In this paper, I begin by defending permissivism: the claim that, sometimes, there is more than one way to rationally respond to a given body of evidence. Then I argue that, if we accept permissivism, certain worries that arise as a result of learning that our beliefs were caused by the communities we grew up in, the schools we went to, or other irrelevant influences dissipate. The basic strategy is as follows: First, I try to pinpoint what makes irrelevant influences (...) worrying and I come up with two candidate principles. I then argue that one principle should be rejected because it is inconsistent with permissivism. The principle we should accept implies that it is sometimes rational to maintain our beliefs, even upon learning that they were caused by irrelevant influences. (shrink)

In recent years, permissivism—the claim that a body of evidence can rationalize more than one response—has enjoyed somewhat of a revival. But it is once again being threatened, this time by a host of new and interesting arguments that, at their core, are challenging the permissivist to explain why rationality matters. A version of the challenge that I am especially interested in is this: if permissivism is true, why should we expect the rational credences to be more accurate than the (...) irrational ones? My aim is to turn this challenge on its head and argue that, actually, those who deny permissivism will have a harder time responding to such a challenge than those who accept it. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to apply the accuracy based approach to epistemology to the case of higher order evidence: evidence that bears on the rationality of one's beliefs. I proceed in two stages. First, I show that the accuracy based framework that is standardly used to motivate rational requirements supports steadfastness—a position according to which higher order evidence should have no impact on one's doxastic attitudes towards first order propositions. The argument for this will require a generalization of (...) an important result by Greaves and Wallace for the claim that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy. The generalization I provide will, among other things, allow us to apply the result to cases of self-locating evidence. In the second stage, I develop an alternative framework. Very roughly, what distinguishes the traditional approach from the alternative one is that, on the traditional picture, we're interested in evaluating the expected accuracy of conforming to an update procedure. On the alternative picture that I develop, instead of considering how good an update procedure is as a plan to conform to, we consider how good it is as a plan to make. I show how, given the use of strictly proper scoring rules, the alternative picture vindicates calibrationism: a view according to which higher order evidence should have a significant impact on our beliefs. I conclude with some thoughts about why higher order evidence poses a serious challenge for standard ways of thinking about rationality. (shrink)

Had we grown up elsewhere or been educated differently, our view of the world would likely be radically different. What to make of this? This paper takes an accuracy-centered first-personal approach to the question of how to respond to the arbitrary nature in which many of our beliefs are formed. I show how considerations of accuracy motivate different responses to this sort of information depending on the type of attitude we take towards the belief in question upon subjecting the belief (...) to doubt. (shrink)

The Queen's College, Oxford, UK In his article `Facts and Principles', G.A. Cohen attempts to refute constructivist approaches to justification by showing that, contrary to what their proponents claim, fundamental normative principles are fact- in sensitive. We argue that Cohen's `fact-insensitivity thesis' does not provide a successful refutation of constructivism because it pertains to an area of meta-ethics which differs from the one tackled by constructivists. While Cohen's thesis concerns the logical structure of normative principles, constructivists ask how normative principles (...) should be justified . In particular, their claim that justified fundamental normative principles are fact-sensitive follows from a commitment to agnosticism about the existence of objective moral facts. We therefore conclude that, in order to refute constructivism, Cohen would have to address questions of justification, and take a stand on those long-standing meta-ethical debates about the ontological status of moral notions (for example, realism versus anti-realism) with respect to which he himself wants to remain agnostic. Key Words: John Rawls • normative justification • realism versus anti-realism • methodological versus substantive principles. (shrink)

This paper sets out to show that philosophy has much to gain from the web, and explores what philosophy on the web might be like. We argue that philosophers usage of the web will undeniably go beyond on-line journals, and the distribution of .pdf files. The failure of historical attempts at making the web work for philosophy are investigated and explained, such as the Xanadu and Discovery projects, and plain web-forums. LogiLogi, a working prototype of a philosophical discussion platform, is (...) then introduced. LogiLogi is different from forums and wikis and tries to overcome their limitations. It does so by aiming for an informal middle-road between good conversations and journal-papers and by providing a form of quick, informal publication, peer-review, and annotation of short philosophical texts. The paper concludes with a tentative analysis of what philosophy on the web should be like, and how LogiLogi is tailored to such a conception of philosophy. (shrink)

It has been claimed that, in response to certain kinds of evidence, agents ought to adopt imprecise credences: doxastic states that are represented by sets of credence functions rather than single ones. In this paper I argue that, given some plausible constraints on accuracy measures, accuracy-centered epistemologists must reject the requirement to adopt imprecise credences. I then show that even the claim that imprecise credences are permitted is problematic for accuracy-centered epistemology. It follows that if imprecise credal states are permitted (...) or required in the cases that their defenders appeal to, then the requirements of rationality can outstrip what would be warranted by an interest in accuracy. (shrink)

A defense of imprecise credences (and other imprecise doxastic attitudes).

This paper is about the connection between rationality and accuracy. I show that one natural picture about how rationality and accuracy are connected emerges if we assume that rational agents are rationally omniscient. I then develop an alternative picture that allows us to relax this assumption, in order to accommodate certain views about higher order evidence.

Greaves and Wallace argue that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy. In this paper I show that their result only applies to a restricted range of cases. I then show that the update procedure that maximizes expected accuracy in general is one in which, upon learning P, we conditionalize, not on P, but on the proposition that we learned P. After proving this result, I provide further generalizations and show that much of the accuracy-first epistemology program is committed to KK-like iteration principles (...) and to the existence of a class of propositions that rational agents will be certain of if and only if they are true. (shrink)

My main aim is to argue that most conceptions of doxastic agency do not respond to the skeptic’s challenge. I begin by considering some reasons for thinking that we are not doxastic agents. I then turn to a discussion of those who try to make sense of doxastic agency by appeal to belief’s reasons-responsive nature. What they end up calling agency is not robust enough to satisfy the challenge posed by the skeptics. To satisfy the skeptic, one needs to make (...) sense of the possibility of believing for nonevidential reasons. While this has been seen as an untenable view for both skeptics and anti-skeptics, I conclude by suggesting it is a position that has been too hastily dismissed. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to describe a problem for calibrationism: a view about higher order evidence according to which one's credences should be calibrated to one's expected degree of reliability. Calibrationism is attractive, in part, because it explains our intuitive judgments, and provides a strong motivation for certain theories about higher order evidence and peer disagreement. However, I will argue that calibrationism faces a dilemma: There are two versions of the view one might adopt. The first version, I (...) argue, has the implausible consequence that, in a wide range of cases, calibrationism is the only constraint on rational belief. The second version, in addition to having some puzzling consequences, is unmotivated. At the end of the paper I sketch a possible solution. (shrink)

It seems like we care about at least two features of our credence function: gradational-accuracy and verisimilitude. Accuracy-first epistemology requires that we care about one feature of our credence function: gradational-accuracy. So if you want to be a verisimilitude-valuing accuracy-firster, you must be able to think of the value of verisimilitude as somehow built into the value of gradational-accuracy. Can this be done? In a recent article, Oddie has argued that it cannot, at least if we want the accuracy measure (...) to be proper. I argue that it can. 1Introduction2Some Nuts and Bolts3First Attempts4Oddie’s Constraint5The Good5.1Proximity over the disagreement metric 5.2Proximity over the magnitude metric 6The Bad and the Ugly 7Some More Good: The Role of Evenness of Distribution 8Some More Bad: Which Propositions to Privilege? 9Concluding Thoughts: Accuracy and Practical Value. (shrink)

This paper takes a new look at an old question: what is the human self? It offers a proposal for theorizing the self from an enactive perspective as an autonomous system that is constituted through interpersonal relations. It addresses a prevalent issue in the philosophy of cognitive science: the body-social problem. Embodied and social approaches to cognitive identity are in mutual tension. On the one hand, embodied cognitive science risks a new form of methodological individualism, implying a dichotomy not between (...) the outside world of objects and the brain-bound individual but rather between body-bound individuals and the outside social world. On the other hand, approaches that emphasize the constitutive relevance of social interaction processes for cognitive identity run the risk of losing the individual in the interaction dynamics and of downplaying the role of embodiment. This paper adopts a middle way and outlines an enactive approach to individuation that is neither individualistic nor disembodied but integrates both approaches. Elaborating on Jonas’ notion of needful freedom it outlines an enactive proposal to understanding the self as co-generated in interactions and relations with others. I argue that the human self is a social existence that is organized in terms of a back and forth between social distinction and participation processes. On this view, the body, rather than being identical with the social self, becomes its mediator. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper defends a constraint that any satisfactory decision theory must satisfy. I show how this constraint is violated by all of the decision theories that have been endorsed in the literature that are designed to deal with cases in which opinions or values are represented by a set of functions rather than a single one. Such a decision theory is necessary to account for the existence of what Ruth Chang has called “parity” (as well as for cases in (...) which agents have incomplete preferences or imprecise credences). The problem with the all of the decision theories that have been defended to account for parity is that they are committed to a claim I call unanimity: when all of the functions in the set agree that an agent ought to do A, then an agent ought to do A. A decision theory committed to unanimity violates the constraint I defend in this paper. Thus, if parity exists, a new approach to decision theory is necessary. (shrink)

In this paper I’ll suggest that a certain challenge facing defeatist views about higher-order evidence cannot be met, namely, motivating principles that recommend abandoning belief in cases of higher order defeat, but do not recommend global scepticism. I’ll propose that, ultimately, the question of whether to abandon belief in response to the realization that our belief can’t be recovered from what I’ll call ‘a perspective of doubt’ can’t be answered through rational deliberation aimed at truth or accuracy.

The aim of this essay is to argue that, if a robust form of moral realism is true, then moral vagueness is ontic vagueness. The argument is by elimination: I show that neither semantic nor epistemic approaches to moral vagueness are satisfactory.

Internalists face the following challenge: what is it about an agent's internal states that explains why only these states can play whatever role the internalist thinks these states are playing? Internalists have frequently appealed to a special kind of epistemic access that we have to these states. But such claims have been challenged on both empirical and philosophical grounds. I will argue that internalists needn't appeal to any kind of privileged access claims. Rather, internalist conditions are important because of the (...) way in which we expect them to act as causal mediators between states of the world, on the one hand, and our beliefs and actions on the other. (shrink)

The assumption that positive affect leads to a better performance in simple cognitive tasks has become well established. We address the question whether positive and negative emotions differentially influence performance in complex problem-solving in the same way. Emotions were induced by positive or negative feedback in 74 participants who had to manage a computer-simulated complex problem-solving scenario. Results show that overall scenario performance is not affected, but positive and negative emotions elicit distinguishable problem-solving strategies: Participants with negative emotions are more (...) focused on the seeking and use of information. We discuss methodological requirements for investigating emotion influences in complex and dynamic cognitive tasks. (shrink)

REVIEW ESSAY The minimal self needs a social update Self and other: Exploring subjectivity, empathy, and shame, by Dan Zahavi, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015, 304 pp.

The assumption that positive affect leads to a better performance in simple cognitive tasks has become well established. We address the question whether positive and negative emotions differentially influence performance in complex problem-solving in the same way. Emotions were induced by positive or negative feedback in 74 participants who had to manage a computer-simulated complex problem-solving scenario. Results show that overall scenario performance is not affected, but positive and negative emotions elicit distinguishable problem-solving strategies: Participants with negative emotions are more (...) focused on the seeking and use of information. We discuss methodological requirements for investigating emotion influences in complex and dynamic cognitive tasks. (shrink)

We give a Bayesian argument showing that, even if your total empirical evidence confirms that you have zillions of duplicate Boltzmann Brains, that evidence does not confirm that you are a Boltzmann Brain. We also try to explain what goes wrong with several of the sources of the temptation for thinking that such evidence does have skeptical implications.

In this paper, we bring together research on complex problem solving with that on motivational psychology about goal setting. Complex problems require motivational effort because of their inherent difficulties. Goal Setting Theory has shown with simple tasks that high, specific performance goals lead to better performance outcome than do-your-best goals. However, in complex tasks, learning goals have proven more effective than performance goals. Based on the Zurich Resource Model, so-called motto-goals should activate a person’s resources through positive affect. It was (...) found that motto-goals are effective with unpleasant duties. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that motto-goals outperform learning and performance goals in the case of complex problems. A total of N = 123 subject participated in the experiment. In dependence of their goal condition, subjects developed a personal motto, learning, or performance goal. This goal was adapted for the computer-simulated complex scenario Tailorshop, where subjects worked as managers in a small fictional company. Other than expected, there was no main effect of goal condition for the management performance. An unexpected gender effect revealed better performance for men than women, pointing to a potential stereotype threat. As hypothesized, motto goals led to higher positive and lower negative affect than the other two goal types. Even though positive affect decreased and negative affect increased in all three groups during Tailorshop completion, participants with motto goals reported the lowest rates of negative affect. Exploratory analyses investigated the role of affect in complex problem solving via mediational analyses and the influence of goal type on perceived goal attainment. (shrink)

Solanum melongena (Eggplant) is a medicinal plant belonging to the family Solanaceae. This study aimed to perform a comparative assessment of the methanol extracts of the fruit and the leaf of Solanum melongena against multi-drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The crude extracts were obtained from the leaves and fruits of the plant using methanol. The plant extracts were tested for the presence of various phytochemical constituents qualitatively. The antibacterial assay and minimum inhibitory concentration for the crude extracts were carried (...) out using the agar well diffusion and agar dilution methods, respectively. Phytochemical analysis of methanol extracts of Solanum melongena revealed the presence of various phytoconstituents. Antibacterial assay of methanol extracts of Staphylococcus melongena against multi-drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates with ciprofloxacin as a reference control revealed inhibition zone diameter ranging from 04.0±0.0 to 11.0±0.0 mm; in contrast that of multi-drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates revealed inhibition zone diameter, with ciprofloxacin showing no inhibition. The minimum inhibitory concentration of the methanol extracts on Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates ranges from 25.0 to 50.0 mg/ml and 25.0->50.0 mg/ml, respectively, in comparison, the minimum inhibitory concentration of the methanol extracts on Staphylococcus aureus isolates ranges from 6.25 to 50.0 mg/ml and 6.25->50.0 mg/ml respectively. Thus, the fruit extract had better activity against test multi-drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus than the leaf extract of Solanum melongena. (shrink)

El libro “La Iglesia doliente. Un largo invierno en Cracovia”, escrito por la Dra. Miriam Dolly Arancibia, narra el martirio de la filósofa y religiosa Edith Stein y del sacerdote Jerzy Popiełuszko. Ambos fueron víctimas de la persecución a la Iglesia Católica en Polonia, ella lo fue del nazismo, él lo fue del comunismo estalinista. Ambos sufrieron la intolerancia religiosa y racial llevada a su máxima expresión. La ciudad de Cracovia, donde el Beato Juan Pablo II residió durante cuarenta (...) años, es el escenario desde el cual fluye el relato de los acontecimientos. La misma ciudad que será sede de la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud en el año 2016 -/- The book "The suffered Church. A long winter in Krakow", written by Dr. Miriam Dolly Arancibia, recounts the martyrdom of Edith Stein and Jerzy Popiełuszko. Both were victims of persecution by the Catholic Church in Poland, she was under Nazism and he was under Stalinist communism. Both suffered religious and racial intolerance led to its maximum expression. The city of Krakow, where Blessed John Paul II lived for forty years, is the stage from which flows the account of the events and the same city that will host the world youth day in 2016. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the problem of accounting for apparent inconsistencies between Plato’s early and middle works. Developmentalism seeks to account for these variances by differentiating a Socratic philosophy in the early dialogues from a Platonic philosophy in the middle. In opposition to this position, I propose an alternative explanation: differences between these two groups are due to Plato’s depiction and use of middle period epistemology. I argue that, in the early dialogues, Plato depicts Socrates’ use of the (...) “summoners” described in Book 7 of the Republic, and that Plato uses Socrates’ failed attempts to summon interlocutors for the purpose of summoning readers. In conclusion, I suggest that the hypothesis that Plato uses summoners provides a framework for addressing the wider problem of inconsistencies within the Platonic corpus. (shrink)

Las actuales circunstancias políticas y culturales nos sumergen en una realidad paradojal, por un lado se exaltan la subjetividad, la autonomía, la independencia y al mismo tiempo se constriñen las libertades pretendiendo reducir todas las voluntades a una masa informe pero obediente al mandato de una conciencia colectiva omnipresente. Para una cabal comprensión de la realidad y alcances de la libertad humana se hace imprescindible entonces remitirnos a los horizontes de comprensión que nos brinda la Antropología, particularmente la Antropología Trascendental, (...) pues emerge como una respuesta clara, profunda y a grandes interrogantes de nuestro tiempo. (shrink)

Examinamos as respostas apresentadas por Cícero, Plutarco e Galeno, representantes da filosofia da época imperial, à pergunta pela possibilidade e legitimidade de uma therapeia das paixões. Tomando como ponto de partida uma reflexão sobre a natureza da alma e o estatuto das paixões, eles reacenderam o debate que remonta à poesia épica, na cena em que Aquiles se vê às voltas com o apelo de Atena para que acalme seu coração. Para tanto elegemos os seguintes textos: de Cícero, o livro (...) IV das Tusculanas, de Plutarco, os tratados Se as paixões da alma são mais nefastas que aquelas do corpo e Como refrear a cólera, e de Galeno, os tratados As paixões e os erros da alma e As faculdades da alma seguem os temperamentos do corpo.In this paper we examine the answers given by Cicero, Plutarch andGalen, all noted representatives of imperial Philosophy, to the question of thepossibility and legitimacy of a therapeia of the passions. Taking reflection on thenature of the soul and the status of the passions as starting point, they revivedthe debate that goes back to the scene in epic poetry where Achiles has todeal with Pallas Athene’s appeal to him to calm his heart. To that end we havechosen the following texts: Cicero’s Tusculans, book IV; Plutarch’s Whether thepassions of the soul are worse than those of the body and On the control of anger; and Galen’s On the passions and errors of the soul and That the faculties of the soul follow the temperaments of the body. (shrink)

I aim to offer a practical response to skepticism. I begin by surveying a family of responses to skepticism that I term “dogmatic” and argue that they are problematically evasive; they do not address what I take to be a question that is central to many skeptics: Why am I justified in maintaining some beliefs that fail to meet ordinary standards of doxastic evaluation? I then turn to a discussion of these standards of evaluation and to the different kinds of (...) doxastic value to which they appeal. While there is something good about having a true belief and something bad about having a false one, I argue the value of true beliefs is not intrinsic or final. Truth and knowledge are valuable because they contribute to both individual and collective flourishing. But if contributing to flourishing is what ultimately provides truth with its value, then we have discovered another doxastic value. I call this kind of doxastic value “practical.” The practical response addresses the skeptic’s question by claiming that some beliefs can be justified by appealing to their practical, rather than alethic, value. In fleshing out this practical response I contrast it both with dogmatic responses as well as some seemingly similar “practical” alternatives, namely Crispin Wright’s appeals to entitlements and Susanna Rinard’s “pragmatic skepticism.” I end by addressing some objections. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Durante mucho tiempo las investigaciones sociológicas se centraron en el término exclusión. Existe, sin embargo, un abuso del término designando como tales, situaciones que en realidad responden a la vulnerabilidad creada por la degradación de las relaciones de trabajo, por la precarización o la marginación. Éstas son propiamente situaciones bajo amenaza de exclusión pero no son exclusión propiamente dicha, pueden desembocar en ella pero dependen de otra lógica. La lógica de la exclusión procede por discriminaciones oficiales, la marginación se (...) produce por procesos de desestabilización. En este trabajo se realizará un análisis comparado entre dos perspectivas tan disímiles como las subyacentes en las políticas de inclusión aplicadas en Argentina y Leonardo Polo pues de la confrontación fructífera emergerán las condiciones de posibilidad para una auténtica inclusión social en las organizaciones. SUMMARY: From longtime ago, sociological researches focused on the Word exclusion abusing on it. The fact is that many situations considered as exclusion really are the effect of vulnerability due to degrade of job´s relationships, or due to marginal and precarious situations. Those are situations under danger of exclusion but they are not properly exclusion, those could to end in exclusion but those depend on a different logic which runs by official discriminations. Marginality is consequence of process of unbalances. This article intend to analyzes two different perspectives, that from political plans from Argentinian government and that from Leonardo Polo because it is possible to confront in a positive way and then, many possibilities for authentic social inclusion in organizations will emerge. (shrink)

Para Foucault las relaciones de dominación son el camino de acceso al análisis del poder. Cabe la pregunta si la relación de poder es lucha, enfrentamiento, guerra, siendo ésta última el motor de las instituciones y el orden en la visión foucaultiana de la realidad. Para responderla aparecen nociones como la del mal radical de Hanna Arendt o la de libertad de Leonardo Polo. Aún cuando se trata de posiciones filosóficas distintas todas ellas vislumbran que lo auténticamente radical en el (...) ser humano es la libertad. (shrink)

Este libro se propone rescatar la mirada de mujeres filósofas silenciadas a lo largo de la historia. Se busca reflexionar sobre los principales acontecimientos que señalaron la trayectoria del pensamiento filosófico occidental, tomando como punto de partida a las mujeres filósofas en su contexto histórico. No es un libro sobre biografías femeninas, ni pretende limitarse al esquema de pensamiento de cada una de aquellas filósofas excluyendo a los varones. Se busca repensar las mismas cuestiones que aparecen con frecuencia en un (...) estudio introductorio a la filosofía social pero desde un enfoque epistemológico diferente. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este libro contiene guías prácticas para aprender filosofía y destinadas principalmente a estudiantes de Filosofía Social. Proporciona sugerencias de actividades y fotografías a utilizar en las investigaciones. El objetivo principal es ayudar a los estudiantes a encontrar formas de hacer filosofía como una experiencia vivida. Las actividades se basan en teorías pedagógicas y filosóficas que promueven el desarrollo del pensamiento crítico y complejo: Epistemología de la complejidad de Edgar Morin, las propuestas metodológicas de Matthew Lipman y la Antropología trascendental (...) de Leonardo Polo. ABSTRACT -/- This book contains practical guides to learn philosophy mainly for students of Social Philosophy. It provides suggestions of activities and photographs to use in the enquiries. The main objective is helping students to find ways to make philosophy as a lived experience. The activities are based in pedagogical and philosophical theories which promote the development of critical and complex thinking: Complexity epistemology of Edgar Morin, the Methodological proposals by Matthew Lipman and the Transcendental Anthropology of Leonardo Polo. (shrink)

¿Què se avizora para el ser humano cuando se piensa en un tema tan existencial como lo es el de sus derechos? ¿Predomina la incertidumbre, la desazòn, los diagnòsticos interminables sobre los males por los cuales la especie humana agonizarà inexorablemente? ¿O por el contrario, se vislumbra con optimismo un futuro de posibilidades siempre abiertas? La cuestiòn de los derechos humanos remite a reflexiones muy profundas en torno a la Identidad y a la Alteridad. Ambas nociones aparecen como supuestos implicitos (...) o explicitos en las diversas estrategias empleadas para el abordaje de un tema tan complejo. El fondo cultural desde el que emergen acompaña las perspectivas teòricas de interpretaciòn y las politicas que las ponen en pràctica. En ambos planos surge con frecuencia la palabra tolerancia aunque en occasiones es utilizada con un significado muy ambiguo. La tolerancia requiere de seres razonables para alcanzar sociedades autènticamente democràticas. La razonabilidad a su vez se logra en la medida en que se estimule el desarrollo del pensamento critico. En este contexto, los aportes de la epistemologia de la complejidad de Edgar Morin, (la cual surgiò como alternativa frente a las epistemologias cerradas), posee una especial relevancia para la reflexiòn de los derechos humanos en el contexto històrico-cultural latinoamericano. En esa misma linea se ubica la teoria general de los sistemas sociales de Niklas Luhmann y las reflexiones sobre la identidad del sociòlogo polaco Zygmunt Baumann. En esta ponencia se busca mostrar la estrecha interrelaciòn entre esos autores con respecto al modo de interpretar la identidad y la alteridad, bases ineludibles para la construcciòn del respeto por los derechos del otro en cuanto tal. (shrink)

Miriam Schleifer McCormick delineates the limits, or at least one limit, of the ethics of mind. Many theorists, including McCormick herself, have argued that some states of mind are appropriate targets of certain reactive attitudes even if they cannot be directly controlled. McCormick now worries that the scope of agency can be widened too far so that no area of mind is beyond the reach of appropriate assessment and judgement. She begins with the intuition that there is, or ought (...) to be, a domain of the mind that is completely free of normative assessment, where you are safe to let your thoughts and images go wherever they take you without concern that you are doing anything wrong, where praise and shame do not apply. McCormick begins by offering an example of the kind of state she thinks should be beyond normative judgment; she argues that certain kinds of wakeful fantasies are on par with sleeping dreams. If one shares McCormick’s view that there is a “free” domain of the wakeful mind, then what she is doing can be seen as clarifying why such states exempt them from judgment. If one does not share this intuition, then what McCormick is doing can be seen as specifying what criteria would be needed for a kind of state (or domain) to be free in this sense. And then some may argue that no wakeful fantasies satisfy these criteria. McCormick addresses those arguments and argues that if the fantasies as characterized are appropriate targets of normative assessment, then it will be very difficult to exempt dreams of sleep, as well as other exercises of imagination. Of course, some people (like Augustine and surprisingly many others) will not mind this result. McCormick doesn’t think then that is the end of the discussion, stalemate and parting of intuitions, for she argues that a case can be made for the value of having a realm of imagination that is beyond the reach of any kind of judgment. (shrink)

Large language models (LLMs) reflect societal norms and biases, especially about gender. While societal biases and stereotypes have been extensively researched in various NLP applications, there is a surprising gap for emotion analysis. However, emotion and gender are closely linked in societal discourse. E.g., women are often thought of as more empathetic, while men's anger is more socially accepted. To fill this gap, we present the first comprehensive study of gendered emotion attribution in five state-of-the-art LLMs (open- and closed-source). We (...) investigate whether emotions are gendered, and whether these variations are based on societal stereotypes. We prompt the models to adopt a gendered persona and attribute emotions to an event like 'When I had a serious argument with a dear person'. We then analyze the emotions generated by the models in relation to the gender-event pairs. We find that all models consistently exhibit gendered emotions, influenced by gender stereotypes. These findings are in line with established research in psychology and gender studies. Our study sheds light on the complex societal interplay between language, gender, and emotion. The reproduction of emotion stereotypes in LLMs allows us to use those models to study the topic in detail, but raises questions about the predictive use of those same LLMs for emotion applications. (shrink)

Emotions are a central aspect of communication. Consequently, emotion analysis (EA) is a rapidly growing field in natural language processing (NLP). However, there is no consensus on scope, direction, or methods. In this paper, we conduct a thorough review of 154 relevant NLP publications from the last decade. Based on this review, we address four different questions: (1) How are EA tasks defined in NLP? (2) What are the most prominent emotion frameworks and which emotions are modeled? (3) Is the (...) subjectivity of emotions considered in terms of demographics and cultural factors? and (4) What are the primary NLP applications for EA? We take stock of trends in EA and tasks, emotion frameworks used, existing datasets, methods, and applications. We then discuss four lacunae: (1) the absence of demographic and cultural aspects does not account for the variation in how emotions are perceived, but instead assumes they are universally experienced in the same manner; (2) the poor fit of emotion categories from the two main emotion theories to the task; (3) the lack of standardized EA terminology hinders gap identification, comparison, and future goals; and (4) the absence of interdisciplinary research isolates EA from insights in other fields. Our work will enable more focused research into EA and a more holistic approach to modeling emotions in NLP. (shrink)

Research and practice about self-determination in the context of disability has centred on teaching skills and providing support to help people with impairments to be independent. However, limited research exists about the impact of Information and Communication Technologies, in particular social media and mobile devices, on the development of self-determination skills among people with disabilities. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study which collected data from observations, a researcher diary, focus groups, individual interviews and data from social media. (...) The focus of the study was on young people with vision impairments who were transitioning to university life. The study found that the participants developed self-determination skills by using and adapting collaborative and interactive online tools and mobile devices according to their transition needs. This finding expands the understanding of the implications of new technologies for young people with disabilities’ personal development and the enhancement of self-determination. (shrink)

Reference to the state is ubiquitous in debates about global justice. Some authors see the state as central to the justification of principles of justice, and thereby reject their extension to the international realm. Others emphasize its role in the implementation of those principles. This chapter scrutinizes the variety of ways in which the state figures in the global-justice debate. Our discussion suggests that, although the state should have a prominent role in theorizing about global justice, contrary to what is (...) commonly thought, acknowledging this role does not lead to anti-cosmopolitan conclusions, but to the defense of an “intermediate” position about global justice. From a justificatory perspective, we argue, the state remains a key locus for the application of egalitarian principles of justice, but is not the only one. From the perspective of implementation, we suggest that state institutions are increasingly fragile in a heavily interdependent world, and need to be supplemented—though not supplanted—with supranational authorities. (shrink)

In occasione dell’ottantesimo anniversario del Museo nazionale dell’Iran, una mostra ospita circa cinquanta opere del Louvre parigino e apre riflessioni sulla diplomazia culturale.

This article introduces Transition 2.0, a paradigm shift designed to study and support students with disabilities' transition to higher education. Transition 2.0 is the result of a qualitative study about how a group of young people with vision impairments used digital technologies for their transition to university. The findings draw from observations, a researcher diary, focus groups, individual interviews, and data from social media. The article discusses a conventional view of transition, referred to here as Transition 1.0, which has dominated (...) disability-related research and service provision in higher education. It counters this view by further developing the conceptual framework for Transition 2.0. The findings expand current conceptual approaches to transition by incorporating in the analysis the role played by digital tools such as social media and mobile devices. They also provide a new lens through which to study and understand student engagement in higher education. (shrink)

Standard accuracy-based approaches to imprecise credences have the consequence that it is rational to move between precise and imprecise credences arbitrarily, without gaining any new evidence. Building on the Educated Guessing Framework of Horowitz (2019), we develop an alternative accuracy-based approach to imprecise credences that does not have this shortcoming. We argue that it is always irrational to move from a precise state to an imprecise state arbitrarily, however it can be rational to move from an imprecise state to a (...) precise state arbitrarily. (shrink)

We debate whether permissivism is true. We start off by assuming an accuracy-oriented framework, and then discuss metaepistemological questions about how our epistemic evaluations promote accuracy.

Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of certain kinds of natural hazard events in alpine areas. This interdisciplinary study addresses the hypothetical possibility of relocating the residents of three alpine areas in Austria: the Sölk valleys, the Johnsbach valley, and the St. Lorenzen/Schwarzenbach valleys. Our particular focus is on these residents’ expectations about such relocations. We find that (1) many residents expect that in the next decades the state will provide them with a level of natural hazards protection, aid, (...) and relief that allows them to continue to live in these valleys; (2) this expectation receives some legal protection but only when it is associated with fundamental rights; and (3) the expectation is morally significant, i.e., it ought to be considered in assessing the moral rightness or justness of relocation policies. These results suggest legal changes and likely extend to many other (Austrian) alpine areas as well. (shrink)