Many arguments have been made against gene editing. This paper addresses the commonly invoked argument that gene editing violates human dignity and is ultimately a subversion of human nature. There are several drawbacks to this argument. Above all, the concept of what human dignity means is unclear. It is not possible to condemn a practice that violates human dignity if we do not know exactly what is being violated. The argument’s entire reasoning is thus undermined. Analyses of the arguments involved (...) in this discussion have often led to the conclusion that gene editing contravenes the principle of genetic identity (genetic immutability) thereby subverting a requisite of human dignity and ultimately threatening human nature. This paper refutes these arguments and shows that any opposition to gene editing cannot rely on the human dignity argument. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an overview of the collaborative economy situation in Portugal. The chapter starts by presenting a number of local platforms and services. Overall, there seems to be a concern about the risk involved in the unregulated development of rental and mobility services. Therefore, we also highlight an overview of laws and regulations concerning the sharing economy platforms, especially for renting. This paper also presents issues related to rental platforms and touristification. We also present a list of (...) the major local shared economy platforms and services. (shrink)

We show that in the Maxwell–Lorentz theory of classical electrodynamics most initial values for fields and particles lead to an ill-defined dynamics, as they exhibit singularities or discontinuities along light-cones. This phenomenon suggests that the Maxwell equations and the Lorentz force law ought rather to be read as a system of delay differential equations, that is, differential equations that relate a function and its derivatives at different times. This mathematical reformulation, however, leads to physical and philosophical consequences for the ontological (...) status of the electromagnetic field. In particular, fields cannot be taken as independent degrees of freedom, which suggests that one should not add them to the ontology. (shrink)

Flat Belly Overnight Reviews By Andrew Raposo is an outstanding tricks and tips to lose belly fat overnight.Flat Belly Overnight Program Reviews for who struggling with belly fat. Flat Belly Overnight system provide some trick to lose 2 pound belly fat by sleeping.

Ontological expressivism is the view that ontological existence claims express non-cognitive mental states. I develop a version of ontological expressivism that is modeled after Gibbard’s (2003) norm-expressivism. I argue that, when speakers assess whether, say, composite objects exist, they rely on assumptions with regard to what is required for composition to occur. These assumptions guide their assessment, similar to how norms may guide the assessment of normative propositions. Against this backdrop, I argue that “some objects have parts”, uttered in the (...) context of an ontological disagreement, expresses a noncognitive disposition to assess the truth of propositions by using only rules of assessment according to which the proposition that some objects have parts is to be evaluated as true. (shrink)

Easy Ontologists, most notably Thomasson (2015), argue that ontological questions are shallow. They think that these questions can either be answered by using our ordinary conceptual competence—of course tables exist!—or are meaningless, or else should be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Ontology thus is “easy”, requiring no distinctively metaphysical investigation. This paper raises a two-stage objection to Easy Ontology. We first argue that questions concerning which entities exist are inextricably bound up with “ontological category questions”, which are questions concerning the identity (...) of and differences between kinds of entities. We then argue that ontological category questions do not have trivial answers, are meaningful, and cannot be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Easy Ontology hence does not constitute a comprehensive ontological methodology. While some of ontology might be easy, category questions form a central part of ontology and are not answered easily. (shrink)

Drawing on many areas of expertise, from paleontology to psychology, Tomasello offers a plausible, evolutionary story abouthow our ancestors are likely to have developed cooperative behaviors and collaborative lifeways in order to survive and thrive.He also claims that this narrative explains why they would have begun to think in characteristically cooperative and moral ways,developing a “we is greater than me” [we>me] psychological orientation. Do the arguments offered support this extra claim? Thisarticle suggests that they do not. It seeks to alleviate (...) this shortcoming by drawing upon some conceptual resources offered bySartre’s Theory of Practical Ensembles. The centerpiece of the article consists of a detailed analysis of Sartre’s account of the genesisof the “group-in-fusion,” seeking to show that the genesis of a we-way of thinking in a group made up of many requires themediation of what Sartre calls a “third party” (le tiers). After closely examining Sartre’s treatment of the “third party” in theapocalyptic genesis of the “group-in-fusion,” I evaluate the success of this notion in resolving those questions that Tomasello’saccount raises while, at the same time, addressing the ontological question concerning the nature of the individual-grouprelation, in a way that suggests new and significant alternatives to standard dilemmas in contemporary social philosophy. (shrink)

En varios momentos de su desarrollo intelectual, Romano Guardini se interesó en el pensamiento de Agustín, impulsado tanto por inquietudes personales como por las provocaciones que le ofrecían los pensadores de su época. El pensador alemán, de hecho, presenta en sus textos un Agustín existencial que busca la respuesta para la realización de la propia vida y plantea esta cuestión a Dios. El texto está dividido en tres partes. En la primera parte se explica el enfoque de Guardini y su (...) forma de estudiar los textos agustinianos. En particular, se ha analizado el vínculo entre este pensador y las reflexiones de Max Scheler, por asonancia, y las de Nietzsche, por contraste. La segunda parte del artículo es una explicación de la experiencia religiosa a partir del texto de Las Confesiones, por un lado, y de la obra guardiniana Anfang por otra. Por último, el texto se cierra con algunas observaciones críticas sobre la reflexión de Guardini, en particular respecto a su antropología y considerando las investigaciones de teólogos y filósofos, Massimo Borghesi sobre todo, que ya han tratado el mismo tema. (shrink)

Traditionally, the “Imagery Debate” has opposed two main camps: depictivism and descriptivism. This debate has essentially focused on the nature of the internal representations thought to be involved in imagery, without addressing at all the question of action. More recently, a third, “embodied” view is moving the debate into a new phase. The embodied approach focuses on the interdependence of perception, cognition and action, and in its more radical line this approach promotes the idea that perception is not a process (...) involving internal world-models. The anti-representationalist version of the embodied paradigm covers, among others that we shall not discuss here, two quite different positions, namely the enactive approach and sensorimotor theory. Up to now these two anti-representationalist accounts have generally been confounded. In this paper we will argue that despite some important commonalities, enactive and sensorimotor accounts come with distinctive theoretical traits with regard to their approach to imagery. These become manifest when critically examining the role they assign to sensorimotor engagements with the world. We shall argue that enactive and sensorimotor approaches are different in their understanding of the role of embodied action, and these different notions of embodiment lead to different explanatory accounts of perception and imagery. We propose that, due to existing ambiguities in enactivism, the sensorimotor theory is a better framework for a skill-based approach to imagery. (shrink)

Oftentimes, reality seems to us a chaos that we try to control with our theories. This article starts from the antithetic standpoint, inspired by Antonio Rosmini’s works: reality is intelligible, and originates our thinking. From this perspective, any research that tries to reach the truth is determined by the real, not the contrary. Moreover, interdisciplinarity, far from being a solipsistic enterprise, aims at achieving truth and guaranteeing scientific advancement. Here, we analyze the distinctive character of Rosminian encyclopedism and his principles (...) for preventing human errors. We then clarify why it is impossible to achieve perfection, and why such an impossibility is not problematic for the interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

A central tenet of Heil's ontological conception is a no-levels account of reality, according to which there is just one class of basic properties and relations, while all higher-level entities are configurations of these base-level entities. I argue that if this picture is not to collapse into an eliminativist picture of the world – which, I contend, should be avoided –, Heil's ontological framework has to be supplemented by an independent theory of which configurations of basic entities should count as (...) complex entities. However, such an amendment represents a substantial ontological enhancement, so that the ensuing ontological picture is not as parsimonious as Heil claims it to be. (shrink)

Considering Rosmini’s political works in comparison with his metaphysical and anthropological essays, and starting from Rosmini's project of a code of law that, in the author’s opinion, can guarantee fundamental human rights, this article discusses the concept of justice between citizens and outsiders. Its first part is an analysis of Rosmini’s juridical fundaments, which takes into account also some objections historically moved against it. Its second part examines some specific cases of conflicts between outsiders and the members of civil society, (...) as considered by the Roveretan philosopher. (shrink)

This paper attempts to argue that a radically different notion of freedoms and rights that originates from the other, that is founded on the infinite responsibility for the other, and that demands an encounter with the other as pure alterity, could be a plausible starting point towards the conception and possible realization of a Levinasian society of neighbors. First, an explication is made on why a radical change in the area of freedoms and rights could be the starting point towards (...) a social, political, and moral philosophical framework based on the radical philosophy of Levinas as elaborated in his Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. Then, a discussion on conventional conceptions of freedoms and rights, particularly those based on liberalism, libertarianism, and utilitarianism, is presented as groundwork for a comparative analysis between these conventional conceptions and a radical notion that would be entailed by a conception of a Levinasian society of neighbors. Lastly, an attempt is made to characterize a radically different conception of freedoms and rights based on the philosophy of Levinas and to argue how it could be the starting point towards the conception and possible realization of a Levinasian society of neighbors. (shrink)

As one tries to grasp love and its images within José Leonilson's production, a multiplicity of aspects and meanings are seen that also relate to Louise Bourgeois's oeuvre in regard to the interest in human relations. Through a comparative approach to both artists' poetics, an understanding is created that love is not a simplistic action and all the words read in or applied to their visual discourse must be considered within a wide range of love in visual and literary images. (...) Keywords: literature and visual arts / love / creativity / Bourgeois, Louise / Leonilson, José / word and image. (shrink)

Modern humans are probably a product of social and anatomical preadaptations on the part of our Miocene australopithecine ancestors combined with the increasingly high amplitude, high frequency climate variation of the Pleistocene. The genus Homo first appeared in the early Pleistocene as ice age climates began to grip the earth. We hypothesize that this co-occurrence is causal. The human ability to adapt by cultural means is, in theory, an adaptation to highly variable environments because cultural evolution can better track rapidly (...) changing environments than can genes. High resolution ice and sediment cores published in the early 1990s showed the last ice age was characterized by high amplitude millennial and submillenial scale variation, exactly the sort of variation mathematical models suggest should favor a costly capacity for culture. More recent cores suggest that over the last several 100 thousand year glacial cycles the amount of millennial scale variation has increased rather dramatically in parallel with increases in hominin brain size and sophistication of the artifacts they made. (shrink)

A key challenge for probabilistic causal models is to distinguish non-causal probabilistic dependencies from true causal relations. To accomplish this task, causal models are usually required to satisfy several constraints. Two prominent constraints are the causal Markov condition and the faithfulness condition. However, other constraints are also needed. One of these additional constraints is the causal sufficiency condition, which states that models must not omit any direct common causes of the variables they contain. In this paper, I argue that the (...) causal sufficiency condition is problematic: (1) it is incompatible with the requirement that the variables in a model must not stand in non-causal necessary dependence relations, such as mathematical or conceptual relations, or relations described in terms of supervenience or grounding, (2) it presupposes more causal knowledge as primitive than is actually needed to create adequate causal models, and (3) if models are only required to be causally sufficient, they cannot deal with cases where variables are probabilistically related by accident, such as Sober’s example of the relationship between bread prices in England and the sea level in Venice. I show that these problems can be avoided if causal models are required to be monotonic in the following sense: the causal relations occurring in a model M would not disappear if further variables were added to M. I give a definition of this monotonicity condition and conclude that causal models should be required to be monotonic rather than causally sufficient. (shrink)

Through the reconstruction of Leibniz's theory of the degrees of knowledge, this e-book investigates and explores the intrinsic relationship of imagination with space and time. The inquiry into this relationship defines the logic of imagination that characterizes both human and non-human animals, albeit differently, making them two different species of imaginative animals. -/- Lucia Oliveri explains how the emergence of language in human animals goes hand in hand with the emergence of thought and a different form of rationality constituted by (...) logical inferences based on identity and contradiction, principles that are out of reach of the imagination. The e-book concludes that the presence of innate principles in human animals transforms the way in which they sense-perceive the world, thereby constantly increasing the distinction between human and non-human animals. -/- Keywords: human and non-human animals, Leibniz and Locke on ideas, Leibniz on bodies, Leibniz on conceivability, Leibniz on degrees of knowledge, Leibniz on degrees of perception, Leibniz on innate ideas, Leibniz on modality, Leibniz on similarity and congruence, Leibniz on space and time, Leibniz’s philosophy of language, theory of types. (shrink)

This paper analyzes areas of convergence in the works of Amartya Sen and Slavoj Žižek in their criticisms of the multiculturalist approach to non-violence. First, Žižek’s characterization of the liberal discourse of guilt and fear is presented. Then, Sen’s key ideas on multiculturalism, tolerance, and rational critique are explicated. Next, a synthesis of Sen and Žižek’s notions of universality, freedom, and rationality, as well as of their critical conceptions of globalization and anti-globalization are discussed. Subsequently, Sen and Žižek’s divergences on (...) overcoming violence are examined. Lastly, from integrating Sen and Žižek’s thoughts, key theses are provided on the paradoxical character of the multiculturalist approach to non-violence and on how despite their divergences, both Sen and Žižek propose radical systematic changes and an alternative approach to non-violence characterized by the universals of rationality and genuine freedom. (shrink)

At this time of pandemic, people will have to co-exist with the COVID-19. The need to ‘strategically’ cope with this inevitable situation still remains to be explored in various depths, most especially in the area of education during flexible teaching and learning. Using Focus Group Discussion and other forms of instrumentation, this qualitative study found that both teachers and students as ‘frontliners’ employed coping strategies including acceptance, building strong and solid social support, cultivating self-reliance and resourcefulness, practicing self-discipline, and establishing (...) an academic support community. (shrink)

This article aims to elucidate, albeit in a preliminary way, the concept of liquidity in Zygmunt Bauman and its effects onsociety. The deductive-inductive method will be used. As for the methodology, this will be of a bibliographic nature. This study is in line with what the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017), in his texts, postulates that Modernity can be divided into two phases: Solid Modernity and Liquid Modernity. The first began in the 15th century and lasted until the 19th century; the (...) second began in the 20th century and continues to the present time. To describe modern society from the end of the 20th century, Bauman uses the metaphor of 'liquidity', aiming to point out that the contemporary world is going through a period of uncertainty, ephemerality and instabilities. According to Bauman, the modern ideal coined between the 15th and 19th centuries postulated the primacy of reason and the autonomy of capitalist man and such assumptions led society to liquid modernity. In this liquid “contemporaneity”, nothing is lasting, everything is volatile, ephemeral; consumption is the social parameter, whether of the individual, the family, the State or religion. (shrink)

One of the most relevant facets of our time is the supposed rise of post–truth. Without committing ourselves to its existence, we can, from Philosophy, think, at least, about some of its facets. And the facet that we will reflect on here is that of post–truth as an emotional lie. However, given that “emotional lying” meaning is not clear, I will justify that what emotional lying privilegedly means can be deduced from the philosophical theory of bullshit. That deduction comes from (...) the development of (1) the emotion which bullshit can imply, (2) the clarification of the requirements of the institution of the assertion, and (3) the coherent transition from bullshitter to bullshitee. (shrink)

Per la prima volta in duemila anni di pedagogia stiamo parlando di didattica digitale. L’evento epocale che ha determinato questo suo improvviso irrompere nelle vite delle famiglie è stata, com’è noto, l’emergenza Covid19. Una nuova sfida che gli insegnanti italiani hanno retto bene, pur non essendo mai stati preparati ad hoc e neppure avendo per contratto un simile impegno. Fin dai primi giorni dell’emergenza Coronavirus, prima ancora che il Miur istituzionalizzasse questo tipo di didattica, i docenti si sono attivati con (...) tanta buona volontà, predisponendo materiali e lezioni online, attraverso canali di comunicazione diversi, che vanno dalla email alle class room, in modo da far sentire vicinanza e interesse ai loro studenti. (shrink)

A proposta é construir uma ponte de intersecção entre os pensamentos de Pareyson, Aristóteles e Platão, e, ancorando-a nos conceitos cunhados na Teoria da Formatividade, expor como o filósofo italiano relê as problemáticas colocadas pelos filósofos gregos antigos e de que maneira esta interseção de pensamentos e conceitos contribuem para a reflexão sobre Arte na atualidade e em particular para a análise da produção pictórica de Gerhard Richter.

A proposta é construir uma ponte de intersecção entre os pensamentos de Pareyson, Aristóteles e Platão, e, ancorando-a nos conceitos cunhados na Teoria da Formatividade, expor como o filósofo italiano relê as problemáticas colocadas pelos filósofos gregos antigos e de que maneira esta interseção de pensamentos e conceitos contribuem para a reflexão sobre Arte na atualidade e em particular para a análise da produção pictórica de Gerhard Richter.

Martha Nussbaum, filosofa e accademica statunitense, maestra del nostro tempo, attualmente docente di diritto ed etica all’Università di Chicago, è una pensatrice molto amata e dibattuta e autrice, insieme ad Amartya Sen, della celebre ‘teoria delle capacità’. Studiosa del mondo classico, esordisce con un’opera dal titolo ‘La fragilità del bene’, che la fa conoscere in tutto il mondo. Eppure, di questa docente e conferenziera di caratura mondiale, nel nostro Paese ancora non esistono opere che la riguardino, se non alcune tesi (...) di dottorato reperibili nel catalogo Opac online, comunque non destinate al vasto pubblico. […] Allora ho pensato che vi sia la necessità di spiegare in sintesi i concetti fondamentali della sua filosofia, racchiusa per lo più in volumi di grosso spessore, che, come tali, possono forse scoraggiare la lettura di chi non ha pazienza per addentrarsi in un pensiero tanto ricco, complesso e affascinante. Dalla lettura che ho fatto di quattro sue opere in versione integrale, “La fragilità del bene”, “Coltivare l’umanità”, “Non per profitto”, “Emozioni politiche”, è nato questo mio lavoro. (shrink)

L’indagine sugli anni giovanili di Benedetto Spinoza, filosofo poco compreso nel tempo in cui visse e colpito dalla scomunica della comunità ebraica nel 1656, a 24 anni, rivela una personalità già straordinariamente autonoma ed una forte indipendenza di pensiero. Dotato di una immensa cultura, comprensiva di molteplici riferimenti e tradizioni, Spinoza scopre e si avvicina anche alla filosofia di Cartesio, che lo affascina per la sua chiarezza logico-matematica ed il rigore che la caratterizza. La prima opera in cui egli si (...) cimenta si chiama, proprio, Principi di filosofia cartesiana, una lettura, migliorata in chiave di ricostruttivismo logico, del testo cartesiano. In questo documentatissimo e agile libro si ripercorre la fase giovanile della vita del filosofo olandese: l’ambiente religioso, gli studi, l’intraprendenza commerciale dell’Olanda del Seicento, il desiderio di solitudine per compiere le sue ricerche, l’aspirazione ad una vita tranquilla e l’amore per la verità, ma anche le frequentazioni con le sette religiose del suo tempo e la fitta rete di contatti e corrispondenze che Spinoza intrattenne con diversi intellettuali europei, fino all’offerta di una cattedra universitaria che gli arriva nel 1673, dieci anni dopo la pubblicazione dei Principi, grazie ad una traduzione fattane da Pieter Balling. Il successivo distacco da Cartesio porterà Spinoza ad elaborare un proprio originale sistema e gli consentirà di sviluppare l’idea del Deus sive Natura. (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)

This article aims to analyze some aspects of the work Manual para a Vida Feliz, the result of classes given by Epictetus, and recorded by his student Ariano. We will consider the situations that, according to Epictetus, depend on the individual and those that do not depend on their action. In particular, this analysis will focus on fragments 1 to 6 of the manual, given the length to be analyzed in an article. To account for the proposed object, this analysis (...) will be carried out, based on Hadot's (2015) perspective on the subject. The research method used will be bibliographic review. As for the methodology, it will be deductive in nature. Our studies show that his teachings are based on the essential principles of Stoic philosophy. Therefore, the only good that exists, for him, is the moral good. Furthermore, all human action is based on judgment and nature is coherent with itself. From this perspective, what depends on the individual, in this life, is what is under their control and everything that is beyond their control does not depend on them. Therefore, worrying about what is not under your control is considered useless and a waste of time. (shrink)

This study aims to deepen the philosophical aspects of the relationship between the work of Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, with regard to the concepts of "Spiritual Exercises" and "Self-Care". We intend to analyze how Pierre Hadot interpreted the appropriation that Michel de Foucault made of his text "spiritual exercises", when presenting the notion about the definition of "Care of the self". We elucidate the main divergences and convergences present between the philosophical reflections of these two authors, which are of (...) great relevance for the understanding of current phenomena. The methodology adopted was exploratory theoretical-bibliographic research, halfway betweena comment and an essay. Our studies point to the theme of 'the self' as the central point of the research, with “Self-Care” as the bias capable of leading us to knowledge and, in this way, taking us to the direction of existence through the rationality ofthe “Exercises” Spiritual ”. Our two authors, in their discussions about “taking care of oneself”, evoke in part the thinking of the Greeks, who are the source of the definition of this principle. Therefore, the term “epimeleia heauton” will guide us, that is, to undertake in the face of the world of life, in the practice of thorough and permanent criticism in the face of one's own conduct. In other words, by means of these spiritual exercises, thus being able to contemplate oneself rationally on a path towards "oneself" and through "oneself". Furthermore, all of this implies a constant effort on the will and desire, in order to architect authentic autonomy on a daily basis. We do not intend to exhaust the whole subject, however, the relationship to be developed will bring us closer to dominance over ourselves and make us reflect on the state of "having oneself in the hands.". (shrink)

This article aims to present the understanding of spiritual exercises in Pierre Hadot and its importance. In order to give an account of the proposed object we will resort to bibliographical and documentary research. In the present work, we emphasize that the definition of spiritual exercises is complex, as the author himself says. According to Hadot (2014), this term arose with the ancient Greeks, and not with Christianity and is linked to the practice of caring for oneself. According to him, (...) the Stoics already had the habit of turning to themselves and reflecting their own existence through exercises. In his quest to give a definition for the expression 'Spiritual Exercises', Hadot (2014) in his writings presents some reasons why he chose the term. According to him, reading the collection A Poetry as a spiritual exercise, as well as the contact with the work of Élisabeth Brisson, and with the book of Paul Rabbow [Seelenführung. Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike], led him to understand the depth of the expression 'Spiritual Exercise', although this does not express the density of reality experienced in the experience of encounter with oneself and with the world. (shrink)

Theories of graded causation attract growing attention in the philosophical debate on causation. An important field of application is the controversial relationship between causation and moral responsibility. However, it is still unclear how exactly the notion of graded causation should be understood in the context of moral responsibility. One question is whether we should endorse a proportionality principle, according to which the degree of an agent’s moral responsibility is proportionate to their degree of causal contribution. A second question is whether (...) a theory of graded causation should measure closeness to necessity or closeness to sufficiency. In this paper, we argue that we should indeed endorse a proportionality principle and that this principle supports a notion of graded causation relying on closeness to sufficiency rather than closeness to necessity. Furthermore, we argue that this insight helps to provide a plausible analysis of the so-called ‘Moral Difference Puzzle’ recently described by Bernstein. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to argue that there is indeterminacy in causation. I present three types of cases in which it is indeterminate whether an event c caused another event e: (1) cases of absence causation recently discussed by Bernstein and by Swanson, (2) cases leading to Sorites paradoxes for causation, and (3) cases where c and e occur in certain indeterministic causal structures and it is therefore indeterminate whether there is a causal relation between them. These cases, (...) I argue, provide strong evidence that indeterminacy is an important general feature of the causal relation and that philosophical theorizing about causation should take this observation into account. (shrink)

Departing from the premise that the poststructuralist paradigm still reigns supreme in feminist and gender theory, that is, despite the niche efforts made in the past two decades to challenge it linked to the so called “speculative” turn or the materialisms (and realisms) emerging from the feminist field itself (such as the Utrecht School, inspired by Rosi Braidotti), we set the call for papers for the issue before you in terms that would invite authors ready to challenge the dominant epistemic (...) framework. We invited papers that engage with materialism(s), realism(s), sciences and projects engaged in rethinking the post-human beyond the poststructuralist (and, we dare say, postmodern/ist) norm. -/- . (shrink)

A student's self-efficacy—defined as their belief in their capacity to succeed in particular circumstances—is a critical factor in their food decisions. Also a university’s overall environment, including the presence of fast-food outlets and the nature of food marketing on campus, can shape undergraduate students' eating habits and self-efficacy. The primary purpose of this cross-sectional correlational study was to investigate eating self-efficacy in Nigerian public university students. A sample of 400 undergraduate students were surveyed at a Nigerian public university using validated (...) instruments to assess their level of eating self-efficacy and identify the relationships between their eating self-efficacy and eating habits. The Eating Self-Efficacy Brief Scale (ESEBS)–8 items was used to assess students' level of difficulty in resisting the desire to eat. The researcher utilized the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT)–16 items to evaluate the students’ eating habits. Statistical analysis was conducted at a significance level of p<.05. The results revealed that mean eating self-efficacy score (ESEBS-8) of 2.21 (SD=0.68). Regression analysis showed that gender, school environment, peer factor, and parental factor significantly predicted eating self-efficacy, F(4,398)=9.17, p<.001. Eating self-efficacy (ESEBS-8) was strongly positively correlated with eating habits (EAT-16), r=.861, p<. 001. Regression analysis showed that ESEBS-8 significantly predicted EAT-16 scores, B=1.399, β=.861, t=33.68, p<.001. The findings highlight significant correlations between various factors and eating self-efficacy through the lenses of gender, school environment, peer influence, and parental factors, as well as the relationship between eating self-efficacy and eating habits. (shrink)

The structuralist reconstruction of the metabolic biochemistry here presented is a more complete and revised version than the one presented in Donolo, Federico & Lorenzano (2006). This version, as the previous one, continues with the reconstructive task initiated by César Lorenzano (2002), but advances further on those elements which remained pendent of reconstruction: applications subsequent to the paradigmatic one, for being these “too diversified and numerous” (p. 210).In line with which is said before, the objective of this new reconstruction is (...) to make the theoretical network of the biochemistry wider, in order to be able to capture the many successful applications (paradigmatic examples or exemplars) which appear in modern university textbooks. In order to accomplish this, major conceptual precisions are being introduced which will have repercussions in a modification and increased complexity of the fundamental law implicit in the text books, but still conserving the previous basic idea. Because of all this we can say that the present article goes further into the reconstruction task of the metabolic biochemistry theory. (shrink)

Defining the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties has turned out to be one of the most difficult and controversial tasks in contemporary metaphysics. It is generally assumed that a definition of intrinsicness should aim to avoid as many counterexamples as possible and reduce the notion to less controversial philosophical notions. In this paper, the author argues for a new methodological approach to defining intrinsicness. Rather than trying to cover as many intuitive examples as possible, a definition of intrinsicness should (...) reflect the crucial features of our intuitive understanding of the notion, and one of these features is that the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction has to be characterized in a non-reductive way. (shrink)

Analyzing causation in terms of Woodward's interventionist theory and describing the structure of the world in terms of causal powers are usually regarded as quite different projects in contemporary philosophy. Interventionists aim to give an account of how causal relations can be empirically discovered and described, without committing themselves to views about what causation really is. Causal powers theorists engage in precisely the latter project, aiming to describe the metaphysical structure of the world. In this paper, I argue that interventionism (...) can benefit from incorporating considerations about causal powers. I describe a previously undiscussed problem for Woodward's definition of an intervention variable that arises when interventionist causal models include disjunctive variables. This problem is solved not by excluding disjunctive (or logically compound) variables per se, but by excluding variables whose values represent disjunctions of too different causal powers. This suggests that interventionism and causal powers theories may be less distant from each other than is often assumed. (shrink)

Non è un caso che l’enhancement umano, cioè il potenziamento di capacità fisiche, cognitive ed emotive degli esseri umani con l’ausilio di tecnologie, sia diventato un tema centrale nei dibattiti etico-applicativi e nei tentativi contemporanei di arrivare a una comprensione più adeguata della natura umana. In esso si incontrano quesiti decisamente ricchi e complessi, sia dal punto di vista tecnoscientifico e medico sia da quello filosofico – e lo fanno in un modo che ci permette di vedere questi quesiti sotto (...) una nuova luce. Il numero raccoglie alcune voci italiane, tedesche, inglesi e statunitensi su diversi aspetti della problematica dell’enhancement umano. Tra le tematiche discusse troviamo il potenziamento genetico, le dimensioni etiche dell’enhancement, la relazione uomo-tecnologia, il cosiddetto enhancement morale, la relazione tra enhancement ed eugenetica, la distinzione tra potenziamento e terapia e la rilevanza delle neuroscienze per lo sviluppo futuro delle bio-tecnologie, della medicina e dell’etica. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gow raised a new and interesting problem for externalist representationalism, the conclusion of which is that its proponents are unable to provide an acceptable account of the phenomenal character of colour hallucination. In contrast to Gow, we do not believe that the problem is particularly severe – indeed, that there is any problem at all. Thus our aim is to defend externalist representationalism against the problem raised by Gow. To this end, we will first reconstruct her (...) reasoning, and then show that it poses no real challenge to externalist representationalism. (shrink)

Standpoint logic is a recently proposed formalism in the context of knowledge integration, which advocates a multi-perspective approach permitting reasoning with a selection of diverse and possibly conflicting standpoints rather than forcing their unification. In this paper, we introduce nested sequent calculi for propositional standpoint logics---proof systems that manipulate trees whose nodes are multisets of formulae---and show how to automate standpoint reasoning by means of non-deterministic proof-search algorithms. To obtain worst-case complexity-optimal proof-search, we introduce a novel technique in the context (...) of nested sequents, referred to as "coloring," which consists of taking a formula as input, guessing a certain coloring of its subformulae, and then running proof-search in a nested sequent calculus on the colored input. Our technique lets us decide the validity of standpoint formulae in CoNP since proof-search only produces a partial proof relative to each permitted coloring of the input. We show how all partial proofs can be fused together to construct a complete proof when the input is valid, and how certain partial proofs can be transformed into a counter-model when the input is invalid. These "certificates" (i.e. proofs and counter-models) serve as explanations of the (in)validity of the input. (shrink)

One implication of Vetter's theory of modality is that necessity and possibility are regarded as unitary natural kinds. In this paper, I argue that from the perspective of the philosophy of causation, there are good reasons to distinguish between different kinds of necessity: causal necessity, which is nomologically necessary, and non-causal necessity, which is metaphysically necessary. One challenge for Vetter's approach is to explain this distinction.

In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)