We are frequently confronted with moral situations that are unsettling, confusing, disorienting. We try to come to grips with them. When we do so, we engage in a distinctive type of moral inquiry: hermeneutical inquiry. Its aim is to make sense of our situation. What is it to make sense of one's situation? Hermeneutical inquiry is part of our everyday moral experience. Understanding its nature and its place in moral epistemology is important. Yet, I argue, that existing accounts of moral (...) inquiry do not give us the resources to do so. This paper develops a positive account of hermeneutical inquiry. I argue that when we engage in hermeneutical inquiry, we search for an apt perspective on our situation. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary dialogue acts as a symbiosis for all the areas that participate and imply enormous projections for both art and science. This paper explores the potential of an interdisciplinary dialogue between Biology and Performance using as a case study the Performance Analfabeta created by the artist Paulina Bronfman. The work was shaped in the context of The Third Conference of the Nucleus of Artistic Research (NIA) of In/Inter/Disciplinary Laboratories hosted by the Faculty of Art of The Pontificia University of (...) Chile (LAB IID). The Lab was led by Chilean biologist Alejandra Zuñiga- Feest and the Brazilian artist Adriana Parente La Selva. This work aims to explore the questions: what does it mean, from the point of view of the arts and sciences, to develop an interdisciplinary laboratory? How is this done? This paper problematizes the creative process of collaboration between sciences and performance as well as the potential impact and link with society that this multidisciplinary dialogue can have. (shrink)

Excuses are commonplace. Making and accepting excuses is part of our practice of holding each other morally responsible. But excuses are also curious. They have normative force. Whether someone has an excuse for something they have done matters for how we should respond to their action. An excuse can make it appropriate to forgo blame, to revise judgments of blameworthiness, to feel compassion and pity instead of anger and resentment. The considerations we appeal to when making excuses are a motley (...) bunch: tiredness, stress, a looming work deadline, a wailing infant, poverty, duress, ignorance. What unifies these various considerations as a class? In virtue of what can they all excuse? And what does their normative force consist in? This paper aims to develop a unified account of excuses: what they are and what they do. In a nutshell, I argue that excuses are considerations that show that an agent’s wrongdoing does not manifest a specific motivational failing: namely, the lack of a morally adequate present-directed intention. What do excuses do? I suggest that they function as responsibility-modifiers. They alter how the wrongdoer, the wronged party, bystanders may morally respond to a wrong, without negating that it remains appropriate to respond in some way. (shrink)

My topic in this paper is the nature of faith. Much of the discussion concerning the nature of faith proceeds by focussing on the relationship between faith and belief. In this paper, I explore a different approach. I suggest that we approach the question of what faith involves by focussing on the relationship between faith and action. When we have faith, we generally manifest it in how we act; we perform acts of faith: we share our secrets, rely on other’s (...) judgment, refrain from going through our partner’s emails, let our children prepare for an important exam without our interference. Religious faith, too is manifested in acts of faith: attending worship, singing the liturgy, fasting, embarking on a pilgrimage. I argue that approaching faith by way of acts of faith, reveals that faith is a complex mental state whose elements go beyond doxastic states towards particular propositions. It also involves conative states and – perhaps more surprisingly – know how. This has consequences for the epistemology of faith: the role of testimony and experts, the importance of practices, and what we should make of Pascal’s advice for how to acquire faith. (shrink)

What is it to take responsibility for a moral failure? This chapter investigates taking responsibility for wrongdoing. It starts by considering a prominent view in the literature: that to take responsibility for a wrong is to blame oneself for it. Contrary to the self-blame account, it is argued that taking responsibility and self-blame can come apart in various ways. Instead, the normative footprint account is defended. It is suggested that wrongdoing changes the normative landscape in systematic ways: it can create (...) duties to apologize, to acknowledge the wrong done, to make amends, to respond to the wronged party’s upset. To take responsibility for a wrong is to own the normative consequences of one’s wrong. (shrink)

Can moral ignorance excuse? This chapter argues that philosophical debate of this question has been based on a mistaken assumption: namely that excuses are all-or-nothing affairs; to have an excuse is to be blameless. The chapter argues that we should reject this assumption. Excuses are not binary but gradable: they can be weaker or stronger, mitigating blame to greater or lesser extent. This chapter explores the notions of strength of excuses, blame miti- gation and the relationship between excuses and moral (...) responsibility. These ideas open up some principled middle-ground between the two positions staked out in the literature. Moral ignorance may well excuse but it does not exculpate. (shrink)

The eighteenth‑century English writer Matthew Gregory Lewis wrote one of the most dramatic Gothic novels, The Monk; over 200 years later, a film of the same name appeared, based on the novel and directed by Dominik Moll. The film, a free adaptation of the book, presenting the story of the moral downfall of the monk Ambrosio, has inspired us to philosophical reflections on sexuality, sensuality, and physical desire. We have attempted to analyze and interpret this cinematic work of art in (...) the context of these issues. The method we have adopted is based on a thorough discussion of the topics developed in the film and related issues. This method, while not pretending to be scientific objective, enables us to outline an interesting field of research as well as to identify a number of theoretical problems and questions that remain open. The formula we have adopted is to quote lines from the film The Monk which permits the analysis of selected issues related to sexuality, sensuality, and physical desire. Moreover, these quotes serve to order the text and enable the precise identification of interpretive trains of thought. (shrink)

"This book explores the relationship between performance and activism in Chile as a form of political expression and citizen participation during the period 2010-2020. Since the student mobilizations of 2006, the social movements that have taken place in Chile are characterized, in many cases, by the appropriation of public space and the political use of the body. This became particularly evident during the social outbreak of October 2019. The social upheaval was accompanied by a cultural explosion, where the arts in (...) all their dimensions played a crucial role as new strategies of collective action. The research proposes two hypotheses about this cultural revolution. Firstly, that this explosion of artistic activism had been fermenting for at least a decade (2010-2020) within the social movements, using performance and art as expressions of collective action. These artistic drivers, catalysts of this cultural revolution, have been mobilized around three fundamental axes of social demands: human rights, education, and feminism. The second hypothesis is that artistic activism in Chile between 2010-2020 emerged to exercise citizenship and strengthen the diversity of cultural identities. Chilean artistic activism today, unlike other historical moments, is a direct expression of citizen participation. It is no longer just artists who contribute to social and protest movements with their work: now, it is the citizens who use artistic expression as a practice of political participation. From an intersectional and feminist perspective, this book is an invitation to study and reflect on the aesthetic and political dimension of performance and its potential to establish justice and symbolic reparation when the State is absent. Furthermore, it incentivises a conversation about the ritual, pedagogical, and visionary dimension of art and its infinite possibilities of expressive and discursive resources. Performance art reimagines possible futures embodying the political demand, always loaded with memory, reclaiming the public space. Performance as the 'art of action' conquers the realm of non-formal education, permeating public space and shaping a Pedagogy of memory and hope." -/- . (shrink)

This paper attempts to acquaint Polish readers with the Russian Orthodox philosopher Pavel Florensky’s (1882–1937) thinking on the category of space‑ness, which together with the categories of symbolism and light is one of the key‑words in his theory of aesthetics. The concept of space is, according to Florensky, a criterion for distinguishing art types, although for him it is only a model, which can be used to help form judgments about the world. It is also the basis of being for (...) the artwork itself. Painting and printmaking, among other arts types mentioned by Florensky (poetry, music, theatre, and architecture), have their own particularities in their organization of space. Painting and printmaking are, for Florensky, the truest art forms — art par excellence. The presentation of a threefold interpretation of the category of space‑ness, together with the description and justification of the divisions which are made in art based on these spatial categories by the philosopher is the leitmotiv of this paper. The aim of the paper is to present and discuss the opinions and arguments of the Orthodox thinker from his work Анализ пространственности (и времени) в художественно‑изобразительных произведениях, which has not yet been translated into Polish or English. (shrink)

The paper presents three main definitions of theoretical entity: basic definition, definition from unobservability, and ontological definition. These are the definitions of theoretical entity that are most popular and widely accepted by philosophers of science (both realists and antirealists). All these definitions contain significant defects, which lead to unacceptable conclusions. The author also offers an alternative definition from explanation, which avoids the defects of previous definitions. The aim of the paper is to prove that proper definition of theoretical entity is (...) necessary in debates over scientific realism. To make a legitimate claim about the existence of theoretical entities, one should know what theoretical entity really is. (shrink)

In an influential paper, L. A. Paul argues that one cannot rationally decide whether to have children. In particular, she argues that such a decision is intractable for standard decision theory. Paul's central argument in this paper rests on the claim that becoming a parent is ``epistemically transformative''---prior to becoming a parent, it is impossible to know what being a parent is like. Paul argues that because parenting is epistemically transformative, one cannot estimate the values of the various outcomes of (...) a decision whether to become a parent. In response, we argue that it is possible to estimate the value of epistemically transformative experiences. Therefore, there is no special difficulty involved in deciding whether to undergo epistemically transformative experiences. Insofar as major life decisions do pose a challenge to decision theory, we suggest that this is because they often involve separate, familiar problems. (shrink)

The concept of an individual, liberal data subject, who was traditionally at the centre of data protection efforts has recently come under scrutiny. At the same time, the particularly destructive effect of digital technology on Black people establishes the need for an analysis that not only considers but brings racial dimensions to the forefront. I argue that because Afrofuturism situates the Black struggle in persistent, yet continuously changing structural disparities and power relations, it offers a powerful departure point for re-imagining (...) data protection. Sketching an Afrofuturist data subject then centres on radical subjectivity, collectivity, and contextuality. (shrink)

Este ensaio visa refletir sobre as questões de tradução levantadas por Jacques Derrida (1987), questões essas que não chegam a formalizar uma teoria da tradução, mas têm elas o ato de traduzir o original como veredas a ser percorridas por um sujeito endividado, ou seja, o tradutor. No dizer de Derrida, “a tarefa do tradutor indica a lei e a missão outorgada pelo outro a que o tradutor deve responder”. Neste sentido, entendemos aqui a tradução como um ato de diálogo, (...) de negociação, uma vez que a língua, nesta perspectiva, é aquilo que não se deixa possuir. Com isso, os problemas da tradução são - de um lado - o problema da língua, de sua natureza heterogênea, fugidia; e, do outro, do modelo tradicional de tradução que se apoia na concepção de língua como algo homogêneo em que a diversidade, o diferente são vistos como pecado, como transgressão da linguagem (adâmica). (shrink)

Raport powstał z inicjatywy Fundacji Pomocy Matematykom i Informatykom Niesprawnym Ruchowo w ramach projektu „Centrum Edukacji i Aktywizacji Zawodowej Osób Niepełnosprawnych - Oddziały Bydgoszcz i Łódź". Stanowi on rezultat badań zjawiska niepełnosprawności i kategorii społecznej, jaką stanowią osoby niepełnosprawne, oraz funkcjonowania ponad 30 agencji zatrudnienia wyspecjalizowanych we wsparciu osób niepełnosprawnych na rynku pracy. Pierwszy rozdział ekspertyzy dotyczy sposobów definiowania zjawiska niepełnosprawności, w drugim zaś - podjęto zagadnienie budowania potencjału niepublicznych służb zatrudnienia osób niepełnosprawnych. Trzeci rozdział raportu zawiera informacje dotyczące przyjętej (...) metodologii badań, a czwarty prezentuje wyniki analiz zebranego materiału empirycznego w odniesieniu do oferty agencji zatrudnienia i jej klientów. Tematem piątego rozdziału pracy jest kondycja agencji zatrudnienia osób niepełnosprawnych, prowadzonych przez organizacje pozarządowe. Motyw przewodni kolejnego rozdziału to otoczenie zewnętrzne agencji zatrudnienia. Ostatnia cześć raportu dotyczy rekomendacji wspomagających rozwiązywanie dylematów rozwojowych, przed którymi stoją agencje zatrudnienia. ** This report was made on the initiative of the Foundation Supporting Disabled Mathematicians and IT professionals in the project "Centre for Education and Vocational Activation of Persons with Disabilities - Branches Bydgoszcz and Lodz." It is the result of research on disability phenomenon and people with disabilities social category. It contains information about operations of more than 30 employment agencies specialized in helping people with disabilities into the labor market. First chapter of expertise relates to methods for defining the prevalence of disability and in the second - it was the issue of capacity building for non-disabled employment services. Third chapter of the report provides information on the methodology of research, and the fourth presents the results of an empirical analysis of the collected material in relation to the offer of employment agencies and their clients. Theme of the fifth chapter of the work is the condition of the disabled employment agency run by NGOs. Theme of the next chapter is the external environment of employment agencies. Last part of the report focuses on solving a recommendation supporting development dilemmas faced by agencies employment. -/- . (shrink)

I consider Paulina Sliwa’s fruitful account of “taking responsibility” as “owning the normative footprint” of a wrong. Unlike most, Sliwa approaches the topic without concern for what I call “responsible agency.” I raise the possibility that this is virtue. I then question whether the “footprint” is simply given with the wrong or whether it must instead be made determinate through subsequent interaction, perhaps through conversation. I next distinguish two different kinds of conversation: a cooperative negotiation and a low-level power (...) struggle. The later is often part of what I call “the blame game.” I suggest that the “blame” of the blame game is the blame of ordinary life, to be distinguished from the technical term in the current philosophical literature, and I give an account of it. I note that one may sometimes opt out of the blame game simply by owning a generous interpretation of the footprint, something Sliwa discusses. I note that doing so is sometimes, but not always, virtuous. (shrink)

In this note I defend nonreductionism about understanding by arguing that knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient for understanding. To do so, I examine Paulina Sliwa’s recent (Sliwa 2015, 2017) defence of knowledge-based Reductionism (Reductionism for short). Sliwa claims that one understands why p if and only if one has a sufficient amount of knowledge why p. Sliwa also contends that Reductionism is supported by intuitive verdicts about our uses of ‘understanding why’ and ‘knowing why’. In reply, I first (...) argue that Sliwa’s Reductionism leads to a vicious infinite regress. Secondly, I defuse the motivation in favour of Reductionism by showing how the linguistic data can be accommodated within a Nonreductionist framework. (shrink)

El artículo aborda el problema del instante (Augenblick) a partir de la obra temprana de Martin Heidegger y su prolongación en Ser y tiempo. La persuasión de que solo el cristianismo primitivo ha vivido una temporalidad originaria, se prolonga en Ser y tiempo en una interpretación del instante como integración del pasado y del futuro. Aquello que en Aristóteles no alcanzaba a constituirse –la conexión entre kairós y výn– encuentra su pleno develamiento en la escatología paulina. Sin embargo, el (...) ésjaton de la parusía cristiana se convierte en Ser y tiempo en una escatología de la muerte. (shrink)

Marcel Gauchet to mało znany w Polsce historyk i filozof francuski. Żadna z jego książek nie została do tej pory przetłumaczona na język polski. Dostępny w tym języku jest jeden z esejów pochodzący z La démocratie contre elle-même (Demokracja przeciwko sobie samej), opublikowany w kwartalniku „Res Publica Nowa” w grudniu 2002 r. pt. Nowy wiek osobowości. Próba psychologii współczesnej, przełożony i opracowany przez Wiktora Dłuskiego. W tekście tym Gauchet stawia tezę o mającej miejsce we współczesnym świecie rewolucji antropologicznej, polegającej na (...) zmianie roli rodziny ze wspólnoty ustanawiającej i podtrzymującej więzi społeczne na grupę społeczną niemającą wpływu na kształt życia społecznego. Przybliżenie sylwetki Gaucheta wydaje się niezbędne, albowiem jego myśl stanowi ważki i godny uwagi głos w dyskusji nad stanem współczesnej polityki oraz świata. -/- W niniejszym artykule skupię się na dwóch poruszonych przez Gaucheta zagadnieniach. Pierwsze z nich to ideologiczne konsekwencje ostatniego kryzysu gospodarczego, m. in. pokonanie lewicowej frakcji politycznej przez prawicową czy kryzys demokracji objawiający się dominacją interesów jednostkowych nad wspólnotowymi. Drugą kwestię stanowi kryzys liberalizmu polegający na występowaniu dwóch sprzecznych trendów na scenie politycznej, mianowicie,dominacji idei państwa interwencjonistycznego, dążącego do zbudowania dobrze funkcjonującego państwa opiekuńczego oraz rosnącego w siłę domagania się praw jednostki, co odbywa się, zdaniem Gaucheta, kosztem państwa. -/- Źródła będące podstawą niniejszego tekstu to przede wszystkim wywiad Macieja Nowickiego z Marcelem Gauchetem pt. Nie ma już lewicy, prawica zwyciężyła na zawsze opublikowany w miesięczniku „Europa. Magazyn Idei Newsweeka” w 2009 r. oraz wydane w 2007 r. I i II tom L’Avènement de la démocratie (Nadejście demokracji) Gaucheta. (shrink)

What is it to know someone? Epistemologists rarely take up this question, though recent developments make such inquiry possible and desirable. This paper advances an account of how such interpersonal knowledge goes beyond mere propositional and qualitative knowledge about someone, giving a central place to second-personal treatment. It examines what such knowledge requires, and what makes it distinctive within epistemology as well as socially. It assesses its theoretic value for several issues in moral psychology, epistemic injustice, and philosophy of mind. (...) And it offers an account of the complex content in play if interpersonal knowledge is to be understood in terms of its mental states and their functions. (shrink)

We articulate a holistic understanding of hope, going beyond the common conceptualization of hope in terms of positive affect and cognition by considering what hope means for the underprivileged. In the recognition that hope is always situated in a particular place, we explore the perspective of the privileged and the underprivileged, clarifying how spatial contexts shape their goals for the future and their agency toward attaining these goals. Where some people experience precarity due to their disability, race, gender, sexuality, and (...) social class, others enjoy enhanced agency due to their privilege. In our analysis, this loss of agency does not mean the underprivileged are hopeless; instead, it suggests that hope can incorporate negative affect and cognition. In our view, a spatial understanding acknowledges the power of hope in discouraging situations, and it points to practical measures through which hope can be cultivated by marginalized communities. (shrink)

Advances in neuroscience implicate reentrant signaling as the predominant form of communication between brain areas. This principle was used in a series of masking experiments that defy explanation by feed-forward theories. The masking occurs when a brief display of target plus mask is continued with the mask alone. Two masking processes were found: an early process affected by physical factors such as adapting luminance and a later process affected by attentional factors such as set size. This later process is called (...) masking by object substitution, because it occurs whenever there is a mismatch between the reentrant visual representation and the ongoing lower level activity. Iterative reentrant processing was formalized in a computational model that provides an excellent fit to the data. The model provides a more comprehensive account of all forms of visual masking than do the long-held feed-forward views based on inhibitory contour interactions. (shrink)

Consciousness is targeted by both philosophers and neuroscientists; but different methodological premises and even different conceptions about what conscious experience is and how the challenges and potential problems associated with consciousness research should be formulated underlie the different approaches. Namely, whereas empirical data and the constant refinement of experimental procedures to expand and modify this body of empirical data and resulting empirical theories are crucial to neuroscience, the significance of empirical knowledge to philosophy is less clear: Although empirical data certainly (...) can influence philosophical concepts, the latter are nonetheless prerequisites of empirical research itself and thus may themselves not be empirically testable. The present paper elaborates from a multidisciplinary, neuroscientist-philosopher’s perspective the relation of philosophical concepts and empirical research on consciousness, drawing on two exemplary controversies from the philosophy of mind – on the ontological status of experiential properties and on free will. Consequences from both the scientific and the philosophical standpoint are discussed. (shrink)

This open-access editorial discusses confronting silences in different disciplinary contexts, such as science and technology studies, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. It has a focus on race and concludes with thoughts about Indigenous expertise, the Australian referendum on the Indigenous Voice, to parliament, and racism.

Recent research on algebraic models of _quasi-Nelson logic_ has brought new attention to a number of classes of algebras which result from enriching (subreducts of) Heyting algebras with a special modal operator, known in the literature as a _nucleus_. Among these various algebraic structures, for which we employ the umbrella term _intuitionistic modal algebras_, some have been studied since at least the 1970s, usually within the framework of topology and sheaf theory. Others may seem more exotic, for their primitive operations (...) arise from algebraic terms of the intuitionistic modal language which have not been previously considered. We shall for instance investigate the variety of _weak implicative semilattices_, whose members are (non-necessarily distributive) meet semilattices endowed with a nucleus and an implication operation which is not a relative pseudo-complement but satisfies the postulates of Celani and Jansana’s strict implication. For each of these new classes of algebras we establish a representation and a topological duality which generalize the known ones for Heyting algebras enriched with a nucleus. (shrink)

Observers inspected normal, high quality color displays of everyday visual scenes while their eye movements were recorded. A large display change occurred each time an eye blink occurred. Display changes could either involve "Central Interest" or "Marginal Interest" locations, as determined from descriptions obtained from independent judges in a prior pilot experiment. Visual salience, as determined by luminance, color, and position of the Central and Marginal interest changes were equalized. -/- The results obtained were very similar to those obtained in (...) prior experiments showing failure to detect changes occurring simultaneously with saccades, flicker, or “mudsplashes” in the visual scene: Many changes were very hard to detect, and Marginal Interest changes were harder to detect than Central Interest changes. -/- Analysis of eye movements showed, as expected, that the probability of detecting a change depended on the eye’s distance from the change location. However a surprising finding was that both for Central and Marginal Interest changes, evenwhen observers were directly fixating the change locations (within 1 degree),more than 40% of the time they still failed to see the changes. It seems that looking at something does not guarantee you “ see” it. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the question of agency in spontaneous action via a phenomenology of musical improvisation, drawing on fieldwork conducted with large con- temporary improvising ensembles. I argue that musical improvisation is a form of ‘participatory sense-making’ in which musical decisions unfold via a feedback pro- cess with the evolving musical situation itself. I describe how musicians’ technical expertise is developed alongside a responsive expertise, and how these capacities complicate the sense in which habitual action can be viewed (...) as pre-conscious or ‘automatic.’ Nevertheless, I shall argue that the self-awareness required for expert improvisation does not amount to highly reflective deliberation, arguing instead that the practice of musical improvisation involves an exercise of practical rationality, akin to what Aristotle called phronēsis. Musical decisions – as an expressive form of sense-making – are guided by feelings of ‘rightness’ that are experienced directly and intuitively, responding to the norms and reasons that are embedded in the instruments, sounds, and practices of a particular (sub)culture. (shrink)

This chapter uncovers a less investigated aspect of the relationship between the two most important scholastic schools of the Renaissance, Thomism and Scotism: the influence of Scotist literature on distinctions as seen in some sixteenth-century Thomists. The chapter has a primary focus on Chrysostomus Javelli’s engagement in his discussion of divine attributes with the Scotist doctrine of distinctions, but also considers other Thomist sources. First, the beginnings of the highly specialised Scotist literature on distinctions are traced back to the start (...) of the fourteenth century; I show how some early followers of Duns Scotus, in particular Francis of Meyronnes and Petrus Thomae, systematised Scotus’ ontology of the various grades of being by compiling lists of subtle distinctions to be applied to various levels of reality. I give some indications as to the later reception of these models of distinctions in the Scotist school. Special attention is paid to Étienne Brulefer, since his summary of Petrus Thomae’s model of seven distinctions was Javelli’s source for the Scotist doctrine. I then investigate how Javelli worked with Brulefer’s summary, and how he sought to integrate the Scotist doctrine into his own discussion of divine attributes. Thomists traditionally allowed only a rational or mental kind of distinction among divine attributes, and between them and the divine essence. Javelli, however, endeavours to show how the Thomist position may be reconciled with the Scotist doctrine of a formal or ex natura rei distinction. He did not always endorse this conciliatory approach; I hypothesise that he changed his mind on the subject over time. Finally, I show how other Renaissance Thomists reacted to the Scotist system of distinctions; in particular, I draw attention to the Thomists Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Bartolomeo Manzoli, and Mattia Gibboni da Aquario, who all wrote treatises on Thomist distinction theory modelled on the Scotist system of distinctions. In some of this literature, lists of distinctions based on Thomist metaphysics were compiled in order to replace the Scotist system. I argue that Javelli’s approach is more conciliatory and, in fact, has some overlap with the concordist thought of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who himself considered Scotus and Aquinas to be in fundamental agreement as regards the distinction between divine attributes. (shrink)

Despite their purported demographic and institutional decline, White evangelical voters were instrumental in the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and even more so in his 2020 loss. The story of Trump’s electoral successes among Christian voters in the last two elections is in large part the story of religious nationalism—and White Christian nationalism in particular—because Trump personifies the convergence of nationalism-infused forms of messianism and apocalypticism intrinsic to White evangelicalism, which culminate in QAnon cultic ideology. However, these same ethnoreligious/nationalist (...) patterns and logics extend much further back than Trump’s insurgent candidacy. This chapter traces the recurring, resurgent patterns of “zombie nationalism” among White evangelical Christians in the United States over the last half century that emerged in response to periods of significant societal change and certain recurring sociopolitical issues. In particular, alongside established elective affinities around ethnicity (whiteness) and religion (Christianity), this chapter makes the case for incorporating gender and sexual politics as key factors in the articulation and legitimation of religious nationalism in the United States. White Christian nationalism tends to reemerge as a salient political force during periods of rapid social change and diversification, driven by racialized religious grievances symptomatic of Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment, or the paradoxical internalization and reprojection of a person’s or group’s perceived endangerment, victimhood, and/or suffering, in order to gain power. Drawing on examples of marriage equality and reproductive rights, this chapter demonstrates how an understanding of sexual politics is key to both apprehending and breaking the cyclical reanimation of White Christian nationalism. Escaping the nihilistic impulses driving these cycles will require White evangelicals to develop new hermeneutical tools capable of transforming the exclusionary patterns of racism, ethnocentrism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy that fuel the engine of ressentiment animating zombie nationalism. (shrink)

The ontological turn (OT) is a loose cluster of theoretical approaches within cultural anthropology that advocates a synthetic, overarching way forward for ethnographically oriented cultural anthropology. We argue that in order to contribute substantively to ethnobiology the OT needs to distance itself from a long-standing tradition of thinking within ethnography that assumes some kind of fundamental divide between the natural and the social sciences. This distancing seems especially unlikely in light of the meta-anthropological nature of the OT as primarily a (...) perspective on ethnographic methodology. Instead, we advocate for naturalistic theoretical alternatives for thinking about human sociality, where philosophical innovation develops in concert with ongoing empirical work across the biological, cognitive, and social sciences. We illustrate this perspective by drawing on two naturalistic accounts likely to prove more fruitful for ethnobiological practice, namely, trans-genera models of sociality and progenerative views of kinship. (shrink)

David Chalmers has distinguished the “hard” and the “easy” problem of consciousness, arguing that progress on the “easy problem”—on pinpointing the physical/neural correlates of consciousness—will not necessarily involve progress on the hard problem—on explaining why consciousness, in the first place, emerges from physical processing. Chalmers, however, was hopeful that refined theorizing would eventually yield philosophical progress. In particular, he argued that panpsychism might be a candidate account to solve the hard problem. Here, I provide a concise stock-take on both the (...) empirical-neuroscientific and philosophical-conceptual progress on consciousness. It turns out that, whereas empirical progress is indisputable, philosophical progress is much less pronounced. While Chalmers was right, I argue, in distinguishing distinctive types of problems of consciousness, his prediction of progress on the hard problem was overly optimistic. Empirical progress and philosophical progress are essentially uncoupled; a more skeptical perspective on progress in philosophy in general is appropriate. (shrink)

This short article is a “conversation” in which an android, Mort, replies to Richard Marc Rubin’s android named Sol in “The Robot Sol Explains Laughter to His Android Brethren” (The Philosophy of Humor Yearbook, 2022). There Sol offers an explanation for how androids can laugh--largely a reaction to frustration and unmet expectations: “my account says that laughter is one of four ways of dealing with frustration, difficulties, and insults. It is a way of getting by. If you need to label (...) my conception of humor, you might call it an adjustment theory, or perhaps an accommodation theory” (Rubin 256). Mort is intrigued but has his doubts. Mort contends that synesthesia likely has something to do with how humans develop humor. Perhaps, he considers, human designers crossed the androids' sensory wires, allowing them to be able to smash up concepts that do not otherwise seem to fit together, reconstruct incongruities in a manner that is not nonsensical, express the aha-eureka moment of a serendipitous discovery, and even feel blue when they fail at a given task that we were expected to complete. (shrink)

We examine Sophie Gibb’s emergent property-dualist theory of mental causation as double-prevention. Her account builds on a commitment to a version of causal realism based on a powers metaphysic. We consider three objections to her account. We show, by drawing out the implications of the ontological commitments of Gibb’s theory of mental causation, that the first two objections fail. But, we argue, owing to worries about cases where there is no double-preventive role to be played by mental properties, her account, (...) which solely affords mental properties a double-preventive role, is incomplete and vulnerable to a causal exclusion objection. We propose a friendly modification to her theory of mental causation that is consistent with her theory’s ontological commitments. Specifically, we sketch an account on which mental properties have a more pronounced causal-structuring role that is not exhausted by the role Gibb assigns them as double-preventers. The result is a novel emergentist theory of mental causation. (shrink)

This paper introduces several new classes of mathematical structures that have close connections with physics and with the theory of dynamical systems. The most general of these structures, called generalized stochastic systems, collectively encompass many important kinds of stochastic processes, including Markov chains and random dynamical systems. This paper then states and proves a new theorem that establishes a precise correspondence between any generalized stochastic system and a unitarily evolving quantum system. This theorem therefore leads to a new formulation of (...) quantum theory, alongside the Hilbert-space, path-integral, and quasiprobability formulations. The theorem also provides a first-principles explanation for why quantum systems are based on the complex numbers, Hilbert spaces, linear-unitary time evolution, and the Born rule. In addition, the theorem suggests that by selecting a suitable Hilbert space, together with an appropriate choice of unitary evolution, one can simulate any generalized stochastic system on a quantum computer, thereby potentially opening up an extensive set of novel applications for quantum computing. (shrink)

[This paper was presented at the APA Eastern Division Conference in New York City, January 2024] -/- Can one reasonably doubt that one is voluntarily making a commitment, even when one is doing so? Given that one voluntarily makes a commitment if and only if one (personally) knows that one is doing so, the answer appears to be “No.” After all, knowing implies justifiably believing, and it seems impossible that one could (synchronically and from a single personal perspective) reasonably doubt (...) what one justifiably believes. Indeed, assuming that one reasonably doubts that P only if one has sufficient evidence to believe that not-P, traditional epistemologists may hold that such “epistemic ambivalence” entails one’s believing a contradiction, while some Bayesians should hold that it entails violating “probabilism” (the norm that credences must conform to the axioms of probability). However, I argue that in at least some cases of romantic commitment-making, such ambivalence may not only be epistemically permissible, but even required, and perhaps best dealt with pragmatically. (shrink)

La noticia de la conclusión del primer pangenoma humano ocurre veinte años después de que se pudo contar con una versión de referencia de la información genética completa de la especie humana. Las limitaciones técnicas de ese tiempo permitieron que esa versión tuviera errores y varias lagunas de la información genética. Ahora es posible contar con un nuevo atlas gigante con información que permite evidenciar la gran diversidad genética de la especie humana. Este trabajo está siendo realizado por el Consorcio (...) Internacional de Referencia del Pangenoma Humano, del que hacen parte cerca de cien investigadores y está financiado por el Instituto Nacional de Investigación del Genoma Humano y por los Institutos Nacionales de Salud de EEUU. En este escrito que describe a grandes rasgos en qué consiste el proyecto, cuáles son sus aplicaciones posibles y las dificultades técnicas que tiene actualmente. Se repasan también algunos aspectos éticos y jurídicos y se dan pautas para su culminación: profundizar en la reflexión ética de los problemas que se generan; cuidar la formación en ética de la investigación, bioética e integridad científica en todos los actores del proceso; no perder de vista la Declaración Universal sobre el genoma humano y los derechos humanos de la UNESCO; orientar los desarrollos de la bioinformática, para que los datos obtenidos se manejen de una mejor manera; extremar la prudencia en el manejo de esos datos; revisar y reajustar las prioridades que se tienen en la investigación de estas temáticas. (shrink)

Justo antes de la pandemia por COVID-19, la Organización Mundial de la Salud definió unas prioridades de trabajo para la década 2020-2030. Un grupo interdisciplinario de profesionales de la salud reflexiona sobre estas prioridades, determinando unas categorías de análisis y, desde una perspectiva bioética, analiza cada una de ellas, ve su pertinencia, algunos eventos causales, las implicaciones que pueden tener si no son enfrentadas adecuadamente y hace sugerencias sobre la forma de llevarlas a cabo. En esta primera entrega se analiza (...) el primer grupo de prioridades estratégicas: “poblaciones más sanas”. En las conclusiones se destaca la conveniencia de acometer cada una de ellas de una manera colaborativa, gubernamental y privada; de reestructurar el sector salud con base en estas prioridades, aprovechando la experiencia obtenida en la lucha contra el COVID-19. La relación del ser humano con el medio ambiente también debe cambiar, apelando a la responsabilidad humana por el cuidado del planeta. (shrink)

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates says to Callicles that “your love of the people, existing in your soul, stands against me, but if we closely examine these same matters often and in a better way, you will be persuaded” (513c7–d1). I argue for an interpretation that explains how Socrates understands Callicles’s love of the people to stand against him and why he believes examination often and in a better way will persuade Callicles.

This entry investigates the connections between neo-populism and neo-conspiracism in the USA. One central thread is the rhetoric of purity that fosters rigid dichotomies of thought about identities, contributing to both populism and conspiracism, eliciting a neologism: conspirapopulism.

Theory development is an important component of academic research since it can lead to the acquisition of new knowledge, the development of a field of study, and the formation of theoretical foundations to explain various phenomena. The contribution of qualitative researchers to theory development and advancement remains significant and highly valued, especially in an era of various epochal shifts and technological innovation in the form of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Even so, the academic community has not yet fully explored the dynamics (...) of AI in research and there are significant gaps in our understanding of how AI can be used most effectively in the context of theory building. The aim of this paper, which is driven by critical and conceptualization methodological dynamics, is to investigate the role of AI in the theory development process. As such, it critically evaluates the opportunities and limitations of AI in theory building, delivers a conceptual map of the nexus between AI and theory development, and presents key considerations for the use of AI in the creation of new theories or the advancement of existing ones. Though the necessity of AI tools in theory creation is contested given that the researchers' cognitive and evaluative skills are regarded as critical in this process, the value of AI in advancing theory is not to be underestimated. (shrink)

These essays draw on work in the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the development of concepts in children, conceptual..

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of remedial instruction in improving the numeracy skills of Grade 7 students at Malbug National High School during the school year 2023-2024. Adopting a quasi-experimental research design, the research focused on Grade 7 students at Malbug National High School, Cawayan East District, Masbate Province Division, Philippines, identified as non-numerates, employing pre-tests and post-tests as essential research tools. The independent variable was the remedial instruction in numeracy, while the dependent variable was students' numeracy performance (...) measured through pre-tests and post-tests. Before the intervention, the pre-test numeracy performance exhibited a varied distribution of students across different score ranges. A majority fell into the "Needs Major Support" category, emphasizing the necessity for targeted interventions. The post-test results, however, revealed a remarkable improvement, with 87.88% of initially non-numerate students achieving scores in the "Transforming" range. A thorough statistical examination validated a notable disparity in the scores obtained before and after the instructional intervention, substantiating the favorable influence of remedial instruction. The calculated t-value of 19.594, exceeding the critical t-value, led to rejecting the null hypothesis. In conclusion, the study emphasizes the need for tailored interventions based on the initial deficiency in numeracy skills. The post-test results underscored the success of remedial instruction in fostering substantial growth. The study recommends sustaining the remedial program, implementing periodic assessments, providing teacher training, involving parents in students' development, allocating adequate resources, and further research in other schools to strengthen findings. (shrink)

"This self-consistent evolution of the fragments, their causal relationships, and their quantum properties is at the heart of the FCQG-SM framework, providing a unified description of quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the Standard Model.".

Objective We reviewed human–robot interaction (HRI) participatory design (PD) research with older adults. The goal was to identify methods used, determine their value for design of robots with older adults, and provide guidance for best practices. Background Assistive robots may promote aging-in-place and quality of life for older adults. However, the robots must be designed to meet older adults’ specific needs and preferences. PD and other user-centered methods may be used to engage older adults in the robot development process to (...) accommodate their needs and preferences and to assure usability of emergent assistive robots. Method This targeted review of HRI PD studies with older adults draws on a detailed review of 26 articles. Our assessment focused on the HRI methods and their utility for use with older adults who have a range of needs and capabilities. Results Our review highlighted the importance of using mixed methods and including multiple stakeholders throughout the design process. These approaches can encourage mutual learning (to improve design by developers and to increase acceptance by users). We identified key phases used in HRI PD workshops (e.g., initial interview phase, series of focus groups phase, and presentation phase). These approaches can provide inspiration for future efforts. Conclusion HRI PD strategies can support designers in developing assistive robots that meet older adults’ needs, capabilities, and preferences to promote acceptance. More HRI research is needed to understand potential implications for aging-in-place. PD methods provide a promising approach. (shrink)

Social dimension of moral responsibility has started to gain more attention in moral philosophy, be it within the network of action theory, or any other meta-ethical domain. Although there are many social acts and therefore social dimensions of responsibility, I aim to indicate one aspect of sociality in our thinking and practice, particularly in our moral thinking, that is the thick concepts. In this work, I consider Vargas’s concept moral ecology (2015, 2018) as a tool to understand certain social aspects (...) of moral responsibility, while claiming to extend his line of thinking in moral ecology by giving a more active role to the individual agent within the ecology that she is engaged in. I claim that when we understand the relationships between the agent and her surrounding ecology in a more complex, and under certain circumstances in a rather reciprocal way, we can have a better and more nuanced understanding of non-ideal moral landscapes that we are engaged in, while maintaining a certain kind of responsibility to the agents in their social environments. I will use the term niche construction and niche selection – concept that are already at use within the similar biological line of thought within action – to refer to such situations where agents are actively shaping their environments. (shrink)

General Introduction to the PF interpretation of QM and quantum gravity Merriam, P., Habeeb, MAZ The first purpose of this series of articles is to introduce case studies on how current AI models can be used in the development of a possible theory of quantum gravity, their limitations, and the role the researcher has in steering the development in the right direction, even highlighting the errors, weaknesses and strengths of the whole process. The second is to introduce the new Presentist (...) Fragmentalist ontology as a framework and use it for developing theories of quantum gravity and speculate on achieving a TOE. We emphasize it is necessary for the researcher to check everything in these articles for themselves. While there are many good ideas in this series of papers, the AI is known to make even arithmetic and algebraic mistakes. To select just five apparently good ideas, there is a causal interaction tensor Cαβγδ(F1, F2) that encodes the causal relationship and the strength of the (possibly non-local) interaction between two fragments of reality (formed by each quantum system). There is a quantitative prediction for a testable table-top experiment. There is an explanation of how spacetime emerges from the fragments and their interactions. There is an explicit account of the double-slit experiment. And there is an explanation how this theory accommodates dark matter and dark energy simultaneously. We explore ideas, equations they lead to, concrete calculations, and give corrections along the way. While these are generally morally right within this framework they must be checked by the researcher. Given this caveat, we believe we have made significant progress with the PF interpretation in developing a theory of quantum gravity and pointing out a possible path to a TOE. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between technological profile, digital literacy, and self-efficacy among teachers in blended learning. The study utilized the descriptive-correlational design. The participants involved 35 teachers selected via purposive sampling from urban schools in Maasin City implementing printed and online teaching modalities. Standardized tools assessed teachers’ digital technology profile, literacy, and self-efficacy. Significant findings revealed that teachers have easy access to digital technology, are somewhat familiar with technological concepts, often utilize ICT-based technologies, and perceive usage purposes as necessary. (...) Teachers’ digital literacy and self-efficacy are at the average level. Correlation analysis established a significant and strong relationship between the technological profile of teachers and their digital literacy. Digital literacy also significantly and strongly correlated with self-efficacy. This study concluded that the technological profile of teachers influences their digital literacy level. Teachers with high digital literacy skills increase their self-efficacy in technology integration. The blended learning approach constitutes teachers’ digital literacy and self-efficacy as critical players of effectiveness. (shrink)

This is the first in a series of papers developing a theory of quantum gravity that is consistent with the PF interpretation of quantum mechanics. "Key Features: Reconciles quantum theory, general relativity, and the PF interpretation in a common framework...".

Our recent opinion article [1] examined what change blindness can and cannot tell us about visual representations. Among other things, we argued that change blindness can tell us a lot about how visual representations can be used, but little about their extent. We and others found the ‘sparse representations’ view appealing (and still do), and initially made the overly strong claim that change blindness supports the conclusion of sparse representations [2,3]. We wrote our article because change blindness continues to be (...) taken as evidence for sparse – or even absent – representations, and we used O’Regan and Noë’s influential paper [4] as an example. However, as has been noted for some time [5–8], this conclusion is logically flawed: lack of ability need not be caused by lack of representation. (shrink)