The specific role of empeiria in Aristotle’s ethics has received much less attention than its role in his epistemology, despite the fact that Aristotle explicitly stresses the importance of empeiria as a requirement for the receptivity to ethical arguments and as a source for the formation of phronêsis.1 Thus, while empeiria is an integral part of all explanations that scholars give of the Aristotelian account of the acquisition of technê and epistêmê, it is usually not prominent in explanations of the (...) acquisition of phronêsis.2 The abundant mentions of empeiria in Aristotle’s ethical treatises are often eclipsed in the secondary literature... (shrink)

In this paper we introduce two issues relevantly related to the cognitive phenomenology debate, which, to our minds, have not been yet properly addressed: the relation between access and phenomenal consciousness in cognition and the relation between conscious thought and inner speech. In the first case, we ask for an explanation of how we have access to thought contents, and in the second case, an explanation of why is inner speech so pervasive in our conscious thinking. We discuss the prospects (...) of explanation for both sides of the debate and argue that cognitive phenomenology defenders are in an overall advantageous position. We also propose an account of inner speech that differs from other influential explanations in some interesting respects. (shrink)

In what ways and how far does virtue shield someone against suffering evils? In other words, how do non-moral evils affect the lives of virtuous people and to what extent can someone endure evils while staying happy? The central purpose of this chapter is to answer these questions by exploring what Aristotle has to say about the effects of evils in human well-being in general and his treatment of extreme misfortunes.

How should we characterize the nature of conscious occurrent thought? In the last few years, a rather unexplored topic has appeared in philosophy of mind: cognitive phenomenology or the phenomenal character of cognitive mental episodes. In this paper I firstly present the motivation for cognitive phenomenology views through phenomenal contrast cases, taken as a challenge for their opponents. Secondly, I explore the stance against cognitive phenomenology views proposed by Restrictivism, classifying it in two strategies, sensory restrictivism and accompanying states. On (...) the one hand, I problematize the role of attention adopted by sensory restrictivism and I present and discuss in detail an argument that defends the limitation of sensory phenomenology so as to explain the distinction between visual and cognitive mental episodes on the basis of immediate experience. On the other hand, I address accompanying states views by discussing the empirical studies of Hurlburt et al. (2006, 2008) that defend the existence of “unsymbolized thinking”. I present how they can be construed as evidence for cognitive phenomenology views and I dispel some problems that have been raised against its acceptance. I thus conclude that cognitive phenomenology views hold up well against the restrictivist positions considered. (shrink)

In contrast to individualistic explanations of social injustice that appeal to implicit attitudes, structural explanations are unintuitive: they appeal to entities that lack clear ontological status, and the explanatory mechanism is similarly unclear. This makes structural explanations unappealing. The present work proposes a structural explanation of one type of injustice that happens in conversations, discursive injustice. This proposal meets two goals. First, it satisfactorily accounts for the specific features of this particular kind of injustice; and second, it articulates a structural (...) explanation that overcomes their unattractiveness. The main idea is that discursive injustice is not the result of biased interlocutors, but of problematic discursive norms. (shrink)

Cancer research is experiencing ‘paradigm instability’, since there are two rival theories of carcinogenesis which confront themselves, namely the somatic mutation theory and the tissue organization field theory. Despite this theoretical uncertainty, a huge quantity of data is available thanks to the improvement of genome sequencing techniques. Some authors think that the development of new statistical tools will be able to overcome the lack of a shared theoretical perspective on cancer by amalgamating as many data as possible. We think instead (...) that a deeper understanding of cancer can be achieved by means of more theoretical work, rather than by merely accumulating more data. To support our thesis, we introduce the analytic view of theory development, which rests on the concept of plausibility, and make clear in what sense plausibility and probability are distinct concepts. Then, the concept of plausibility is used to point out the ineliminable role played by the epistemic subject in the development of statistical tools and in the process of theory assessment. We then move to address a central issue in cancer research, namely the relevance of computational tools developed by bioinformaticists to detect driver mutations in the debate between the two main rival theories of carcinogenesis. Finally, we briefly extend our considerations on the role that plausibility plays in evidence amalgamation from cancer research to the more general issue of the divergences between frequentists and Bayesians in the philosophy of medicine and statistics. We argue that taking into account plausibility-based considerations can lead to clarify some epistemological shortcomings that afflict both these perspectives. (shrink)

Why does social injustice exist? What role, if any, do implicit biases play in the perpetuation of social inequalities? Individualistic approaches to these questions explain social injustice as the result of individuals’ preferences, beliefs, and choices. For example, they explain racial injustice as the result of individuals acting on racial stereotypes and prejudices. In contrast, structural approaches explain social injustice in terms of beyond-the-individual features, including laws, institutions, city layouts, and social norms. Often these two approaches are seen as competitors. (...) Framing them as competitors suggests that only one approach can win and that the loser offers worse explanations of injustice. In this essay, we explore each approach and compare them. Using implicit bias as an example, we argue that the relationship between individualistic and structural approaches is more complicated than it may first seem. Moreover, we contend that each approach has its place in analyses of injustice and raise the possibility that they can work together—synergistically—to produce deeper explanations of social injustice. If so, the approaches may be complementary, rather than competing. (shrink)

In our everyday interaction with the environment, we often perceive objects and spaces as opportunities to feel, maintain, enhance, and change our affective states and processes. The concept of affective affordance was coined to accommodate this aspect of ordinary perception and the many ways in which we rely on the material environment to regulate our emo- tions. One natural way to think of affective affordances in emotion regulation is to interpret them as tools for regulating felt affective states. We argue (...) that this way of conceiving of affective affordances is too restrictive. By analyzing the role of expressive properties of objects and spaces in emotion regulation, we show that our environment does not need to elicit felt affective states to regulate our emotions. Thus, we revise the concept of affective affordance to accommodate these cases. This revised concept explains more with less. Hence, it should be preferred in wide-reaching philosophical projects that aim to explain human affectivity as a situated phenomenon. (shrink)

Phenomenal contrast arguments (PCAs) are normally employed as arguments showing that a certain mental feature contributes to (the phenomenal character of) experience, that certain contents are represented in experience and that kinds of sui generis phenomenologies such as cognitive phenomenology exist. In this paper we examine a neglected aspect of such arguments, i.e., the kind of mental episodes involved in them, and argue that this happens to be a crucial feature of the arguments. We use linguistic tools to determine the (...) lexical aspect of verbs and verb phrases – the tests for a/telicity and for duration. We then suggest that all PCAs can show is the presence of a generic achievement-like phenomenology, especially in the cognitive domain, which contrasts with the role that PCAs are given in the literature. (shrink)

In this paper I examine some of the positive epistemic and moral dimensions of anger in Plato’s dialogues. My aim is to show that while Plato is clearly aware that retaliatory anger has negative effects on people’s behavior, the strategy we find in his dialogues is not to eliminate anger altogether; instead, Plato aims to transform or rechannel destructive retaliatory anger into a different, more productive, reformative anger. I argue that this new form of anger plays a crucial positive role (...) in our intellectual and moral development. In relation to our intellectual development, anger is often part of people’s reactions to the Socratic interrogations and it often helps or hinders attempts to acknowledge one’s ignorance and become motivated to learn. For anger to play a positive role in the context of philosophical conversations, Plato suggests its transformation from being an outward-looking and reactive emotion oriented towards retaliation (refutation), into a mostly inward-looking emotion aimed at ones’ own moral and intellectual reform or self-betterment. In relation to our moral progress, anger is strategically linked both to the control of our appetites and to the virtue of courage, so anger is crucial to the psychology of the good citizen. Concretely, anger is needed both for the development of the right opposition to injustice and greed, and for the formation of an adequate sensitivity to justice. (shrink)

Philosophers of embodied and situated cognition have provided convincing explanations of what objects do in affective processes (e.g., in emotion regulation). They have often used the concept of 'affective affordance' to account for the affective role of objects but it is not clear how this concept relates to other concepts of affordance, in particular those used in empirical works in cognitive science. We start to fill this gap by providing a new definition of affective affordances and we suggest a possible (...) way to test this novel theoretical construct through a kinematic analysis of hand movements. (shrink)

The story of the Ship of Theseus is one of the most venerable conundrums in philosophy. Some philosophers consider it a genuine puzzle. Others deny that it is so. It is, therefore, an open question whether there is or there is not a puzzle in the Ship of Theseus story. So, arguably, it makes sense to test empirically whether people perceive the case as a puzzle. Recently, David Rose, Edouard Machery, Stephen Stich and forty-two other researchers from different countries have (...) undertaken that task. We argue that their tests do not provide any evidence that bears on the question as to whether the Ship of Theseus case is a genuine puzzle. In our discussion we address also what should be taken into account if one wishes to test the puzzling, or not puzzling, status of the Ship of Theseus story. (shrink)

This article discusses the category of foreigner in the context of academia. In the first part I explore this category and its philosophical significance. A quick look at the literature reveals that this category needs more attention in analyses of dimensions of privilege and disadvantage. Foreignness has peculiarities that demarcate it from other categories of identity, and it intersects with them in complicated ways. Devoting more attention to it would enable addressing issues affecting foreigners in academia that go commonly unnoticed. (...) In the second part of the article I argue that current efforts to make academia a more inclusive environment should address the disadvantages that many foreign academics face. I focus on two senses of foreigner: working and living in a country that is not your country of origin, and being a nonnative speaker of the language in which you work. (shrink)

In most domains of human life, we are willing to accept that there are experts with greater knowledge and competencies that distinguish them from non-experts or laypeople. Despite this fact, the very recognition of expertise curiously becomes more controversial in the case of “moral experts”. Do moral experts exist? And, if they indeed do, are there ethical reasons for us to follow their advice? Likewise, can emerging technological developments broaden our very concept of moral expertise? In this article, we begin (...) by arguing that the objections that have tried to deny the existence (and convenience) of moral expertise are unsatisfactory. After that, we show that people have ethical reasons to ask for a piece of moral advice in daily life situations. Then, we argue that some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can play an increasing role in human morality by becoming moral experts. Some AI-based moral assistants can qualify as artificial moral experts and we would have good ethical reasons to use them. (shrink)

In this note, my aim is to point out a phenomenon that has not received much attention; a phenomenon that, in my opinion, should not be overlooked in the professional practice of philosophy, especially within feminist efforts for social justice. I am referring to the way in which being a non-native speaker of English interacts with the practice of philosophy.1 There is evidence that non-native speakers are often perceived in prejudiced ways. Such prejudiced perception causes harm and, more importantly, constitutes (...) wrongdoing. As in other cases of prejudiced perception and biased behavior, it would be pretentious and misguided to expect philosophers and the philosophy profession to be free from this vice. There are good reasons to think that this prejudiced perception is bad not only for the persons who are perceived in such a way, but also for the profession, for it might make us miss important things that could improve philosophy in general. I claim we should be more sensitive to this phenomenon, both out of concern for justice, and for the sake of doing better philosophy. (shrink)

This article describes an attributive on the basis of a novel entitled “Der Zauberberg” of the famous German writer – Thomas Mann. This is a detailed analysis of the attributive and all examples come from the novel “Der Zauberberg”. At the outset of the article are quoted different definitions. Various classifications of attributive are presented. The article answers the questions: which part of speech can be used as an attributive. Finally I wishes to highlight the case of the subordinate clause, (...) which also fulfil the role of an attributive and refer to the special form of attributive, namely to the apposition. (shrink)

Sometimes subjects have sufficient internal and external resources to retrieve information stored in memory, in particular information that carries socially charged content. Yet, they fail to do so: they forget it. These cases pose an explanatory challenge to common explanations of forgetting in cognitive science. In this paper, I take this challenge and develop a new explanation of these cases. According to this explanation, these cases are best explained as cases of norm-induced forgetting: cases in which forgetting is caused by (...) social norms in a relevant sense. These cases draw attention to the normative aspects of the mechanisms of forgetting. This is an important but neglected aspect of cases of everyday forgetting, in particular of those characterized by a social dimension. By investigating some ways in which the psychology of social norms is causally relevant in the mechanisms of retrieval failure, I begin to fill this gap. (shrink)

El presente artículo demuestra que el tránsito entre la naturaleza y la libertad —como es expuesto en la Introducción a la Crítica del Juicio— debe ser comprendido como un argumento teorético y práctico, cuyo propósito es demostrar la posibilidad del Sumo Bien en la naturaleza. Con este propósito, se reconstruye histórico-genéticamente el contexto en que aparece el tránsito dentro de la composición de la obra, justificando así su validez como sentido global de la Crítica. Después, se demuestra que el origen (...) de la exigencia sobre el tránsito proviene del proyecto arquitectónico, como es interpretado a partir de la Crítica de la razón pura, lo cual permite caracterizar las condiciones que debe cumplir para ser construido. Por último, se interpreta el tránsito desde el enfoque arquitectónico y se identifican los momentos de su construcción a lo largo de la crítica del Juicio estético y del teleológico, lo que demuestra su carácter argumental teorético y práctico. A partir de lo anterior, se pretende justificar la unidad del sentido de la Crítica del Juicio, así como la complementariedad entre sus dos momentos. (shrink)

The International Conference "Tra rito e mito: il Carnevale nella cultura europea" was held online on the 16th and 17th of November 2020. We present twenty-two contributions coming from various fields of the Humanities and written in Italian, French, and German. This proceedings’ foreword traces back the thread that links these essays one with another, i.e., carnivalesque imagery between ritual and mythological dimensions. Moreover, this introduction provides a key to an interpretation of Carnival as a founding instance, both regenerative and (...) conservative, of the European identity. Recovering this instance today, in the midst of a pandemic, responds to the problem of its partial loss in contemporary society, in the hope to rebuild a “free and familiar contact among people”. (shrink)

De nombreuses recherches contemporaines affirment que les idées centrales de l’énactivisme et de l’‘Esprit Étendu’ ont une origine pragmatiste. La théorie du signe de Peirce ainsi que sa sémiotique cognitive, le concept énactiviste de sense-making et l’externalisme cognitif de l’‘Esprit Étendu’ partagent des aspects théoriques fondamentaux. En raison de ces points communs je suggère que le pragmatisme et la sémiotique de Peirce peuvent offrir des perspectives intéressantes pour mieux comprendre le débat entre l’énactivisme et l’‘Esprit Étendu’. Je prends en examen (...) un point sur lequel les deux théories sont en désaccord : le rôle des représentations dans les processus cognitifs. Je suggère qu’une perspective sur les représentations inspirée par le concept peircéen de signe peut offrir la base théorique pour une intégration de ces deux positions contemporaines. (shrink)

Authors deal with theoretical and social contexts of the teaching profession as a starting point for empirical research into ethical relationships among Slovak primary and secondary school teachers. They surveyed the opinions of teachers at that level regarding their relationship with students, parents, colleagues and superiors. According to the research results, more than 80% of respondents positively rate the behaviour of teachers towards their students and parents from the viewpoint of realising ethical values, based on which they could be an (...) ethical model for their students. The level of relationships among colleagues received a less optimistic rating. They were, however, much more critical in evaluating their superiors. Only approximately 60% of the members of school management could be an ethical model for other teachers. (shrink)

L'etica, secondo Wittgenstein, ha a che fare con la mostrazione di un modo di vivere, inteso vuoi come disposizione complessiva del soggetto, vuoi come "habitus". In questo libro, Marta Cassina ripercorre le forme di questa mostrazione nell'opera del filosofo, argomentando, in primo luogo, che il modo di vivere indicato nel "Tractatus" come il contrassegno indicibile della vita giusta e felice debba essere compreso, man mano che il pensiero di Wittgenstein matura, come un "fare" e un uso condiviso della vita; (...) che questo uso, inoltre, possa essere letto nelle sue implicazioni teoretiche e nella maniera della sua genesi attraverso le "lenti" della credenza religiosa e della grammatica del voto di fede. (shrink)

Come mostrare quel che non deve essere predicato, né fondato? Che vuol dire convertirsi da un modo di vita a un altro? Può un’etica dell’accettazione significare qualcosa di diverso da un’etica della rassegnazione? L’autrice dell’articolo cercherà di offrire una risposta a simili domande, centrali per la riflessione di Wittgenstein sulla "forma di vita", a partire da una sua certa somiglianza con l’interrogativo metodologico sollevato dall’universo della credenza religiosa.

Altruism and solidarity are concepts that are closely related to organ donation for transplantation. On the one hand, they are typically used for encouraging people to donate. On the other hand, they also underpin the regulations in force in each country to different extents. They are often used indistinctly and equivocally, despite the different ethical implications of each concept. This paper aims to clarify to what extent we can speak of altruism and solidarity in the predominant models of organ donation. (...) It also raises the ethical question of whether these categories are adequate as a basis for such models, bearing in mind that organs are a scarce resource and that a shortage of them may mean that fewer lives are saved or improved. (shrink)

This chapter describes the concept of enactive memory, which is quite new but increasingly discussed in contemporary philosophy of memory. Although the enactive approach has been used to investigate several memory sys- tems, e.g., procedural memory, episodic mem- ory, and autobiographical memory, this chapter focuses only on the enactive approach to epi- sodic memory because most of the current debate on enactive memory is about this mem- ory system. Section “Introduction” specifies what type of enactive memory is discussed in this (...) chapter. Section “The Concept of Enactive Memory” introduces the concept of enactive memory, clarifies its central theoretical com- mitments and goals, and describes how enactivists have explained episodic remember- ing. Section “The Philosophical Context of Enactive Memory” provides a brief contextu- alization of the enactive approach to memory with respect to approaches and theories with which, for one reason or another, it shares some theoretical insights, like the embodied, the extended, and the distributed approach, and the simulation theory. Section “Forgetting as a Challenge for Enactive Memory” explains why forgetting poses an important explanatory challenge to the enactive approach to memory and describes one philosophical proposal that has been developed to address this challenge. Section “Summary” provides a summary of the chapter, mentions some ongoing projects on enactive memory, and identifies some topics that advocates of the enactive approach to memory may want to investigate in the future. (shrink)

Imagine a sculptor who molds a lump of clay to create a statue. Hylomorphism claims that the statue and the lump of clay are two different colocated objects that have different forms, even though they share the same matter. Recently, there has been some discussion on the requirements of consistency for hylomorphist theories. In this paper, we focus on an argument presented by Maegan Fairchild, according to which a minimal version of hylomorphism is inconsistent. We argue that the argument is (...) unsound or, at best, it just points to a well-known problem for hylmorphist theories. Additionally, we explore some general consequences of this fact. (shrink)

The spirit of the Second Vatican Council can be expressed in three terms that summarize its tremendous effort: faithful, pastoral and modern. In this spirit, the Church sought to deal with doctrinal questions in a new way, preferring mercy to severity. In agreement with this spirit of the Council, Paul VI transformed the Congregation of the Holy Office into the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and suppressed the Index of prohibited books. The inclusion of many modern philosophers shows that (...) the relation between modern philosophical thought and Catholic theology has been difficult, most likely due to the principle of immanence at the heart of modern thought. The article, then, analyzes and evaluates the metaphysical, gnoseological and ethical themes that stem from the assumption of the principle of immanence in some modern philosophers. However, the suppression of the Index shows that the essential continuity, faithfulness to the faith, is able to be accompanied by the accidental reform, as pastoral requirement and modernization. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es dar noticia de la recepción del pragmatismo en la obra y el pensamiento de Eugenio d’Ors, reuniendo algunos resultados de nuestros trabajos preceden- tes2. Dedicamos una primera parte a describir el encuentro de Eugenio d’Ors con el pragmatismo. En segundo lugar describimos su conexión con William James a quien llegó a conocer en París. En tercer lugar, damos cuenta de en qué consiste la denominada “superación del pragmatismo” por parte de Eugenio d’Ors y, por (...) último, señalamos las afinidades más relevantes de su pensamiento con algunas de las intuiciones más originales del pragmatismo de Charles S. Peirce. (shrink)

In this paper, I will investigate the notion of mind within the “Extended Mind” theory, as it is defended by Andy Clark. The aim is to provide an explanation of its key ideas and to highlight some of its consequences. In the first part I will briefly explain the main features of Clark's theory. In the second part, I will discuss his account of the nature of language and its relationship to cognition, and I will relate it with the arguments (...) for cognitive and mental extension. Then I will use my analysis of Clark's arguments in order to individuate some problems, which characterize his philosophical position. Although I am sympathetic with his theory, I will argue that it is nonetheless committed to a narrow account of cognition and mind. For this reason, I will propose a way to integrate Clark's theory within a semiotic and pragmatist framework inspired by C.S. Peirce. I suggest that, if we conceive the cognition as a semiotic sense-making process, we can provide a broad account of cognition and a fully externalist position about the mind. (shrink)

This book provides a critical reflection on automated science and addresses the question whether the computational tools we developed in last decades are changing the way we humans do science. More concretely: Can machines replace scientists in crucial aspects of scientific practice? The contributors to this book rethink and refine some of the main concepts by which science is understood, drawing a fascinating picture of the developments we expect over the next decades of human-machine co-evolution. The volume covers examples from (...) various fields and areas, such as molecular biology, climate modeling, clinical medicine, and artificial intelligence. The explosion of technological tools and drivers for scientific research calls for a renewed understanding of the human character of science. This book aims precisely to contribute to such a renewed understanding of science. (shrink)

Are occurrent states of forgetting literal experiences of absences? I situate this question within the debate on mental time travel (MTT) to understand whether these states can be explained as literal experiences of absent episodic memories. To frame my argument, I combine Barkasi and Rosen’s literal approach to MTT with Farennikova’s literal approach to the perception of absences, showing that both are built on the idea that for an experience to be literal it must afford an unmediated contact with the (...) object that constitutes it. I test the idea that forgetting affords literal experiences of mnemonic absences by considering different views of absence perception and I evaluate whether the objections raised against Farennikova’s approach also apply to my exploratory idea. I show that, while the idea resists the objections that an advocate of a cognitive approach to mnemonic absences may raise, the same does not apply to those elaborated by advocates of a metacognitive approach. Even if conceiving of occurrent states of forgetting as literal experiences of mnemonic absences sounds appealing, this idea is misleading. Therefore, I suggest conceiving of occurrent states of forgetting as states with metacognitive features, which track the absence of episodic memories from awareness in an affectively mediated way. (shrink)

Who is Pulcinella? What does his laughter have to say about the "end of time" and the end of life of Giandomenico Tiepolo? How can the end of a life make anyone laugh like Carnival’s popular mask does? This article tries to answer such questions. By unfolding the tools that come from the realm of Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy – notably the notion of "recapitulation of time" in its relation to comedy – we will trace a path which links Michail Bachtin’s (...) theories on the carnivalesque culture together with a recognition in the aesthetics of "character". In this encounter, the consistency of Pulcinella-King Carnival’s form of life will appear in the light of an “escape route”: it winks at a kind of general and anonymous beatitude, which pairs with the experience of the destitution of time. (shrink)

I’m at the playground with my baby, and a smiling adult inquires, “Is it a boy or a girl?” Scientific studies show that if I say X, they will see my baby as doing A, being A, feeling A—versus if I say Y.1 They’ll likely make different assumptions about whether my baby is able to climb up the playground structures and sit without support, and they’ll encourage my baby to engage in different activities.2 And of course, they’ll respond to them (...) differently depending on whether they think the baby is a boy or a girl. What do I do if I don’t want that to happen? One way to respond to the question is not to reveal the gender, or rather, to reject the assumption that my baby already has a gender, which is arguably a weird move, breaking out of a smoothly functioning, well-oiled social exchange. Here I want to talk about this weird move: How weird it is? What are some of the reasons to make the move anyway, and what are some of the concerns? (shrink)

The article studies historically and systematically one of the most important aspects of Suárez’s metaphysics: the actualism, which consists in a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of potency and act, which rejects the potency in its own sense and replaces it by the idea of an actuated potency (i.e., possessing an own being).

Metaphysical considerations aside, today’s inheritors of the tradition of natural philosophy are primarily scientists. However, they are oblivious to the human factor involved in science and in seeing how political, religious, and other ideologies contaminate our visions of nature. In general, philosophers observe human (historical, sociological, and psychological) processes within the construction of theories, as well as in the development of scientific activity itself. -/- In our time, feminism—along with accompanying ideas of identity politics under the slogan “diversity, inclusion, equity”—has (...) emerged in science policies. The vast majority of scientists (including myself) are convinced that discrimination is reprehensible. We also believe that all individuals of any sex, race, ethnic group, or ideology should be valued in academia solely based on his or her merits and potential through equality programs. However, as I will show in this article, political indoctrination has inadmissibly undertaken the struggle for equality in academic institutions in Western countries. I argue here that universities and research institutes should be politically free (neutral) to encourage academic freedom. -/- One negative aspect of equality programs is that worldwide, scientists are harassed for expressing opinions related to the “gender” issue. This situation severely restricts scientists’ freedom of expression, even within the limits of the law. Codes of conduct extending beyond legal boundaries are examples of this issue. Scientists who express their views about “gender” are often harassed, bullied, and socially or academically excluded. Thus, we are witnessing a wave of proselytizing in research institutes and science-associated media. Today, there is widespread biased propaganda of “victimhood”. This propaganda proposes positive discrimination and increasing women’s participation in unnatural ways. It also bends the history of science by overvaluing the creations of forgotten women, offering lectures on indoctrination, organizing congresses on gender and science, and persecuting anyone who sees the subject differently. All of this covered by a multitude of associations that financially benefit from these discourses through succulent subsidies of public money. Apparently, feminism is no longer about fighting against discrimination. Instead, it is about imposing an ideology and giving more power to one group of people. Thus, we must ask whether the end justifies the means. (shrink)

«A experiência global e partilhada da pandemia obrigou-nos a focar a natureza – simultaneamente pública e ética – das decisões em saúde e fez sobressair a importância do consenso. Esta exigência – agora tão visível – vinha-se fazendo sentir há décadas. Prova disso é que cresceu exponencialmente a literatura que se debruça sobre as implicações antropológicas e éticas dos grandes âmbitos da cultura mais diretamente vinculados ao mundo da tecnologia, das biotecnologias à inteligência artificial. Uma das áreas em que a (...) necessidade de reflexão se fez sentir primeiro e de forma mais nítida foi a das ciências da vida. [...]. (shrink)

Niniejsza publikacja powstała w ramach projektu PO KL "PWP: PRZYSZŁOŚĆ EDUKACJI ZAWODOWEJ - lokalne partnerstwo na rzecz zwiększenia adaptacyjności nauczycieli zawodowych", realizowanego na zlecenie Wojewódzkiego Urzędu Pracy w Białymstoku, w ramach działania 8.1 Rozwój pracowników i przedsiębiorstw w regionie, poddziałanie 8.1.3 Wzmacnianie lokalnego partnerstwa na rzecz adaptacyjności, współfinansowanego ze środków Unii Europejskiej w ramach Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego. Celem projektu jest wypracowanie do końca VI 2015 rozwiązań współpracy lokalnej instytucji i przedsiębiorstw na rzecz modernizacji przedsiębiorstw i szkół zawodowych w woj. podlaskim (...) w zakresie organizacji form pracy, form świadczenia pracy, godzenia życia zawodowego z osobistym oraz adaptacyjności nauczycieli zawodowych zagrożonych bezrobociem. (shrink)

Niniejsza publikacja powstała w ramach projektu PO KL "PWP: PRZYSZŁOŚĆ EDUKACJI ZAWODOWEJ - lokalne partnerstwo na rzecz zwiększenia adaptacyjności nauczycieli zawodowych", realizowanego na zlecenie Wojewódzkiego Urzędu Pracy w Białymstoku, w ramach działania 8.1 Rozwój pracowników i przedsiębiorstw w regionie, poddziałanie 8.1.3 Wzmacnianie lokalnego partnerstwa na rzecz adaptacyjności, współfinansowanego ze środków Unii Europejskiej w ramach Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego. Celem projektu jest wypracowanie do końca VI 2015 rozwiązań współpracy lokalnej instytucji i przedsiębiorstw na rzecz modernizacji przedsiębiorstw i szkół zawodowych w woj. podlaskim (...) w zakresie organizacji form pracy, form świadczenia pracy, godzenia życia zawodowego z osobistym oraz adaptacyjności nauczycieli zawodowych zagrożonych bezrobociem. (shrink)

In this paper we address the question of what determines the content of our conscious episodes of thinking, considering recent claims that phenomenal character individuates thought contents. We present one prominent way for defenders of phenomenal intentionality to develop that view and then examine ‘sensory inner speech views’, which provide an alternative way of accounting for thought-content determinacy. We argue that such views fare well with inner speech thinking but have problems accounting for unsymbolized thinking. Within this dialectic, we present (...) an account of the nature of unsymbolized thinking that accords with and can be seen as a continuation of the activity of inner speech, while offering a way of explaining thought-content determinacy in terms of linguistic structures and representations. (shrink)

This brief article presents the introduction and draft of the fundamental ideas developed at length in the book of the same title, which gives a challenging point of view about science and its history/philosophy/sociology. Science is in decline. After centuries of great achievements, the exhaustion of new forms and fatigue have reached our culture in all of its manifestations including the pure sciences. Our society is saturated with knowledge which does not offer people any sense in their lives. There is (...) a loss of ideals in the search for great truths and a shift towards an anodyne specialized industry. (shrink)

4Es approaches to cognition draw an unconventional picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that always takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, these approaches hold that cognition is a situated process that often extends beyond human agents’ physical boundaries. In particular, supporters of the extended mind theory and of the enactive approach claim that embodied action in a perceptually complex environment is constitutive of cognitive processes, and (...) thus of the mind. (Chapter 1). Although both draw an extended picture of cognition and of the mind, supporters of the extended mind and supporters of the enactive approach disagree on the value of internal representations in perceptually-guided action. The extended mind theory holds that we need to posit internal action-oriented representations (AORs). AORs are valuable -the argument goes- because they account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. Advocates of the enactive approach to cognition, instead, argue against AORs. Firstly, they argue that AORs do not fulfill the necessary conditions for the identification of representational entities. Therefore, that of AOR is an ill-conceived epistemic construct. Secondly, they argue that AORs are expressive of an internalist prejudice, which makes the extended mind theory weaker than it should be from an explanatory and metaphysical point of view. I endorse both these arguments advanced by supporters of the enactive approach. Moreover, through a semiotic analysis of the construct and of the workings of AORs, I show that AORs are not active at all. Hence, I argue that AORs do not do the job they are supposed to do: extending the mind’s boundaries by explaining our perceptual relation with the world as an active, embodied, and world-involving process. Therefore, I suggest that the construct of AOR ought to be dismissed - at least in current projects in 4Es cognition (Chapter 2). I argue that similar arguments apply to recent attempts to make predictive processing accounts of perceptually-guided action more aligned with 4Es approaches to cognitive science by appealing to predictive internal models of our perceptual world. I thus propose an alternative explanation of the key features of perceptually-guided action that AORs and these internal models are supposed to be grasp. Action-control, action-selection, and the anticipatory aspects of action-perception loops can be explained by appealing to embodied actions in a field of relevant affordances, which are perceived as such based on the agent’s motor skills and motives. Furthermore, I suggest that, by combining the enactive approach to cognition with an analysis of the indexical features of our perceptual environment, we can explain perceptually-guided action in a way that truly accounts for our minds as entities that often extend beyond our skulls and skin. And we can do so without holding onto spooking entities like AORs and internal predictive models. (Chapter 3). (shrink)

The article studies some of the most important political ideas present in the origins of the modern State, especially the notion of political sovereignty, which, borne and developed in the maiestas of the imperial roman law and in the averroistic interpretation of the aristotelian idea of the perfect community, is accepted and developed by Francisco de Vitoria in the De potestate civili. Vitoria characterizes sovereignty with the features of supremacy in the domestic activity of the State and independence with regard (...) to other States. (shrink)

Love enhancement can give us as a say on whom we love and thus ‘free’ us from our brain chemistry, which is mostly out of our control. In that way, we become more autonomous in love and in our life in general, as long as love enhancement is a free, voluntary choice. So goes the argument in favour of this addition to medical interventions of relationships. In this paper, I show that proponents of love enhancement have overlooked, or at least (...) underestimated, the fact that love itself impacts people’s choices. Since this could include the choice for love or anti-love drugs, I call for a re-formulation of the underlying view on autonomy before this medical intervention is made available to the public. (shrink)