In this eleventh book of scilogs – called in-turns and out-turns –, one may find new and old questions and solutions, referring mostly to topics on Neutrosophy, but also Multispace, with miscellaneous addition of topics on Physics, Mathematics, or Sociology – email messages to research colleagues, or replies, notes about authors, articles, or books, spontaneous ideas, and so on. -/- Exchanging ideas with Prem Kumar Singh, Feng Liu, Nicolae Bălașa, Jimmy Quellet, Minodora Rușchița, Frank Gelli, A. R. Vătuiu, Victor Christianto, (...) Vladimir I. Rogozhin, Robert Neil Boyd, Akira Kanda, Stefan Spaarmann, Oliver Consa, Yabin Shao, Junle Zhuo, Nivetha Martin, Said Broumi, Jean Dezert, Erick González, Tomasz Witczak, B. De Baets, I. Couso, D. Dubois, L. Good, Mihaela Colhon, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Ihsan, Edeline Nancy, Shawkat Alkhazaleh, Shazia Rana, Vasantha Kandasamy, Santanu Acharjee, Mohamed Al-Shmrani, Parimala Manie, Mehmet Unver, Murat Olgun, Adel Aleidhri, Akira Kanda, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, Mircea Zărnescu, R. Tayebi Khorami, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Maisam Jdid, M. Abobala, Riad Hamido, Rafael Rojas, Esmaeil Zarei, Faisal Khan, Rouzbeh Abbassi, Adel Al-Odhari, Henry Garrett, Ackbar Rezaei, Saeid Jafari, Karthika Muthusamy, Harish Garg, Huda E. Khalid, Gonca D. Güngör, Muslim A. Noah Zainal, Fakhry Asad Agusfrianto, Madeleine Al-Tahan, Mariam Hariri, Yudi Mahatma, Masoud Ghods, Marco Brigliadori, Luis Enrique Aponte Pérez, Amr Mohammed, M. Aslam (in order of reference in the book). (shrink)

In this paper, a special type of polysemantic words, that is, words with multiple meanings for the same part of speech, are analyzed under the name of neutrosophic words. These words represent the most dif cult cases for the disambiguation algorithms as they represent the most ambiguous natural language utterances. For approximate their meanings, we developed a semantic representation framework made by means of concepts from neutrosophic theory and entropy measure in which we incorporate sense related data. We show the (...) advantages of the proposed framework in a sentiment classification task. (shrink)

The present text attempts to introduce readers to the fundamental philosophical and pedagogical values promoted by Matthew Lipman, the author who laid the basis for the philosophy for children movement. It analyzes several theoretical and applied texts written by Lipman, in an attempt to explain Lipman’s goals, his views on education, and the way in which his „community of inquiry” manages to transform the classroom into a space of freedom, creativity and thinking.

Discussion of partial grounds that aren't parts of full grounds; definition of full grounding in terms of partial grounding.

“Love hurts”—as the saying goes—and a certain amount of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since adversity can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other components of a life well-lived. But other times, love can be downright dangerous. It may bind a spouse to her domestic abuser, draw an unscrupulous adult toward sexual involvement with a child, put someone under the insidious spell of a cult leader, and even inspire (...) jealousy-fueled homicide. How might these perilous devotions be diminished? The ancients thought that treatments such as phlebotomy, exercise, or bloodletting could “cure” an individual of love. But modern neuroscience and emerging developments in psychopharmacology open up a range of possible interventions that might actually work. These developments raise profound moral questions about the potential uses—and misuses—of such anti-love biotechnology. In this article, we describe a number of prospective love-diminishing interventions, and offer a preliminary ethical framework for dealing with them responsibly should they arise. (shrink)

Harmful and dangerous language is frequent in social media, in particular in spaces which are considered anonymous and/or allow free participation. In this paper, we analyse the language in a Telegram channel populated by followers of Donald Trump, in order to identify the ways in which harmful language is used to create a specific narrative in a group of mostly like-minded discussants. Our research has several aims. First, we create an extended taxonomy of potentially harmful language that includes not only (...) hate speech and direct insults, but also more indirect ways of poisoning online discourse, such as divisive speech and the glorification of violence. We apply this taxonomy to a large portion of the corpus. Our data gives empirical evidence for harmful speech such as in/out-group divisive language and the use of codes within certain communities which have not often been investigated before. Second, we compare our manual annotations to several automatic methods of classifying hate speech and offensive language, namely list based and machine learning based approaches. We find that the Telegram data set still poses particular challenges for these automatic methods. Finally, we argue for the value of studying such naturally occurring, coherent data sets for research on online harm and how to address it in linguistics and philosophy. (shrink)

Background Retraction is a mechanism for alerting readers to unreliable material and other problems in the published scientific and scholarly record. Retracted publications generally remain visible and searchable, but the intention of retraction is to mark them as “removed” from the citable record of scholarship. However, in practice, some retracted articles continue to be treated by researchers and the public as valid content as they are often unaware of the retraction. Research over the past decade has identified a number of (...) factors contributing to the unintentional spread of retracted research. The goal of the Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science: Shaping a Research and Implementation Agenda (RISRS) project was to develop an actionable agenda for reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science. This included identifying how retraction status could be more thoroughly disseminated, and determining what actions are feasible and relevant for particular stakeholders who play a role in the distribution of knowledge. -/- Methods These recommendations were developed as part of a year-long process that included a scoping review of empirical literature and successive rounds of stakeholder consultation, culminating in a three-part online workshop that brought together a diverse body of 65 stakeholders in October–November 2020 to engage in collaborative problem solving and dialogue. Stakeholders held roles such as publishers, editors, researchers, librarians, standards developers, funding program officers, and technologists and worked for institutions such as universities, governmental agencies, funding organizations, publishing houses, libraries, standards organizations, and technology providers. Workshop discussions were seeded by materials derived from stakeholder interviews (N = 47) and short original discussion pieces contributed by stakeholders. The online workshop resulted in a set of recommendations to address the complexities of retracted research throughout the scholarly communications ecosystem. -/- Results The RISRS recommendations are: (1) Develop a systematic cross-industry approach to ensure the public availability of consistent, standardized, interoperable, and timely information about retractions; (2) Recommend a taxonomy of retraction categories/classifications and corresponding retraction metadata that can be adopted by all stakeholders; (3) Develop best practices for coordinating the retraction process to enable timely, fair, unbiased outcomes; and (4) Educate stakeholders about pre- and post-publication stewardship, including retraction and correction of the scholarly record. -/- Conclusions Our stakeholder engagement study led to 4 recommendations to address inadvertent citation of retracted research, and formation of a working group to develop the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CORREC) Recommended Practice. Further work will be needed to determine how well retractions are currently documented, how retraction of code and datasets impacts related publications, and to identify if retraction metadata (fails to) propagate. Outcomes of all this work should lead to ensuring retracted papers are never cited without awareness of the retraction, and that, in public fora outside of science, retracted papers are not treated as valid scientific outputs. (shrink)

This paper examines the mechanisms involved in the interpretation of utterances that are both metaphorical and ironical. For example, when uttering 'He's a real number-cruncher' about a total illiterate in maths, the speaker uses a metaphor with an ironic intent. I argue that in such cases both logically and psychologically, the metaphor is prior to irony. I hold that the phenomenon is then one of ironic metaphor, which puts a metaphorical meaning to ironic use, rather than an irony used metaphorically (...) (§1). This result is then used to argue for the claim that in metaphor, it is metaphorical, not literal, meaning that determines the utterance‘s truth conditions. Gricean accounts, which exclude metaphorical meaning from truth conditional content and rely entirely on conversational implicature, are seen to be unsatisfactory. Five contextualist arguments are briefly discussed to the conclusion that metaphorical content is part of truth-conditional content, rather than implicated (§2). (shrink)

In this paper, I want to focus not on the problems that I believe may threaten Kant’s account of the highest good, but instead on those that I believe threaten the majority of the interpretive reconstructions attempted by commentators and thus prevent the emergence of a consensus in the near future. My goal is to set forth exactly four problems to which I believe any successful interpretation or reconstruction of Kant’s account of the highest good will have to provide substantive (...) solutions and, in doing so, either break new theoretical ground or at least provide a more comprehensive methodology for sorting through the texts. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

It’s natural for hyperbole to mix with metaphor and irony, and other figures of speech. How do they mix together and what kind of compound, if any, arises out of the mixing? In tackling this question, I shall argue that thinking of hyperbolic figures along the lines familiar from ironic metaphor compounds is a temptation we should resist. Looking in particular at hyperbolic metaphor and hyperbolic irony, I argue, they don’t yield a new encompassing compound figure with one figure building (...) on another. Instead, what we have is one dominant figure colored with hyperbolic tinges. So what does hyperbole bring to the mixing pot? I suggest we should think of hyperbole in hyperbolic figures as being an interpretive effect, modulating the working of the partner figure and thus rendering more emphatic. (shrink)

Many democratic theorists hold that when a decision is collectively made in the right kind of way, in accordance with the right procedure, it is permissible to enforce it. They deny that there are further requirements on the type of reasons that can permissibly be used to justify laws and policies. In this paper, I argue that democratic theorists are mistaken about this. So-called public reason requirements follow from commitments that most of them already hold. Drawing on the democratic ideal (...) of civic equality, I show that it can successfully explain why political decision-making must have the right sort of procedure-independent justification. However, contra standard accounts of public reason, I argue that laws and policies need to be justified with convergence accessible, not shared, reasons. Public reasons are those that are accessible in light of evaluative standards shared by all, or in light of every citizen’s private evaluative standards. Since this will make the set of public reasons wider, it makes the theory more palatable to sceptics while retaining the framework’s justificatory potential. (shrink)

There is considerable disagreement about the epistemic value of novel predictive success, i.e. when a scientist predicts an unexpected phenomenon, experiments are conducted, and the prediction proves to be accurate. We survey the field on this question, noting both fully articulated views such as weak and strong predictivism, and more nascent views, such as pluralist reasons for the instrumental value of prediction. By examining the various reasons offered for the value of prediction across a range of inferential contexts , we (...) can see that neither weak nor strong predictivism captures all of the reasons for valuing prediction available. A third path is presented, Pluralist Instrumental Predictivism; PIP for short. (shrink)

Attributions of omnipresence, most familiar within the philosophy of religion, typically take the omnipresence of an entity to either consist in that entity's occupation of certain regions or be dependent upon other of that entity's attributes, such as omnipotence or omniscience. This paper defends an alternative conception of omnipresence that is independent of other purported divine attributes and dispenses with occupation. The resulting view repurposes the metaphysics of necessitism and permanentism, taking omnipresent entities to be those entities that exist at (...) all regions. This view is then shown to best accommodate attributions of omnipresence to a diverse range of metaphysical posits, like abstract entities, and a more diverse class of religious posits. (shrink)

This Element examines the concept of moral responsibility as it is used in contemporary philosophical debates and explores the justifiability of the moral practices associated with it, including moral praise/blame, retributive punishment, and the reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation. After identifying and discussing several different varieties of responsibility-including causal responsibility, take-charge responsibility, role responsibility, liability responsibility, and the kinds of responsibility associated with attributability, answerability, and accountability-it distinguishes between basic and non-basic desert conceptions of moral responsibility and considers a (...) number of skeptical arguments against each. It then outlines an alternative forward-looking account of moral responsibility grounded in non-desert-invoking desiderata such as protection, reconciliation, and moral formation. It concludes by addressing concerns about the practical implications of skepticism about desert-based moral responsibility and explains how optimistic skeptics can preserve most of what we care about when it comes to our interpersonal relationships, morality, and meaning in life. (shrink)

Moral philosophers are, among other things, in the business of constructing moral theories. And moral theories are, among other things, supposed to explain moral phenomena. Consequently, one’s views about the nature of moral explanation will influence the kinds of moral theories one is willing to countenance. Many moral philosophers are (explicitly or implicitly) committed to a deductive model of explanation. As I see it, this commitment lies at the heart of the current debate between moral particularists and moral generalists. In (...) this paper I argue that we have good reasons to give up this commitment. In fact, I show that an examination of the literature on scientific explanation reveals that we are used to, and comfortable with, non-deductive explanations in almost all areas of inquiry. As a result, I argue that we have reason to believe that moral explanations need not be grounded in exceptionless moral principles. (shrink)

I investigate the role of stability in cosmology through two episodes from the recent history of cosmology: Einstein’s static universe and Eddington’s demonstration of its instability, and the flatness problem of the hot big bang model and its claimed solution by inflationary theory. These episodes illustrate differing reactions to instability in cosmological models, both positive ones and negative ones. To provide some context to these reactions, I also situate them in relation to perspectives on stability from dynamical systems theory and (...) its epistemology. This reveals, for example, an insistence on stability as an extreme position in relation to the spectrum of physical systems which exhibit degrees of stability and fragility, one which has a pragmatic rationale, but not any deeper one. (shrink)

Abstract: The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into medical imaging represents a transformative shift in healthcare, offering significant improvements in diagnostic accuracy, efficiency, and patient outcomes. This paper explores the application of AI technologies in the analysis of medical images, focusing on techniques such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and deep learning models. We discuss how these technologies are applied to various imaging modalities, including X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans, to enhance disease detection, image segmentation, and diagnostic support. Additionally, the (...) paper addresses the challenges faced in AI-driven medical imaging, including data quality, model interpretability, and ethical considerations. By examining recent advancements and real-world case studies, this paper provides insights into the current state of AI in medical imaging and its potential future directions. The findings highlight the ongoing evolution of AI technologies and their crucial role in advancing medical diagnostics and treatment strategies. (shrink)

This research investigates 3- and 5-year-olds' relative fairness in distributing small collections of even or odd numbers of more or less desirable candies, either with an adult experimenter or between two dolls. The authors compare more than 200 children from around the world, growing up in seven highly contrasted cultural and economic contexts, from rich and poor urban areas, to small-scale traditional and rural communities. Across cultures, young children tend to optimize their own gain, not showing many signs of self-sacrifice (...) or generosity. Already by 3 years of age, self-optimizing in distributive justice is based on perspective taking and rudiments of mind reading. By 5 years, overall, children tend to show more fairness in sharing. What varies across cultures is the magnitude of young children's self-interest. More fairness (less self-interest) in distributive justice is evident by children growing up in small-scale urban and traditional societies thought to promote more collective values. (shrink)

A theory of cognitive systems individuation is presented and defended. The approach has some affinity with Leonard Talmy's Overlapping Systems Model of Cognitive Organization, and the paper's first section explores aspects of Talmy's view that are shared by the view developed herein. According to the view on offer -- the conditional probability of co-contribution account (CPC) -- a cognitive system is a collection of mechanisms that contribute, in overlapping subsets, to a wide variety of forms of intelligent behavior. Central to (...) this approach is the idea of an integrated system. A formal characterization of integration is laid out in the form of a conditional-probabilitybased measure of the clustering of causal contributors to the production of intelligent behavior. I relate the view to the debate over extended and embodied cognition and respond to objections that have been raised in print by Andy Clark, Colin Klein, and Felipe de Brigard. (shrink)

Intuitively, collective nouns are pseudo-singular: a collection of things (a pair of people, a flock of birds, etc.) just is the things that make ‘it’ up. But certain facts about natural language seem to count against this view. In short, distributive predicates and numerals interact with collective nouns in ways that they seemingly shouldn’t if those nouns are pseudo-singular. We call this set of issues ‘the distribution problem’. To solve it, we propose a modification to cover-based semantics. On this semantics, (...) the interpretation of distributive predicates and numerals depends on a cover, where the choice of cover is strongly semantically constrained by the noun with which they interact. (shrink)

Antiquated Classical pictures of the universe have been formative in shaping the modern idea that, to the extent change is caused, it is fixed in advance. This idea has played a role in making it seem to many that what we are discovering through science supports the exclusion of free will from models for the relevant neural and bodily changes. I argue that giving up this unwarranted notion about causation opens us to the likelihood that how a person expresses free (...) will offers unique explanatory value. I then briefly discuss some further issues with either including or excluding expressions of free will from our explanations, as well as some implications for AI and everyday life. (shrink)

Aristotle’s dialogue Protrepticus is not only his earliest work of ethics but also the root of all his subsequent investigations into ethics. Here we explore the various ways Aristotle retained in memory the contents of the Protrepticus and redeployed them in the Eudemian Ethics, including the common books. Since Aristotle himself does not explicitly acknowledge the foundational significance of the Protrepticus to his later works, our exploration must proceed on the basis of our knowledge of the earlier work, which can (...) then related to comparable passages in the treatises. But the Protrepticus is a lost work, unlike the EE and the EN, in the sense that no medieval manuscripts of it have survived. And so it first needs to be reconstructed on the basis of the streams of reception that deposited information in surviving works by later ancient authors. We begin in part 1 by reviewing the surviving evidence of the Protrepticus before presenting our wider reconstruction and conception of the work as a dialogue in part 2. In part 3, we discuss ideas and arguments in the reconstructed dialogue that are retained and redeployed in the Eudemian Ethics, focussing on the account of intellectual virtues in EE v and the introduction and methodological framework in EE i-ii.1. (shrink)

The reasoning view of rational normativity claims that structural rationality is normative for reasoning. Specifically, it claims that structural rationality gives us reasons to structure deliberation in ways that respect the requirements of rationality. This paper critically assesses the reasoning view. It argues that while the reasoning view might succeed in responding to arguments against the normativity of rationality, it is in tension with the motivations for thinking that rationality is normative in the first place. Moreover, proponents of the view (...) do not offer any independent reason for thinking that the view is true. As such, we have no reason to accept the reasoning view. (shrink)

Hyperbole is traditionally understood as exaggeration. Instead, in this paper, we shall define it not just in terms of its form, but in terms of its effects and its purpose. Specifically, we characterize its form as a shift of magnitude along a scale of measurement. In terms of its effect, it uses this magnitude shift to make the target property more salient. The purpose of hyperbole is to express with colour and force that the target property is either greater or (...) lesser than expected or desired. This purpose is well suited to hyperbolic expression. This because hyperbole naturally draws a contrast between two points: how things are versus how they were expected to be. We also consider compound figures involving hyperbole. When it combines with other figures hyperbole operates by magnifying the specific effects of the figure it operates on. We shall see that sometimes hyperbole works as an input for irony; and at other times it builds on a metaphor to increase the effects of that metaphor. (shrink)

Despite overlooking religious topics, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (PI) has had a large impact in philosophy of religion. This article surveys that influence and the reasons for it. In what follows, I first describe the reception of certain key concepts from the PI in philosophy of religion. Second, I examine a few scattered remarks on religious topics in the PI. Third, I consider the relevance of the PI for contemporary philosophy of religion. I argue that the dialogical nature of the PI, (...) allowing different generations of readers to engage it with their particular philosophical problems, is key to its longterm influence. (shrink)

Slurring is a kind of hate speech that has various effects. Notable among these is variable offence. Slurs vary in offence across words, uses, and the reactions of audience members. Patterns of offence aren’t adequately explained by current theories. We propose an explanation based on the unjust power imbalance that a slur seeks to achieve. Our starting observation is that in discourse participants take on discourse roles. These are typically inherited from social roles, but only exist during a discourse. A (...) slurring act is a speech-act that alters the discourse roles of the target and speaker. By assigning discourse roles the speaker unjustly changes the power balance in the dialogue. This has a variety of effects on the target and audience. We show how these notions explain all three types of offence variation. We also briefly sketch how a role and power theory can help explain silencing and appropriation. Explanatory power lies in the fact that offence is correlated with the perceived unjustness of the power imbalance created. (shrink)

We provide a new text corpus from the social medium Telegram, which is rich in indirect forms of divisive speech. We scraped all messages from one channel of supporters of Donald Trump, covering a large part of his presidency from late 2016 until January 2021. The discussion among the group members over this long time period includes the spread of disinformation, disparaging of out-group members, and other forms of offensive speech. To encourage research into such practices of poisoning public political (...) discourse, we added automatic annotations of offensive language to all messages. We further added manual annotations of harmful language to a portion of the posts in order to enable the analysis of more implicit forms of online harm. (shrink)

The article proceeds upon the assumption that the beliefs and degrees of belief of rational agents satisfy a number of constraints, including: consistency and deductive closure for belief sets, conformity to the axioms of probability for degrees of belief, and the Lockean Thesis concerning the relationship between belief and degree of belief. Assuming that the beliefs and degrees of belief of both individuals and collectives satisfy the preceding three constraints, I discuss what further constraints may be imposed on the aggregation (...) of beliefs and degrees of belief. Some possibility and impossibility results are presented. The possibility results suggest that the three proposed rationality constraints are compatible with reasonable aggregation procedures for belief and degree of belief. (shrink)

Entanglement measures quantify the amount of quantum entanglement that is contained in quantum states. Typically, different entanglement measures do not have to be partially ordered. The presence of a definite partial order between two entanglement measures for all quantum states, however, allows for meaningful conceptualization of sensitivity to entanglement, which will be greater for the entanglement measure that produces the larger numerical values. Here, we have investigated the partial order between the normalized versions of four entanglement measures based on Schmidt (...) decomposition of bipartite pure quantum states, namely, concurrence, tangle, entanglement robustness and Schmidt number. We have shown that among those four measures, the concurrence and the Schmidt number have the highest and the lowest sensitivity to quantum entanglement, respectively. Further, we have demonstrated how these measures could be used to track the dynamics of quantum entanglement in a simple quantum toy model composed of two qutrits. Lastly, we have employed state-dependent entanglement statistics to compute measurable correlations between the outcomes of quantum observables in agreement with the uncertainty principle. The presented results could be helpful in quantum applications that require monitoring of the available quantum resources for sharp identification of temporal points of maximal entanglement or system separability. (shrink)

Macromolecular protein complexes catalyze essential physiological processes that sustain life. Various interactions between protein subunits could increase the effective mass of certain peptide groups, thereby compartmentalizing protein α-helices. Here, we study the differential effects of applied massive barriers upon the soliton-assisted energy transport within proteins. We demonstrate that excentric barriers, localized onto a single spine in the protein α-helix, reflect or trap three-spine solitons as effectively as concentric barriers with comparable total mass. Furthermore, wider protein solitons, whose energy is lower, (...) require heavier massive barriers for soliton reflection or trapping. Regulation of energy transport, delivery and utilization at protein active sites could thus be achieved through control of the soliton width, or of the effective mass of the protein subunits. (shrink)

Many of us read Peter Singer ’ s work on our obligations to those in desperate need with our students. Famously, Singer argues that we have a moral obligation to give a significant portion of our assets to famine relief. If my own experience is not atypical, it is quite common for students, upon grasping the implications of Singer ’ s argument, to ask whether Singer gives to famine relief. In response it might be tempting to remind students of the (...) ad hominem fallacy of attacking the person advancing an argument rather than the argument itself. In this paper I argue that the “ ad hominem reply ” to students ’ request for information about Singer is misguided. First I show that biographical facts about the person advancing an argument can constitute indirect evidence for the soundness / unsoundness of the argument. Second, I argue that such facts are relevant because they may reveal that one can discard the argument without thereby incurring moral responsibility for failing to act on its conclusion even if the argument is sound. (shrink)

In this chapter, I demonstrate the several fundamental and original aspects of Bamgarten's concpetion of metaphyics that have been overlooked or at least insufficiently investigated. Baumgarten departs from his predecessors, and from many of his contemporaries, by regarding metaphysics as a uniquely human science whose essential purpose is to provide the best instruments for knowing and realising perfection in human life, given that we are subject to essential limitations. This instrumental view of metaphysics leads him to develop seveal Leibnizian ideas (...) regarding perfection and the best possible world into highly articulated metaphysical doctrines that are able to serve as universal guiding principles for all other sciences. In the final part of the chapter, I illustrate three ways in which metaphysics plays this role through an examination of the foundations of Baumgarten's own practical philosophy. (shrink)

Social norms regulating carework and social reproduction tend to be inegalitarian. At the same time, such norms often play a crucial role when we plan our lives. How can we criticise objectionable practices while ensuring that people can organise their lives around meaningful and predictable rules? Gerald Gaus argues that only ‘publicly justified’ rules, rules that everyone would prefer over ‘blameless liberty,’ should be followed. In this paper, we uncover the inegalitarian implications of this feature of Gaus's framework. We show (...) that because a society without clear social norms for how social reproduction and care work ought to be organised would be so unattractive, inegalitarian rules would pass Gaus's test. They would pass this test since they would nevertheless be better than ‘blameless liberty.’ Those who are disproportionately burdened by a rule are faced with the daunting task of showing that they would be better off under no rule, instead of merely having to show that they would be better off with a different rule. (shrink)

Slurs are typically defined as conveying contempt based on group-membership. However, here I argue that they are not a unitary group. First, I describe two dimensions of variation among derogatives: how targets are identified, and how offensive the term is. This supports the typical definition of slurs as opposed to other derogatives. I then highlight problems with this definition, mainly caused by variable offence across slur words. In the process I discuss how major theories of slurs can account for variable (...) offence, and conclude that contempt based on group-membership doesn’t cover all the data. I finish by noting that the most offensive slurs are those that target oppressed groups. I claim it is oppression that underpins most offence, and that beyond this offensive property, some slurs are actively used to oppress. (shrink)

Contemporary knowledge is centered on the research on human dimensions. Philosophy should particularly appeal to values in the process of understanding the human nature. The valuable “becoming” of each human person requires growing ever more aware of his/her personal identity and of his/her role in this lifetime. In ethics, especially, values suppose moral choices or criteria on which a moral behavior is based. Max Scheler based his ethical theory on the distinction between goods and values. The “goods” are things to (...) which we attach some physical worth, and the “values” are the object of emotional perception, of the “sentiment of value” and of the place they have in the hierarchy of values. Even if the human being attributes a certain worth to individual things, he/she is always searching for a universal value, which should exceed the contingency of that thing. This universal validity is a kind of ideal measure of the value of all empiric realities and it is articulated by a normative rationality. It forms a system of universal norms that contribute to the foundation of critical axiological judgments. What values are the most enhanced by our post-modern society? Are they the same as during the modern period? What would distinguish them from the values of other cultural periods of humankind? How do we react to the new challenges generated by technological progress and the media? How do the classical disciplines such as philosophy, religion, anthropology, and art respond to these new challenges? And how could they help us to better adapt the writings of certain significant personalities to the modern and contemporary culture? These are only a few questions this volume will address. It contains a large number of articles by authors from various countries and continents: philosophers, and theologians, as well as researchers in medicine, anthropology, and new scientific technologies. As the variety of topics is impressive, we tried to organize them into three thematic parts: “Part I: Fundamental Human Values. Contemporary Challenging Globalization,” “Part II: New Axiological Challenges in Technologies and Scientific Thinking,” and “Part III: Cultural and Spiritual Personalities: Possible Answers to Our Contemporary Changes.” In the following pages, we shall make a short presentation of each article in order to facilitate a quick familiarization with the entire volume. (shrink)

Two rival accounts of irony claim, respectively, that pretence and echo are independently sufficient to explain central cases. After highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of these accounts, I argue that an account in which both pretence and echo play an essential role better explains these cases and serves to explain peripheral cases as well. I distinguish between “weak” and “strong” hybrid theories, and advocate an “integrated strong hybrid” account in which elements of both pretence and echo are seen as complementary (...) in a unified mechanism. I argue that the allegedly mutually exclusive elements of pretence and echo are in fact complementary aspects enriching a core structure as follows: by pretending to have a perspective/thought F, an ironic speaker U echoes a perspective/thought G. F is merely pretended, perhaps caricaturised or exaggerated, while G is real/possible. (shrink)

Objective: Compassion has been associated with eudaimonia and prosocial behavior, and has been regarded as a virtue, both historically and cross-culturally. However, the psychological study of compassion has been limited to laboratory settings and/or standard survey assessments. Here, we use an experience sampling method (ESM) to compare naturalistic assessments of compassion with standard assessments, and to examine compassion, its variability, and associations with eudaimonia and prosocial behavior. -/- Methods: Participants took a survey which included standard assessments of compassion and eudaimonia. (...) Then, over four days, they were repeatedly asked about their level of compassion, eudaimonia, and situational factors within the moments of daily life. Finally, prosocial behavior was tested using the Dual Gamble Task and an opportunity to donate task winnings. -/- Results: Analyses revealed within-person associations between ESM compassion and eudaimonia. ESM compassion also predicted eudaimonia at the next ESM time point. While not impervious to situational factors, considerable consistency was observed in ESM compassion in comparison with eudaimonia. Further, ESM compassion along with eudaimonia predicted donating behavior. Standard assessments did not. -/- Conclusion: Consistent with virtue theory, some individual’s reports displayed a probabilistic tendency toward compassion, and ESM compassion predicted ESM eudaimonia and prosocial behavior toward those in need. (shrink)

This chapter challenges previous interpretations of the essay by analyzing the essential features of the method it describes. It argues that, even if Kant fails to present a perfectly clear and defensible account of a method for metaphysics, the manner in which he describes this method and the kind of transformation of metaphysical inquiry that he hopes it will accomplish do not testify to a broadly rationalist approach but, in fact, embody the anti-rationalist spirit of Bacon and Newton. While Kant (...) does indeed believe that metaphysics will one day be able to re-adopt the synthetic method, I argue that this is perfectly consistent with the views of Bacon and Newton as he understood them. In contrast with Friedman’s claim, I also show that experience does play a role in Kant’s conception of data and that this is particularly clear if we take into account other texts of the same period. (shrink)

Reclamation is the phenomenon of an oppressed group repurposing language to its own ends. A case study is reclamation of slur words. Popa-Wyatt and Wyatt (2018) argued that a slurring utterance is a speech act which performs a discourse role assignment. It assigns a subordinate role to the target, while the speaker assumes a dominant role. This pair of role assignments is used to oppress the target. Here I focus on how reclamation works and under what conditions its benefits can (...) stabilise. I start by reviewing the data and describing preconditions and motivations for reclamation. Can reclamation be explained in the same basic framework as regular slurring utterances? I argue that it can. I also identify some features that must be a prediction of any theory of reclamation. I conclude that reclamation is an instance of a much broader class of acts we do with words to change the distribution of power: it begets power, but it also requires it. (shrink)

We think and speak in figures. This is key to our creativity. We re-imagine one thing as another, pretend ourself to be another, do one thing in order to achieve another, or say one thing to mean another. This comes easily because of our abilities both to work out meaning in context and re-purpose words. Figures of speech are tools for this re-purposing. Whether we use metaphor, simile, irony, hyperbole, and litotes individually, or as compound figures, the uses are all (...) rooted in literal meanings. These uses invite us to explore the context to find new meanings, new purposes, beyond the literal. -/- This special issue of Philosophical Studies brings together eight papers on various aspects and applications of figurative speech including: David Hills, Mitch Green, Liz Camp, Ofra Magidor, Larry Horn, Ken Walton, Stephen Barker, and Mihaela Popa-Wyatt. (shrink)

Decisional capacity evaluations (DCEs) occur in clinical settings where it is unclear whether a consumer of medical services has the capacity to make an informed decision about the relevant medical options. DCEs are localized interventions, not the global loss of competence, that assign a surrogate decision maker to make the decision on behalf of the medical consumer. We maintain that one important necessary condition for a DCE to be morally justified, in cases of medical necessity, is that the health care (...) consumer under evaluation is incapable of expressing a preference for a certain outcome. (shrink)

This paper argues that we need to re-think the semantics/pragmatics distinction in the light of new evidence from embedding of irony. This raises a new version of the old problem of ‘embedded implicatures’. I argue that embedded irony isn’t fully explained by solutions proposed for other embedded implicatures. I first consider two strategies: weak pragmatics and strong pragmatics. These explain embedded irony as truth-conditional content. However, by trying to shoehorn irony into said-content, they raise problems of their own. I conclude (...) by considering how a modified Gricean model can explain that irony embeds qua implicature. This leads us to prefer a local implicature model. This has important consequences for how we draw the semantics/pragmatics distinction. (shrink)