This study examined individual, task, and environmental constraints that influence the career progression of youth Brazilian elite basketball players and the probability of reaching Novo Basquete Brasil and to determine if the association of the relative age effect is a key factor in the career progression. The sample consisted of 4,692 male players who were registered to participate in at least one U15, U17, or U22 youth Brazilian basketball championship between 2004 and 2018. Athletes who reached a high-performance level were (...) coded like NBB players. The birthdates, height, body mass, playing position, geographic region, club, competition category, and team performance were retrieved from the official data archive of the Brazilian Basketball Confederation and the National Basketball League. The maturity status was estimated using the predicted age at peak height velocity. A binary logistic regression examined the influence of each characteristic on the probability of a youth Brazilian basketball player to reach the NBB. The receiver operating characteristic curves and the associated area under the curve were used to assess the discriminant ability of the model. The taller and younger players not selected early into national teams, without specialization by playing position, who participated in U22 national championship, migrated to the southeast region, and remained in the formation process over time have a greater chance to reach the NBB. The ROC curve demonstrated an AUC of 93%. A combination of individual, task, and environmental characteristics influences the sport career of a young Brazilian basketball player in reaching the NBB. Further, early-maturing athletes have a greater chance to reach higher performances. RAE influences lower-level categories, but not a “NBB player's” career progression. The coaches, stakeholders, and practitioners should perform a holistic evaluation of sport talent in terms of a constraint-based theoretical model with the aim of avoiding bias produced by the maturational status and RAE in the youth Brazilian elite basketball. (shrink)

Among the various contemporary schools of moral thinking, consequence-based ethics, as opposed to rule-based, seems to have a good acceptance among professionals such as software engineers. But naïve consequentialism is intellectually too weak to serve as a practical guide in the profession. Besides, the complexity of software systems makes it very hard to know in advance the consequences that will derive from professional activities in the production of software. Therefore, following the spirit of well-known codes of ethics such as the (...) ACM/IEEE’s, we advocate for a more solid position in the ethical education of software engineers, which we call ‘moderate deontologism’, that takes into account both rules and consequences to assess the goodness of actions, and at the same time pays an adequate consideration to the absolute values of human dignity. In order to educate responsible professionals, however, this position should be complemented with a pedagogical approach to virtue ethics. (shrink)

8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)

In this note we shall argue that Milne’s new effort does not refute Truthmaker Maximalism. According to Truthmaker Maximalism, every truth has a truthmaker. Milne has attempted to refute it using the following self-referential sentence M: This sentence has no truthmaker. Essential to his refutation is that M is like the Gödel sentence and unlike the Liar, and one way in which Milne supports this assimilation is through the claim that his proof is essentially object-level and not semantic. In Section (...) 2, we shall argue that Milne is still begging the question against Truthmaker Maximalism. In Section 3, we shall argue that even assimilating M to the Liar does not force the truthmaker maximalist to maintain the ‘dull option’ that M does not express a proposition. There are other options open and, though they imply revising the logic in Milne’s reasoning, this is not one of the possible revisions he considers. In Section 4, we shall suggest that Milne’s proof requires an implicit appeal to semantic principles and notions. In Section 5, we shall point out that there are two important dissimilarities between M and the Gödel sentence. Section 6 is a brief summary and conclusion. (shrink)

Peter Milne has tried to refure Truthmaker Maximalism. the thesis that every truth has a truthmaker, by producing a simple and direct counterexample to it, the sentence M: This sentence has no truthmaker. I argue that, contrary to what Milne argues, on Truthmaker Maximalism M is equivalent to the Liar, which gives the truthmaker maximalist a way to defend his position from Milne's counterexample: to argue that M expresses no proposition.

The main aim of this paper is to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practice of university teachers regarding plagiarism in Bangladesh. An online questionnaire consisted of 20 knowledge questions, 23 attitude items, and 18 practice questions was created using Google Forms. The link to the questionnaire was sent via email to university teachers. The total correct answers for knowledge and practice questions, and the total attitude score were converted to percentile scores and categorized accordingly as poor ( mean (...) + 1 SD). Bivariate analyses were conducted to compare the total knowledge, attitude and practice scores based on demographic and academic variables. Multiple linear regressions were used to identify the association between knowledge, attitude and practice scores, and other covariates. The findings revealed an average level of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding plagiarism among the majority of university teachers. The knowledge, attitude and practice scores were significantly higher for teachers who attended academic writing workshops compared to those who did not attend such events. Demographic and academic variables did not impact knowledge and attitude scores. However, the number of papers published in the last two years and their indexing in Web of Science (WoS) or Scopus significantly impacted attitude and knowledge scores. The multiple regression analyses showed that the practice score was significantly associated with age, highest education, and knowledge. (shrink)

Book Information Resemblance Nominalism: A Solution to the Problem of Universals. By Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 2002. Pp. xii + 238. £35.

The Vida de Santa Oria is the most problematic of Gonzalo de Berceo's works. There is disagreement about its textual integrity, and important elements of its structure are imperfectly understood. The intent of this article is to demonstrate Berceo's use of literary and iconographic material prominent in the thirteenth-century monastic culture of San Millán de la Cogolla to construct a moral and eschatological definition of the contemplative life. The Vida de Santa Oria renders Christian eschatology through an elaborate symbolic (...) structure, circumscribed physically and spiritually by the cloister walls of San Millán, where Berceo, a secular priest, served as notary of one of the abbots. The economy of Berceo's communicative method is no small part of the excellence of his poem; his artistic self-cloistering mirrors the existential condition of his hagiographic subject. It derives from a conscious and complex choice, rather than from any limitation of his intellectual horizons. (shrink)

This book discusses how rational choice theory grew out of RAND's work for the US Air Force. It concentrates on the work of William J. Riker, Kenneth J. Arrow, James M. Buchanan, Russel Hardin, and John Rawls. It argues that within the context of the US Cold War with its intensive anti-communist and anti-collectivist sentiment, the foundations of capitalist democracy were grounded in the hyper individualist theory of non-cooperative games.

Is capitalism inherently predatory? Must there be winners and losers? Is public interest outdated and free-riding rational? Is consumer choice the same as self-determination? Must bargainers abandon the no-harm principle? Prisoners of Reason recalls that classical liberal capitalism exalted the no-harm principle. Although imperfect and exclusionary, modern liberalism recognized individual human dignity alongside individuals' responsibility to respect others. Neoliberalism, by contrast, views life as ceaseless struggle. Agents vie for scarce resources in antagonistic competition in which every individual seeks dominance. This (...) political theory is codified in non-cooperative game theory; the neoliberal citizen and consumer is the strategic rational actor. Rational choice justifies ends irrespective of means. Money becomes the medium of all value. Solidarity and good will are invalidated. Relationships are conducted on a quid pro quo basis. However, agents can freely opt out of this cynical race to the bottom by embracing a more expansive range of coherent action. (shrink)

This paper explores how the Leviathan that projects power through nuclear arms exercises a unique nuclearized sovereignty. In the case of nuclear superpowers, this sovereignty extends to wielding the power to destroy human civilization as we know it across the globe. Nuclearized sovereignty depends on a hybrid form of power encompassing human decision-makers in a hierarchical chain of command, and all of the technical and computerized functions necessary to maintain command and control at every moment of the sovereign's existence: this (...) sovereign power cannot sleep. This article analyzes how the form of rationality that informs this hybrid exercise of power historically developed to be computable. By definition, computable rationality must be able to function without any intelligible grasp of the context or the comprehensive significance of decision-making outcomes. Thus, maintaining nuclearized sovereignty necessarily must be able to execute momentous life and death decisions without the type of sentience we usually associate with ethical individual and collective decisions. (shrink)

David Lewis presented Convention as an alternative to the conventionalism characteristic of early-twentieth-century analytic philosophy. Rudolf Carnap is well known for suggesting the arbitrariness of any particular linguistic convention for engaging in scientific inquiry. Analytic truths are self-consistent, and are not checked against empirical facts to ascertain their veracity. In keeping with the logical positivists before him, Lewis concludes that linguistic communication is conventional. However, despite his firm allegiance to conventions underlying not just languages but also social customs, he pioneered (...) the view that convening need not require any active agreement to participate. Lewis proposed that conventions arise from “an exchange of manifestations of a propensity to conform to a regularity” (87–8). In reasserting the conventional quality of languages and other practices resting on mutual expectations, Lewis comfortably works within the analytic tradition. Yet he also deviates from his predecessors because his conventionalist approach is comprehensively grounded in instrumentalism. Lewis adopts an extension of David Hume's desire-belief psychology articulated in rational choice theory. He develops his philosophy of convention relying on the highly formal mid-twentieth-century expected utility and game theories. This attempt to account for language and social customs wholly in terms of instrumental rationality has the implication of reducing normativity to preference satisfaction. Lewis’ approach continues in the trend of undermining normative political philosophy because institutions and practices arise spontaneously, without the deliberate involvement of agents. Perhaps Lewis’ Convention is best seen as a resurgent form of analytic philosophy, characterized by “a style of argument, hostility to [ambitious] metaphysics, focus on language, and the dominance of logic and formalization” that solves the dilemma of “combining the analytic inheritance…with normative concerns” by reducing normativity to individuals’ preference fulfillment consistent with the axioms of rational choice. (shrink)

En su anterior estudio sobre la recepción de Vico en el s. XIX español, el autor analizó los casos de importantes intelectuales como Juan Donoso Cortés, Jaime Luciano Balmes, Juan Valera, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Alfredo Adolfo Camus y Nicolás Serrano. Con ello se cumplió parte del plan de desmontar la tesis frecuentemente aceptada de una "ausencia" de Vico en España. Este plan se viene a desarrollar ahora con una nueva aportación investigadora en la que el autor muestra y analiza tres (...) importantes casos más de recepción viquiana: la del ecléctico historiador Fermin Gonzalo Morón, la del renovador neoescolástico Ceferino González, y la del fundador de la escuela jurídica catalana Manuel Durán y Bas. Con ellos el autor confirma su tesis de que Vico es apreciado, tanto desde la recepción positiva como desde la crítica, como un pensador modemo y heterodoxo de considerable valía.In his former paper on Vico’s reception during the XIX century in Spain, the author reviewed such significant intellectuals as Juan Donoso Cortés, Jaime Luciano Balmes, Juan Valera, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Alfredo Adolfo Camus and Nicolás Serrano. In so doing, the task of dislodging the thesis so frequently held that there is a Vico’s "absence" in Spain was partially accomplished. This task is taken up again in a recent investigation where the author analyzes and assesses three further important cases related with the Spanish Vichian reception: that of eclectic historian Femín Gonzalo Morón, the neo-scholastic Ceferino González and finally the Catalan legal school founder Manuel Durán y Bas. With those examples the author aims to validate his claim that Vico was indeed acknowledged both as a modern and heterodox thinker by the positive as well as by the critical reception. (shrink)

This essay represents a novel contribution to Nietzschean studies by combining an assessment of Friedrich Nietzsche’s challenging uses of “truth” and the “eternal return” with his insights drawn from Indian philosophies. Specifically, drawing on Martin Heidegger’s Nietzsche, I argue that Nietzsche’s critique of a static philosophy of being underpinning conceptual truth is best understood in line with the Theravada Buddhist critique of “self ” and “ego” as transitory. In conclusion, I find that Nietzsche’s “eternal return” can be understood as a (...) direct inversion of “nirvana”: Nietzsche celebrates profound attachment to each and every moment, independent from its pleasurable or distasteful registry. (shrink)

This paper critically engages Philip Mirowki's essay, "The scientific dimensions of social knowledge and their distant echoes in 20th-century American philosophy of science." It argues that although the cold war context of anti-democratic elitism best suited for making decisions about engaging in nuclear war may seem to be politically and ideologically motivated, in fact we need to carefully consider the arguments underlying the new rational choice based political philosophies of the post-WWII era typified by Arrow's impossibility theorem. A distrust of (...) democratic decision-making principles may be developed by social scientists whose leanings may be toward the left or right side of the spectrum of political practices. (shrink)