Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) are robotic weapons systems, primarily of value to the military, that could engage in offensive or defensive actions without human intervention. This paper assesses and engages the current arguments for and against the use of LAWs through the lens of achieving more ethical warfare. Specific interest is given particularly to ethical LAWs, which are artificially intelligent weapons systems that make decisions within the bounds of their ethics-based code. To ensure that a wide, but not exhaustive, survey (...) of the implications of employing such ethical devices to replace humans in warfare is taken into account, this paper will engage on matters related to current scholarship on the rejection or acceptance of LAWs—including contemporary technological shortcomings of LAWs to differentiate between targets and the behavioral and psychological volatility of humans—and current and proposed regulatory infrastructures for developing and using such devices. After careful consideration of these factors, this paper will conclude that only ethical LAWs should be used to replace human involvement in war, and, by extension of their consistent abilities, should remove humans from war until a more formidable discovery is made in conducting ethical warfare. (shrink)

Are identity criteria grounding principles? A prima facie answer to this question is positive. Specifically, two-level identity criteria can be taken as principles related to issues of identity among objects of a given kind compared with objects of a more basic kind. Moreover, they are grounding metaphysical principles of some objects with regard to others. In the first part of the paper we criticise this prima facie natural reading of identity criteria. This result does not mean that identity criteria could (...) not be taken as grounding principles. In the second part, we propose some basic steps towards a conceptual reading of grounding. Such a way of understanding it goes along with an epistemic reading of identity criteria. (shrink)

Extensive and critical review of Perception and Reality in Kant, Husserl and McDowell, written by van Mazijk, Corijn focussing on his discussion of McDowell.

In this paper I examine one well-known attempt to justify the claim that thoughts are intrinsically structured, Evans’s justification of the Generality Constraint. I compare this with a rival account, proposed by Peaocke. I end by suggesting that a naïve, Aristotelian realist has no difficulty at all in providing a justification of the Generality Constraint, which is therefore a view that deserves serious consideration.

A recently proposed model of sensory processing suggests that perceptual experience is updated in discrete steps. We show that the data advanced to support discrete perception are in fact compatible with a continuous account of perception. Physiological and psychophysical constraints, moreover, as well as our awake-primate imaging data, imply that human neuronal networks cannot support discrete updates of perceptual content at the maximal update rates consistent with phenomenology. A more comprehensive approach to understanding the physiology of perception (and experience at (...) large) is therefore called for, and we briefly outline our take on the problem. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explain why knot diagrams are an effective notation in topology. Their cognitive features and epistemic roles will be assessed. First, it will be argued that different interpretations of a figure give rise to different diagrams and as a consequence various levels of representation for knots will be identified. Second, it will be shown that knot diagrams are dynamic by pointing at the moves which are commonly applied to them. For this reason, experts must (...) develop a specific form of enhanced manipulative imagination, in order to draw inferences from knot diagrams by performing epistemic actions. Moreover, it will be argued that knot diagrams not only can promote discovery, but also provide evidence. This case study is an experimentation ground to evaluate the role of space and action in making inferences by reasoning diagrammatically. (shrink)

An introduction to philosophy of language since Frege, focusing on the 20th century.

The cultural transmission of theological concepts remains an underexplored topic in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). In this paper, I examine whether approaches from CSR, especially the study of content biases in the transmission of beliefs, can help explain the cultural success of some theological concepts. This approach reveals that there is more continuity between theological beliefs and ordinary religious beliefs than CSR authors have hitherto recognized: the cultural transmission of theological concepts is influenced by content biases that also (...) underlie the reception of ordinary religious concepts. (shrink)

Michael Ayers’s Knowing and Seeing: Groundwork for a New Empiricism is a rich and detailed development of two ideas. The first is that perception presents reality to us directly in a perspicuous way. We thus acquire primary knowledge of the world: “knowledge gained by being evidently, self-consciously, in direct cognitive contact with the object of the knowledge.” (Ayers 2019, 63) The second idea is that concepts are not needed in perception. In this article, the author examines Ayers’s view. The author (...) proceeds as follows: In the first section, he identifies the target of Ayers’s attacks, conceptualism. He then describes why many philosophers have felt this conceptualist view to be attractive. In the next section, he discusses Ayers’s criticisms of conceptualism in an attempt to disentangle these criticisms from the statement of his positive view, which the author discusses in the following section. He ends by describing some problems for Ayers’s positive position that are, so he argues, the result of his vehement opposition to conceptualism. (shrink)

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on (...) the following key issues: § 1.Providing information about research integrity § 2.Providing education, training and mentoring § 3.Strengthening a research integrity culture § 4.Facilitating open dialogue § 5.Wise incentive management § 6.Implementing quality assurance procedures § 7.Improving the work environment and work satisfaction § 8.Increasing transparency of misconduct cases § 9.Opening up research § 10.Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels § 11.Protecting the alleged perpetrators § 12.Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson § 13.Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity. (shrink)

Wagner's treatise Beethoven (1870), written to celebrate the centenary of Beethoven's birth, is one of his most influential theoretical works. Its influence on Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy is well known, and Gustav Mahler regarded it as one of the most profound writings on music he knew, on a par with Schopenhauer's theory on the subject. Wagner's main concern in this text is to bring his theory of opera into line with his recent 'conversion' to Schopenhauer's philosophy. It contains an account (...) of the relation of music and drama which emphasizes the superiority and dominance of music, true to the philosopher's ideas on this subject. This aspect of Beethoven is in fact the main focus of most commentaries devoted to this work. (shrink)

In this paper, we draw on Alfred Schutz’s theoretical framework to better understand how oppression is enacted through discriminatory acts. By closely examining the role of typifications and relevances in our experience of others, and by supplementing this analysis with contemporary social scientific resources, we argue that a Schutzian perspective on oppression yields important phenomenological insights. We do this in three key steps. Firstly, we contextualise Equality and the Meaning Structure of the Social World within Schutz’s broader body of work, (...) elucidating his central conditions of discrimination. Secondly, we highlight the limitations of Schutz’s account, in how it fails to capture more peripheral, subtle, and implicit oppressive practices. Finally, we introduce two underexplored insights derived from Schutz’s framework: the role of relevances in understanding the motivational underpinnings of implicit biases, and the connection between self-typification and stereotype threat. With this multidimensional approach, we hope to enhance our understanding of oppression whilst bridging gaps in Schutz’s original conceptualization. (shrink)

People maintain a positive identity in at least two ways: They evaluate themselves more favorably than other people, and they judge themselves to be better now than they were in the past. Both strategies rely on autobiographical memories. The authors investigate the role of autobiographical memories of lying and emotional harm in maintaining a positive identity. For memories of lying to or emotionally harming others, participants judge their own actions as less morally wrong and less negative than those in which (...) other people lied to or emotionally harmed them. Furthermore, people judge those actions that happened further in the past to be more morally wrong than those that happened more recently. Finally, for periods of the past when they believed that they were very different people than they are now, participants judge their actions to be more morally wrong and more negative than those actions from periods of their pasts when they believed that they were very similar to who they are now. The authors discuss these findings in relation to theories about the function of autobiographical memory and moral cognition in constructing and perceiving the self over time. (shrink)

The right to a dignified death is largely overlooked by Brazilian law. This neglect of the end-of-life process and its ramifications is the focus of this study, which aims at an exploratory survey to identify pertinent aspects requiring development to ensure a dignified end-of-life experience. In total, 50 publications were examined with online and physical surveys of works published up to March 2023. They express concerns regarding ethical dilemmas in caring for individuals nearing the end of life, yet they do (...) not delve into existing mechanisms for safeguarding end-of-life dignity or identify areas that still lack standardization to ensure effective care. This study should contribute to the enhancement of critical perspectives on the issue of end-of-life experiences, considering current safeguards, the legal boundaries set by the State, and potential future strides toward advancing studies aimed at the practical update of the Brazilian legal system. (shrink)

In this article we aim to open a new line of debate about religion in public schools by focusing on religious ideals. We begin with an elucidation of the concept ‘religious ideals’ and an explanation of the notion of reasonable pluralism, in order to be able to explore the dangers and positive contributions of religious ideals and their pursuit on a liberal democratic society. We draw our examples of religious ideals from Christianity and Islam, because these religions have most adherents (...) in Western liberal democracies that are the focus of this article. The fifth and most important section ‘‘Reasonable pluralism and the inclusion of religious ideals in public secondary schools’’ provides three arguments for our claim that public schools should include religious ideals, namely that they are important to religious people, that they are conducive for the development of pupils into citizens of a liberal democracy, and that the flourishing of pupils as adults is advanced by encountering religious ideals. We also offer a more practical reason: religious ideals can more easily be included within public education than religious dogmas and rules. (shrink)

McDowell’s minimal empiricism holds that experience, understood as providing conceptually articulated contents, plays a role in the justification of our beliefs. We question this idea by contrasting the role of perceptual experience in moral and non-moral judgments and conclude that experience per se is irrelevant in the former case and should also be so in the latter one: only with the help of adequate beliefs experience can provide a connection with the world. We conclude with some remarks concerning the importance (...) of experience. (shrink)

This book offers an analysis of the different concepts of person adopted in educational strategies, their effects on learning, and the contributions of the Thomistic approach on the issue.

This paper delves into the character concept as applied to reproduction. Our argument is that the prevailing functional-adaptationist perspective falls short in explaining the evolution of reproductive traits, and we propose an alternative organismal-relational approach that incorporates the developmental and interactive aspects of reproduction. To begin, we define the functional individuation of reproductive traits as evolutionary strategies aimed at enhancing fitness, and we demonstrate how this perspective influences the classification of reproductive characters and modes, the comprehension of shared traits as (...) resulting from conflicts of evolutionary interest between individuals, and the explanation of reproductive diversity. After outlining the shortcomings of this framework, we introduce an organismal-relational approach grounded in evolutionary developmental studies of reproduction. This view provides a revised classification for reproductive characters and modes and offers a new understanding of interorganismal traits that takes into account their inherently relational nature. Lastly, we present the research agenda that emerges from this approach, which addresses the core explanatory gaps left by the adaptationist perspective, including the explanation of reproductive homologies and homoplasies, the developmental constraints associated with the evolution of reproductive modes, and the evolvability of reproductive characters. (shrink)

We propose to understand social affordances in the broader context of responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances in general. This perspective clarifies our everyday ability to unreflectively switch between social and other affordances. Moreover, based on our experience with Deep Brain Stimulation for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, we suggest that psychiatric disorders may affect skilled intentionality, including responsiveness to social affordances.

Uma pesquisa revisando o pensamento gestáltico se justifica pelo intenso debate em torno da tese emergentista da mente. Sem a pretensão de uma exposição extensiva dos usos de noções emergentistas na análise do conceito de mente, realiza-se uma exposição do conceito com foco nas perspectivas de John R. Searle e de Evan Thompson. Ambos realizam uma defesa da emergência como conceito central na compreensão e explicação da relação mente corpo, mas o primeiro centrado no conceito de propriedades emergentes e o (...) segundo centrado no conceito de processos emergentes. Neste debate entendemos que contribuições da teoria da Gestalt podem se fazer interessantes. Apresenta-se neste contexto o pensamento gestáltico enfatizando o texto “Über ‘Gestaltqualitäten’ ” de 1932, ditado à sua esposa por Chistian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932) no ano de sua morte como um comentário a partir da repercussão de seu artigo “Über ‘Gestaltqualitäten’ ”, publicado em 1890 e comentado pelos três autores de maior repercussão da psicologia da Gestalt; Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941) e Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967). (shrink)

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

Open-content communities that focus on co-creation without requirements for entry have to face the issue of institutional trust in contributors. This research investigates the various ways in which these communities manage this issue. It is shown that communities of open-source software—continue to—rely mainly on hierarchy (reserving write-access for higher echelons), which substitutes (the need for) trust. Encyclopedic communities, though, largely avoid this solution. In the particular case of Wikipedia, which is confronted with persistent vandalism, another arrangement has been pioneered instead. (...) Trust (i.e. full write-access) is ‘backgrounded’ by means of a permanent mobilization of Wikipedians to monitor incoming edits. Computational approaches have been developed for the purpose, yielding both sophisticated monitoring tools that are used by human patrollers, and bots that operate autonomously. Measures of reputation are also under investigation within Wikipedia; their incorporation in monitoring efforts, as an indicator of the trustworthiness of editors, is envisaged. These collective monitoring efforts are interpreted as focusing on avoiding possible damage being inflicted on Wikipedian spaces, thereby being allowed to keep the discretionary powers of editing intact for all users. Further, the essential differences between backgrounding and substituting trust are elaborated. Finally it is argued that the Wikipedian monitoring of new edits, especially by its heavy reliance on computational tools, raises a number of moral questions that need to be answered urgently. (shrink)

Este trabalho trata do conceito Exu Diaspórico, o qual foi forjado para lidar com as pesquisas empíricas situadas dentro do quadro teórico da vaga decolonial. Sua concepção está ligada às tradições iorubanas diaspóricas nessa parte do Atlântico Sul onde emergiram outros sistemas resultantes, quer seja de fragmentos e vestígios de narrativas em gestos de memória e resistência, quer seja da tradução realizada pelo outro, muitas vezes, por meio de um processo de carnavalização cultural, que, por sua vez, se deu pela (...) convivência com os bantu, com os povos autóctones e com o colonizador europeu. Este conceito se articula com o conceito de língua-linguagem como encruzilhada apresentado por Araújo (2021a), mas pode ser tomado, ainda, de forma independente. Portanto, trata-se de uma discussão conceitual que visa contribuir com as reflexões e pesquisas decoloniais. O conceito também está a cargo de noções como negritude e Baianidade. Contudo, ele aparece para reunir todas as representações de Exu que resultaram da diáspora negra em meio a um processo de carnavalização das tradições iorubanas em contato com outras culturas e cosmologias. (shrink)

Prometheus has grown four years older since its last and highly controversial special issue, published in 2017 on the Shaken Baby Debate. But, as always, Prometheus is committed to open discussion and dissemination of scientific research, regardless of the potential backlash or controversy that may ensue from such a venture, a venture that is at the core of authentic scholarship. Since the beginning of 2020, the world has changed irrevocably, making once-held norms seem obsolete in favour of new ways of (...) being in the world and new technologies emerging to face these new ways of living. Although it has been a long-held insight in the philosophy of technology that technical systems are carriers of values, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has made manifest how these values, and their incarnations in sociotechnical systems, can likewise change. Prometheus has, since its inception, danced in tandem with the critical interpretations, theories, and methods for understanding innovation, and how innovations fundamentally impact and are impacted by the world in which they emerge and are situated. For this reason, Steffen Steinert, Tristan de Wildt, and I chose to guest edit this special issue on designing for value change and chose Prometheus as its home. (shrink)

This is the report on the XVI BRAZILIAN LOGIC CONFERENCE (EBL 2011) held in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between May 9–13, 2011 published in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic Volume 18, Number 1, March 2012. -/- The 16th Brazilian Logic Conference (EBL 2011) was held in Petro ́polis, from May 9th to 13th, 2011, at the Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC). It was the sixteenth in a series of conferences that started in 1977 with the aim of (...) congregating logicians from Brazil and abroad, furthering interest in logic and its applications, stimulating cooperation, and contributing to the development of this branch of science. EBL 2011 included more than one-hundred and fifty participants, all of them belonging to prominent research institutes from Brazil and abroad, especially Latin America. The conference was sponsored by the Academia Brasileira de Ciências (ABC), the As- sociation for Symbolic Logic (ASL), Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Sciences (CLE), Laboratório Nacional de Computação o Científica (LNCC), Pontif ́ıcia Universidade Cato ́lica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC- Rio), Sociedade Brasileira de Lógica (SBL), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). Funding was provided by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient ́ıfico e Tecnolo ́ gico (CNPq), Fundac ̧a ̃o de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Fundação Euclides da Cunha (FEC), and Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). The members of the Scientific Committee were: Mário Folhadela Benevides (COPPE- UFRJ), Fa ́bio Bertato (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Jean-Yves Béziau (UFRJ), Ricardo Bianconi (USP), Juliana Bueno-Soler (UFABC), Xavier Caicedo (Universidad de Los An- des), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio), Marcelo Esteban Coniglio (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Newton da Costa (UFSC, President), Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa (UFRG), Alexandre Costa-Leite (UnB), I ́tala M. Loffredo D’Ottaviano (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Marcelo Finger (USP), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC-Rio), Décio Krause (UFSC), João Marcos (UFRN), Ana Teresa de Castro Martins (UFC), Maria da Paz Nunes de Medeiros (UFRN), Francisco Miraglia (USP), Luiz Car- los Pereira (PUC-Rio and UFRJ), Elaine Pimentel (UFMG), and Samuel Gomes da Silva (UFBA). The members of the Organizing Committee were: Anderson de Araujo (UNICAMP), Walter Carnielli (CLE-IFCH-UNICAMP), Oswaldo Chateaubriand Filho (PUC-Rio, Co- chair), Marcelo Correa (UFF), Renata de Freitas (UFF), Edward Hermann Haeusler (PUC- RJ), Hugo Nobrega (COPPE-UFRJ), Luiz Carlos Pereira (PUC-Rio e IFCS/UFRJ), Leandro Suguitani (UNICAMP), Rafael Testa (UNICAMP), Leonardo Bruno Vana (UFF), and Petrucio Viana (UFF, Co-chair). (shrink)

The editors cull the works of 11 noted French and German philosophers for their contributions to the debate about what animals are like and how we should relate to them. Each selection gives the gist of the philosopher's view followed by a noted scholar's comments. The result, as Peter Singer notes in his merciless Foreward, is that most of the Continentals have had almost nothing of interest to say on the topic.

This paper aims to offer a critical review of the recent nonconceptualist reading of the Kantian notion of sensible intuition. I raise two main objections. First, nonconceptualist readers fail to distinguish connected but different anti-intellectualist claims in the contemporary philosophy of mind and language. Second, I will argue that nonconceptual readings fail because Kan- tian intuitions do not possess a representational content of their own that can be veridical or falsidical in a similar way to how the content of propositional (...) attitudes is true or false. In this paper, I will support my own reading that sensible intuition is better seen as what Evans and McDowell have called a de re sense, whose main characteristic is object dependence. In this sense, Kantian sensible intuitions can be seen as a sensible mode of donation of objects. In my reading, the Kantian opposition between intuitions and concepts is best seen as the opposition between the objectual de re perception of something and the propositional de dicto apperception that something is the case rather than the opposition between nonconceptual and conceptual contents. However, if Kantian sensible intuition is not a mental state with nonconceptual content, it is certainly in the general anti-intellectualist neighborhood. (shrink)

A presente investigação tem por objetivo responder à questão título considerando os argumentos apresentados, de um lado, pelos desenvolvimentistas e, de outro, pelos ambientalistas. Entendemos que os argumentos apresentados refletem um conflito de valores mais profundo que, se abordado por uma metodologia de solução de conflitos adequada, pode contribuir para elucidação da questão. A metodologia proposta é o personalismo ético de Scheler. A hierarquia de valores a ser aplicada na solução de conflitos traz (i) o valor pessoa como o mais (...) elevado, seguido dos (ii) valores espirituais, como a justiça, (iii) os vitais, como o bem estar e o útil, e (iv) os sensíveis. Através das ações de preferir e postergar, é possível encontrar pontos de equilíbrio numa permanente atitude crítica. O objetivo é contribuir para que as ações ocorram com a devida diligência para com os direitos humanos. A hipótese inicial é que, identificando os valores em conflito e aplicando a metodologia descrita, a solução de conflitos neste caso concreto permite pensar numa transição energética que concilie o desenvolvimento e o meio ambiente. Compreendemos que ambos têm como fim proteger o valor pessoa. Portanto, o que está em conflito de fato, sem com isso assumir uma postura ingênua, são os valores espirituais e vitais de cada uma das partes. Neste sentido, defendemos que, diante da inevitável demanda por energia da sociedade contemporânea e do alto custo da transição energética, é preciso conciliar o desenvolvimento com o meio ambiente a partir de uma programada transição energética financiada pela exploração do petróleo e gás, mas com metas definidas comprometidas com a neutralidade da emissão de GEE em 2050. Para tanto, é necessário regulamentação, monitoramento e fiscalização por parte do Estado e do governo federal com a finalidade de garantir a substituição dos combustíveis fósseis por fontes energéticas limpas. (shrink)

In this dissertation we present proof systems for several modal logics. These proof systems are based on analytic (or semantic) tableaux. -/- Modal logics are logics for reasoning about possibility, knowledge, beliefs, preferences, and other modalities. Their semantics are almost always based on Saul Kripke’s possible world semantics. In Kripke semantics, models are represented by relational structures or, equivalently, labeled graphs. Syntactic formulas that express statements about knowledge and other modalities are evaluated in terms of such models. -/- This dissertation (...) focuses on modal logics with dynamic operators for public announcements, belief revision, preference upgrades, and so on. These operators are defined in terms of mathematical operations on Kripke models. Thus, for example, a belief revision operator in the syntax would correspond to a belief revision operation on models. -/- The ‘dynamic’ semantics of dynamic modal logics are a clever way of extending languages without compromising on intuitiveness. We present ‘dynamic’ tableau proof systems for these dynamic semantics, with the express aim to make them conceptually simple, easy to use, modular, and extensible. This we do by reflecting the semantics as closely as possible in the components of our tableau system. For instance, dynamic operations on Kripke models have counterpart dynamic relations between tableaux. -/- Soundness, completeness, and decidability are three of the most important properties that a proof system may have. A proof system is sound if and only if any formula for which a proof exists, is true in every model. A proof system is complete if and only if for any formula that is true in all models, a proof exists. A proof system is decidable if and only if any formula can be proved to be a theorem or not a theorem in a finite number of steps. All proof systems in this dissertation are sound, complete, and decidable. -/- Part of our strategy to create modular tableau systems is to delay concerns over decidability until after soundness and completeness have been established. Decidability is attained through the operations of folding and through operations on ‘tableau cascades’, which are graphs of tableaux. -/- Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of our dynamic tableau system for public announcement logic in the Clojure programming language. (shrink)

Ethical concerns in e-social science are often raised with respect to privacy, confidentiality, anonymity and the ethical and legal requirements that govern research. In this article, the authors focus on ethical aspects of e-research that are not directly related to ethical regulatory framework or requirements. These frameworks are often couched in terms of benefits or harms that can be incurred by participants in the research. The authors shift the focus to the sources of value in terms of which benefits or (...) harms are understood in real social situations. A central claim of this paper is that the technologies that are used for research are not value neutral, but serve to reinforce some values at the expense of others. The authors discuss databases, modelling and simulation, network analysis as examples of technologies which affect the articulation of values. A view of e-social science as a techno-scientific constellation of researchers, technologies and society, in which values are always already embedded, is put forward as a basis for a view of ethics as reflexive and active engagement, conducted with awareness. Methodological pluralism and proactive openness are also proposed as responses to this view of the ethical dimensions of e-social science. (shrink)

In this paper we try to bring some clarification in the recent debate on causal pluralism. Our first aim is to clarify what it means to have a pluralistic theory of causation and to articulate the criteria by means of which a certain theory of causation can or cannot qualify as a pluralistic theory of causation. We also show that there is currently no theory on the\nmarket which meets these criteria, and therefore no full-blown pluralist theory of causation exists. Because (...) of this, we offer a general strategy by means of which pluralist theories of causation can be developed. (shrink)

In this paper art history and visual studies, the disciplines that study visual culture, are presented as a field whose conjectural paradigm can be used to understand the epistemic problems associated with abduction. In order to do so, significant statements, concepts and arguments from the work of several specialists in this field have been highlighted. Their analysis shows the fruitfulness and potential for understanding the study of visual culture as a field that is interwoven with the assumptions of abductive cognition.

Mechanisms for QoS provisioning in communication networks range from flow-based resource reservation schemes, providing QoS guarantees, through QoS differentiation based on reservation aggregation techniques to adaptation of applications, compensating for incomplete reservations. Scalable, aggregation-based reservations can also be combined with adaptations for a more flexible and robust overall QoS provisioning. Adaptation is particularly important in wireless networks, where reservations schemes are more difficult to realize. It is widely accepted that usability of Cellular or Mobile IP can be largely improved if (...) adaptation is incorporated. Adaptation, in turn, depends on coding techniques involved and on user requirements. Those impose certain preferences and ordering relations on QoS hierarchies or degradation paths to be followed along when adaptation is performed. With the advent of MPEG4 coding techniques, more sophisticated adaptation schemes are more likely to be supported in the future. (shrink)

This paper aims to show issues raised by lacanian psychoanalyses concerning the reasons of the phenomenon of aggressiveness, mainly due to the frequency of this phenomenon in education. In this paper, it was intended to highlight the philosophical dimension of the problem, since we are using basically the dissertative method. Lacan takes Hegelian and Marxist legacy to develop the thesis of aggressiveness as realization of a dynamic introduced from the gaze and that has its modus operandi in the movements of (...) alienation and non-alienation. The aggressiveness illustrated, for example, by the injuries suffered by teachers shows itself as a tentative to cause the fall of the Other, this fall is considered as the object a of which its appearance is regulated by the Oedipus Complex. Namely, both the way how the parental authority figures are inscribed in the significant chains that compose the individual and how this inscription shapes the existential possibilities of interaction with the opposite sex would be the key to foresee the extent the individual makes use of aggressiveness. In this way, the Oedipus complex, reinvested by the event of puberty would be responsible for the displacement of the libido one time to the ´Other´ and other time to the own subject. The Other, in the theoretical development of Lacan that follows the decade of 1960, comprehends the identifier choices and also what escapes from any identification. The Other, as a teacher, has the role of positioning itself to generate intuitively one process of identification and has the delicate function of sustain the dialectic that emerges in the moment where the Other falls, moment which usually comes after the identification and that happens with a joy capable of unveiling the object a. Although the role of education is not to maintain an auscultation to this object, the education can influence its nonexclusion and make this object be contoured with the advent of singularities. In this moment, the explicitness of the rules which education constitutes itself as well as the empathy from the educator can be a fundamental instrument in education like the subject to be taught. From the text, we can conclude that: we need to put the aggressiveness in our speech as via of achievement of the non-alienation process conjugated with the possibility to support the desire. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to provide an overview of New Realism in its opposition and reaction to Postmodernism. An analysis of the implications of both philosophical approaches in diverse fields will be offered, from epistemology, to politics, to ethics. Ethical new realism is presented as particularly promising and important to the future of philosophy.

Objective of the study: To analyze the costs and profits of sugarcane production regarding the cultural practices of sugarcane suppliers. Methodology/approach: This study positions itself in this gap by comparatively analyzing 6 types of cultural practices: unraveling, windrowing, application of correctives, herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers, with the option of two systems Fixed rate (TF) and Variable rate (TV). Originality/Relevance: Brazil is a world reference in sugarcane production, with the State of São Paulo being the largest Brazilian producer. However, for sugarcane (...) suppliers to maintain this activity there is a need to reduce production costs and increase profitability/ha. However, there is a theoretical-practical gap in the financial assessment (costs and profits) of different cultural practices inherent to sugarcane production. Main results: The results demonstrated that the costs of cultural practices represent more than 30% of the total sugarcane production costs. The TF system proved to be more cost-efficient in the following operations: correctives, herbicides and insecticides. In the application of fertilizers, the TV system, in broadcast mode, had the best result. Finally, the profit/ton was R$1.70, demonstrating a very low profit margin/ha given the risk of the activity. Theoretical/methodological contributions: The sample for this research comprised 55 sugarcane suppliers from the State of São Paulo, whose data were obtained through a survey. The comparative analysis was based on the difference in costs of cultural practices and the estimation of the level of certainty (profit/costs), analyzed through the cumulative frequency carried out through the Monte Carlo Simulation (SMC). (shrink)

Este ensaio celebra as cinco décadas da publicação do livro A ordem do discurso de Michel Foucault, realizando uma reflexão acerca de sua repercussão entre as ciências sociais e sobre seus usos, principalmente, no campo da linguagem na parte relacionada à análise do discurso de linha francesa. Portanto, trata-se de uma retrospectiva crítica cuja análise começa com a entrevista que Foucault concedeu algumas semanas antes de proferir esta aula aos brasileiros Sergio Paulo Rouanet e José Guilherme Merquior. Em seguida, o (...) presente trabalho faz uma breve história da entrada de Foucault ao Collège de France e, por fim, lida com a microfísica do discurso que se encontra nesta aula, sobretudo, da rarefação do sujeito, além dos seus usos nas ciências humanas e sociais mais o campo da linguagem em torno da pragmática e das análises de discurso. (shrink)

Our proposal is to bring Jacques Lacan and Martin Heidegger’s considerations that concern the sentence “...is the same thinking and being” of the Parmenides's poem “Peri Physis”. These considerations apparently are in contraction. When we look forward, nonetheless, we can comprehend that they both criticize the modern ‘thinking’ to distinguish one experience that fundamentally the Greeks introduce: the experience where thinking – noein – is in the mood of the being – einai. We develop the notion that this experience can (...) show us our truth. (shrink)

Nossa pesquisa é pautada na tentativa de compreender alguns conceitos da filosofia aristotélica, mais especificamente as noções de forma, matéria, privação e potência, e um pouco sobre a metodologia usada pelo filósofo. As linhas abaixo compõem um capítulo da minha monografia de fim de curso, intitulada Dialogo com a tradição: A conquista de novas convicções acerca dos princípios de natureza no primeiro livro da Física aristotélica, realizada na Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro. Nela tratei a respeito da metodologia (...) de Aristóteles que, dentre outras coisas, passa pela crítica à filosofia precedente, esclarecendo assim algumas questões do primeiro livro da Física – livro no qual o filósofo tenta determinar quantos e quais são os princípios da natureza. (shrink)