We aim to do two things in this article. On the positive end, our goal is to explain how some seemingly incompatible aspects of belief live together, by presenting distinct mechanistic explanations of each of them: in particular we want to show how belief can be discerning, credulous, rational, and irrational. After clarifying our positive view, we take aim at some competitor views in the second half of the paper, particularly offering critiques of epistemic vigilance and social marketplace accounts of (...) belief. We conclude by inviting proponents to provide an architecture for belief that can be tested against existing models. (shrink)

La distinción entre contenidos conceptuales y no-conceptuales tiene claras repercusiones en el modo en que el hombre configura su mundo, así como en la posibilidad de atribuir pensamiento, en sentido estricto, a sistemas y organismos no humanos. Con el fin de clarificar dicha distinción, en el presente trabajo se plantea una noción básica de estado mental y, especialmente, una definición clara de lo que es un concepto y las características esenciales de los estados en que estos aparecen. Lo que se (...) sostiene al final es que hay buenas y suficientes razones para hablar de contenidos conceptuales y contenidos no-conceptuales, en lugar de hacerlo de contenidos más o menos conceptuales. En otras palabras, que hay una distinción de tipo, y no de grado, entre unos y otros contenidos. (shrink)

El presente estudio ofrece una interpretación de naturaleza ontológica a uno de los fenómenos más divulgados recientemente por los medios informativos de comunicación: la displicencia de los sujetos al seguimiento de normas sociales. El trabajo se centra, especialmente, en los casos en los que se asume que la indiferencia a las normas tiene como causa la condición del privilegiado social. Argumenta que la inobservancia a las normas, más que ser un asunto de desigualdad social, es la sintomatología de importantes hendiduras (...) en la ontología de la realidad social. Así, tres partes conforman este trabajo. En la primera se describen algunos casos que, desde los medios de comunicación, se presentan como representativos en la inobservancia a las normas sociales, especialmente, aquellos que son interpretados como un asunto de abuso de privilegio social. En la segunda parte, a partir de algunos trabajos de John Austin, Ulises Moulines y Gottlob Frege, se presenta una concepción de normas sociales, y su valor para la construcción de la ontología social. En la tercera parte, desde la propuesta del filósofo John Searle, se describen algunos rasgos esenciales de la ontología de la realidad social. Se concluye que el no seguimiento de las normas sociales socava los modos de existencia de la realidad social, y que los casos interpretados por los medios de comunicación como asunto de desigualdad social, requieren una interpretación que tenga en cuenta la estructura de la realidad social. (shrink)

En el presente texto se aborda la discusión entre economistas y abogados acerca del control judicial en aspectos económicos con el propósito de mostrar el carácter democrático de éste. El análisis contendrá tres partes: (i) contextualización del debate a partir del principio de distribución de poderes; (ii) planteamiento del debate a partir de dos lecturas de la Constitución de 1991, ya sea que se enfatice en el liberalismo clásico contenido en la carta o en lo “social” del Estado Social de (...) Derecho de la misma; (iii) por último, se abordarán algunas de las principales críticas al control constitucional en cuestiones económicas, así como el análisis de la legitimidad y conveniencia de dicho control. En esta última parte se hará especial énfasis en la objeción de que la intervención judicial en la economía sería antidemocrática y la respuesta que a la misma puede plantearse. (shrink)

In this article we argue that the social value of health research should be conceptualized as a function of both the expected benefits of the research and the priority that the beneficiaries deserve. People deserve greater priority the worse off they are. This conception of social value can be applied for at least two important purposes: in health research priority setting when research funders, policy-makers, or researchers decide between alternative research projects; and in evaluating the ethics of proposed research proposals (...) when research ethics committees assess whether the social value of the research is sufficient to justify the risks and burdens to research participants and others. In assessing how far a proposed research project will advance the interests of people who are more disadvantaged, research priority setters and RECs should examine the diseases that the research targets and the type of research. Just as certain diseases impose a greater burden on people who are more disadvantaged, so certain types of intervention and forms of research are more likely to benefit people who are more disadvantaged. We outline which populations are likely to be representative of the global worst off and identify what types of health research, and which disease categories, are priorities for these populations. (shrink)

There seems to be an inconsistency at the heart of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: a differentia is said both to presuppose its genus (in vii 12) and to be logically independent from it (in x 7). I argue that the relation of analogy resolves this inconsistency, restores the coherence of the concepts of differentia and species, and gives x 7 its rightful place in the development of the Metaphysics.

If panpsychism is true, it suggests that consciousness pervades not only our brains and bodies but also the entire universe, prompting a reevaluation of our existential attitudes. Hence, panpsychism potentially fulfills psychological needs typically addressed by religious beliefs, such as a sense of belonging and purpose but also transcendence. The discussion is organized into two main areas: the implications of panpsychism for basic human existential needs, such as feelings of kinship, ommunication, and loneliness; and for greater existential questions relating to (...) mystical experiences including transcendent unity and alleviation of the fear of death. In conclusion panpsychism may provide a deeper meaning in life for some people but its broader impact depends on individual dispositions and the cultural context in which it is embedded. (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)

Dominant views about the nature of health and disease in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine have presumed the existence of a fixed, stable, individual organism as the bearer of health and disease states, and as such, the appropriate target of medical therapy and ethical concern. However, recent developments in microbial biology, neuroscience, the philosophy of cognitive science, and social and personality psychology (Ickes...

The claim that the observation of a violation of a Bell inequality leads to an alleged alternative between nonlocality and non-realism is annoying because of the vagueness of the second term.

Is suffering really bad? The late Derek Parfit argued that we all have reasons to want to avoid future agony and that suffering is in itself bad both for the one who suffers and impersonally. Nietzsche denied that suffering was intrinsically bad and that its value could even be impersonal. This paper has two aims. It argues against what I call ‘Realism about the Value of Suffering’ by drawing from a broadly Nietzschean debunking of our evaluative attitudes, showing that a (...) recently influential response to the debunking challenge (the appeal to phenomenal introspection) fails. It also argues that a Nietzschean approach is well suited to support the challenge and is bolstered by the empirical literature. As strangers to ourselves, we cannot know whether suffering is really intrinsically bad for us. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical response to the need for truth-telling about colonial history, focussing on the Australian context. The response consists in inviting philosophers and the public to engage in social-justice practices specified by a model called Distributed Truth-Telling (DTT), which integrates the historiography of injustices affecting Indigenous peoples with insights from social philosophy and cultural evolution theory. By contrast to official and large-scale truth commissions, distributed truth-telling is a set of non-elitist practices that weave three components: first, multisite, (...) multiformat, and multiscale inquiries into injustices; second, remedial imaginings and reasoning about moral repair and reconciliated futures; and finally, emotions suitable for motivating agents to cooperatively plan and implement moral revolutions. Distributed truth-telling can entrench virtuous feedback loops that contribute to moral revolutions. However, vicious feedback loops associated with collective denial and biases can impair distributed truth- telling and thwart moral revolutions. (shrink)

Many natural languages include plural terms, i.e., terms which denote many individuals at once. Are there also superplural terms, i.e., terms which denote many pluralities of individuals at once? Some philosophers say ‘Yes’, citing a range of sentence-types which apparently can’t be analyzed in a first-order plural logic, but which can be analyzed in a superplural one. We argue that all the data presented in favor of the superplural can, in fact, be analyzed using only first-order resources. The key is (...) to add to ordinary plural logic a new notion of a generalized cover. A generalized cover reflects how interlocutors in a conversation may divide a salient plurality into many subpluralities, which can then be involved in reference and predication. With generalized covers in place, all the apparently troublesome sentences can be easily handled. Our approach can also be extended to account, not only for linguistic data which seem to favor the superplural, but also for other phenomena involving plurals. The result is a unified approach to natural language plurals on which superplurals are analyzed away. (shrink)

A survey of the similarities and differences between BFO and DOLCE, and of the mutual interactions between Nicola Guarino and Barry Smith.

With his original reflection—deeply influenced by many important Arabic thinkers—Gundissalinus wanted to renovate the Latin debate concerning crucial aspects of the philosophical tradition. Among the innovative doctrines he elaborated, one appears to be particularly problematic, for it touches a very delicate point of Christian theology: the divine creation of the human soul, and thus, the most intimate bond connecting the human being and his Creator. Notwithstanding the relevance of this point, Gundissalinus ascribed the creation of the human soul to the (...) angels rather than God. He also stated that the angels create the souls from prime matter, and through a kind of causality which cannot be operated by God. What are the sources of this unusual and perilous doctrine? And what are the reasons which led Gundissalinus to hold such a problematic position? This article thoroughly examines the theoretical development and sources of Gundissalinus’s position, focusing on the correlations between this doctrine, the overall cosmological descriptions expounded by Gundissalinus in his original works, and the main sources upon which this unlikely doctrine is grounded: Avicenna and Ibn Gabirol. (shrink)

This study deals with Dominicus Gundissalinus’s discussion on metaphysics as philosophical discipline. Gundissalinus’s translation and re-elaboration of al-Fārābī’s Iḥṣā’ al-ʿulūm furnish him, in the De scientiis, a specific and detailed procedure for metaphysical analysis articulated in two different stages, an ascending and a descending one. This very same procedure is presented by Gundissalinus also in his De divisione philosophiae, where the increased number of sources –in particular, Avicenna– does not prevent Gundissalinus to quote the entire passage on the methods of (...) metaphysical science from the Iḥṣā’ al-ʿulūm, with some slight changes in his Latin translation. The analytical procedure herein proposed becomes an effective ‘metaphysical programme’ with regards to Gundissalinus’s onto-cosmological writing, the De processione mundi. The comparative analysis of this treatise with the procedure received by al-Fārābī shows Gundissalinus’s effort to follow and apply this metaphysical programme to his own reflection, in a whole different context from al-Fārābī’s and presenting doctrines quite opposed to the theoretical ground on which al-Fārābī’s epistemology is based, like ibn Gabirol’s universal hylomorphism. Nevertheless, thanks to the application of the ‘metaphysical programme’, one can effectively claim that Gundissalinus’s metaphysics is, at least in the author’s intentions, a well-defined metaphysical system. In appendix to this article the three Latin versions of al-Fārābī’s discussion on metaphysics are reported, e.g., Gundissalinus’s quotations in De scientiis and De divisione philosophiae, and Gerard of Cremona’s translation in his De scientiis. (shrink)

Most people agree that inflicting unnecessary suffering upon animals is wrong. Many fewer people, including among ethicists, agree that painlessly killing animals is necessarily wrong. The most commonly cited reason is that death (without pain, fear, distress) is not bad for them in a way that matters morally, or not as significantly as it does for persons, who are self-conscious, make long-term plans and have preferences about their own future. Animals, at least those that are not persons, lack a morally (...) significant interest in continuing to live. At the same time, some argue that existence itself can be good, insofar as one’s life is worth living. For animals, a good life can offset a quick, if early, death. So, it seems to follow that breeding happy animals that will be (prematurely) killed can be a good thing overall. Insofar as slaughter and sale makes it economically sustainable to raise new ones, who would otherwise not exist, raising and killing animals for food who will have lives worth living is good overall. It benefits them as well as consumers, and makes the world better by adding to the sum of happiness. The process of raising and killing animals with positive welfare produces a sequence of replacement that maintains or increases overall welfare, all else being equal (assuming in particular no overall negative impact on the welfare of other parties). Call this the Replaceability Argument (RA) and the ensuing controversy the Replaceability Problem (RP). This is a problem at the crossroads of the ethics of killing, agricultural ethics, procreation ethics, and population ethics. (shrink)

The picture of moral development defended by followers of Aristotle takes moral cultivation to be like playing a harp; one gets to be good by actually spending time playing a real instrument. On this view, we cultivate a virtue by doing the actions associated with that virtue. I argue that this picture is inadequate and must be supplemented by imaginative techniques. One can, and sometimes must, cultivate virtue without actually performing the associated actions. Drawing on strands in Buddhist philosophy, I (...) explain several methods of moral development that rely on imagination and visualization rather than overt action. These techniques are essential in cases where cultivating virtue the way one practices the harp is impossible. In particular, I focus on single-event virtues, first-time virtuous acts, and morally dangerous situations. (shrink)

This article explores the phenomenology of time and eschatology in the thought of Jean-Yves Lacoste, including his recent book on the philosophy of history. Lacoste’s idea of “the hidden present” is examined within the context of his broader theological and philosophical framework, with a particular focus on the way it addresses the intersection of temporality and eternity. Human temporality is characterized by finitude and death, which are interpreted both philosophically—under the influence of Heidegger’s philosophy—and theologically. Using Husserlian and Heideggerian concepts, (...) Lacoste proposes a theologically inspired conceptual network: phenomenological reduction versus theological reduction, world versus creation, death versus resurrection, care (Sorge) versus eschatological restlessness, and time versus eschaton. All of these describe the liturgical experience of man before God and the possibility of an eternity which, from the point of view of the world and of our experience in the world, can only take on the ever-provisional figure of anticipation. The present article argues for the existence of a theological paradox of eschatology in the writings of the French phenomenologist: even if eschatology is only anticipated, the liturgical man, situated before God (coram Deo), experiences it in an incomplete and apophatic manner. (shrink)

It is usual to identify initial conditions of classical dynamical systems with mathematical real numbers. However, almost all real numbers contain an infinite amount of information. I argue that a finite volume of space can’t contain more than a finite amount of information, hence that the mathematical real numbers are not physically relevant. Moreover, a better terminology for the so-called real numbers is “random numbers”, as their series of bits are truly random. I propose an alternative classical mechanics, which is (...) empirically equivalent to classical mechanics, but uses only finite-information numbers. This alternative classical mechanics is non-deterministic, despite the use of deterministic equations, in a way similar to quantum theory. Interestingly, both alternative classical mechanics and quantum theories can be supplemented by additional variables in such a way that the supplemented theory is deterministic. Most physicists straightforwardly supplement classical theory with real numbers to which they attribute physical existence, while most physicists reject Bohmian mechanics as supplemented quantum theory, arguing that Bohmian positions have no physical reality. (shrink)

The development of a biological notion of “population” over the first century of the theory of evolution has been commented upon by a number of historians and philosophers of biology. Somewhat less commonly discussed, however, is the parallel development of the statistical concept of a population over precisely the same period, in some cases driven by the same historical actors (such as Francis Galton and R. A. Fisher). We explore here these parallel developments, first from the perspective of a reconstruction (...) of the historical development of each concept, then with the aid of a digital analysis of a corpus of literature drawn from the journals Biometrika and Journal of Genetics, between 1900 and 1960. These twin analyses show both points of interesting overlap between these two historical trends as well as points of important divergence. The biological and statistical notions of “population” seem to be relatively clearly distinguishable over these six decades, in spite of the fact that a number of authors contributed clearly to both traditions. The complex interplay of continuity and discontinuity across these two notions of “population” makes them a particularly interesting case study of scientific conceptual change. (shrink)

Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to “speak” of indeterminism, its inability to present us a worldview in which new information is created as time passes. In such a case, scientific determinism would only be an illusion due to the timeless mathematical language scientists use. To investigate this possibility it is necessary (...) to develop an alternative mathematical language that is both powerful enough to allow scientists to compute predictions and compatible with indeterminism and the passage of time. We suggest that intuitionistic mathematics provides such a language and we illustrate it in simple terms. (shrink)

A translation and analysis of a short ethical treatise written in Tibet in the late 18th or early 19th century. The Khache Phalu includes references to both Buddhist and Islamic thought in providing ethical and spiritual advice. The analysis gives an overview of the secondary literature in both Tibetan and English that is accessible to non-specialists and defends the claim that many passages are deliberately ambiguous. The translation was done with Tenzin Norbu Nangsal and also includes the full Tibetan text.

This paper demonstrates the central role of the Socratic elenchus in the Sophist. In the first part, I defend the position that the Stranger describes the Socratic elenchus in the sixth division of the Sophist. In the second part, I show that the Socratic elenchus is actually used when the Stranger scrutinizes the accounts of being put forward by his predecessors. In the final part, I explain the function of the Socratic elenchus in the argument of the dialogue. By contrast (...) with standard scholarly interpretations, this way of reading the text provides all the puzzles about being (241c4–251a4) with a definite function in the dialogue. It also reveals that Plato’s methodology includes a plurality of method and is more continuous than what is often believed. (shrink)

Beall and Restall 2000; 2001; 2006 advocate a comprehensive pluralist approach to logic, which they call Logical Pluralism, according to which there is not one true logic but many equally acceptable logical systems. They maintain that Logical Pluralism is compatible with monism about metaphysical modality, according to which there is just one correct logic of metaphysical modality. Wyatt 2004 contends that Logical Pluralism is incompatible with monism about metaphysical modality. We first suggest that if Wyatt were right, Logical Pluralism would (...) be strongly implausible because it would get upside down a dependence relation that holds between metaphysics and logic of modality. We then argue that Logical Pluralism is prima facie compatible with monism about metaphysical modality. (shrink)

In a world that is overflowing with journals and other outlets for scientific publication, the appearance of any new periodical requires some justification. There are already more journals than we can read and more conferences than we can attend. In the case of applied Ontology, we believe that the creation of anew journal not only is completely justifiable, it is downright exciting. For too long, workers in computer science have assumed that content comes for free. “Theory” in computer science has (...) always meant the theory of processes and of computation. We measure the complexity of computer programs in terms of how long it takes machines to execute them, not in terms of how long it takes people to understand and to represent the data on which those programs might operate. We typically describe computer code in terms of algorithms that operate on formal parameters, often without pausing to discuss where the data that might satisfy those parameters come from. This journal was founded on the premise that workers in computer science, informatics, and information science are overdue in paying as much attention to contents as they do to algorithms. (shrink)

Peer commentary on: Blumenthal-Barby, J. S. (2016). Biases and heuristics in decision making and their impact on autonomy. The American Journal of Bioethics, 16(5), 5-15.

Do scientific theories limit human knowledge? In other words, are there physical variables hidden by essence forever? We argue for negative answers and illustrate our point on chaotic classical dynamical systems. We emphasize parallels with quantum theory and conclude that the common real numbers are, de facto, the hidden variables of classical physics. Consequently, real numbers should not be considered as ``physically real" and classical mechanics, like quantum physics, is indeterministic.

Imagine that your body has become attached, without your permission, to that of a sick violinist. The violinist is a human being. He will die if you detach him. Such detachment seems, nonetheless, to be morally permissible. Thomson argues that an unwantedly pregnant woman is in an analogous situation. Her argument is considered by many to have established the moral permissibility of abortion even under the assumption that the foetus is a human being. Another popular argument is that presented by (...) Singer and Unger to the effect that even those who are moderately prosperous are morally obliged to help the poor if they can do so at relatively small cost to themselves. The paper (published under the pseudonym 'Nicola Bourbaki') considers the question whether these two arguments can be simultaneously valid. (shrink)

Several recent contributions to the research on group problem solving suggest that reducing the connectivity between agents in a social network may be epistemically beneficial. This notion stems from the idea that collective problem-solving behavior may benefit from the transient diversity in agents’ beliefs due to increased individual exploration and decreased social influence. At the same time, however, lower connectivity hinders the diffusion of good solutions between network members. Our simulation findings shed light on this trade-off. We identify conditions under (...) which the less-is-more effect is likely to manifest. Our findings suggest that a community consisting of semi-isolated groups could provide an answer to the tension between diversity and diffusion. (shrink)

Ontology as a branch of philosophy is the science of what is, of the kinds and structures of objects, properties, events, processes and relations in every area of reality. ‘Ontology’ is often used by philosophers as a synonym for ‘metaphysics’ (literally: ‘what comes after the Physics’), a term which was used by early students of Aristotle to refer to what Aristotle himself called ‘first philosophy’. The term ‘ontology’ (or ontologia) was itself coined in 1613, independently, by two philosophers, Rudolf Göckel (...) (Goclenius), in his Lexicon philosophicum and Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus), in his Theatrum philosophicum. The first occurrence in English recorded by the OED appears in Bailey’s dictionary of 1721, which defines ontology as ‘an Account of being in the Abstract’. (shrink)

The empirical study of belief is emerging at a rapid clip, uniting work from all corners of cognitive science. Reliance on belief in understanding and predicting behavior is widespread. Examples can be found, inter alia, in the placebo, attribution theory, theory of mind, and comparative psychological literatures. Research on belief also provides evidence for robust generalizations, including about how we fix, store, and change our beliefs. Evidence supports the existence of a Spinozan system of belief fixation: one that is automatic (...) and independent of belief rejection. Independent research supports the existence of a system of fragmented belief storage: one that relies on large numbers of causally isolated, context-sensitive stores of belief in memory. Finally, empirical and observational data support at least two systems of belief change. One system adheres, mostly, to epistemological norms of updating; the other, the psychological immune system, functions to guard our most centrally held beliefs from potential inconsistency with newly formed beliefs. Refining our under- standing of these systems can shed light on pressing real-world issues, such as how fake news, propaganda, and brainwashing exploit our psychology of belief, and how best to construct our modern informational world. (shrink)

The following paper argues that issues in paradigmatic proposals for solving the new demarcation problem stem from absolutist assumptions about judgments of value legitimacy. Both the problem of uninformativeness (Larroulet Philippi 2020; Fernandez-Pinto 2014, 2015) and the problem of ambiguous judgments of cases (Hicks 2014; Intemann 2017) are explained by an absolutist pretension contained in one of the main aims of these proposals: providing criteria for differentiating legitimate from illegitimate uses of values, without qualification. After presenting the problems and showing (...) how they stem from that common source, we will sketch a way forward, inspired mainly by Joseph Rouse’s Beyond Epistemic Sovereignty (1996), advancing routes that can allow philosophers of science to evade these pitfalls and engage with scientific practice in a more salutary manner. (shrink)

World food production is facing exorbitant challenges like climate change, use of resources, population growth, and dietary changes. These, in turn, raise major ethical and political questions, such as how to uphold the right to adequate nutrition, or the right to enact a gastronomic culture and to preserve the conditions to do so. Proposals for utopic solutions vary from vertical farming and lab meat to diets filled with the most fanciful insects and seaweeds. Common to all proposals is a polarized (...) understanding of food and diets, famously captured by Warren Belasco in the contraposition between technological fixes and anthropological fixes. According to the first, technology will deliver clean, just, pleasurable, affordable food; future generations will not need to adjust much of their dietary cultures. According to the second, future generations should dramatically change their dietary habits (what they eat and how they eat it) to achieve a sustainable diet. The two fixes found remarkably distinct perspectives over dietary politics and the ethics of food production and consumption. In this paper we argue that such polarized thinking rests on a misrepresentation of the ontological status of food, which in turn affects the underlying ethical and political issues. Food is a socially constructed object that draws in specific ways on habits, norms, traditions, geographical, and climatic conditions. Although this thesis seems somewhat obvious, its consequences on the ethical and political perspectives on the future of food have not been derived properly. After introducing the issue at stake (¤1), we point out the polarities that characterize food utopias (¤2) and their ontological faults (¤3). We hence suggest that a socio-ontological analysis of food can better deliver the principles for a foundation of food utopias (¤4). (shrink)

Odată cu creșterea volumului de date pe Internet, în media socială, cloud computing, dispozitive mobile și date guvernamentale, Big Data devine în același timp o amenințare și o oportunitate în ceea ce privește gestionarea și utilizarea acestor date, menținând în același timp drepturile persoanelor implicate. În fiecare zi, folosim și generăm tone de date, alimentând bazele de date ale agențiilor guvernamentale, companiilor private și chiar cetățenilor privați. Beneficiem în multe feluri de existența și utilizarea Big Data, dar trebuie să ne (...) amintim de asemenea că „nu există nimic gratuit”. Există riscuri în utilizarea Big Data, un fel de parte întunecată. Schimbările de piață pot fi obținute prin utilizarea Big Data: în timp ce acestea pot fi pozitive pentru cineva, ele pot dăuna altcuiva. Riscurile potențiale provin și de la agențiile publice. Este clar că datele mari pot aduce beneficii cetățenilor și companiilor, dar trebuie să fie echilibrate de o conștientizare sporită a „părții întunecate” a Big Data în exploatarea noilor capacități și oportunități pe care le oferă tuturor . -/- CUPRINS -/- 1. Big Data - Definiție - Caracteristici - Clasificarea datelor mari - Arhitectura - Tehnologii - Oportunități - Provocări - Critici - - Criticile paradigmei Big Data - - Criticile modelului "V" - - Criticile de noutate - - Criticile execuției Big Data - 1.1 Viața datelor mari - - Nașterea - - Copilăria - - - Educație - - - Divertisment - - Adolescența - - - Servicii online - - - Comunicații mobile - - - Servicii de streaming - - Adulți tineri - - - Căutarea de locuri de muncă - - - Servicii bancare și asigurări - - - Utilități - - - Dating online și pornografie - - Vârsta medie - - - Servicii de sănătate - - - Aplicații pentru îngrijire și aplicații pentru sănătate și fitness - - - Căutarea de locuri de muncă - - - Dating online - - Bătrânețea - - - Îngrijirea sănătății - - Moartea - 1.2 Aplicații - - Guvern - - Dezvoltare internațională - - Fabrici - - Sănătate - - Educaţie - - Mass-media - - Asigurare - - Internetul obiectelor (IoT) - - Tehnologia informației - 1.3 Studii de caz - - Guvern - - - China - - - India - - - Israel - - - Regatul Unit - - - Statele Unite ale Americii - - Cu amănuntul - - Ştiinţă - - Sport - - Tehnologie - - Activități de cercetare - - - Prelevarea de date mari - 1.4 Agenda europeană privind societatea digitală - - Cadrul juridic - - Peisajul opiniei părților interesate - 1.5 GDPR - - Etapele procesării datelor personale - - Principiile procesării datelor - - Politica de confidențialitate și transparența - - Scopurile procesării datelor - - Confidențialitate prin design și implicită - - - Paradoxul (legal) al Big Data - - Domeniul teritorial al GDPR - - Definirea datelor mari, a datelor personale și a datelor anonime - - Etapele procesării datelor cu caracter personal - - Principii de prelucrare a datelor - - Politica de confidențialitate și Transparența - - Scopuri de prelucrare a datelor - - Confidențialitate prin design și confidențialitate în mod implicit - - Paradoxul (legal) al datelor mari 2. Analiza Big Data - 2.1 Analitica - - Analitica vs. analiză - - Aplicații ale analiticii - - - Optimizarea marketingului - - - Analiza oamenilor - - - Analiza portofoliului - - - Analitica riscurilor - - - Analitica digitală - - - Analitica securității - - - Analitica software-ului - - Provocări - - Riscuri - 2.2 Analitica predictivă - - Definiție - - Procesul de analitica predictivă - - Tipuri - - - Modele predictive - - - Modele descriptive - - - Modele de decizie - - Aplicații - - - Managementul relațiilor cu clienții analitic (CRM) - - - Protecția copilului - - - Sisteme de suport decizional clinic - - - Analiticile colecțiilor - - - Vânzări încrucișate - - - Retenția clienților - - - Marketing direct - - - Detectarea fraudelor - - - Prezicerea rezultatelor deciziilor legale - - - Previziuni privind portofoliul, produsele sau economia - - - Managementul riscului de proiect - - - Acceptanța (Underwriting) - - Tehnologia și influențele big data - - Tehnici analitice - - - Tehnici de regresie - - - - Model de regresie liniară - - - - Modele de alegere discretă - - - - Regresie logistică - - - - Regresie logistică multinomială - - - - Regresie probit - - - - Logit versus probit - - - - Modele pentru serii de timp - - - - Analiza supraviețuirii sau a duratei - - - - Arborele de clasificare și regresie (CART) - - - - Funcții spline adaptive de regresie multivariate - - - Tehnici de învățare automată - - - - Rețele neuronale - - - - Perceptron multistrat (MLP) - - - - Funcții radiale de bază - - - - Mașini cu vectori de suport - - - - Bayesiene naive - - - - Vecinul k-cel mai apropiat - - - - Modelarea predictivă geospațială - - Instrumente - - - PMML - - Critici - 2.3 Analitica prescriptivă - - Istorie - 2.4 Studiul critic al datelor - - Perspective critice - - Abordare: Pragmatismul și etica discursului 3. Etica Big Data - Datele personale ale copiilor - Rolul instituțiilor - - State naționale - - Bănci - Articole relevante de știri despre etica datelor - Legislație relevantă privind etica datelor - 3.1 Principii ale eticii Big Data - - Etica în cercetare - - Conștientizarea - - Consimţământul - - Controlul - - Transparența - - Încrederea - - Proprietatea - - Supravegherea și securitatea - - Identitatea digitală - - Realitatea ajustată - - De-anonimizarea - - Inegalitatea digitală - - Confidențialitatea - - Financiar - - - Cât de mult merită datele? - - Deschidere - 3.2 Probleme etice în cercetare - - Etica cercetării pentru cercetarea socială - - Principalele aspecte etice ale cercetării sociale - - - Intimitate - - - Consimțământ informat - - - De-identificarea - - - Inegalitate – Diviziune digitală - - Integritatea cercetării - - Probleme emergente - - Aviz legal - 3.3 Aspecte filosofice - 3.4 10 reguli de bază în lucrul cu Big Data - - Concluzie Referințe Despre autor - Nicolae Sfetcu - - De același autor - - Contact Editura - MultiMedia Publishing . 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Telelucrul, ca un nou mod de a lucra prin efectuarea unei activităţi (forme de muncă) flexibile în timp şi la distanţă, utilizând tehnologia informaţională şi comunicaţiile avansate, se concretizează în teleactivităţi şi teleservicii. În ultimii ani, s-au dezvoltat rapid noi tehnologii informaţionale şi de comunicare, astfel încât în centrul dezbaterilor ştiinţifice, politice şi economice din ultima perioadă a stat apariţia şi dezvoltarea Societăţii Informaţionale, generatoare de noi oportunităţi de muncă dar şi de schimbări esenţiale în ceea ce priveşte natura muncii (...) şi modul de lucru, schimbări comparabile cu cele petrecute în revoluţia industrială. În acest context, telelucrul a devenit domeniu strategic din punct de vedere teoretic şi practic, deoarece reprezintă o soluţie cu potenţial practic important; se poate dezvolta repede; poate influenţa în bine viaţa multor europeni; este un excelent promotor al noilor procese şi tehnologii avansate; este o componentă a noii revoluţii ştiinţifice şi tehnologice, orientată spre societatea bazată pe informaţie şi cunoaştere. CUPRINS: - Introducere - - Ce este Telelucrul - - Definitii - - Avantaje si dezavantaje - - Alte aspecte de interes general - Tipuri de telelucru - - Integral / partial - - La domiciliu - - Telecentre - - - Tipuri - - Comparatie intre lucrul la domiciliu si in telecentre - - Lucrul in cadrul unor organizatii - Dotarea individuala a telelucratorului - - Software - - Hardware - - Internet - Promovarea ca telelucrator - - Cine poate fi telelucrator - - Resume - - Scrisoarea de intentie - - Marketing - Strategii pentru telelucru - - Evaluari de pret ale serviciilor de telelucrator - - Cautarea joburilor - - Telelucrul ca o afacere - - Planul de actiune - - Strategia UE in domeniul telelucrului - Aspecte legislative - - Contracte pentru telelucratori - - Plata telelucratorilor pentru serviciile prestate - Implicatii guvernamentale in promovarea telelucrului - Cum se poate promova un proiect propriu Despre autor - Nicolae Sfetcu - - De același autor - - Contact Editura - MultiMedia Publishing . (shrink)

Easter is the most important solemnity (just before Christmas) of the Church. It is the first of the five cardinal feasts of the Catholic liturgical year. Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ laid down by the Bible, the third day after his passion. The solemnity begins on Easter Sunday, which for Catholics mark the end of fasting of Lent, and lasts for eight days (Easter week, or week or radiant, or week of eight Sundays). Many customs dating back to (...) ancient times designed to accommodate the return of spring attached themselves to Easter. The egg is the symbol of germination occurs in early spring. Similarly, the hare is an ancient symbol which has always represented fertility. The custom of the Easter egg was found among Coptic Christians from the late fifth century, it is perhaps in memory of ardent eggs (ova ignita) with which the martyrs were tortured or red egg laid by an imperial hen the day of the birth of Alexander Severus in 208 BC. The tradition of offering eggs in spring dates back to antiquity: the Persians, the Egyptians offered, as a lucky, decorated hen eggs as renewal sign. The rabbit once symbolizing fertility and renewal (like spring), it was in Upper Germany where was born the tradition (Osterhase) before it spreads in the Germanic countries. Subsequently, this tradition is exported to the United States by German immigrants in the eighteenth century. CONTENTS: Easter - Date history - Religious celebrations - - Catholic Church - - Orthodox and Eastern Churches - - Evangelical Church - Popular festivals and traditions - Easter eggs - Easter eggs - - Symbolic - - History - - - The red eggs - - - Painted eggs, pissanka and precious eggs - - - Chocolate eggs - - Games and traditions - - - Egg hunting - - - Egg rolling - - - Egg battles - Ash Wednesday - Paschal Triduum - Easter Water - - Picking the Easter Water - - Properties of Easter Water - - - Physical properties - - - Spiritual or magical properties - - Washing in Water Easter - Paschal candle - - Rite of fire at Easter - - Using the paschal candle - Easter Monday - - Liturgical and religious significance - - Folk customs for Easter Monday - Easter Bunny - - Origin - - Alternatives - Osterbrunnen Easter food - Pastiera - - Origins - - - Mythical origin - - - Other origins - - Tradition - - Features . (shrink)

How do plurals and mass nouns refer? What kind of logic should be used in order to account for the truth-conditions of the sentences they appear in? For linguists, first-order predicate logic is adequate, provided it is supplemented by a notion of mereological sum for plurals and for mass nouns. On the contrary, according to some philosophers, new logics must be used, plural logic for plurals and mass logic for mass nouns. We survey these debates in this entry.

Peer commentary on: Goering, S., Klein, E., Dougherty, D. D., & Widge, A. S. (2017). Staying in the loop: Relational agency and identity in next-generation DBS for psychiatry. AJOB Neuroscience, 8(2), 59-70.

The use of computational tools in the humanities for science 2.0 practices is steadily increasing. This paper examines current research practices of a group of philosophers studying the history of philosophical concepts. We explain the methodology and workflow of these philosophers and provide an overview of tools they currently use in their research. The case study highlights a number of fundamental challenges facing these researchers, including: (i) accessing known relevant research content or resources; (ii) discovering new research content or data; (...) (iii) working collaboratively rather than individually. We propose a mash-up of search, visualization, and awareness tools addressing these challenges and discuss the design of the mash-up, its implementation, and evaluation with the target users. Through our case study, we demonstrate the benefits of a user-centered design approach, as well as the benefits of the concrete mash-up for historians of philosophy, and, importantly, the limitations of these tools for conducting historical and philosophical research. (shrink)

This article defends a relational account of personhood. I argue that the structure of personhood consists of dyadic relations between persons who can wrong or be wronged by one another, even if some of them lack moral competence. I draw on recent work on directed duties to outline the structure of moral communities of persons. The upshot is that we can construct an inclusive theory of personhood that can accommodate nonhuman persons based on shared community membership. I argue that, once (...) we unpack the internal relation between directed duties, moral status, and flourishing, relations can ground personhood and include nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Social change is slow and difficult. Social change for animals is formidably slow and difficult. Advocates and scholars alike have long tried to change attitudes and convince the public that eating animals is wrong. The topic of norms and social change for animals has been neglected, which explains in part the relative failure of the animal protection movement to secure robust support reflected in social and legal norms. Moreover, animal ethics has suffered from a disproportionate focus on individual attitudes and (...) behavior at the expense of collective behavior, social change, and empirical psychology. If what we want to change is behavior on a large scale, norms are important tools. This article reviews an account of social norms that provides insights into the possibility and limitations of social change for animals, approaching animal protection as a problem of reverse social engineering. It highlights avenues for future work from this neglected perspective. (shrink)

We present in this paper a novel ontological theory of events whose central tenet is the Aristotelian distinction between the object that changes and the actual subject of change, which is what we call an individual quality. While in the Kimian tradition events are individuated by a triple ⟨ o, P, t ⟩, where o is an object, P a property, and t an interval of time, for us the simplest events are qualitative changes, individuated by a triple ⟨ o, (...) q, t ⟩, where q is an individual quality inhering in o or in one of its parts. Detaching the individuation of events from the property they exemplify results in a fine-grained theory that keeps metaphysics and semantics clearly separate, and lies between the multiplicative and the unitarian approaches. We discuss then the way language refers to events, observing that, in most cases, event descriptions refer to complex, cognitively relevant clusters of co-occurring qualitative changes, which exhibit a synchronic structure depending on the way they are described. Contra Bennett, who famously argued that the semantics of event names ultimately depends on “local context and unprincipled intuitions”, we show how the lexicon provides systematic principles for individuating such clusters and classifying them into kinds. Finally, we address some open challenges in the semantics of locative and manner modifiers. (shrink)

Această carte explorează utilizarea inteligenței artificiale de către serviciile de informații din întreaga lume și rolul său critic în domeniul analizei intelligence, în apărare și securitatea națională. Serviciile de informații joacă un rol crucial în securitatea națională, iar adoptarea tehnologiilor inteligenței artificiale a avut un impact semnificativ asupra operațiunilor lor. De asemenea, examinează diferitele aplicații ale inteligenței artificiale în serviciile de informații, implicațiile, provocările și considerațiile etice asociate cu utilizarea acesteia. Cartea subliniază necesitatea cercetării și dezvoltării continue în domeniul inteligenței (...) artificiale pentru a se asigura că serviciile de informații. și în general apărarea și securitatea națională se pot adapta în mod eficient la amenințările emergente. (shrink)

Războiul electronic este o componentă critică a operațiunilor militare moderne și a suferit progrese semnificative în ultimii ani. Această carte oferă o privire de ansamblu asupra războiului electronic, a dezvoltării sale istorice, a componentelor cheie și a rolului său în scenariile de conflict contemporane. De asemenea, se discută tendințele și provocările emergente în războiul electronic și și relevanța sa contemporană într-o eră a tehnologiei avansate și a amenințărilor cibernetice, subliniind necesitatea cercetării și dezvoltării continue în acest domeniu. Cartea explorează intersecția (...) în plină dezvoltare dintre inteligența artificială și războiul electronic, evidențiind peisajul evolutiv al conflictelor moderne și implicațiile integrării tehnologiilor avansate. Se evidențiază rolurile cu mai multe fațete ale inteligenței artificiale în războiul electronic, examinând avantajele sale potențiale, considerentele etice și provocările asociate cu integrarea acesteia. (shrink)

Das Positionspapier adressiert Probleme und Schwierigkeiten, die sich aus dem elektronischen Publizieren und den derzeitigen bibliometrischen Bewertungsverfahren wissenschaftlicher Expertise ergeben. Hierzu zählen u.a. der ‚Markt‘ der Informationen (Stichwort: Verlagsoligopole), das Wissenschaftler:innen-Tracking und die Metrisierung der Wissenschaft. -/- Es richtet sich insbesondere an Vertreter:innen die akademischen Philosophie als Fachdisziplin. Das Papier enthält Empfehlungen dazu, wie die identifizierten Problempunkte innerhalb der Disziplin lösungsorientiert angegangen werden können. Folgende Punkte werden zur Diskussion gestellt: -/- - Diamond-Open-Access im Bereich des elektronischen Publizierens: Infrastruktur in die (...) Hände der wissenschaftlichen Community - Peer Review: Begutachtung nach Kriterien der Wissenschaftlichkeit - Bewerbungsverfahren: Nutzung von Visualisierungen statt Metriken - Promotionsphase: Trennung der Rollen von Betreuung und Begutachtung - Datenhoheit: Unterbindung des Wissenschaftler-Trackings -/- Die Empfehlungen zielen auf eine unmittelbare Stärkung der Autonomie des Wissenschaftsbetriebs. (shrink)