based on a perceptual misrepresentation of size, witnessed paradigmatically in the ‘greatest pleasures’.

This paper defends an interpretation of Plato, Soph. 259c7–d7, which describes a distinction between genuine and pretender forms of ‘examination’ or ‘refutation’ (ἔλεγχος). The passage speaks to a need, throughout the dialogue, to differentiate the truly philosophical method from the merely eristic method. But its contribution has been obscured by the appearance of a textual problem at 259c7–8. As a result, scholars have largely not recognized that the Eleatic Stranger recommends accepting contrary predication as a condition of genuine refutation. After (...) reviewing various proposals to change the text, the paper defends this reading. Finally, the paper turns to the methodological significance of accepting contrary predication. The dialogue depicts contrary predication as an instance of a class of statements that compel the soul's disbelief. Soph. 259c7–d7 suggests that these kinds of statements are a crossroad: one can either reject them and turn to eristic discourse or accept them and practise genuine refutation. The paper reflects on what this indicates about Plato's meditations on contradiction and philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to deny the morality and instrumentality of the behavior known as bestiality, or the use of non-human animals for sexual gratification by human beings. While to most modern peoples, this hardly even seems like it should be in question, it should be the nature of the human mind to occasionally question long-standing traditional moray in the hopes of finding solutions to problems and the disbanding of superstition. It has been proposed that the moral question, and (...) by extension the legal question, of bestiality is based on traditions long outlived and unnecessary. In an IceNews.is article written in 2008, Norwegian lawyers were growing concerned over the prevalence of animal brothels in Denmark and the precedent it set for Norway [http://www.icenews.is, 2008]. The article, when coupled with the 2001 article title “Heavy Petting” by prominent Utilitarian philosopher, Peter Singer, proves that the issue of bestiality is no longer the purview of jokes and psychological discussions. I will argue against bestiality as a socially acceptable practice based on five standard premises. The standard premises I will present will contain notes in regard to: instrumentality; consent; disease transmission; deviance; and morality. There is significant work available on the harm done to the beast, so aside from brief summary; the question of the good of the beast is not in the focus. I will also ignore any religious concerns, either surrounding morality or freedom of practice. Instead, these arguments are in support of the moral identity of the individual and of society as a whole. (shrink)

Loyalty has been charged with being an outdated, conservative virtue. I argue that loyalty as a virtue is not only allowable, but important to the way we view the world. Furthermore, to define any virtue without first bracketing the virtue within common understanding, is to redefine the language of the virtue and render the conversation a failure.

This essay series explores the human costs and policy challenges associated with the displacement crises in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas. The essays explore the myths or misconceptions that have pervaded discussions about these two crises, as well as the constraints or capacity deficiencies have hampered the responses to them.

The revolutionary outbreak in a variety of civilizations centered around 600 B.C.E., a period in which the great world religions as well as philosophy emerged, from Hebrew scriptures and the teachings of Buddha to the works of Greek and Chinese philosophers, has been named the Axial Age by Karl Jaspers. Yet 75 years earlier, in 1873, unknown to Jaspers and still unknown to the world, John Stuart Stuart-Glennie elaborated a fully developed and more nuanced theory of what he termed (...) The Moral Revolution to characterize the period. This book also brings to light the previously undiscussed ideas of D. H. Lawrence on the phenomenon from 20 years before Jaspers, the seldom mentioned contributions of Lewis Mumford, and proposes a new context for understanding the phenomenon. Halton rewrites the history of this fascinating theory and opens new ways of conceiving the meaning of The Moral Revolution for today. (shrink)

An ontology of geographic kinds is designed to yield a better understanding of the structure of the geographic world, and to support the development of geographic information systems that are conceptually sound. This paper first demonstrates that geographical objects and kinds are not just larger versions of the everyday objects and kinds previously studied in cognitive science. Geographic objects are not merely located in space, as are the manipulable objects of table-top space. Rather, they are tied intrinsically to space, and (...) this means that their spatial boundaries are in many cases the most salient features for categorization. The ontology presented here will accordingly be based on topology (the theory of boundary, contact and separation) and on mereology (the theory of extended wholes and parts). Geographic reality comprehends mesoscopic entities, many of which are best viewed as shadows cast onto the spatial plane by human reasoning and language. Because of this, geographic categories are much more likely to show cultural differences in category definitions than are the manipulable objects of table-top space. (shrink)

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diseases are a group of neuromuscular diseases that often cause suffering and premature death. New mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) may offer women with mtDNA diseases the opportunity to have healthy offspring to whom they are genetically related. MRTs will likely be ready to license for clinical use in the near future and a discussion of the ethics of the clinical introduction ofMRTs is needed. This paper begins by evaluating three concerns about the safety of MRTs for clinical (...) use on humans: (1) Is it ethical to use MRTs if safe alternatives exist? (2) Would persons with three genetic contributors be at risk of suffering? and (3) Can society trust that MRTs will be made available for humans only once adequate safety testing has taken place, and that MRTs will only be licensed for clinical use in a way that minimises risks? It is then argued that the ethics debate about MRTs should be reoriented towards recommendingways to reduce the possible risks of MRT use on humans. Two recommendations are made: (1) licensed clinical access to MRTs should only be granted to prospective parents if they intend to tell their children about their MRT conception by adulthood; and (2) sex selection should be used in conjunction with the clinical use ofMRTs, in order to reduce transgenerational health risks. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new, expanded range of relevant cognitive psychological research on collaborative recall and social memory to the philosophical debate on extended and distributed cognition. We start by examining the case for extended cognition based on the complementarity of inner and outer resources, by which neural, bodily, social, and environmental resources with disparate but complementary properties are integrated into hybrid cognitive systems, transforming or augmenting the nature of remembering or decision-making. Adams and Aizawa, noting this distinctive complementarity argument, (...) say that they agree with it completely: but they describe it as “a non-revolutionary approach” which leaves “the cognitive psychology of memory as the study of processes that take place, essentially without exception, within nervous systems.” In response, we carve out, on distinct conceptual and empirical grounds, a rich middle ground between internalist forms of cognitivism and radical anti-cognitivism. Drawing both on extended cognition literature and on Sterelny’s account of the “scaffolded mind” (this issue), we develop a multidimensional framework for understanding varying relations between agents and external resources, both technological and social. On this basis we argue that, independent of any more “revolutionary” metaphysical claims about the partial constitution of cognitive processes by external resources, a thesis of scaffolded or distributed cognition can substantially influence or transform explanatory practice in cognitive science. Critics also cite various empirical results as evidence against the idea that remembering can extend beyond skull and skin. We respond with a more principled, representative survey of the scientific psychology of memory, focussing in particular on robust recent empirical traditions for the study of collaborative recall and transactive social memory. We describe our own empirical research on socially distributed remembering, aimed at identifying conditions for mnemonic emergence in collaborative groups. Philosophical debates about extended, embedded, and distributed cognition can thus make richer, mutually beneficial contact with independently motivated research programs in the cognitive psychology of memory. (shrink)

In his contribution to the first issue of Memory Studies, Jeffrey Olick notes that despite “the mutual affirmations of psychologists who want more emphasis on the social and sociologists who want more emphasis on the cognitive”, in fact “actual crossdisciplinary research … has been much rarer than affirmations about its necessity and desirability” (2008: 27). The peculiar, contingent disciplinary divisions which structure our academic institutions create and enable many powerful intellectual cultures: but memory researchers are unusually aware that uneasy faultlines (...) and glaring gulfs lie in the uncertain zones between them. The processes of memory are simultaneously natural and cultural. But our difficulties in imagining even fragments of a genuinely integrated framework for understanding diverse memory-related phenomena do not arise from a simple ‘two-cultures’ problem: it’s not as if there are substantially unified visions of memory within either ‘the sciences’ or ‘the humanities’. (shrink)

The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity, and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In this article, we build upon this work to provide a detailed ethical analysis (...) of the Quantified Relationship. We identify eight core objections to the QR and subject them to critical scrutiny. We argue that although critics raise legitimate concerns, there are ways in which tracking technologies can be used to support and facilitate good relationships. We thus adopt a stance of cautious openness toward this technology and advocate the development of a research agenda for the positive use of QR technologies. (shrink)

According to QBism, quantum states, unitary evolutions, and measurement operators are all understood as personal judgments of the agent using the formalism. Meanwhile, quantum measurement outcomes are understood as the personal experiences of the same agent. Wigner’s conundrum of the friend, in which two agents ostensibly have different accounts of whether or not there is a measurement outcome, thus poses no paradox for QBism. Indeed the resolution of Wigner’s original thought experiment was central to the development of QBist thinking. The (...) focus of this paper concerns two very instructive modifications to Wigner’s puzzle: One, a recent no-go theorem by Frauchiger and Renner, and the other a thought experiment by Baumann and Brukner. We show that the paradoxical features emphasized in these works disappear once both friend and Wigner are understood as agents on an equal footing with regard to their individual uses of quantum theory. Wigner’s action on his friend then becomes, from the friend’s perspective, an action the friend takes on Wigner. Our analysis rests on a kind of quantum Copernican principle: When two agents take actions on each other, each agent has a dual role as a physical system for the other agent. No user of quantum theory is more privileged than any other. In contrast to the sentiment of Wigner’s original paper, neither agent should be considered as in “suspended animation.” In this light, QBism brings an entirely new perspective to understanding Wigner’s friend thought experiments. (shrink)

The appearance of negative terms in quasiprobability representations of quantum theory is known to be inevitable, and, due to its equivalence with the onset of contextuality, of central interest in quantum computation and information. Until recently, however, nothing has been known about how much negativity is necessary in a quasiprobability representation. Zhu :120404, 2016) proved that the upper and lower bounds with respect to one type of negativity measure are saturated by quasiprobability representations which are in one-to-one correspondence with the (...) elusive symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements. We define a family of negativity measures which includes Zhu’s as a special case and consider another member of the family which we call “sum negativity.” We prove a sufficient condition for local maxima in sum negativity and find exact global maxima in dimensions 3 and 4. Notably, we find that Zhu’s result on the SICs does not generally extend to sum negativity, although the analogous result does hold in dimension 4. Finally, the Hoggar lines in dimension 8 make an appearance in a conjecture on sum negativity. (shrink)

Climate change is today one of the greatest risks to peace and security, but arguably remains at the margins of policy action amid the loss of trust in multilateral institutions. The impacts of climate change are already felt by local communities in regions on the frontline. While communities have exercised agency to generate local impact and promote trust, the overwhelming impact of climate change necessitates effective state responses, and regional and global cooperation. Global cooperation, in turn, needs to better address (...) the challenges to peace and security faced by regions most exposed to the impacts of climate change. Southeast Asia is already experiencing direct climate change impacts from changes in temperature, precipitation, sea-level rise, ocean warming, and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. The subsequent indirect climate change impacts on food and water security, and changes in natural resource exploitation and migration patterns, affect the lives and livelihoods of people and communities across the highly diverse region and threaten its peace and security. In Southeast Asia, the cross-cutting impacts of climate change on peace and security can be analysed through the framework of comprehensive security. Comprehensive security is the organising concept of security in the region, integrated and widely reflected in the security lexicon in the ASEAN region and beyond. Unlike the conventional notion of security, which is narrowly defined to mean defending state borders from military attack, comprehensive security is a much broader conceptualisation of security that “[goes] beyond (but does not exclude) the military threats to embrace the political, economic and socio-cultural dimensions.". (shrink)

Climate change is today one of the greatest risks to peace and security, but arguably remains at the margins of policy action amid the loss of trust in multilateral institutions. The impacts of climate change are already felt by local communities in regions on the frontline. While communities have exercised agency to generate local impact and promote trust, the overwhelming impact of climate change necessitates effective state responses, and regional and global cooperation.2 Global cooperation, in turn, needs to better address (...) the challenges to peace and security faced by regions most exposed to the impacts of climate change. Southeast Asia is already experiencing direct climate change impacts from changes in temperature, precipitation, sea-level rise, ocean warming, and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. The subsequent indirect climate change impacts on food and water security, and changes in natural resource exploitation and migration patterns, affect the lives and livelihoods of people and communities across the highly diverse region and threaten its peace and security. (shrink)

The current assessment of behaviors in the inventories to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focus on observation and discrete categorizations. Behaviors require movements, yet measurements of physical movements are seldom included. Their inclusion however, could provide an objective characterization of behavior to help unveil interactions between the peripheral and the central nervous systems. Such interactions are critical for the development and maintenance of spontaneous autonomy, self-regulation and voluntary control. At present, current approaches cannot deal with the heterogeneous, dynamic and stochastic (...) nature of development. Accordingly, they leave no avenues for real-time or longitudinal assessments of change in a coping system continuously adapting and developing compensatory mechanisms. We offer a new unifying statistical framework to reveal re-afferent kinesthetic features of the individual with ASD. The new methodology is based on the non-stationary stochastic patterns of minute fluctuations (micro-movements) inherent to our natural actions. Such patterns of behavioral variability provide re-entrant sensory feedback contributing to the autonomous regulation and coordination of the motor output. From an early age, this feedback supports centrally driven volitional control and fluid, flexible transitions between intentional and spontaneous behaviors. We show that in ASD there is a disruption in the maturation of this form of proprioception. Despite this disturbance, each individual has unique adaptive compensatory capabilities that we can unveil and exploit to evoke faster and more accurate decisions. Measuring the kinesthetic re-afference in tandem with stimuli variations we can detect changes in their micro-movements indicative of a more predictive and reliable kinesthetic percept. Our methods address the heterogeneity of ASD with a personalized approach grounded in the inherent sensory-motor abilities that the individual has already developed. (shrink)

In September 2015 a well-publicised Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR) was launched. Modelled on the longer-standing Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the CASR opposes the development of sex robots on the grounds that the technology is being developed with a particular model of female-male relations (the prostitute-john model) in mind, and that this will prove harmful in various ways. In this chapter, we consider carefully the merits of campaigning against such a technology. We make three main arguments. First, we (...) argue that the particular claims advanced by the CASR are unpersuasive, partly due to a lack of clarity about the campaign’s aims and partly due to substantive defects in the main ethical objections put forward by campaign’s founder(s). Second, broadening our inquiry beyond the arguments proferred by the campaign itself, we argue that it would be very difficult to endorse a general campaign against sex robots unless one embraced a highly conservative attitude towards the ethics of sex, which is likely to be unpalatable to those who are active in the campaign. In making this argument we draw upon lessons from the campaign against killer robots. Finally, we conclude by suggesting that although a generalised campaign against sex robots is unwarranted, there are legitimate concerns that one can raise about the development of sex robots. (shrink)

A fruitful way to approach The Idea of Phenomenology is through Husserl’s claim that consciousness is not a bag, box, or any other kind of container. The bag conception, which dominated much of modern philosophy, is rooted in the idea that philosophy is restricted to investigating only what is really immanent to consciousness, such as acts and sensory contents. On this view, what Husserl called the riddle of transcendence can never be solved. The phenomenological reduction, as Husserl develops it in (...) The Idea of Phenomenology, opened up a new and broader sense of immanence that embraces the transcendent, making it possible both to solve the riddle and to escape the bag conception once and for all. The essay will discuss ways in which this new conception of immanence is tied to the key Husserlian themes of appearance, phenomenon, essence, seeing or intuiting, and constitution. (shrink)

Considers Goethe's Italienische Reise in regard to Adorno's notion of "late style," with especial focus on the role of Ovid's poetry in the work.

Human development is meant to be transformational in that it aims to improve people's lives by enhancing their capabilities. But who does it target: people as they are or the people they will become? This paper argues that the human development approach relies on an understanding of personal identity as dynamic rather than as static collections of preferences, and that this distinguishes human development from conventional approaches to development. Nevertheless, this dynamic understanding of personal identity is presently poorly conceptualized and (...) this has implications for development practice. We identify a danger of paternalism and propose institutionalizing two procedural principles as side constraints on development policies and projects: the principle of free prior informed consent and the principle of democratic development. -/- . (shrink)

The general area of business and professional ethics is full of vexing and confusing problems. For example, questions concerning the im portance of ethical standards, whether ethics is unnecessary given appropriate legal enforcement, whether it is imperative to teach ethical behavior in professional education, and similar questions are all controversial. The specific ethical problems to be found in the areas of accounting and finance are at least as difficult as those in other areas. However, there is one kind of ethical (...) problem which is unusually prominent in finance and accounting, which deserves to be recognized more widely in ethics as a significant kind of issue. This is the problem of conflicts of interest. (shrink)

The concept of representation is a problematic one. So is that of resemblance or similarity. But both concepts can be clarified via a modification of Wittgenstein's notion of a "family-resemblance." I shall introduce an extended version of that notion, specifically relevant to representational objects, after presenting some arguments which show the need for it.

It is proposed that our memory is made up of individual, unconnected Records, to each of which is attached a Heading. Retrieval of a Record can only be accomplished by addressing the attached Heading, the contents of which cannot itself be retrieved. Each Heading is made up of a mixture of content in more or less literal form and context, the latter including specification of environment and of internal states (e.g. drug states and mood). This view of memory allows an (...) easy account of a number of natural memory phenomena as well as a variety of laboratory findings such as the differences between recall and recognition. The theory further proposes that Headed Records can neither be deleted nor modified. Data apparently against such a hypothesis can be accounted for in terms of the retrieval process. (shrink)

In this paper I shall argue that the relations between metaphorical and literal kinds of language may be illuminated and clarified by comparison with corresponding differences and similarities between representing and represented objects. A kind of "picture theory" of metaphorical language will be proposed (though one which draws more on Wittgenstein's Investigations than on the Tractatus), in which successful metaphorical phrases are taken as being about things which are capable (in context) of being seen or recognized as representing or depicting (...) that which the words ordinarily refer to or describe when being used literally. (shrink)

SSC Result 2017 is the most awaiting result for Bangladeshi high school students. All education Board together publish thiere result.

A dilemma exists when a doctor is faced with a child or young person who refuses medically indicated treatment. The Gillick case has been interpreted by many to mean that a child of sufficient age and intelligence could validly consent or refuse consent to treatment. Recent decisions of the Court of Appeal on a child's refusal of medical treatment have clouded the issue and undermined the spirit of the Gillick decision and the Children Act 1989. It is now the case (...) that a child patient whose competence is in doubt will be found rational if he or she accepts the proposal to treat but may be found incompetent if he or she disagrees. Practitioners are alerted to the anomalies now exhibited by the law on the issue of children's consent and refusal. The impact of the decisions from the perspectives of medicine, ethics, and the law are examined. Practitioners should review each case of child care carefully and in cases of doubt seek legal advice. (shrink)

Purpose – To review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS). Design/methodology/approach – Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions. Findings – Floridi’s PI, including (...) this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects. Research implications – Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS. Originality/value – The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas. (shrink)

Transactive memory theory describes the processes by which benefits for memory can occur when remembering is shared in dyads or groups. In contrast, cognitive psychology experiments demonstrate that social influences on memory disrupt and inhibit individual recall. However, most research in cognitive psychology has focused on groups of strangers recalling relatively meaningless stimuli. In the current study, we examined social influences on memory in groups with a shared history, who were recalling a range of stimuli, from word lists to personal, (...) shared memories. We focused in detail on the products and processes of remembering during in-depth interviews with 12 older married couples. These interviews consisted of three recall tasks: (1) word list recall; (2) personal list recall, where stimuli were relevant to the couples’ shared past; and (3) an open-ended autobiographical interview. We conducted these tasks individually and then collaboratively two weeks later. Across each of the tasks, although some couples demonstrated collaborative inhibition, others demonstrated collaborative facilitation. We identified a number of factors that predicted collaborative success, in particular, group-level strategy use. Our results show that collaboration may help or hinder memory, and certain interactions are more likely to produce collaborative benefits. (shrink)

Atualmente, biotecnologias são empregadas na forma de protocolos a fim de sincronizar o crescimento folicular e a ovulação, bem como permitir que vacas atuem como receptoras de embriões visando melhorar o potencial genético do rebanho. O objetivo desse estudo foi avaliar o efeito da utilização de implantes intravaginais de progesterona de 1º, 2º e 3º uso no protocolo de transferência de embriões em tempo fixo (TETF) sobre a taxa de prenhez em receptoras girolandas. O experimento ocorreu em uma fazenda localizada (...) no município de São Sebastião do Maranhão (MG). Foram utilizadas 74 vacas submetidas aos seguintes protocolos: No dia 0 (D0) administrou-se 2 ml de 17β-Estradiol e progesterona e foi colocado o implante intravaginal de progesterona. Estes implantes foram colocados de forma aleatória, sendo de 1° uso (grupo 1; n=15), 2° (grupo 2; n=24) ou 3° (grupo 3; n=35).No D8, os implantes foram retirados e administrou-se 2 ml PGF2α; 1,5 ml de eCG e 1 ml de 17β-Estradiol e progesterona. A inovulação dos embriões in vitroo correu no D (16) para todas as vacas que apresentaram um corpo lúteo. As variáveis qualitativas (prenhe ou não prenhe) foram comparadas em tabelas de contingência e analisadas pelo teste de qui-quadrado a 5% de probabilidade. Neste estudo não houve diferença estatística entre os grupos protocolados em relação ao aproveitamento como receptoras: 1º uso (53,3%), 2º (79,2%) e 3º (68,65). Ademais, observou-se uma taxa de prenhez entre os grupos de 37,5% para o 1º uso, 42,1% para o 2º e 33,3% para o 3º (P>0,05). Dentre as vantagens ao reaproveitamento dos implantes multiusos destaca-se a redução dos custos dos protocolos hormonais, já que a progesterona é o hormônio mais oneroso, desta forma, a maximização do uso reduz o valor final do protocolo sem prejuízos a taxa de prenhez. (shrink)

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

Cuối tháng 8-2023, Exxon Mobil, một trong những hãng kinh doanh dầu mỏ lớn nhất thế giới, tổ hợp lớn nhất của nhóm tách ra từ đế chế dầu mỏ Standard Oil của John D. Rockefeller đã công bố một báo cáo buồn về mục tiêu cứu Trái Đất trước hiểm họa biến đổi khí hậu. Báo cáo này đưa ra 2 kết luận tối quan trọng: a) Dầu mỏ và khí đốt vẫn chiếm tới 54% tổng nguồn cung (...) năng lượng của thế giới vào năm 2050; b) Phát thải CO2 vẫn cao gấp 2 lần kịch bản cần thiết mà IPCC đặt ra. Điều này cũng đồng nghĩa với việc thế giới sẽ thất bại trước mục tiêu kìm giữ nhiệt độ tăng thấp hơn 2⁰C. Đánh giá này dựa trên ước lượng thế giới sẽ sản sinh ra 25 tỷ tấn CO2 vào 2050. (shrink)

We argue that the logical outcome of the cladistics revolution in biological systematics, and the move towards rankless phylogenetic classification of nested monophyletic groups as formalized in the PhyloCode, is to eliminate the species rank along with all the others and simply name clades. We propose that the lowest level of formally named clade be the SNaRC, the Smallest Named and Registered Clade. The SNaRC is an epistemic level in the classification, not an ontic one. Naming stops at that level (...) because there is no currently acceptable evidence for clades within it, not because no smaller clades exist. Later, included clades may be named. They would then become the SNaRCs, while the original SNaRC would keep its original name. We argue that all theoretical tasks of biology, in evolution and ecology, as well as practical tasks such as conservation assessment, are better approached using this rankless phylogenetic approach. (shrink)

Automated reasoning about uncertain knowledge has many applications. One difficulty when developing such systems is the lack of a completely satisfactory integration of logic and probability. We address this problem directly. Expressive languages like higher-order logic are ideally suited for representing and reasoning about structured knowledge. Uncertain knowledge can be modeled by using graded probabilities rather than binary truth-values. The main technical problem studied in this paper is the following: Given a set of sentences, each having some probability of being (...) true, what probability should be ascribed to other (query) sentences? A natural wish-list, among others, is that the probability distribution (i) is consistent with the knowledge base, (ii) allows for a consistent inference procedure and in particular (iii) reduces to deductive logic in the limit of probabilities being 0 and 1, (iv) allows (Bayesian) inductive reasoning and (v) learning in the limit and in particular (vi) allows confirmation of universally quantified hypotheses/sentences. We translate this wish-list into technical requirements for a prior probability and show that probabilities satisfying all our criteria exist. We also give explicit constructions and several general characterizations of probabilities that satisfy some or all of the criteria and various (counter) examples. We also derive necessary and sufficient conditions for extending beliefs about finitely many sentences to suitable probabilities over all sentences, and in particular least dogmatic or least biased ones. We conclude with a brief outlook on how the developed theory might be used and approximated in autonomous reasoning agents. Our theory is a step towards a globally consistent and empirically satisfactory unification of probability and logic. (shrink)

This paper explores the theoretical compatibility of substance dualism with a physicalist framework, challenging the notion that physicalism inherently precludes dualism. Acknowledging foundational physicalist principles like reductionism, weakly-emergent consciousness, conservation laws, and the limited impact of quantum indeterminacy, we challenge the conclusion that the universe is thus causally closed. Instead, we propose a speculative model where an extra-physical entity (akin to a “soul”) might intentionally influence quantum outcomes, and examine it as a possible mechanism for libertarian free will. We consider (...) the “amplification problem” faced by the approach: the challenge of scaling subtle quantum influences, typically inconsequential, to a level that significantly impacts processes associated with human free will. Bob Doyle's Cogito model provides a solution, wherein quantum-level events can be linked to conscious human choices. Our paper does not seek to demonstrate that such a dualist model is probable, only that it is possible to construct a plausible dualist model within established scientific parameters. (shrink)

We have a striking ability to alter our psychological access to past experiences. Consider the following case. Andrew “Nicky” Barr, OBE, MC, DFC, (1915 – 2006) was one of Australia’s most decorated World War II fighter pilots. He was the top ace of the Western Desert’s 3 Squadron, the pre-eminent fighter squadron in the Middle East, flying P-40 Kittyhawks over Africa. From October 1941, when Nicky Barr’s war began, he flew 22 missions and shot down eight enemy planes in his (...) first 35 operational hours. He was shot down three times, once 25 miles behind enemy lines while trying to rescue a downed pilot. He escaped from prisoner of war camps four times, once jumping out of a train as it travelled from Italy into Austria. His wife Dot, who he married only weeks before the war, waited for him at home. She was told on at least three occasions that he was missing in action or dead. For 50 years, Nicky Barr never spoke publicly, and rarely privately, of his war-time experiences. He was very much a forgotten and forgetting hero (for further details, see Dornan, 2002). In his first public interview in 2002 on the Australian documentary program “Australian Story”, Nicky explained his 50 year silence by saying. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to map out the complexities which characterise debates about the ethics of vaccine distribution, particularly those surrounding the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. In doing so, we distinguish three general principles which might be used to distribute goods and two ambiguities in how one might wish to spell them out. We then argue that we can understand actual debates around the COVID-19 vaccine – including those over prioritising vaccinating the most vulnerable – as reflecting disagreements (...) over these principles. Finally, we shift our attention away from traditional discussions of distributive justice, highlighting the importance of concerns about risk imposition, special duties, and social roles in explaining debates over the COVID-19 vaccine. We conclude that the normative complexity this article highlights deepens the need for decision-making bodies to be sensitive to public input. (shrink)