In order to fulfill their role in society, professional journalists must deliver truths. But truth-telling is not the only requirement of the goal of journalism. What is more, some of the other requirements of journalism can make it difficult for journalists to deliver truths, and may even force them to depart from truth in certain ways. In this paper, I make the requirements of the goal of journalism explicit, and I explain how conflicts between them can (...) arise. I then make some suggestions for balancing these requirements that could help journalists regain the trust of the public. (shrink)

In a theoretical reflection, the aim of this paper is primarily to discuss alterity in journalism. We believe that journalism plays a fundamental role in the construction of knowledge on similarities and differences between human beings, stressing social diversity as one of its purposes. We associate the concept of otherness, understood as a singular mode of existence of the “other”, with the purpose of journalism and with actions of empathy, sympathy and compassion. Based on a phenomenological (...) perspective, we discuss the importance of the meeting between the "self" and the "other", as well as the ability of journalists to perceive and narrate on the aspects that shape the identities of human beings. Moreover, we discuss otherness in journalistic narratives, approaching the relation between the lifeworld and the world of text... (shrink)

In Ancient Greece, when philosophy began, it included all the theoretical knowledge. But later, in the time of Aristotle, specialized sciences started to emerge and the scope of philosophy grew smaller and smaller. The question is what to do when philosophy has lost its competence to deal with any relevant topic. The paper discusses three possible views of the relation between philosophy and science: anti-scientism, conceptual analysis and naturalism. All these approaches deal with various disadvantages. For anti-scientism it is mainly (...) the inability to explain the unprecedented success of modern science. Proponents of conceptual analysis are confronted with Quine’s attack on analytic statements and its consequences for a priori truths. Finally, naturalistic philosophers might be threatened by hegemony of science and its universal application of hypothetico-deductive method. The worst scenario for naturalistic philosophers is not as bad as some worry. Philosophers can solve their traditional problems using the knowledge of well-established special sciences, even though they might play the role of high-end science journalists. (shrink)

This Editorial summarizes the papers in a Frontiers in Communication Research Topic that looks at science journalism’s mediating role between the production of scientific knowledge and its public uptake. The four papers in the Research Topic consider science communication and journalism from the perspective of philosophy of science and epistemology. Framing the Research Topic is a conceptual analysis of the multiple aims of science communication and an assessment of empirical evidence to date regarding whether these aims are (...) being met. The other papers consider the practices of science journalism, the public reception of science information, and how the process of science is presented in three major mass media outlets. (shrink)

I discuss the roles of journalism in aspirational democracies, and argue that they generate set of pressures on attention that apply to people by virtue of the type of society they live in. These pressures, I argue, generate a problem of democratic attention: for journalism to play its roles in democracy, the attentional demands must be met, but there are numerous obstacles to meeting them. I propose a principle of salience to guide the selection and framing of news (...) stories that I argue may help address the puzzle: the public-as-protagonist principle. -/- . (shrink)

Must privacy and freedom of expression conflict? To witness recent debates in Britain, you might think so. Anything other than self-regulation by the press is met by howls of anguish from journalists across the political spectrum, to the effect that efforts to protect people’s privacy will threaten press freedom, promote self-censorship and prevent the press from fulfilling its vital function of informing the public and keeping a watchful eye on the activities and antics of the powerful.[Brown, 2009, 13 January]1 Effective (...) protections for privacy, from such a perspective, inevitably pose a threat to democratic government via the constraints that they place on the press. Such concerns with privacy must be taken seriously by anyone who cares about democratic government, and the freedom, equality and wellbeing of individuals. But if it is one thing to say that privacy and freedom of expression cannot always be fully protected, it is another to suppose that protections for the one must always come at the expense of the other. After all, the economics of contemporary politics and journalism would seem to be partly responsible for our difficulties in protecting personal privacy while sustaining robust and informative forms of public discourse. [Moore, 2010, 10 -141]2 Most newspapers are loss-making businesses and the need to reduce those losses and, if possible, to turn a profit, make investigative journalism an increasingly expensive proposition as compared to both “comment” and more or less elevated forms of gossip. At the same time, politics has increasingly become the prerogative of a narrow group of people with access to the large sums of money necessary successfully to compete for high office. In those circumstances, the need for critical scrutiny is as important as it is difficult. Revising our ideas about privacy and its protection cannot alone reduce the tensions between freedom of expression and personal privacy typical of our societies, necessary though such revision may be. Moreover, this paper can only touch on some aspects of the ways in which we need to rethink our interests in privacy, in order adequately to reflect people’s diverse interests in freedom of expression, and the important role of a free press to democratic government. Nonetheless, I hope to suggest ways of thinking about people’s claims to privacy which can be generalised fairly readily, and can help us to think constructively about the nature, causes and solutions to some important social and political problems, even if, in its nature, philosophical analysis rarely tells us what to do. More specifically, this paper argues that people are entitled to keep some true facts about themselves to themselves, should they so wish, as a sign of respect for their moral and political status, and in order to protect themselves from being used as a public example in order to educate or to entertain other people. The “outing” - or non-consensual public disclosure - of people’s health records or status, or their sexual behaviour or orientation is usually unjustified, even when its consequences seem to be beneficial. Indeed, the paper claims, the reasons to reject outing, as inconsistent with democratic commitments to freedom and equality, are reasons to insist on the importance of privacy to freedom of expression. While a free press is of the utmost importance to democratic government, it is not identical with the free expression of individuals and, on occasion, the former may have to be constrained in order to protect the latter. [Barendt, 2007, 231]. Hence, the paper concludes, we should distinguish the claims of individuals to publish reports about their lives – even if this necessarily involves revealing the private lives of others – from journalistic claims to publish information about the sex lives of consenting adults. I will start by briefly situating my argument within a democratic approach to privacy, before using the “outing” of Oliver Sipple to examine people’s claims to privacy and their implications for freedom of expression and of the press. I will be assuming that some forms of privacy are legitimate, in order to focus more closely on the question of what information, if any, people may keep to themselves. (shrink)

A co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, its newspaper, and hospitality houses, the writer Dorothy Day promoted public peace nationally and internationally as a journalist, an organizer of public protests, and a builder of associational communities. Drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s conceptions of the role of speech and action in creating the public realm, this paper focuses on several of Day’s most controversial public positions: her leadership of non-cooperation against Civil Defense drills intended to prepare New York City residents to (...) survive a nuclear war; her urging of Catholics to find common cause with the Cuban revolutionary government; and her support for interracial farming communities in the Southern United States. As Arendt asserts about Rahel Varnhagen’s salon in Berlin, by being public meeting spaces hosted in private houses, Catholic Worker communities fostered egalitarian rather than “agonal” politics. Like Gandhi’s newspapers and ashrams as well as “Occupy” communities such as Zuccotti Park, Day’s newspaper was a center for incubating and implementing social reform. The Catholic Worker provided a place where writers could question the official rhetoric of such conflicts as World War II and the Cold War, put forward different interpretations of unfolding events, and chart possible alternatives to establishment agendas. (shrink)

As it became clear that Donald Trump had a real base of political support, even as analysts consistently underestimated his electoral prospects, they grew increasingly fascinated with the question of who was supporting him (and why). However, researchers also tend to hold strong negative opinions about Trump. Consequently, they have approached this research with uncharitable priors about the kind of person who would support him and what they would be motivated by. Research design and data analysis often seem to be (...) oriented towards reinforcing those assumptions. This essay highlights the epistemological consequences of these tendencies through a series of case studies featuring prominent and influential works that purport to explain the role of race and racism in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It demonstrates that quality control systems, which should catch major errors, seem to be failing in systematic ways as a result of shared priors and commitments between authors, reviewers and editors – which are also held in common with the journalists and scholars citing and amplifying this work – leading to misinformation cascades. Of course, motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, prejudicial study design, and failure to address confounds are not limited to questions about Trump – however they seem to be particularly pronounced in this case due to the relative homogeneity and intensity of scholars’ views about this topic as compared to other social phenomena. “Trump studies,” therefore, provides fertile ground for exploring how social research can go awry – and the consequences of these failures -- particularly with respect to work on contentious and politically-charged topics. (shrink)

The purpose of the article was to explain how the communicative specificity of the digital social media environment is changing the traditional Lasswell’s linear model. The changes that occur in the structural units of the model were explored. This complex was examined based on the material of 18 successful YouTube blogs dedicated to football. It was found that the modern ecosystem of sports journalism is undergoing significant transformations in terms of content and structure. And the fact that modern digital (...) journalism is already perceived by users as a part of everyday life changes the roles of content creators and those who consume this content. The element “With What Effect?” remains relevant and the closest to the classic one, which, due to interactivity and the ability to maximally objectify the effectiveness of content in social media, in modern sports journalism can become the main conceptual factor of digital narrative. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed technical protocol analysis of chess masters' evaluative expertise, paying particular attention to the analysis of the structure of their memory process in evaluating foreseen possibilities in games of dynamic equilibrium. The paper has two purposes. First, to publish a results chapter from my DPhil thesis (in revised journal article form) attending to the measurement of foresight in chess masters' evaluation process, testing alternative theories of cognitive expertise in the domain of (...) chess; and second to provide a subset of the technical graphical analysis that corresponds to that measurement to preserve this protocol analysis for access in the academic domain for future studies of expert memory and foresight (e.g., Ericsson & Simon, 1993). The step-by-step protocol analysis consists of: (i) an introduction to foresight cognition as hypothesis testing, (ii) a theoretical review in the domain of chess masters' expertise according to the theoretical frameworks in that field purporting hypotheses relevant to chess masters' evaluative skill processes, and (iii) summary tables and non-parametric statistical analysis corroborating chunking theory frameworks of expert cognition (e.g., DeGroot, 1965; Newell & Simon, 1972; Gobet, 1998; Gobet et al., 2004), and refuting the alternative search-evaluation models (e.g., Holding & Reynolds, 1982). Moreover, the journal article espouses the preservation of the traditional protocol analysis method core to the field of expert cognition (DeGroot, 1969; Kotov, 1971). The full protocol analysis can be found in monograph form here on my SSRN profile in ‘The role of falsification in hypothesis testing’. It takes the form of a specialist population study (e.g., detailed case study work; Luria, 1987). Thus the outline consists of a short introduction, a theoretical methodological review discussing protocol analysis methods for specialist population studies in cognition (with particular attention to the preservation of protocol analysis methods for chess studies in cognition and expert memory/ with a fresh angle on the foresight process), and the full set of protocol analyses with corresponding problem behaviour graphs. A subset of the main results has been published elsewhere (e.g., Cowley & Byrne, 2004; Cowley 2006), receiving scientific and scientific journalistic acclaim (e.g., Nature Online News 2004). (shrink)

The claim that we live in a post-truth era has led to a significant body of work across different disciplines exploring the phenomenon. Many have sought to investigate the role of fake news in bringing about the post-truth era. While this work is important, the narrow focus on this issue runs the risk of giving the impression that it is mainly new forms of media that are to blame for the post-truth phenomenon. In this paper, we call attention to (...) the ways in which journalistic practices in traditional forms of media also play an important role in contributing to a post-truth environment. We will do so by focusing on one particular practice common in news journalism. False balance involves presenting two sides of a debate as more equal than is justified by the evidence. We will argue that although false balance does not constitute fake news, it does contribute to an environment in which truth is devalued. By obscuring what counts as evidence and who qualifies as an authority, false balance legitimizes post-truth attitudes. We finish by outlining the virtues that journalists should develop in order to guard against false balance. While fake news is made more likely when journalists possess the vices of dishonesty, prejudice or corruption, we argue that focusing too much on guarding against these vices may actually make false balance more likely. In order to be responsible gatekeepers and to avoid false balance, journalists must also develop the virtues of wisdom, vigilance, courage, care and justice. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between victims’ stories and normativity. As a contribution to understanding how the stories of those who have been abused or oppressed can advance moral understanding, catalyze moral innovation, and guide social change, this paper focuses on narrative as a variegated form of representation and asks whether personal narratives of victimization play any distinctive role in human rights discourse. In view of the fact that a number of prominent students of narrative build normativity into their (...) accounts, it might seem obvious that there is a connection between victims’ stories and moral insight. However, the category of victims’ stories spans an enormous variety of texts – private diaries, memoirs written for publication, interviews with journalists or social scientists, depositions prepared by human rights workers, stories shared with like-minded activists or with support groups, stories told to medical professionals, and testimony in courts, truth commissions and asylum hearings, to mention just some of the possibilities. The different contexts of elicitation and the different rules governing expression in these sites should make us wary of ready generalizations about the nature of victims’ narratives. Moreover, I doubt that existing explications of the way in which norms figure in narratives yield satisfactory theories of the contribution victims’ stories can make to discovering and defending just policies and practices. I consider two of the most prominent accounts of the relation between narrative and normativity. For different reasons, the account Anthony Amsterdam and Jerome Bruner present in their work on narrative and law and the account Hayden White presents in his work on narrative and history fail to appreciate the capacity of victims’ stories of abuse to advance understanding of and increase respect for human rights. In defense of the value of victims’ stories, I propose an account of the relation between normativity and a salient type of victim’s narrative that seems especially resistant to integration into human rights discourse. -/- . (shrink)

The vertiginous rise of right-wing populism, especially in its “nationalist, xenophobic and conservative form”, and some “racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and sexist” drifts associated with this phenomenon – whether real or perceived as such – make the mainstream media play a double role. On the one hand, the mainstream media reflect the struggle for political hegemony between different vested interests; on the other hand, they engage in the fight against right-wing populism blasting both right-wing populist candidates and their voters or (...) supporters. Many mainstream journalists ask citizens to realize a “sanitary cordon”, a “wall” or a “republican front” to block far-right populism and preserve liberal democracy. Moreover, they urge people to be wary of all attempts to “dediabolize” or “normalize” some tokens of right-wing populism. The main idea of this article is that right-wing populism is more harmless than is generally believed and, if excessive, negative media coverage doesn’t baffle but feed it. Populism is essentially a latent side effect of liberal democracy. Populism rises and becomes obtrusive only if a significant part of society perceives a regime of illiberal majoritarianism instead of one of liberal democracy. Right-wing populists are chiefly frustrated “ci-devants” who feel dispossessed of their past, identity, properties, qualities, privileges or titles. Inasmuch as the causes of collective frustration are many and varied (e.g. the real or just perceived corruption of the elites, the “system”, the deep state, the relocation of jobs, immigration, national sovereignty, national identity, communitarianism, radical Islamism, the status of some traditional institutions, some chapters of official history, etc.), there will always be right-wing populists, whether they are self-declared or covert. By adopting David G. Hackett’s thesis that the media are “agents of hegemony”, we applied the critical analysis of discourse to a set of 346 media articles in order to reveal the discursive sources of power, domination, inequality and partiality. The articles appeared in The New York Times and Le Monde during the period 2016-2017, at the time when the presidential elections took place in the United States and France. The articles were selected according to the occurrence of the keywords “Donald Trump” – “populism” and “Marine Le Pen” – “populisme” within the titles. The analysis of these articles reveals a divisive discursive structure that correspond to a real political cleavage in society. It is true that populism presents a “Manichean outlook”, in which there are only friends and foes” and no compromise is possible. It is also true that mainstream media reinforce this Manichean perspective on society and make populists feel marginalized and politically disempowered. The mainstream media may appease right-wing populism if they treat its followers as legitimate and equal political actors. For this, they have to give up the narrative structures that underscore insurmountable divergences and irreconcilable interests. In a liberal democracy, mass media should chiefly play the role of mediator. They may not aim to defeat or re-educate certain categories of citizens just because they advocate “wrong” political solutions. (shrink)

In his article “The Ontology of Musical Versions: Introducing the Hypothesis of Nested Types,” Nemesio Puy raises a hypothesis that continuity of the purpose is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for musical work’s identity. Puy’s hypothesis is relevant to two topics in cognitive psychology and experimental philosophy. The first topic is the prevalence of teleological reasoning about various objects and its influence on persistence and categorization judgments. The second one is the importance of an artist’s intention in the (...) categorization of artworks. We tested the teleological hypothesis across three studies. Vignettes in these three studies describe a musical work being changed in some of these aspects: purpose either changed or retained; score either changed or retained; change is made either by the same or a different composer. The results suggest that teleological considerations impact judgments on the persistence of musical works, but this impact appears to be relatively weak. The results also suggest that persistence judgments strongly depend on whether acoustical properties were changed, while whether the change was made by the original composer seems to be relatively unimportant. (shrink)

When doubts were first raised about the veracity of the dramatic advances in stem cell research announced by Professor Hwang Woo-Suk, a significant minority response was to question the qualifications of journalists to investigate the matter. In this paper I examine the contemporary relationships between science, scientists, the public, and the media. In the modern context the progress of science often relies on the media to mobilise public support for research and also for the purpose of communication within the scientific (...) community. As a result, attempts to counterpose "science" and "the media" should be treated with some caution. I argue that because of the essential role played by ethics in good science, journalists may in fact sometimes be well placed to investigate scientists. At the conclusion of my paper I draw out some of the implications of my analysis for the ethics of investigative journalism directed towards scientific research. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of reason in Shepherd's account of acquiring knowledge of the external world via first principles. Reason is important, but does not have a foundational role. Certain principles enable us to draw the required inferences for acquiring knowledge of the external world. These principles are basic, foundational and, more importantly, self‐evident and thus justified in other ways than by demonstration. Justificatory demonstrations of these principles are neither required, nor possible. By drawing on textual and (...) contextual evidence, I will show that Shepherd should have said that we know the first principles of any science, in general, and that “everything which begins to exist must have a cause”, in particular, via intuition, not via reason. Reasoning about such principles can help their self‐evidence shine through in certain cases; their justification, and our being justified in believing them, does not come from this reasoning, however. (shrink)

Blumenthal-Barby et al. (2022) present a nuanced and convincing case for the continued presence of moral and political philosophers in bioethics. We agree with the authors that philosophers should have a role in bioethical inquiry. However, we partly disagree on what that role should be. We assess the case taking our clues from a concern the authors mention – and another one that they do not directly address.

In Naked, Krista K. Thomason offers a multi-faceted account of shame, covering its nature as an emotion, its positive and negative roles in moral life, its association with violence, and its provocation through invitations to shame, public shaming, and stigmatization. Along the way, she reflects on a range of examples drawn from literature, memoirs, journalism, and her own imagination. She also considers alternative views at length, draws a wealth of important distinctions, and articulates many of the most intuitive objections (...) to her own view in order to defend it more thoroughly. As such, the book’s subtitle, The Dark Side of Shame and Moral Life, undersells its scope and ambition. This is an exploration not just of shame’s dark side but a kaleidoscopic appreciation of both the nature and the (dis)value of shame and shaming. Somewhat undercutting this breadth, Thomason relies heavily on Kantian intuitions about equal respect and recognition for persons and their dignity; in several key arguments, she tells us to disregard predictable and systematic consequences of emotions, practices, and institutions so that we can better focus on their constitutive or internal aspects. Of course, every philosopher inevitably brings theoretical commitments to bear when writing about moral psychology, but non-Kantian readers should be forewarned that — despite the fact that Thomason says that she does “not assume any particular moral theory” — her ethical conclusions about shaming and stigmatizing are likely to be plausible only to those who are already snugly tied into a web of “Kantian commitments” (p. 9). (shrink)

The approach to the study the role of strategic alliances in the conditions of digital business transformations has been further developed in the article. In the course of a critical analysis of the content of scientific publications of modern scientists who studied the behavior, peculiarities of activity and the meaning of strategic alliances, it was established that the role of strategic alliances in the conditions of digital transformations does not disappear, but brings new advantages, requiring the maximization of (...) returns from more dynamic partnership relations, which requires more in-depth study of such benefits. Dynamics analysis of the number of concluded agreements in the field of strategic partnership in the period of 2014-2023 demonstrates their increase starting from 2017, which led to the activation of digital business transformations. In the course of research, it was determined that the role of strategic alliances in the conditions of digital business transformations is to ensure strategic flexibility under the conditions of continuity of digital transformations, improve competitive positions on the market, increase their innovativeness and efficiency, improve organizational stability and the ability of companies to learn, create opportunities for obtaining synergistic effect. It develops the ability of companies to proactively manage changes, contributes to the joint solution of strategic tasks and goals of partner companies, provides significantly greater opportunities for the development of innovative processes through the development and implementation of new methods and forms of work, new solutions in economic sectors, innovations in management, contributes to survival in market competitive environment and is an important competitive imperative to ensure overall long-term digital transformation. (shrink)

This paper fills a gap in the existing metaphilosophical research on paradoxes byfocusing on the role of scenarios. Typical philosophical paradoxes contain a scenariodescription whose contribution to paradoxes remains unexplored. I argue that sce-narios are examples or instantiations of the abstract schema of paradoxes. As such,scenarios contribute to paradoxes on two levels. First, they make the argument moreconcrete, thus enhancing the dialectical force of paradoxes and facilitating their under-standing, especially for non-experts. This function is external to the paradox itself, (...) buthas important practical implications for the use of paradoxes and their effect on philo-sophical debates, and it contributes to explaining why philosophical paradoxes areusually introduced by a scenario. Second, and more crucially, scenarios are essentialto the epistemic dimension of paradoxes. By definition, paradoxes have two neces-sary components: the argumentative structure and the plausibility/implausibility ofthe premises/conclusion. By providing examples of the abstract schema, scenarioscontribute to making the premises plausible. In particular, scenarios are the source ofplausibility and justification for those premises that contain an empirically groundedassertion of existence. Examples of such paradoxes are the Sorites paradox, the Lot-tery paradox, and the Grue paradox. Contrary to the dialectical role, the epistemicfunction of scenarios is indispensable, as it connects paradoxes to the real world andunderscores their significance in specific debates. (shrink)

Recent literature on social movements assigns a central role to the imagination. One way for activists to further their aims is through dramatic, confrontational acts of protest. I argue that transcendent imagining is key to understanding what protest does qua act of speech. A common approach to protest sees it as a speech act of condemning some feature of the socio-political world and appealing for change. While this is a helpful general template for what vocal dissent is, it is (...) insufficient to explain what gives protests their political power. Specifically, it overlooks the fact that effective protests usually create a theatrical spectacle of norm breaking. Displays of defiance lift a constraint on how we imagine our socio-political world, and so allow us to begin reshaping it. (shrink)

Several theories propose that one of the core functions of inner speech (IS) is to support subjects in the completion of cognitively effortful tasks, especially those involving executive functions (EF). In this paper we focus on two populations who notoriously encounter difficulties in performing EF tasks, namely, people diagnosed with schizophrenia who experience auditory verbal hallucinations (Sz-AVH) and people within the Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). We focus on these two populations because they represent two different ways in which IS can (...) fail to help in EF tasks, which can be illustrative for other mental conditions. First, we review the main components of EF (Section 1). Then we explain the functions that IS is taken to perform in the domain of EF (Section 2) and review the evidence concerning problems about EF in the two populations of our study: Sz-AVH (Section 3) and ASC (Section 4). After this we further detail our account about what a properly functioning IS can do for both populations and how different IS profiles may impact EF performance: in the case of Sz-AVH, the uncontrolled and intrusive character of IS negatively affects EF performance, whereas in ASC, EF is not sufficiently supported by IS, given the tendency in this population to present a diminished use of IS (Section 5). We finally briefly discuss Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Developmental Language Disorders (DLD). (shrink)

This chapter explores a so-far neglected way of avoiding the bads of loneliness: by learning to value solitude, where that is understood as a state of ‘keeping oneself company’, as J. David Velleman puts it. Unlike loneliness, solitude need not involve any deprivation, whether subjective or objective. This chapter considers the various goods to which solitude is constitutive or instrumental, with a focus on the promise that proper valuing of solitude holds for combating loneliness. The overall argument is this: If (...) loneliness significantly detracts from individual wellbeing, and if the ability to value solitude protects against loneliness, then such an ability is obviously valuable to human flourishing. If, further, loneliness raises concerns of justice, then supporting people’s ability to value solitude is a way to implement a desideratum of justice. Individuals can cultivate their ability to value solitude, an ability that others can promote or hinder. (shrink)

The vividness of mental imagery is epistemically relevant. Intuitively, vivid and intense memories are epistemically better than weak and hazy memories, and using a clear and precise mental image in the service of spatial reasoning is epistemically better than using a blurry and imprecise mental image. But how is vividness epistemically relevant? I argue that vividness is higher-order evidence about one’s epistemic state, rather than first-order evidence about the world. More specifically, the vividness of a mental image is higher-order evidence (...) about the amount of first-order information one has about its subject matter. When vividness is sufficiently low, it can give one reason to doubt the epistemic basis of the mental image and thereby act as a defeater. This account has important implications for theorizing about the epistemic roles of memory, imagination, mental imagery, and phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter delves into the museological side of ‘the way forward’ to conservation for planetary health bioethics. Specifically, it highlights the crucial role that museums play – their curatorial or exhibition interventions, conservation operations, development policies, or practices – which present or represent the vital relationship between human and planetary health. While it is not new to stress the significance of museums’ link to the environment and environmental education, it is necessary to re-examine recent cases in light of the (...) rapid changes brought about by climate change and the constant call for sustainability. We thus offer a review of some recent literature that appraises the museum’s role in bioethically considering the health of our living planet. Learning this role taps into relatively new themes such as ecomuseums and architectural heritage, or critical eco-museology. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the role of administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the educational institutions in the Islamic University in Gaza. To achieve the research objectives, the researchers used the analytical descriptive approach to collect information. The researchers used the questionnaire distributed to three categories of employees at the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the administrative board). A random sample of 314 employees was selected and 276 questionnaires were (...) retrieved with a recovery rate of 88.1%. The Statistical Analysis Program (SPSS) was used to enter process and analyze data. The results of the research showed a positive role for the administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, teaching staff and their assistants and the administrative body), where the relative weight of all the paragraphs (73.728%). The analysis of the results revealed that the administrative procedures at the Islamic University in Gaza are used to an acceptable degree. The relative weight of all the paragraphs is 70%. This indicates a relationship between administrative procedures and regulations and the performance of the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. The study found that there was a good degree of approval from the sample regarding the administrative procedures and their relationship to the job performance. There exist a sufficient degree of powers to the deans and department managers to carry out their tasks, with the use of plans as control tools. And that there are rules and procedures provided for decision-making in the University Council. It also has full powers to manage the university to improve the teaching and learning environment. The researchers also recommended a number of recommendations, including the need to follow up on the procedures and systems of management and update them continuously in the light of changes that may occur and to ensure the existence of a strong system of electronic information systems within the university. There is a need to provide mechanisms for obtaining information about the surrounding external environment, and effective mechanisms to provide managers with the necessary information in a timely manner. The importance of providing channels of communication that enables staff to communicate information about any violations and breaches. The study also recommended the follow-up, review, procedures and administrative systems, and work to modify them in line with the mission of the university and the objectives that the university seeks to reach. (shrink)

This paper proposes that existing computational modeling research programs may be combined into platforms for the information of public policy. The main idea is that computational models at select levels of organization may be integrated in natural terms describing biological cognition, thereby normalizing a platform for predictive simulations able to account for both human and environmental costs associated with different action plans and institutional arrangements over short and long time spans while minimizing computational requirements. Building from established research programs, the (...) proposal aims to take advantage of current momentum in the direction of the integration of the cognitive with social and natural sciences, reduce start-up costs and increase speed of development. These are all important upshots given rising unease over the potential for AI and related technologies to shape the world going forward. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce offers a number of arguments against the rational application of theory to morality, suggesting instead that morality should be grounded in instinct. Peirce maintains that we currently lack the scientific knowledge that would justify a rational structuring of morality. This being the case, philosophically generated moralities cannot be otherwise than dogmatic and dangerous. In this paper, I contend that Peirce’s critique of what I call “dogmatic-philosophical morality” should be taken very seriously, but I also claim that the (...) purely instinctive morality Peirce endorses is liable to a danger of its own, namely fanaticism. Indeed, Peirce himself recognizes this danger. As an alternative, I sketch a form of “pragmatic morality” that attempts to sidestep the dogmatism of philosophical morality and the fanaticism of instinctive morality. This form of morality avoids philosophical dogmatism by treating extant instincts as the postulates and materials with which it works. It avoids instinctive fanaticism by allowing a role to reason. By exhibiting fallibilism, revisability, pluralism, and meliorism, this type of reasoning can avoid the dogmatism of the philosophical kind of morality Peirce critiques. (shrink)

One of the main problems of Albania since the overthrow of the communist dictatorship and the beginning of the transition in 1991 has been the consolidation of a functional constitutional democracy. Having a functional and applicable constitutional order by all institutions and mechanisms has been a significant challenge for Albania. Political parties are one of these mechanisms or vital elements in maintaining and improving the constitutional order in Albania. In democratic regimes, political parties continue to be the most important bridge (...) between the state and the mass of society. Political parties are the institutions that hold the position of a political leader in society, and democratic states cannot survive if they do not have political parties that fulfil their functions in consolidating, preserving, and improving democracy. The object of this study will be political parties in Albania and their role in the consolidation or not of the constitutional order during the period of democratic transition. In this study, the three main parties in Albania are taken as case studies, namely the Socialist Party of Albania, the Democratic Party of Albania, and the Socialist Movement for Integration. (shrink)

This study examines the role of digital technologies in building resilient communities, focusing on data collected during the pandemic. This research aims to explore the impact of digital technologies on community development, assess their effectiveness in enhancing community resilience, and identify key success factors. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, including qualitative data collected through interviews and focus groups, a review of existing literature and case studies. Preliminary findings indicate that digital technologies have been crucial in supporting community resilience, (...) enabling virtual communication, remote access to resources, and community engagement. However, disparities in digital access and literacy have influenced their effectiveness. Addressing the digital divide and ensuring equitable access is crucial while providing ongoing support, capacity building, and community engagement. Digital technologies have demonstrated their potential to build resilient communities, particularly in times of crisis. (shrink)

This paper explores the integration of Michael Strevens' concept of idealizations with my previous framework of similarity spaces and context-dependence to develop a comprehensive account of ideal explanations in scientific practice. Idealizations, which involve deliberate falsifications, play a crucial role in distinguishing between causally relevant and irrelevant factors in scientific models. Context-dependent mapping provides a structured approach to handling complementarities and context-dependent phenomena by mapping different observational contexts to distinct sets of physical laws. By combining these two ideas, I (...) will construct an idealized context-dependent mapping structure and discuss how ideal similarity spaces within the framework of context-dependent mapping can enhance our understanding of complex scientific phenomena, especially those involving wave-particle duality and black hole complementarity. I also aim to discuss the types of idealizations that may exist within explanation and examine their relations to the mapping. (shrink)

This paper assesses the role of the Refutation of Idealism within the Critique of Pure Reason, as well as its relation to the treatment of idealism in the First Edition and to transcendental idealism more generally. It is argued that the Refutation is consistent with the Fourth Paralogism and that it can be considered as an extension of the Transcendental Deduction. While the Deduction, considered on its own, constitutes a 'regressive argument', the Refutation allows us to turn the Transcendental (...) Analytic into a 'progressive argument' that proceeds by the synthetic method. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that utopianism is a theoretical necessity—we couldn’t, for example, engage in normative political philosophy without it—and, further, that in consciously embracing utopianism we will consequently experience an enrichment of our political lives. Thus, the title of my paper has a double meaning: it highlights the fact that utopianism always plays a normative role in political philosophy, as its concern is inevitably the promotion of a certain vision of the good life; and secondly it (...) suggests that there normatively ‘ought to be’ a recognized and respectable role for utopianism within political philosophy. The first meaning, I believe, is self-explanatory. Regarding the second, it expresses my hope to— in short— take what is old, and through a modest process of rehabilitation, make it new again. (shrink)

How does the genetic code navigate through the mind-boggling list of alternatives? This brief article gives a clue.

The article is devoted to the historical and philosophical problems of the study of the text of the "Gridaya Sutra" ("Sherab Nyingpo") within the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. As a prolegomena, an overview of the field of translation was chosen - for a better understanding of both the logic of the formation of the Buddhist tradition of the Prajna-paramita sutras in India (which is revealed during translations from Sanskrit into Western languages), and the principles of their textual transmission to Tibet (...) (through the clarification of the principles of Tibetan translation from Sanskrit in the Lotsa tradition). The purpose of the study is to identify the mechanism that made it possible to make a transition in the Buddhist religious and philosophical space from the intellectual understanding of the ideas of emptiness (explained in the Magayana sutras) to their direct practice, the meaning of which is the detection of emptiness in one's own stream of consciousness (proposed by the tantric teachings of Vajrayana).. And since the "Gridaya-sutra" is the quintessence of the entire tradition of Prajna-paramita texts and contains a unique Buddhist mantra of "consolation in suffering", it, as a representative of the teachings of the sutras, was chosen for comparative analysis with the tradition of Mantrayana texts, i.e. Tantrayana. The representative of the tantric tradition was chosen to be the teaching text of the highest class of tantras - the Anuttarayogatantra called Kalachakra, which, due to its systematic development and strong semantic connections with classical Buddhist sciences, is considered the most consistent and structured tantra. As a result of research in Kalachakra, a specific complication of the meanings of the "Gridaya-sutra" was revealed, which opened the way for the individual from contemplating the emptiness of dharmas to collapsing the space-time continuum of the inner experience of conceptuality into a transcendent singularity for the sake of understanding true knowledge (jnana). In addition, the key mechanism of such a transition, which made it possible for the third turning of the Dharma wheel to become a continuation of the practice of the second turning, and not just another separate method, turned out to be the mechanism of the mantra, which is transformed from a concise morphological formula in the "Gridaya-sutra" into a phonetic formula in the Kalachakra. Therefore, the "Gridaya-sutra" takes the place of a trigger in the paramitayana, which makes it possible to organically connect the "higher" arsenal of Buddhist tantra to the process of enlightenment. (shrink)

One of the pressing issues in philosophy of technology is the role of human creativity in human-technology relations. We first observe that a techno-centric orientation of philosophy of technology leaves open the role and contribution of human creativity in technological evolution, while an anthropocentric orientation leaves open the role of the technical milieu in technological evolution. Subsequently, we develop a concept of creation as deviation and responsiveness in response to affordances in the environment, inspired by the affordance (...) theory by James Gibson. With this concept of creation as deviative responsiveness, we articulate the human contribution to human-technology creation, namely, our intentional deviation of the inhibiting forces of the currently dominant niche or meaningful world of human-technology relations, in order to become responsive to new affordances in human-technology creation that constitute a new niche or world of human-technology relations. (shrink)

One sometimes believes a proposition without grasping it. For example, a complete achromat might believe that ripe tomatoes are red without grasping this proposition. My aim in this paper is to shed light on the difference between merely believing a proposition and grasping it. I focus on two possible theories of grasping: the inferential theory, which explains grasping in terms of inferential role, and the phenomenal theory, which explains grasping in terms of phenomenal consciousness. I argue that the phenomenal (...) theory is more plausible than the inferential theory. (shrink)

Most traditional epistemologists see trust and knowledge as deeply antithetical: we cannot know by trusting in the opinions of others; knowledge must be based on evidence, not mere trust. I argue that this is badly mistaken. Modern knowers cannot be independent and self-reliant. In most disciplines, those who do not trust cannot know. Trust is thus often more epistemically basic than empirical evidence or logical argument, for the evidence and the argument are available only through trust. Finally, since the reliability (...) of testimonial evidence depends on the trustworthiness of the testifier, this implies that knowledge often rests on a foundation of ethics. The rationality of many of our beliefs depends not only on our own character, but on the character of others. (shrink)

This is an applied study endeavour with the aim of exploring the specific role of survivalist retail entrepreneurship in job creation and poverty reduction. Two hundred (200) subjects were sampled using snowballing technique. Structured questionnaires as well as semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data. 182 usable questionnaires were analysed with the help of SPSS version 23. The results indicate that retail entrepreneurship is evolving in Khayelitsha, especially when one does not only focus on spaza shops, but looks at (...) the entire survivalist retail industry. This sector is capable of creating jobs, reducing poverty and aiding economic growth of the country even more, should measures to boost motivation levels and self-efficacy of the entrepreneurs emerge. These measures, among others could include support programmes for survivalist entrepreneurial ventures that present greater potential for growth and job creation. Part of the support programmes should include business skills training (such as simple bookkeeping practices and human resource management). Importantly, this study is the first of its kind in the community of Khayelitsha; an emerging black-populated township in South Africa, indicating a new vista for retail entrepreneurship research. (shrink)

The psychological mechanism of decision-making has traditionally been modeled with the help of belief-desire psychology: the agent has some desires (or other pro-attitudes) and some background beliefs and deciding between two possible actions is a matter of comparing the probability of the satisfaction of these desires given the background beliefs in the case of the performance of each action. There is a wealth of recent empirical findings about how we actually make decisions that seems to be in conflict with this (...) picture. My aim is to outline an alternative model that is consistent with these empirical findings. This alternative model emphasizes the role imagination plays in our decisions: when we decide between two possible actions, we imagine ourselves in the situation that we imagine to be the outcome of these two actions and then compare these two imaginings. (shrink)

This study aims to look at the role of the practice of excellence strategies in education in achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the Higher educational institutions of the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, a model, and the study considered the competitive advantage of educational institutions stems from the impact on the level of each student, employee, and the institution. The study was based on the premise that the development of strategies for excellence in (...) education, and its implementation is a vital important prerequisite to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in higher educational institutions. The study followed a systematic exploratory descriptive methodology through review of the theoretical literature, and the adoption of the experience of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as a model for its unique experience in the field of excellence in education. The study results showed that the most important are: There is a strong correlation between the level of exercising excellence strategies in education and the achievement of higher educational institutions to the sustainable competitive advantage. The results include a general required number of important sub results on the subject of the model - Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as follows: - The student considered the academic focus of the operation in the development process of the workers’ skills, particularly academics at the university helps to distinguish students and increase the employment rate after graduation. - The existence of consistency in development efforts and quality improvement for all three levels (student, employee, and the university), and this contributes to the Faculty excellence. - The Faculty has been able to achieve competitive advantages by offering excellent services without harming the efficiency, and this alone is a great success because improving service properties requires great investments, which negatively affect the continued institutional development. The study also reached a set of recommendations as follows: - The need to exercise excellence strategies in education, excellence reward at the national level, and those higher educational institutions follow the criteria for measuring the competitive advantages of its institutions always. - There is a need to increase efforts to implement programs of excellence, the allocation of adequate time, reward outstanding efforts as well. There is a necessity for each faculty to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability, using the general philosophies of competitive advantage, but with a different strategically content from what is in the private commercial sector, it reflects the Faculties mission and objectives, depending on making improvements and excellence in processes that ensure the safety of its outputs. As well as the need to find a balance between the work of teaching and research work of the faculty members, this has important implications regarding the criteria used in the process of excellence evaluation. The study recommended the adoption of strategies for excellence in education on a national public policy level mainly in the processes of change in higher education institutions. The need to support the existence of a common understanding of the efforts of excellence to create a general culture that appreciates excellence in faculties and universities. This underlines the need for transparent, fair rewards systems, to encourage innovation in education. The need to conduct a comprehensive surveys on the graduates of faculties and universities including the areas of employment and skills, because that will give accurate indications of the graduates and will help to establish a link to a more precise about the relationship of excellence strategies with the competitive advantages. (shrink)

Some conceptions of the role of philosophers in climate change focus mainly on theoretical progress in philosophy, or on philosophers as individual citizens. Against these views, I defend a skill view: philosophers should use our characteristic skills as philosophers to combat climate change by integrating it into our teaching, research, service, and community engagement. A focus on theoretical progress, citizenship, expertise, virtue, ability, social role, or power, rather than on skill, can allow for some of these contributions. But (...) the skill view, I argue, uniquely captures the breadth of philosophers’ role in climate change; promises to make us more effective in practice; and offers a compelling way to overcome our own lingering climate denial by integrating climate change into all aspects of philosophical activity. (shrink)

What is the role of pleasure in determining a person’s well-being? I start by considering the nature of pleasure (i.e., what pleasure is). I then consider what factors, if any, can affect how much a given pleasure adds to a person’s lifetime well-being other than its degree of pleasurableness (i.e., how pleasurable it is). Finally, I consider whether it is plausible that there is any other way to add to somebody’s lifetime well-being than by giving him some pleasure or (...) helping him to avoid some pain. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an impure somatic theory of emotion, according to which emotions are constituted by the integration of bodily perceptions with representations of external objects, events, or states of affairs. We put forward our theory by contrasting it with Prinz's pure somatic theory, according to which emotions are entirely constituted by bodily perceptions. After illustrating Prinz's theory and discussing the evidence in its favor, we show that it is beset by serious problems—i.e., it gets the neural correlates (...) of emotion wrong, it isn't able to distinguish emotions from bodily perceptions that aren't emotions, it cannot account for emotions being directed towards particular objects, and it mischaracterizes emotion phenomenology. We argue that our theory accounts for the empirical evidence considered by Prinz and solves the problems faced by his theory. In particular, we maintain that our theory gives a unified and principled account of the relation between emotions and bodily perceptions, the intentionality of emotions, and emotion phenomenology. (shrink)

Does the fact that humans are vulnerable, needy and dependent beings play an important role in Kantian ethics? It is sometimes claimed that it cannot and does not. I argue that it can and does. I distinguish between broad (all persons are vulnerable) and narrow (only some persons are vulnerable) senses of vulnerability, and explain the role of vulnerability in both senses in Kantian ethics. The basis of this argument is to show that the core normative focus of (...) Kantian ethics is on the dignity that human beings have in virtue of their capacity for rational agency. This implies that the empirical conditions under which human beings can acquire, sustain, exercise, and develop their rational capacities are of core moral importance in Kantian ethics. This explains why human vulnerabilities, including the vulnerability of human bodies, are important in Kantian ethics, since rational capacities in human agents (and the bodies those rational capacities depend upon) are highly vulnerable in all persons (vulnerability in the broad sense) and especially vulnerable in some sub-groups of persons (vulnerability in the narrow sense). (shrink)

To explain the evolutionary emergence of uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation, Tomasello et al. (2012, in Current Anthropology 53(6):673–92) proposed the interdependence hypothesis. The key adaptive context in this account was the obligate collaborative foraging of early human adults. Hawkes (2014, in Human Nature 25(1):28–48), following Hrdy (Mothers and Others, Harvard University Press, 2009), provided an alternative account for the emergence of uniquely human cooperative skills in which the key was early human infants’ attempts to solicit care and (...) attention from adults in a cooperative breeding context. Here we attempt to reconcile these two accounts. Our composite account accepts Hrdy’s and Hawkes’s contention that the extremely early emergence of human infants’ cooperative skills suggests an important role for cooperative breeding as adaptive context, perhaps in early Homo. But our account also insists that human cooperation goes well beyond these nascent skills to include such things as the communicative and cultural conventions, norms, and institutions created by later Homo and early modern humans to deal with adult problems of social coordination. As part of this account we hypothesize how each of the main stages of human ontogeny (infancy, childhood, adolescence) was transformed during evolution both by infants’ cooperative skills “migrating up” in age and by adults’ cooperative skills “migrating down” in age. (shrink)

Various understandings and definitions of time will be reviewed. The nature and structure of time will be reviewed and the concepts of time and passage of time will be refreshed. The fundamental role played by energy and four natural forces in the actions, reactions and interactions concerning matter, anti-matter, energy in space and time will be critically analyzed. The reality how time is constructed during the construction of materials will be presented and discussed. The classical and quantum ideas in (...) this regard will be comprehensively studied. How these ideas will give us a fresh insight about the nature, structure and role of time in the construction of materials through natural scientific and manmade processes will be highlighted. The relations among matter, anti-matter, energy and time will be freshly stated. The milli-, micro-, nano, pico-, femto-, atto-times will be qualitatively analyzed considering physical, inorganic, organic and bio-materials and their construction and structure. The physics of timelessness also will be put forward. -/- . (shrink)

1. Historically, our sense of smell has been deemed informationally impoverished, not very discerning, subjective, ineffable, and generally of little value (for an overview, see e.g., Barwich, 2020...

The neutral and nearly neutral theories of molecular evolution are sometimes characterized as theories about drift alone, where drift is described solely as an outcome, rather than a process. We argue, however, that both selection and drift, as causal processes, are integral parts of both theories. However, the nearly neutral theory explicitly recognizes alleles and/or molecular substitutions that, while engaging in weakly selected causal processes, exhibit outcomes thought to be characteristic of random drift. A narrow focus on outcomes obscures the (...) significant role of weakly selected causal processes in the nearly neutral theory. (shrink)