Purpose A mixed-method study was performed to determine the impact of integrating systems thinking (ST) into an electronic learning module for junior high school teachers in the Philippines. The study aims to assess how an ST approach to pedagogy compared against a conventional approach in terms of contribution to the participants’ global climate change content knowledge, holistic thinking and depth and accuracy of knowledge and reasoning. -/- Design/methodology/approach The study implemented e-learning modules using an ST approach versus a conventional approach (...) in teaching climate science to junior high school teachers. The paper presents quantitative data obtained from pre and posttests results of the 20 teacher-participants and qualitative data obtained during the focus-group discussion (FGD) after the implementation of the study. -/- Findings The results from the statistical analysis indicated that the ST group obtained a significant increase in their assessment scores compared to the non-ST group, according to predetermined criteria. Content knowledge, depth and accuracy of knowledge and reasoning increased the most. The participants mentioned during the FGD that the module helped deepen their understanding of climate change. -/- Research limitations/implications The study was limited to 20 teacher-participants, but it has relevance for public school teachers in the country given that participants had raised concerns regarding the lack of training in their schools for teaching climate science. They admitted that they lacked critical information to include in climate change topics in their classes. -/- Originality/value This paper shows how the ST approach can be used to teach climate change to junior high students. The e-learning module can provide teachers with better understanding, knowledge and reasoning to teach climate change to high school students more effectively. (shrink)

We consider the varieties and directions of influence that the source and target domains involved in a conceptual metaphor can have on each other during the course of understanding metaphorical utterances based on the metaphor. Previous studies have been restricted both as to direction of influence and as to type of influence. They have been largely confined to the “forward” (source to target) direction of influence, and they have concentrated on the transfer of features or propositions and (to some extent) (...) the highlighting of aspects of a domain. By contrast, this article stresses the importance both of other varieties of influence (e.g., transfer of queries and uncertainty effects) and of “reverse” influence (target to source). We seek to curb the natural tendency to think that, because metaphor involves an overall move from source to target, therefore all inter-domain influences in the course of understanding go in that direction. The bulk of the article explores the theoretical issues involved. These issues have arisen out of a reasoning-based approach to metaphor, seeking to make best use of information from metaphorical utterance, context, source and target domains, and known metaphorical mappings, by applying a complex overall reasoning process. The article briefly explains the thorough implementation of reverse influence in a computer program for metaphorical reasoning called ATT-Meta, although the theoretical considerations are relevant to all disciplines concerned with metaphor. We make some suggestions for further computational and psychological research on metaphor. (shrink)

HMI and Ofsted modes of school inpection are described and compared. The links between these modes are stressed. The information gathering capacity of Ofsted enables it to formulate specific and authoritative advice on good curriculum and pedagogic practice and thus to influence the direction of education policy and steer the system generally.

It seems certain that one day we will allow the genetic technology which will enhance our offspring. A highly effective new tool, called CRISPR, which allows for carving out genes, is already being used to edit the genomes of animals. In July 2017, the FDA legalized that germline drugs for therapeutic purposes could be sold in the market. It is a high time, now, that we need engage in discussions about the ethics of germline intervention. To contribute to the discussion (...) by showing our thought and to educate the public, we write this paper. (shrink)

Although Henry Lee is often recognized to be an important early critic of Locke's 'way of ideas', his Anti-Scepticism (1702) has hardly received the scholarly attention it deserves. This paper seeks to fill that lacuna. It argues that Lee's criticism of Locke's alleged representationalism was original, and that it was quite different from the more familiar kind of criticism that was launched against Locke's theory of ideas by such thinkers as John Sergeant and Thomas Reid. In addition, the paper (...) offers an interpretation of Lee’s claim that, pace Locke, attempts to prove the veridicality of our cognitive apparatus are fundamentally misguided. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to critically examine the objections of John Locke’s contemporaries against the theory of substance or substratum. Locke argues in Essay that substratum is the bearer of the properties of a particular substance. Locke also claims that we have no knowledge of substratum. But Locke’s claim about our ignorance as to what substratum is, is contentious. That is, if we don’t know what substratum is, then what is the point of proposing it as a (...) bearer of properties? This question underlies the criticism Locke’s contemporaries raise against the notion of substratum. In section I, I lay out the context for Locke’s theory of substratum by pointing out his main motivation in proposing his theory. In section II, I give a brief analysis of the theory of substratum. In section III, I discuss the objections of Locke’s contemporaries against the theory of substratum.1 I focus on Edward Stillingfleet, Lee Henry, G. W. Leibniz and John Sergeant. In section IV, I conclude that there is no warrant to dismiss Locke’s theory of substance. (shrink)

Como tantas veces en filosofía, el título no sólo establece la línea de batalla, sino que expone los prejuicios y errores del autor, ya que si podemos o no dar sentido al juego de idiomas 'Ver las cosas como son' y si es posible tener una 'teoría filosófica' de percepción' (que sólo puede ser sobre cómo funciona el lenguaje de la percepción), a diferencia de uno científico, que es una teoría sobre cómo funciona el cerebro, son exactamente los problemas. Este (...) es el Clásico Searle, excelente y probablemente al menos tan bueno como cualquier otro puede producir, pero carente de una comprensión completa de las ideas fundamentales del Wittgenstein posterior y sin comprender los dos sistemas de marco de pensamiento, lo que podría haberlo hecho brillante. Al igual que en su trabajo anterior, Searle evita en gran medida la ciencia, pero hay lapsos frecuentes y no entiende que los problemas son siempre sobre los juegos de idiomas, un fracaso que comparte con casi todo el mundo. Después de proporcionar un marco que consiste en una Tabla de Intencionalidad basada en los dos sistemas de pensamiento y pensamiento y investigación de decisiones, doy un análisis detallado del libro. Aquellos que deseen un marco completo hasta la fecha para el comportamiento humano de la moderna dos sistemas punto de vista puede consultar mi libros Talking Monkeys 3ª ed (2019), Estructura Logica de Filosofia, Psicología, Mente y Lenguaje en Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle 2a ed (2019), Suicidio pela Democracia 4ª ed (2019), La Estructura Logica del Comportamiento Humano (2019), The Logical Structure de la Conciencia (2019), Comprender las Conexiones entre Ciencia, Filosofía, Psicología, Religión, Política , Economía, Hitoria y Literatura (2020) y Delirios Utópicos Suicidas en el siglo 21 5ª ed (2019), Observaciones sobre Imposibilidad, Incompletitud, Paraconsistencia, Indecidibilidad, Aleatoriedad, Computabilidad, Paradoja e Incertidumbre en Chaitin, Wittgenstein, Hofstadter, Wolpert, Doria, da Costa, Godel, Searle, Rodych Berto, Floyd, Moyal-Sharrock y Yanofsky (2019) y otras. Al igual que con Wittgenstein (en adelante W), todo lo que Searle (en adelante S) escribe es un tesoro y es maravilloso que permanezca afilado a medida que se acerca a los 80. A diferencia de la mayoría, incluso sus primeros trabajos siguen siendo relevantes y está trabajando en varios otros libros. También sugiero sus más de 100 conferencias y entrevistas en youtube, vimeo, etc., que, aunque inevitablemente un poco repetitivas, contienen muchas declaraciones que no están en sus escritos. He leído casi toda su obra, y he escuchado todas las conferencias, la mayoría de ellas 2 o 3 veces. Estos son de especial interés como (como Wittgenstein) que no lee de las notas, por lo que cada uno es único y no una réplica de un papel, y es un excelente orador extemporáneo que en su mayoría utiliza un lenguaje sin pretensiones (ambos tan diferentes de la mayoría de los demás). Las conferencias recientes dadas en las Universidades Europeas son magníficas, pero no te pierdas las antiguas como la conferencia de la BBC "Una realidad cambiante, la ciencia del comportamiento humano", que da un excelente relato de por qué la causalidad legítima y repetitiva del rápido cerebro sistema automático, no linguístico 1 (S1) es fundamentalmente diferente y no destacable de la misma manera que la complejidad ilimitada de razones que caracterizan el lento sistema deliberativo, consciente de la lengua 2 (S2), que genera una explosión combinatoria no generalmente representable de una manera útil por las leyes científicas. El sistema dual (S1, S2) método de describir el pensamiento utilizado en esta revisión, común a la investigación de razonamiento desde hace unos 20 años, es mío y no de Searle. Dado que recientemente he escrito un artículo de 75p analizando el trabajo de Searle en comparación con el de Wittgenstein (La estructura lógica de la filosofía, la psicología, la mente y el lenguaje como revelado por Ludwig Wittgenstein y John Searle) no lo repetiré y lo repetiré concentrarse en este libro solamente. (shrink)

The paper leans on a movie cult from the 1960s, Blow-Up (1966) by Michelangelo Antonioni, of which a famous sequence is often mentioned, the one in which the protagonist, the photographer Thomas (considered here as a "conceptual character"), repeatedly enlarged the photographs he made in a park, in order to find an answer to the mystery surrounding the murder of a man: magnification which leads, on the one hand, to a gradual loss of definition of images, with the grain of (...) the picture becoming more and more evident, but also, on the other, in the emergence, from the very material of the print, of a fundamental detail that will help solve the mystery. What interests is the link between indicative referentiality and evidence documentary, between degrees of definition and authentication powers. The paper also analyzes the links that intertwine, in the film, between the photographs of Thomas (by Don McCullin) and paintings painted by another character of the movie, Bill (directed by Ian Stephenson), but also, outside the film, with all a series of examples from artistic production and visual culture of the time: very low definition images of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas (the famous Zapruder Film), the portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald directed by Sigmar Polke by simulating the halftone technique, the war photographs of Don McCullin and David Bailey's Fashion Photographs, Random Earths Studies by Mark Boyle and Joan Hills, Materialologies and Texturologies by Jean Dubuffet, as well as Zen for Film by Nam June Paik. Fimiani's text addresses also two contemporary installations which have tried to return to the issues from the photographic sequence of Antonioni's film: Blow-Up Blow-Up (2010) by Joan Fontcuberta and Portrait Landscape (from the Object Classifier series) (2015) by John Houck, an installation in which photograms of Blow-Up are analyzed through facial recognition software. (shrink)

Virtue, the centerpiece of ancient ethics, has come under attack by virtue skeptics impressed by results of psychology experiments including Milgram’s obedience studies. The virtue skeptic argues that experimental findings suggest that character structures are so fragile vis-à-vis situational factors as to be explanatorily superfluous: virtues and robust character traits are a myth, and should be replaced by situation-specific “narrow dispositions” (Gilbert Harman) or “local traits” (John Doris). This paper argues that the virtue skeptics’ sweeping claims are ill-founded. First, (...) blending Aristotelian and contemporary insights about virtue, I reach adecision about a reasonable, nonstraw defmition of “virtue” and of “character trait.” Next, I argue that explanations give by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett for the Milgram findings covertly invoke character traits. Reflection reveals that more robust, crosssituationally consistent traits are needed for explanation of subject behavior, and that it is reasonable to suppose that such traits were in place. (shrink)

This paper adds another argument to the rising tide of panic about robots and AI. The argument is intended to have broad civilization-level significance, but to involve less fanciful speculation about the likely future intelligence of machines than is common among many AI-doomsayers. The argument claims that the rise of the robots will create a crisis of moral patiency. That is to say, it will reduce the ability and willingness of humans to act in the world as responsible moral agents, (...) and thereby reduce them to moral patients. Since that ability and willingness is central to the value system in modern liberal democratic states, the crisis of moral patiency has a broad civilization-level significance: it threatens something that is foundational to and presupposed in much contemporary moral and political discourse. I defend this argument in three parts. I start with a brief analysis of an analogous argument made in pop culture. Though those arguments turn out to be hyperbolic and satirical, they do prove instructive as they illustrates a way in which the rise of robots could impact upon civilization, even when the robots themselves are neither malicious nor powerful enough to bring about our doom. I then introduce the argument from the crisis of moral patiency, defend its main premises and address objections. (shrink)

From a moral point of view we think of ourselves as capable of responsible actions. From a scientific point of view we think of ourselves as animals whose behaviour, however highly evolved, conforms to natural scientific laws. Natural Agency argues that these different perspectives can be reconciled, despite the scepticism of many philosophers who have argued that 'free will' is impossible under 'scientific determinism'. This scepticism is best overcome, according to the author, by defending a causal theory of action, that (...) is by establishing that actions are constituted by behavourial events with the appropriate kind of mental causal history. He sets out a rich and subtle argument for such a theory and defends it against its critics. Thus the book demonstrates the importance of philosophical work in action theory for the central metaphysical task of understanding our place in nature. (shrink)

A standard view in contemporary philosophy is that belief is involuntary, either as a matter of conceptual necessity or as a contingent fact of human psychology. We present seven experiments on patterns in ordinary folk-psychological judgments about belief. The results provide strong evidence that voluntary belief is conceptually possible and, granted minimal charitable assumptions about folk-psychological competence, provide some evidence that voluntary belief is psychologically possible. We also consider two hypotheses in an attempt to understand why many philosophers have been (...) tempted to view belief as involuntary: that belief is a prototype concept and that belief is a dual character concept. Altogether, our findings contribute to longstanding philosophical debates about the relationship between the will and the intellect, while also advancing scientific understanding of important social judgments. (shrink)

OBJETIVO -/- O estudante de Zootecnia e de Veterinária, quando se depara com a produção animal, um dos pilares importantes é a reprodução, uma vez que é a perpetuação da espécie, seja para gerar filhas de uma vaca campeã em produção leiteira e de um touro com rusticidade e com aptidão produtiva de corte, ou mesmo para reposição de um plantel, o mesmo deve estar consciente de que esse ramo é de extrema responsabilidade, já que estará intimamente lidando com a (...) vida e com um investimento que pode gerar lucros em demasia para a propriedade ou, se mal feito o manejo da reprodução, trazer sérios transtornos para a mesma. -/- Nesse trabalho, o estudante revisará os sucessos da puberdade e estacionalidade reprodutiva relacionando-os com os processos endócrinos e os fatores que afetam sua manifestação como os nutricionais, para compreender a maneira ao qual podem ser manipuladas. -/- -/- • _____INTRODUÇÃO -/- A puberdade marca o início da vida reprodutiva do animal, permitindo integrar o indivíduo ao seu ciclo produtivo. A estacionalidade é uma característica de adaptação que algumas espécies desenvolveram para fazer garantir a eficiência da reprodução e a sobrevivência dos filhotes. -/- -/- • _____PUBERDADE -/- A puberdade é atingida quando o animal é capaz de produzir e liberar gametas viáveis e funcionais (férteis). Na fêmea esse fato ocorre na primeira ovulação, que geralmente coincide com a manifestação do comportamento do cio; e nos machos durante a primeira ejaculação com espermatozoides viáveis. -/- Do ponto de vista da produção animal, puberdade prematura ou precoce, é importante para poder permitir a incorporação dos animais ao ciclo produtivo o mais rapidamente possível. No caso de touros holandeses, por exemplo, é desejável que produzam sêmen precocemente para incorporá-los a prova de progênie; nas fêmeas, entretanto, deve-se considerar que nem sempre é conveniente usar o primeiro ciclo ou cio para reprodução. É o caso das marrãs (porcas primíparas), onde é benéfico esperar até o segundo ou terceiro estro para aumentar o tamanho da ninhada. Também pode ser vantajoso esperar que o indivíduo alcance sua maturidade sexual, que ocorre quando a fêmea consegue se reproduzir sem sofrer efeitos adversos. A ovelha nascida na primavera, por exemplo, pode engravidar no outono seguinte e dar à luz no primeiro ano de vida, mas seu crescimento pode ser afetado; o mesmo ocorre com a novilha, em que o acasalamento precoce pode promover distorcia por falta de desenvolvimento pélvico. -/- A puberdade é um processo gradual e está intimamente relacionada à taxa de crescimento e ao metabolismo energético. O recém-nascido usa energia para funções vitais, principalmente termorregulação; esse feito se deve ao fato de os jovens possuírem uma superfície corporal muito elevada em relação ao seu volume. Durante o desenvolvi-mento subsequente dos tecidos também há prioridade no uso de nutrientes, que inicialmente favorecem o desenvolvimento do tecido ósseo e muscular, e uma vez que estes atingem determinado tamanho de acordo com as condições genéticas do indivíduo, inicia-se o desenvolvimento do tecido adiposo, que é indicativa de um reservatório de energia. É importante ressaltar que existe uma interação entre a genética e o meio ambiente, de forma que o potencial genético só será expresso se o meio ambiente for favorável. -/- Para que a ovulação ocorra, é necessário considerar o funcionamento do eixo hipotálamo-hipófise-gonodal. O aumento da frequência pulsátil do GnRH hipotalâmico e em consequência do LH hipofisário provoca a maturação do folículo em nível gonodal, o que aumenta a produção de estrógenos. O aumento dos estrogênios causa, por feedback positivo no hipotálamo, a liberação do pico pré-ovulatório de LH e, consequentemente, a ovulação. Na fase pré-púbere, a frequência dos pulsos de GnRH e LH é muito baixa e insuficiente para provocar a maturação folicular, pois o hipotálamo é inibido e, portanto, não ocorre ovulação. -/- A geração pulsátil de GnRH no momento reprodutivo adequado para desencadear o início da puberdade depende de uma rede neural complexa que, além dos neurônios GnRH, inclui outros neurônios e células da glia; ele também integra vários sinais internos e externos para o corpo. A morfologia dos neurônios GnRH também é única, uma vez que seus dendritos também podem funcionar como axônios, dando-lhes uma função distinta. A geração de pulsos também indica a necessidade de sincronização entre subpopulações de neurônios GnRH, que, acima de tudo, parece ser extrínseca a esses neurônios e envolve múltiplos hormônios e neurotransmissores -/- Se dois níveis de conexões aferentes são considerados, estima-se que cada neurônio de GnRH pode ser conectado a cerca de cinco milhões de outros neurônios; milhares de genes, então, podem estar envolvidos no processo da puberdade. A importância funcional e hierárquica de cada um desses genes no controle dos neurônios GnRH, juntamente com outros fatores neuronais e gliais, pode diferir entre as espécies. Existem, no entanto, componentes fundamentais que parecem ser comuns a todos os mamíferos e que se situam nos níveis hierárquicos mais elevados, ajudando a compreender a progressão do processo puberal. Assim, todas as espécies de mamíferos estudadas, por exemplo, têm aglomerados de neurônios kisspeptinérgicos (que secretam kisspeptina), envolvidos na regulação da secreção tônica e secreção cíclica de GnRH, que também se classifica como o elemento mais alto na hierarquia desse complexo neuronal após considerar os neurônios GnRH. -/- Sabe-se que o eixo hipotálamo-hipofisário-gonodal está ativo desde as primeiras fases da vida do indivíduo, mesmo antes do nascimento em certas espécies. A secreção de GnRH, no entanto, é suprimida mais tarde no desenvolvimento e permanece dessa forma até o período pré-púbere, quando será reativada gradualmente. -/- Por várias décadas, a supressão e reinicialização dos pulsos de GnRH foi atribuída a uma hipótese conhecida como teoria gonadostat que afirma que o centro tônico do hipotálamo é inibido devido à sua sensibilidade ao mecanismo de feedback negativo dos esteroides gonodais, é aumentado; portanto, o GnRH e a consequente secreção de gonadotrofinas (FSH e LH) são insuficientes para a ocorrência da maturação folicular e espermatogênese. Essa sensibilidade diminui progressivamente à medida que a puberdade se aproxima. -/- Sabe-se agora que existem fatores não gonodais que agem em paralelo com os esteroides para mediar mudanças no feedback negativo que também são específicos da espécie. -/- Na fêmea, o centro gerador de pulso cíclico também deve ser considerado, o qual é responsável por iniciar a primeira ovulação. O centro cíclico é composto por uma segunda subpopulação de neurônios GnRH que é reativada por meio de uma complexa interação entre vários sistemas neuronais inibitórios (que devem reduzir progressiva-mente sua influência) e outros sistemas excitatórios, que, por sua vez, operam por meio de diferentes neurotransmissores, como o ácido γ-amino-butírico (GABA) e seus receptores, glutamato, óxido nítrico e neuropeptídio Y (NPY). Esses fatores, juntamente com as alterações morfológicas observadas nos neurônios do GnRH à medida que a puberdade se aproxima, e com as interações e sinais aferentes das células gliais, levam a um padrão de progressão linear que culminará na reativação do centro cíclico. Esse processo era conhecido anteriormente como teoria da maturação central e faz parte das mudanças que configuram o processo para chegar à puberdade. A elevação nas concen-trações de estradiol subsequente à reativação gradual do centro gerador de pulso tônico GnRH provavelmente permitirá a maturação final do centro cíclico. -/- A forma como cada organismo estabelece o momento certo para iniciar as mudanças que levam à puberdade é conhecido; a existência de algum mecanismo neurobiológico que constitui um relógio interno pode ser considerada. No entanto, esse mecanismo afetaria principalmente o desenvolvimento neuronal no nível central; também seria difícil compará-lo com a maneira pela qual fatores externos ao indivíduo afetam o início da puberdade. Nessa perspectiva, um sistema que permita receber informações completas sobre o crescimento e desenvolvimento do indivíduo poderia ser mais prático. Os mediadores desse sistema incluem o hormônio do crescimento, IGF-I, leptina e outros substratos metabólicos. A leptina em particular, que sinaliza as reservas de tecido adiposo, é um dos elementos mais importantes e, embora não determine quando começa a puberdade, se atua como fator permissivo para que o processo progrida, uma vez que excede um nível limite. A consideração do estágio de desenvolvimento do animal para o início da puberdade era anteriormente conhecida como o peso corporal crítico ou teoria do lipostato. É importante considerar que as três teorias mencionadas não são exclusivas. -/- O mecanismo da puberdade nos machos é semelhante ao já descrito; entretanto, deve-se lembrar que no macho o centro cíclico não está ativo. À medida que a puberdade se aproxima, o crescimento testicular é desencadeado e, em ruminantes e suínos, o pênis que estava preso à mucosa prepucial é gradualmente liberado. -/- -/- • _____FATORES QUE INFLUENCIAM A PUBERDADE -/- Os animais podem manifestar a puberdade de três formas diferentes. Pode ser tardia e o animal demorar para estar apto a reprodução; precoce e o animal entrar na vida reprodutiva antes do esperado ou pode ser normal e o animal estar com boa conformação e idade. Para tanto, alguns fatores podem interferir à manifestação da puberdade pelos animais como a genética, idade e peso, nutrição, fotoperíodo e o próprio manejo adotado. -/- -/- Genética -/- O genótipo afeta a idade da puberdade, pois algumas raças são anteriores a outras. Nos bovinos, as raças europeias atingem a puberdade antes dos zebuínos, isto é, uma novilha ou novilho da raça holandesa atinge a puberdade primeiro que os animais da mesma idade e do mesmo peso da raça nelore, por exemplo. -/- Da mesma forma, as porcas da raça chinesa Meishan atingem a puberdade por volta dos 115 dias de idade, metade da idade das raças brancas. As ovelhas de raças de corte, da mesma forma, são mais precoces que os produtores de lã. As raças pequenas, da mesma forma, são geralmente mais precoces, pelo menos em bovinos (jersey x guzerá) e em caninos. Os híbridos, por outro lado, apresentam puberdade mais precoce que os puros, devido ao efeito da heterose. Por este motivo, em certas espécies são utilizadas linhas híbridas. -/- -/- Idade e peso -/- A tabela 1 mostra a idade média de início da puberdade em espécies domésticas. O peso vivo (PV) adulto é mais relevante para a idade na puberdade nos ruminantes, enquanto em suínos é menos decisivo. A tabela também apresenta a porcentagem de peso corporal necessária para a puberdade ocorrer de forma natural. -/- -/- Tabela 1: Idade e peso a puberdade das espécies domésticas -/- Espécie -/- Fêmea (meses) -/- Macho (meses) -/- PV adulto (%) -/- Gado holandês -/- 11 (8-15) -/- 11 (7-18) -/- 30-40 -/- Gado brahman -/- 19 -/- 17 -/- 45-60 -/- Caprinos e ovinos -/- 7 (4-14) -/- 7 (6-9) -/- 40-60 -/- Suínos -/- 6 (5-7) -/- 7 (5-8) -/- 75 -/- Equinos -/- 18 (12-19) -/- 14 (10-24) -/- - -/- Caninos -/- 12 (6-24) -/- 9 (5-12) -/- - -/- Felinos -/- 8 (4-12) -/- 9 (8-10) -/- - -/- Fonte: VALENCIA, 2018. -/- Nutrição -/- Como a puberdade está relacionada à taxa de crescimento, os animais que recebem uma nutrição adequada e balanceada apresentarão puberdade em uma idade mais jovem, ou seja, mais precocemente; ao contrário, a puberdade será tardia nos animais que sofreram restrição alimentar, que estão desnutridos ou que tiveram seu crescimento afetado por doenças infecciosas ou parasitárias. A superalimentação também não é recomendada, pois pode alterar tanto os sinais que são recebidos pelo hipotálamo quanto sua resposta a eles. -/- Logo, o manejo alimentar adotado deve estar de acordo com as normas estabeleci-das pelos especialistas na área, principalmente no tocante as exigências nutricionais que devem servir de regra na propriedade. Sendo assim, os animais entrarão em puberdade com as taxas de alta qualidade o que afetará positivamente na prole futura e dará retorno lucrativo ao proprietário. -/- -/- Época do ano (Fotoperíodo) -/- Em fêmeas de espécies sazonais, como ovelhas e cabras, existem certos requisitos de fotoperíodo que devem ser atendidos para que a puberdade ocorra. Nessas espécies, um período de exposição a dias longos é necessário, seguido por outro de exposição a dias curtos. Na verdade, os cordeiros e cabritos nascidos fora da estação, mesmo que tenham atingido o peso necessário, terão que esperar até o outono seguinte (a estação reprodutiva) para atingir a puberdade. Os machos, por outro lado, não estão sujeitos a essas limitações nos requisitos fotoperiódicos para apresentar a puberdade. -/- Em novilhas nascidas no outono, por outro lado, a puberdade ocorre antes de um ano de idade, no verão seguinte ou no início do outono, mais cedo do que nas nascidas na primavera, devido à exposição a longos dias durante os primeiros seis meses do ano após seu nascimento aceleram seu crescimento. Em gatos, o aumento do fotoperíodo também acelera o início da puberdade. -/- Em ovelhas e novilhas, a primeira ovulação que ocorre ao entrar na puberdade é silenciosa; ou seja, não é acompanhada de sinais comportamentais de cio como a micção frequente, inchamento da vulva, uma montando a outra e deixando-se montar etc., pois para que esse comportamento se manifeste, o sistema nervoso necessita de uma pré-sensibilização com progesterona que não estará presente até o próximo ciclo, após o desenvolvimento do corpo lúteo vindo desta primeira ovulação. -/- -/- Sociossexual -/- A interação de indivíduos da mesma espécie ou a presença ou ausência de sinais de bioestimulação, como feromônios, pode afetar o período de puberdade. A puberdade, por exemplo, é atrasada em porcas criadas individualmente em comparação com porcas criadas em grupo. Além disso, na porca, ovelha e cabra, a exposição ao macho estimula as fêmeas e a puberdade aparece mais precocemente. -/- -/- Manejo -/- Certas práticas de manejo podem acelerar a puberdade, especialmente no período pré-púbere. Em porcas próximas à puberdade, por exemplo, o estresse causado por procedimentos, como o transporte de um local para outro ou a exposição ao macho, faz com que apareça o estro em torno de sete dias após a realização do manejo mencionado. -/- -/- • _____ESTACIONALIDADE REPRODUTIVA -/- A estacionalidade ou sazonalidade reprodutiva é uma estratégia evolutiva que se desenvolveu em algumas espécies; tende a tornar a reprodução mais eficiente. Nos países de latitudes distantes do equador, o objetivo é que as crias nasçam na primavera, época do ano mais favorável, graças à abundância de alimentos e às amenas condições climáticas. No caso da ovelha, cuja gestação dura cinco meses, para que os partos ocorram na primavera, ela deve engravidar no outono (figura 1), quando os dias são curtos; enquanto a égua, tendo uma gestação de aproximadamente 11 meses, deve conceber na primavera, quando os dias são longos; assim, o parto ocorrerá na primavera do ano seguinte (figura 2). -/- -/- Figura 1: Esquema ilustrativo da estacionalidade reprodutiva na espécie ovina. Fonte: PIRES et al., 2011. -/- -/- Esta característica evolutiva desenvolvida pela seleção natural na maioria das espécies silvestres e ainda é conservado por algumas espécies domésticas, como ovelhas, cabras, cavalos e gatos. Em bovinos e suínos, ao contrário, a domesticação levou à perda quase total da estacionalidade reprodutiva. -/- A estacionalidade reprodutiva é codificada nos genes; significa então que a seleção natural favoreceu a propagação de genes que permitiam acoplar a hora do nascimento com a melhor época do ano, por isso passou a ser considerada um método anticoncepcional natural. -/- -/- Figura 2: ciclo reprodutivo anual em espécies estacionais; onde são apresentados os períodos de gestação e a forma como se agrupam os nascimentos, independentemente da época reprodutiva da espécie, em vermelho as fêmeas estão apresentando estro ou cio. Fonte: VALENCIA, 2018. -/- -/- Fotoperíodo -/- Para sincronizar o período fértil com a época mais favorável do ano, a maioria das espécies sazonais usa o fotoperíodo (quantidade de luz diária ao longo do ano). -/- Este sinal ambiental é seguro, confiável e se repete a cada ano. Ovinos e caprinos se reproduzem na época do ano em que os dias são curtos e os equinos quando são longos. O grau de sazonalidade depende da origem da raça. As raças nativas de países localizados em latitudes elevadas (> 50°,ovelhas: soay, blackface, suffolk; cabras: saanen, alpino francês, toggenburg; equinos: puro-sangue, hanoveriano) terão uma estacionalidade mais acentuada do que as latitudes menores ou mediterrâneas (ovelhas: merino; cabras: murciana granadina; equinos: quarto de milha). Também existem raças de latitudes próximas ao Equador cuja estacionalidade é baixa ou nula (ovelhas: raças de pelo, crioulas; cabras: raças africanas e asiáticas) (tabela 2). -/- Para a maioria das raças de ovinos e caprinos, a estação reprodutiva começa no final do verão e início do outono; caracteriza-se pela apresentação de ciclos estrais sucessivos, e termina no final do inverno, quando se inicia o anestro, que se caracteriza pela ausência de ovulação. Nos equinos, ocorre o contrário, uma vez que a estação reprodutiva ocorre na primavera e no verão. -/- -/- Tabela 2: Relação entre a origem da raça e o grau de estacionalidade ou sazonalidade -/- Espécie -/- Alta -/- Média -/- Baixa -/- Ovinos -/- Suffolk, raças britânicas de lã e corte -/- Merino -/- Pelibuey, crioulas -/- Caprinos -/- Saanen, alpino, toggenburg -/- Murciana granadina -/- Crioula -/- Equinos -/- Puro-sangue, hanoveriano, quarto de milha -/- - -/- Crioula, burros -/- Fonte: VALENCIA, 2018. -/- -/- Mecanismo neuroendócrino da estacionalidade -/- Durante o período de anestro, o fotoperíodo exerce efeito inibitório sobre o centro tônico do GnRH no hipotálamo, diminuindo a frequência de pulso. Consequentemente, a pulsatilidade do LH também diminui, que agora é incapaz de induzir a maturação folicular, o aumento dos estrogênios, o pico pré-ovulatório de LH e, portanto, a ovulação. -/- Isso ocorre porque durante o anestro a sensibilidade do hipotálamo ao mecanismo de feedback negativo dos estrogênios e de outros fatores de origem não gonodal é aumentada. Ao aproximar-se da estação reprodutiva, a sensibilidade hipotalâmica diminui e o aumento da pulsatilidade do GnRH causa as mudanças que culminam na ovulação. Portanto, o mecanismo endócrino do anestro estacional é semelhante ao do anestro pré-púbere e de alguns outros tipos de anestro. -/- A estacionalidade é um bom exemplo da interação entre o meio ambiente e o sistema neuroendócrino, pois o organismo é capaz de traduzir um sinal externo ambiental, como o fotoperíodo, em um sinal hormonal interno, que neste caso é a melatonina. -/- A glândula pineal secreta melatonina durante as horas de escuridão. Os animais sazonais apresentam um ritmo reprodutivo endógeno, que é regulado por janelas de fotossensibilidade, determinadas por mudanças na duração do dia. O sinal luminoso é captado pela retina e conduzido, via nervo, pelo trato retino-hipotalâmico até o núcleo supraquiasmático, que funciona como o relógio biológico do corpo. Daí o sinal viaja para o núcleo para-ventricular, depois para o gânglio cervical e, finalmente, para a glândula pineal, que responde secretando melatonina (figura 3). -/- Nas ovelhas, a estação reprodutiva começa quando a duração do dia diminui e, naturalmente, a noite aumenta; na égua, ocorre quando os dias se alongam. -/- A primavera não é necessariamente a melhor época do ano em todas as regiões do globo. Nas latitudes tropicais, a primavera coincide com a seca e não com a abundância de forragem, aspecto a ser levado em consideração ao programar a reprodução. -/- Outro ponto importante a considerar é que as raças europeias sazonais mantêm sua estacionalidade no Brasil. -/- -/- Figura 3: Mecanismo do fotoperíodo em ovinos e a melatonina. Fonte: HAFEZ, 2004. -/- -/- Estacionalidade no macho -/- O macho é menos afetado que a fêmea pelas mudanças típicas de cada época do ano, já que sua função reprodutiva não é necessariamente interrompida durante o anestro ou repouso sexual, embora a produção de hormônios reprodutivos, tamanho e tônus testicular, a libido, as características qualitativas e quantitativas do ejaculado e a fertilidade do esperma podem ser diminuídas. O nível de afetação depende do grau de sazonalidade da raça e da latitude. Por fim, os efeitos do fotoperíodo devem ser separados dos nutricionais, que também variam com a época do ano. -/- -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS -/- -/- BEARDEN, Henry Joe et al. Reproducción animal aplicada. México: Manual Moderno, 1982. -/- BROOKS, P. H.; COLE, D. J. A. The effect of the presence of a boar on the attainment of puberty in gilts. Reproduction, v. 23, n. 3, p. 435-440, 1970. -/- CARDOSO, Daniel; DE PAULA NOGUEIRA, Guilherme. Mecanismos neuroendócrinos envolvidos na puberdade de novilhas. Arquivos de Ciências Veterinárias e Zoologia da Unipar, v. 10, n. 1, 2007. -/- CHEMINEAU, P. et al. Induction and persistence of pituitary and ovarian activity in the out-of-season lactating dairy goat after a treatment combining a skeleton photoperiod, melatonin and the male effect. Reproduction, v. 78, n. 2, p. 497-504, 1986. -/- CLARKE, Iain J. et al. Kisspeptin and seasonality in sheep. Peptides, v. 30, n. 1, p. 154-163, 2009. -/- CORTEEL, J. M. Production, storage and insemination of goat semen. In: Management and Reproduction in Sheep and Goats Symposium, Madison, Wis. (USA), 1977. University of Wisconsin, 1977. -/- CUNNINGHAM, James. Tratado de fisiologia veterinária. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2011. -/- CUPPS, Perry T. (Ed.). Reproduction in domestic animals. Elsevier, 1991. -/- DUKES, Henry Hugh; SWENSON, Melvin J.; REECE, William O. Dukes fisiologia dos animais domésticos. Editora Guanabara Koogan, 1996. -/- DÝRMUNDSSON, Ó. R.; LEES, J. L. Effect of rams on the onset of breeding activity in Clun Forest ewe lambs. The Journal of Agricultural Science, v. 79, n. 2, p. 269-271, 1972. -/- EBLING, F. J. P.; FOSTER, D. L. Photoperiod requirements for puberty differ from those for the onset of the adult breeding season in female sheep. Reproduction, v. 84, n. 1, p. 283-293, 1988. -/- FIELDS, Michael J.; SAND, Robert S.; YELICH, Joel V. (Ed.). Factors affecting calf crop: Biotechnology of reproduction. CRC Press, 2001. -/- HAFEZ, Elsayed Saad Eldin; HAFEZ, Bahaa. Reprodução animal. São Paulo: Manole, 2004. -/- HUGHES, P. E.; PHILIP, G.; SISWADI, R. The effects of contact frequency and transport on the efficacy of the boar effect. Animal Reproduction Science, v. 46, n. 1-2, p. 159-165, 1997. -/- KARSCH, FRED J. et al. Neuroendocrine basis of seasonal reproduction. In: Proceedings of the 1983 Laurentian Hormone Conference. Academic Press, 1984. p. 185-232. -/- LINCOLN, G. A.; SHORT, R. V. Seasonal breeding: nature's contraceptive. In: Proceedings of the 1979 Laurentian Hormone Conference. Academic Press, 1980. p. 1-52. -/- MELLO, Raquel Rodrigues Costa. Puberdade e maturidade sexual em touros bovinos. Agropecuária Científica no Semiárido, v. 10, n. 3, p. 11-28, 2015. -/- MEZA‐HERRERA, C. A. et al. Neuroendocrine, metabolic and genomic cues signalling the onset of puberty in females. Reproduction in Domestic Animals, v. 45, n. 6, p. e495-e502, 2010. -/- MONTEIRO, Claudia Dias; BICUDO, Sony Dimas; TOMA, Hugo Shisei. Puberdade em fêmeas ovinas. Pubvet, v. 4, p. Art. 850-857, 2010. -/- OLIVEIRA, Daniel de Jesus Cardoso de. Mecanismos neuroendócrinos envolvidos na puberdade de novilhas da raça Nelore. 2006. Tese de Doutorado em Medicina Veterinária. Universidade de São Paulo. -/- OLSTER, DEBORAH H.; FOSTER, DOUGLAS L. Control of gonadotropin secretion in the male during puberty: a decrease in response to steroid inhibitory feedback in the absence of an increase in steroid-independent drive in the sheep. Endocrinology, v. 118, n. 6, p. 2225-2234, 1986. -/- PIRES, Bruno Carlos et al. Métodos para elevar o ritmo reprodutivo dos ovinos. PUBVET, Londrina, V. 5, N. 11, Ed. 158, Art. 1071, 2011. -/- PLANT, Tony M.; ZELEZNIK, Anthony J. (Ed.). Knobil and Neill's physiology of reproduction. New York: Academic Press, 2014. -/- RAMIREZ, Domingo V.; MCCANN, S. M. Comparison of the regulation of luteinizing hormone (LH) secretion in immature and adult rats. Endocrinology, v. 72, n. 3, p. 452-464, 1963. -/- ROSER, JANET F.; HUGHES, JOHN P. Seasonal effects on seminal quality, plasma hormone concentrations, and GnRH‐induced LH response in fertile and subfertile stallions. Journal of andrology, v. 13, n. 3, p. 214-223, 1992. -/- SALOMONI, Eduardo et al. Idade e peso à puberdade em fêmeas de corte puras e cruzas em campo natural. Pesquisa Agropecuária Brasileira, v. 23, n. 10, p. 1171-1179, 1988. -/- SMITH, Jeremy T.; CLARKE, Iain J. Seasonal breeding as a neuroendocrine model for puberty in sheep. Molecular and cellular endocrinology, v. 324, n. 1-2, p. 102-109, 2010. -/- VALENCIA, J. Pubertad y estacionalidad reproductiva. In. PORTA, L. R.; MEDRANO, J. H. H. Fisiología reproductiva de los animales domésticos. Cidade do México: FMVZ-UNAM, 2018. -/- WHITTEMORE, Colin et al. The science and practice of pig production. Blackwell Science Ltd, 1998. -/- -/- -/- FIXAÇÃO DO ASSUNTO -/- -/- 1. Defina o que é puberdade e como ela manifesta-se no corpo. -/- -/- -/- 2. Diferencie puberdade de maturidade sexual. -/- -/- -/- 3. Quais são os fenômenos que devem ser observados em fêmeas que estão entrando na puberdade? -/- -/- -/- 4. Qual o papel do GnRH e do IGF-I sobre a puberdade? -/- 5. Um produtor possui duas ovelhas e um carneiro reprodutor, as ovelhas possuem idade e peso, mas não manifestaram seu primeiro cio, quais elementos que você recomenda ao produtor para induzir a ciclicidade dessas fêmeas? -/- -/- -/- 6. De forma geral, quais os fatores que podem afetar a entrada na puberdade dos animais? -/- -/- -/- 7. Defina estacionalidade reprodutiva. -/- -/- -/- 8. O que é fotoperíodo e qual sua importância para a reprodução dos animais domésticos? -/- -/- -/- 9. Defina as relações existentes entre a origem da raça e o grau de estacionalidade e como tais teorias se aplicam ao rebanho brasileiro. -/- -/- -/- 10. Qual o papel da glândula pineal para a estacionalidade reprodutiva? -/- -/- -/- 11. Por que os machos são menos afetados pela sazonalidade reprodutiva do que as fêmeas? -/- -/- -/- 12. Sabendo-se sobre os termos de puberdade e estacionalidade e as características de ambos nas espécies domésticas, pede-se: um criador deseja obter 5 novas crias ovinas e 5 caprinas em seu plantel até o final do ano, para tanto ele ainda possui um ano e está na estação do verão, sabendo-se sobre a estacionalidade dessas espécies elabore um projeto reprodutivo de modo que essas 10 fêmeas possam gerar uma cria cada até a primavera. -/- -/- Dados: 10 fêmeas gerando 10 crias. 1 macho ovino e 1 caprino. Fêmeas com 1 ano de idade (2º cio) e peso corporal = 55% do peso adulto. Verão de 2020 para parir na primavera de 2020. (shrink)

Communication is essential to human society, and assertion is central to communication. This article reviews evidence from life science, cognitive science, and philosophy relevant to understanding how our social practice of assertion is structured and sustained. The principal conclusion supported by this body of evidence is that knowledge is a central norm of assertion—that is, according to the rules of the practice, assertions should express knowledge.

Synthesizing the domains of investigation highlighted in current research in distributed cognition and related fields, this paper offers an initial taxonomy of the overlapping types of resources which typically contribute to distributed or extended cognitive systems. It then outlines a number of key dimensions on which to analyse both the resulting integrated systems and the components which coalesce into more or less tightly coupled interaction over the course of their formation and renegotiation.

The Metaphysics of Free Will provides a through statement of the major grounds for skepticism about the reality of free will and moral responsibility. The author identifies and explains the sort of control that is associated with personhood and accountability, and shows how it is consistent with causal determinism. In so doing, out view of ourselves as morally responsible agents is protected against the disturbing changes posed by science and religion.

In Tulving’s initial characterization, episodic memory was one of multiple memory systems. It was postulated, in pursuit of explanatory depth, as displaying proprietary operations, representations, and substrates such as to explain a range of cognitive, behavioural, and experiential phenomena. Yet the subsequent development of this research program has, paradoxically, introduced surprising doubts about the nature, and indeed existence, of episodic memory. On dominant versions of the ‘common system’ view, on which a single simulation system underlies both remembering and imagining, there (...) are no processes unique to memory to support robust generalizations with inductive potential. Eliminativism about episodic memory seems to follow from the claim that it has no dedicated neurocognitive system of its own. After identifying this under-noticed threat, we push back against modern eliminativists by surveying recent evidence that still indicates specialized mechanisms, computations, and representations that are distinctly mnemic in character. We argue that contemporary realists about episodic memory can retain lessons of the common system approach while resisting the further move to eliminativism. (shrink)

Researchers have debated whether knowledge or certainty is a better candidate for the norm of assertion. Should you make an assertion only if you know it's true? Or should you make an assertion only if you're certain it's true? If either knowledge or certainty is a better candidate, then this will likely have detectable behavioral consequences. I report an experiment that tests for relevant behavioral consequences. The results support the view that assertability is more closely linked to knowledge than to (...) certainty. In multiple scenarios, people were much more willing to allow assertability and certainty to come apart than to allow assertability and knowledge to come apart. (shrink)

I report two experiments studying the relationship among explicit judgments about what people see, know, and should assert. When an object of interest was surrounded by visibly similar items, it diminished people’s willingness to judge that an agent sees, knows, and should tell others that it is present. This supports the claim, made by many philosophers, that inhabiting a misleading environment intuitively decreases our willingness to attribute perception and knowledge. However, contrary to stronger claims made by some philosophers, inhabiting a (...) misleading environment does not lead to the opposite pattern whereby people deny perception and knowledge. Causal modeling suggests a specific psychological model of how explicit judgments about perception, knowledge, and assertability are made: knowledge attributions cause perception attributions, which in turn cause assertability attributions. These findings advance understanding of how these three important judgments are made, provide new evidence that knowledge is the norm of assertion, and highlight some important subtleties in folk epistemology. (shrink)

Can judging that an agent blamelessly broke a rule lead us to claim, paradoxically, that no rule was broken at all? Surprisingly, it can. Across seven experiments, we document and explain the phenomenon of excuse validation. We found when an agent blamelessly breaks a rule, it significantly distorts people’s description of the agent’s conduct. Roughly half of people deny that a rule was broken. The results suggest that people engage in excuse validation in order to avoid indirectly blaming others for (...) blameless transgressions. Excuse validation has implications for recent debates in normative ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of language. These debates have featured thought experiments perfectly designed to trigger excuse validation, inhibiting progress in these areas. (shrink)

This paper tests a theory about the relationship between two important topics in moral philosophy and psychology. One topic is the function of normative language, specifically claims that one “ought” to do something. Do these claims function to describe moral responsibilities, encourage specific behavior, or both? The other topic is the relationship between saying that one “ought” to do something and one’s ability to do it. In what respect, if any, does what one “ought” to do exceed what one “can” (...) do? The theory tested here has two parts: (1) “ought” claims function to both describe responsibilities and encourage people to fulfill them (the dual-function hypothesis); (2) the two functions relate differently to ability, because the encouragement function is limited by the person’s ability, but the descriptive function is not (the interaction hypothesis). If this theory is correct, then in one respect “ought implies can” is false because people have responsibilities that exceed their abilities. But in another respect “ought implies can” is legitimate because it is not worthwhile to encourage people to do things that exceed their ability. Results from two behavioral experiments support the theory that “ought” exceeds but implies “can.” Results from a third experiment provide further evidence regarding an “ought” claim’s primary function and how contextual features can affect the interpretation of its functions. (shrink)

Inquiry aims at knowledge. Your inquiry into a question succeeds just in case you come to know the answer. However, combined with a common picture on which misleading evidence can lead knowledge to be lost, this view threatens to recommend a novel form of dogmatism. At least in some cases, individuals who know the answer to a question appear required to avoid evidence bearing on it. In this paper, we’ll aim to do two things. First, we’ll present an argument for (...) this novel form of dogmatism and show that it presents a substantive challenge. Second, we’ll consider a way those who take knowledge to be the aim of inquiry can mount a response. In the course of doing so, we’ll try to get clearer on the normative connections between inquiry, knowledge and evidence gathering. (shrink)

In this paper Sullins argues that in certain circumstances robots can be seen as real moral agents. A distinction is made between persons and moral agents such that, it is not necessary for a robot to have personhood in order to be a moral agent. I detail three requirements for a robot to be seen as a moral agent. The first is achieved when the robot is significantly autonomous from any programmers or operators of the machine. The second is when (...) one can analyze or explain the robot's behavior only by ascribing to it some predisposition or 'intention' to do good or harm. And finally, robot moral agency requires the robot to behave in a way that shows and understanding of responsibility to some other moral agent. Robots with all of these criteria will have moral rights as well as responsibilities regardless of their status as persons. (shrink)

Divine command theories come in several different forms but at their core all of these theories claim that certain moral statuses exist in virtue of the fact that God has commanded them to exist. Several authors argue that this core version of the DCT is vulnerable to an epistemological objection. According to this objection, DCT is deficient because certain groups of moral agents lack epistemic access to God’s commands. But there is confusion as to the precise nature and significance of (...) this objection, and critiques of its key premises. In this article, I try to clear up this confusion and address these critiques. I do so in three ways. First, I offer a simplified general version of the objection. Second, I address the leading criticisms of the premises of this objection, focusing in particular on the role of moral risk/uncertainty in our understanding of God’s commands. And third, I outline four possible interpretations of the argument, each with a differing degree of significance for the proponent of the DCT. (shrink)

Recent work has shown that knowledge attributions affect how people think others should behave, more so than belief attributions do. This paper reports two experiments providing evidence that knowledge attributions also affect behavioral predictions more strongly than belief attributions do, and knowledge attributions facilitate faster behavioral predictions than belief attributions do. Thus, knowledge attributions play multiple critical roles in social cognition, guiding judgments about how people should and will behave.

Dasgupta poses a serious challenge to realism about natural properties. He argues that there is no acceptable explanation of why natural properties deserve the value realists assign to them and are consequently absent of value. In response, this paper defines and defends an alternative non-explanatory account of normativity compatible with realism. Unlike Lewis and Sider, who believe it is sufficient to defend realism solely on realist terms, I engage with the challenge on unfriendly grounds by revealing a tu quoque. Dasgupta (...) and anti-realists face a similar challenge to that directed against realism: one that not only undermines the objection to realism by legitimising non-explanatory normativity but leaves them facing a significant dilemma. (shrink)

According to the Self-Location Thesis, one’s own location can be among the things that visual experience represents, even when one’s body is entirely out of view. By contrast, the Minimal View denies this, and says that visual experience represents things only as "to the right", etc., and never as "to the right of me". But the Minimal View is phenomenologically inadequate: it cannot explain the difference between a visual experience of self-motion and one of an oppositely moving world. To show (...) this, I argue (i) that these experiences are different in an important respect, (ii) that this difference is genuinely experiential, (iii) that it is visual, (iv) that it is not purely phenomenal, and (v) that it cannot be identified with anything other than the apparent motion of the self. So the Self-Location Thesis is upheld: reports of one’s own motion can correspond to aspects of visual experiences every bit as basic to their contents as the apparent motion or rest of the things one has in view. (shrink)

The external world sceptic tells some familiar narratives involving massive deception. Perhaps we are brains in vats. Perhaps we are the victim of a deceitful demon. You know the drill. The sceptic proceeds by observing first that victims of such deceptions know nothing about their external environment and that second, since we cannot rule out being a victim of such deceptions our- selves, our own external world beliefs fail to attain the status of knowledge. Discussions of global external world scepticism (...) tend to focus on the second step, where a number of well-known lines of resistance have been offered. But there has been little attention to the first, seemingly innocuous step. That will be the focus of this paper. Part one – sections 1, 2, and 3 – will explain why these standard narratives are not convincing examples of cases where there is no knowledge of the external world. In part two – section 4 – we shall undertake a useful case study. David Lewis’s ‘Elusive Knowledge’ is often thought of as presenting an epistemological vision that is somewhat friendly to external world scepticism: as Lewis himself presents things, there are contexts where external world knowledge ascriptions are uniformly false, and where true knowledge ascriptions are limited to either axiomatic truths or truths about our inner life. We examine his discussion in the light of the preceding reflections and show that the framework he presents is not so concessionary to global external world scepticism after all. (shrink)

The journal of Cognitive Computation is defined in part by the notion that biologically inspired computational accounts are at the heart of cognitive processes in both natural and artificial systems. Many studies of various important aspects of cognition (memory, observational learning, decision making, reward prediction learning, attention control, etc.) have been made by modelling the various experimental results using ever-more sophisticated computer programs. In this manner progressive inroads have been made into gaining a better understanding of the many components of (...) cognition. Concomitantly in both science and science fiction the hope is periodically re-ignited that a manmade system can be engineered to be fully cognitive and conscious purely in virtue of its execution of an appropriate computer program. However, whilst the usefulness of the computational metaphor in many areas of psychology and neuroscience is clear, it has not gone unchallenged and in this article I will review a group of philosophical arguments that suggest either such unequivocal optimism in computationalism is misplaced—computation is neither necessary nor sufficient for cognition—or panpsychism (the belief that the physical universe is fundamentally composed of elements each of which is conscious) is true. I conclude by highlighting an alternative metaphor for cognitive processes based on communication and interaction. (shrink)

Intuitively, the knowledge of one’s own intentional actions is different from the knowledge of actions of other sorts, including those of other people and unintentional actions of one's own. But how are we to understand this phenomenon? Does it pertain to all actions, under every description under which they are known? If so, then how is this possible? If not, then how should we think about cases that are exceptions to this principle? This paper is a critical survey of recent (...) attempts to answer these questions. I consider views under three headings: "special source" views, which hold that the knowledge of one's intentional actions has a non-perceptual source; "special domain" views, which hold that some but not all aspects of one's intentional actions are known in a special way; and "special character" views, which hold that the knowledge of intentional actions is special not because of where it comes from, but because of some other respect in which it is different in kind from the knowledge of other things. (shrink)

The epistemic closure principle says that knowledge is closed under known entailment. The closure principle is deeply implicated in numerous core debates in contemporary epistemology. Closure’s opponents claim that there are good theoretical reasons to abandon it. Closure’s proponents claim that it is a defining feature of ordinary thought and talk and, thus, abandoning it is radically revisionary. But evidence for these claims about ordinary practice has thus far been anecdotal. In this paper, I report five studies on the status (...) of epistemic closure in ordinary practice. Despite decades of widespread assumptions to the contrary in philosophy, ordinary practice is ambivalent about closure. Ordinary practice does not endorse an unqualified version of the epistemic closure principle, although it might endorse a source-relative version of the principle. In particular, whereas inferential knowledge is not viewed as closed under known entailment, perceptual knowledge might be. (shrink)

Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are no (...) grounds for excluding synthetic organisms from having a good also grounded in their teleological organization. However, this comes at a cost; traditional artifacts will also be seen as having a good of their own. We defend this as the best solution to the puzzle about what to say about the good of synthetic organisms. (shrink)

This paper presents an argument that certain AI safety measures, rather than mitigating existential risk, may instead exacerbate it. Under certain key assumptions - the inevitability of AI failure, the expected correlation between an AI system's power at the point of failure and the severity of the resulting harm, and the tendency of safety measures to enable AI systems to become more powerful before failing - safety efforts have negative expected utility. The paper examines three response strategies: Optimism, Mitigation, and (...) Holism. Each faces challenges stemming from intrinsic features of the AI safety landscape that we term Bottlenecking, the Perfection Barrier, and Equilibrium Fluctuation. The surprising robustness of the argument forces a re-examination of core assumptions around AI safety and points to several avenues for further research. (shrink)

Most properties have comparatives, which are relations. For instance, the property of width has the comparative relation denoted by `_ is wider than _'. Let us say a property is reducible to its comparative if any statement that refers to the property has the same meaning as another statement that refers to the comparative instead. Width is not reducible to its comparative. To be sure, many statements that refer to width are reducible: for instance, `The Mississippi is wide' means the (...) same as `The Mississippi is wider than most rivers'. But some statements that refer to width are not reducible: for instance, `Electrons have zero width' is not. A property is not reducible to its comparative if it has absolute degrees, and specifically an absolute zero. A property's comparative relation places things in an order from those that have the property least to those that have it most. If there is an absolute zero point somewhere in this ordering, the property is not reducible to its comparative. For width, there is an absolute zero at one end of the ordering, so width is not reducible. The property of goodness is reducible to its comparative, betterness. In particular, there is no absolute zero of goodness. Things are ordered by betterness – some things are better than others – but nothing is absolutely good or absolutely bad. This is an exaggeration. In certain applications, goodness does have absolute degrees of a sort, and an absolute zero. For instance, it makes sense to say an event is good, and another event bad. These are absolute degrees of a sort, but they are themselves reducible to betterness. To say an event is good simply means the event is better than what would otherwise have happened. The goodness of lives has a different sort of absolute zero. Lives are ordered by betterness; some lives are better than others. We can make sense of the question `Where in this ordering is the division between lives that are good and those that are bad?' The division between good and bad lives is again reducible to betterness. To say a person's life is good means it is better that the person should continue living, rather than that she should die. Or it may mean it is better that her life should be lived rather than that it should never have been lived at all. As it is often put: a good life is a life worth living. Derek Parfit appears to attach a different sense to the idea of a good life. He appears to mean a life that contains a preponderance of good things (such as pleasure) over bad things (such as pain). If a life contains no good things and no bad things, it has zero goodness in this sense. In this sense, absolute goodness and the absolute zero of goodness are not reducible to betterness. However, this is a naturalistic sense of goodness, and it is subject to the open-question objection. If a life contains no good things and no bad things, it is an open question whether it has zero goodness. It might, for instance, be a bad thing that this life should be lived. In discussing the evil of death, some philosophers seem to have been searching for an absolute goodness that is not reducible to betterness. Thomas Nagel speaks of an asymmetry between what is good about life and what is bad about death. But if a person's life is good, that only means it would be better that she should continue living than that she should die. And if a person's death would be bad, that only means it would be worse that she should die than that she should continue living. So there can be no asymmetry. (shrink)

Present-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for positive events to be located in the present rather than the non-present, and for negative events to be located in the non-present rather than the present. Very little attention has been given to present-bias in the contemporary literature on time biases. This may be because it is often assumed that present-bias is not a distinctive psychological kind; that what explains people’s being present-biased is just what explains them displaying various other time-biases. (...) According to this view, there is no need to investigate present-bias independently of investigating these other biases, since present-bias is really just a manifestation of these other biases. We call this the manifestation thesis. We take up the question of whether the manifestation thesis is true, and argue that it is not. Thus, by failing to investigate present-bias in its own right we are failing fully to understand the spectrum of ways in which people display time biases. In turn, we suggest, this may have implications for the ways we evaluate whether present-bias is rationally permissible. (shrink)

This study investigates the significant relationship between procrastination and academic burnout among first-year college students. Employing correlational design and standardized tests, the statistical analysis reveals that the r coefficient of 0.33 indicates a low positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between procrastination and academic burnout among college students.

The Consequence Argument has elicited various responses, ranging from acceptance as obviously right to rejection as obviously problematic in one way or another. Here we wish to focus on one specific response, according to which the Consequence Argument begs the question. This is a serious accusation that has not yet been adequately rebutted, and we aim to remedy that in what follows. We begin by giving a formulation of the Consequence Argument. We also offer some tentative proposals about the nature (...) of begging the question. Although the charge of begging the question is frequently made in philosophy, it is surprisingly difficult to pin down the precise nature of this dialectical infelicity (or family of such infelicities). Thus we offer some new proposals about the nature of begging the question with an eye to understanding what is going on in central cases in which the charge is legitimately made. We then defend the Consequence Argument against the charge that it begs the question, so construed. We contend that, whatever the other liabilities of the argument may be, it does not beg the question against the compatibilist. (shrink)

According to several authors, the enhancement project incorporates a quest for hyperagency - i.e. a state of affairs in which virtually every constitutive aspect of agency (beliefs, desires, moods, dispositions and so forth) is subject to our control and manipulation. This quest, it is claimed, undermines the conditions for a meaningful and worthwhile life. Thus, the enhancement project ought to be forestalled or rejected. How credible is this objection? In this article, I argue: “not very”. I do so by evaluating (...) four different versions of the “hyperagency” objection from four different authors. In each case I argue that the objection either fails outright or, at best, provides weak and defeasible grounds for avoiding enhancement. In addition to this, I argue that there are plausible grounds for thinking that enhancement helps, rather than hinders, us in living the good life. (shrink)

After MacIntyre contains original essays by leading moral and political philosophers who assess both the merits and limitations of Alasdair MacIntyre's work. Among the themes explored here are MacIntyre's historical arguments about the sources of the failure of modernity; the validity and relevance of his attempt to reinstate the ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas as central to any satisfactory moral understanding; the effectiveness of his critique of modern liberalism; and the adequacy of key concepts, such as tradition and practice, in (...) his analyses and arguments. In addition, MacIntyre responds in a substantial essay to the issues raised by the other contributors. (shrink)

I argue that the most promising approach to understanding J.J. Gibson's "affordances" takes affordances themselves as ontological primitives, instead of treating them as dispositional properties of more primitive things, events, surfaces, or substances. These latter are best treated as coalescences of affordances present in the environment (or "coalescences of use-potential," as in Sanders (1994) and Hilditch (1995)). On this view, even the ecological approach's stress on the complementary organism/environment pair is seen as expressing a particular affordance relation between the world (...) and the analyst. That the world is parsed in any way among events and objects, perceivers and worlds, etc., reflects equally features of certain real or possible perspectives on the world and features of the world itself. In section 1, I begin by contending that, contrary to the apparent expectations of some in the field, the bare existence of affordances is surely quite uncontroversial. In section 2, I argue that the most reasonable approach to foundational ontology is a relativistic one. In section 3, I address the claim that affordances must be ontologically complemented by effectivities for the sake of completeness, and I shall argue against that claim on grounds that I take to reflect some of Gibson's most important insights. This work will help to clarify the way affordances are to be used in the fourth and final section, where I argue that ontological work, even within special sciences, should not be merely "regional," and that the most attractive general approach to ontological questions is one that is based on affordances, rather than upon things, events, surfaces, and the like. (shrink)

This article argues that the creation of artificial offspring could make our lives more meaningful. By ‘artificial offspring’ I mean beings that we construct, with a mix of human and non-human-like qualities. Robotic artificial intelligences are paradigmatic examples of the form. There are two reasons for thinking that the creation of such beings could make our lives more meaningful and valuable. The first is that the existence of a collective afterlife—i.e. a set of human-like lives that continue after we die—is (...) likely to be an important source and sustainer of meaning in our present lives. The second is that the creation of artificial offspring provides a plausible and potentially better pathway to a collective afterlife than the traditional biological pathway. Both of these arguments are defended from a variety of objections and misunderstandings. (shrink)

Morality seems important, in the sense that there are practical reasons — at least for most of us, most of the time — to be moral. A central theoretical motivation for consequentialism is that it appears clear that there are practical reasons to promote good outcomes, but mysterious why we should care about non-consequentialist moral considerations or how they could be genuine reasons to act. In this paper we argue that this theoretical motivation is mistaken, and that because many arguments (...) for consequentialism rely upon it, the mistake substantially weakens the overall case for consequentialism. We argue that there is indeed a theoretical connection between good states and reasons to act, because good states are those it is fitting to desire and there is a conceptual connection between the fittingness of a motive and reasons to perform the acts it motivates. But while some of our motives are directed at states, others are directed at acts themselves. We contend that just as the fittingness of desires for states generates reasons to promote the good, the fittingness of these act-directed motives generates reasons to do other things. Moreover, we argue that an act’s moral status consists in the fittingness of act-directed feelings of obligation to perform or avoid performing it, so the connection between fitting motives and reasons to act explains reasons to be moral whether or not morality directs us to promote the good. This, we contend, de-mystifies how there could be non-consequentialist reasons that are both moral and practical. (shrink)

The paper explores the handling of singular analogy in quantitative inductive logics. It concentrates on two analogical patterns coextensive with the traditional argument from analogy: perfect and imperfect analogy. Each is examined within Carnap’s λ-continuum, Carnap’s and Stegmüller’s λ-η continuum, Carnap’s Basic System, Hintikka’s α-λ continuum, and Hintikka’s and Niiniluoto’s K-dimensional system. Itis argued that these logics handle perfect analogies with ease, and that imperfect analogies, while unmanageable in some logics, are quite manageable in others. The paper concludes with a (...) modification of the K-dimensional system that synthesizes independent proposals by Kuipers and Niiniluoto. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between self-efficacy and resilience among 150 first-year college students. This study used a correlational research design. Thus, General Self-Efficacy Scale and Resilience Scale were utilized to measure the variables. Furthermore, the statistical analysis reveals that the r coefficient of 0.48 indicates a low positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between self-efficacy and resilience among (...) first-year college students. Implications were discussed in the study. (shrink)

Elijah Chudnoff’s case for irreducible cognitive phenomenology hinges on seeming to see the truth of a mathematical proposition (Chudnoff 2015). In the following, I develop an augmented version of Chudnoff’s case, not based on seeming to see, or intuition, but based on being in a state with presentational phenomenology of high-level content. In contrast to other cases for cognitive phenomenology, those based on Strawson’s case (Strawson 2011), I argue that the case presented here is able to withstand counterarguments, which attempt (...) to reduce cognitive phenomenology to sensory phenomenology. To support my argument, I present findings from Bowden and Jung-Beeman’s experiments with the Aha! Experience (Bowden & Jung-Beeman 2004), and argue that the Aha! Experience is a species of the experience of understanding presented here. I interpret the results of these experiments to provide further evidence for irreducible cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

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)

Pinillos’ Why We Doubt presents a powerful critique of such global skeptical assertions as “I don’t know I am not a brain-in-a-vat (biv)” by introducing a cognitive mechanism that is sensitive to error possibilities and a Bayesian rule of rationality that this mechanism is designed to approximate. This multifaceted argument offers a novel counter to global skepticism, contending that our basis for believing such premises is underminable. In this work, we engage with Pinillos’ adoption of Bayesianism, questioning whether the Bayesian (...) principle that he invokes truly does fail to generate the verdict that we don’t we aren’t biv s, contrary to what Pinillos asserts. Furthermore, we argue that Pinillos’ empirical argument is not empirical enough; we need a lot more empirical work if we are going to counter global skepticism and win over neutral bystanders. (shrink)

This paper seeks to identify the distinctive moral wrong of stalking and argues that this wrong is serious enough to criminalize. We draw on psychological literature about stalking, distinguishing types of stalkers, their pathologies, and victims. The victimology is the basis for claims about what is wrong with stalking. Close attention to the experiences of victims often reveals an obsessive preoccupation with the stalker and what he will do next. The kind of harm this does is best understood in relation (...) to the value of privacy and conventionally protected zones of privacy. We compare anti-stalking laws in different jurisdictions, claiming that they all fail in some way to capture the distinctive privacy violation that stalking involves. Further reflection on the seriousness of the invasion of privacy it represents suggests that it is a deeply personal wrong. Indeed, it is usually more serious than obtrusive surveillance by states, precisely because it is more personal. Where state surveillance genuinely is as intrusive as stalking, it tends to adopt the tactics of the stalker, imposing its presence on the activist victim at every turn. Power dynamics —whether rooted in the power of the state or the violence of a stalker —may exacerbate violations of privacy, but the wrong is distinct from violence, threats of violence and other aggression. Nor is stalking a simple expression of a difference in power between stalker and victim, such as a difference due to gender. (shrink)