I will examine the first of Thomas Kuhn’s Thalheimer Lectures delivered in 1984, with the purpose of establishing a connection between Kuhn’s historiographical thought and his criticism of the traditional distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification, or, as I call it, the DJ distinction. In order to do this, I will start by exploring the Kuhnian view of the so-called static approach in philosophy of science, taking as my main reference the work of Bacon, Descartes, (...) and foundationalist epistemology. I will continue by examining the relationship between Kuhnian historiography and the DJ distinction, comparing the first Thalheimer Lecture with other texts published by Kuhn. Finally, I will assert that Kuhn’s rejection of the DJ distinction is the result of adopting a historiographical matrix whose philosophical consequences are irreconcilable with the static approach in history and philosophy of science, for which the DJ distinction is essential. (shrink)

This paper explores Thomas Kuhn’s intellectual history by examining sources that have been understudied so far: the Lowell Lectures of 1951 (The Quest for Physical Theory) and the hitherto unpublished Notre Dame Lectures of 1980. The analysis of these texts aims to reconstruct Kuhn’s development of a semantics that can account for scientific progress. This analysis will show that the alleged “linguistic turn” attributed to the author is actually a renewed interest in problems that existed well before publishing The Structure (...) of Scientific Revolutions. (shrink)

This paper examines ‘The Natures of Conceptual Change’, the Notre Dame lectures given by Kuhn in 1980. In particular, I aim to examine the content of these lectures which was not published before. This exegetical task will shed light on the sources of the notion of taxonomy used in these lectures for the first time with the explicit philosophical purposes. It also will shed new light on Kuhn's position regarding the causal theory of reference. Reviewing these archival materials paves the (...) way for intertextual comparisons, as Kuhn included part of these lectures in the texts published later and in the book Plurality of Worlds: an Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development. In recent years, the publication of Kuhn's archival material and the research on these texts increased in quantity and quality. Faced with this encouraging landscape, a comparative examination of the different unpublished texts is crucial to refining both our research tools on Kuhn's intellectual biography and the philosophical work inspired by his proposal. (shrink)

En Razón, Verdad e Historia Hilary Putnam caracterizó la racionalidad informal como una alternativa que permite superar las limitaciones evidenciadas por las concepciones formalistas de la racionalidad. Se revisa inicialmente la caracterización ofrecida por Putnam y se establece que si bien Putnam niega todo principio universal de racionalidad, admite principios relativos, generales e indeterminados, que permanecen sujetos a necesidades de interrelación cognitiva con el entorno. A continuación, se muestra que los principios aceptan excepciones, y, a partir de aquí se defiende (...) y analiza la posibilidad de revisión de principios cuya negación no resulta actualmente concebible. Finalmente, se afirma que tanto exponer como preservar creencias de la controversia constituyen elementos históricos que deben ser contemplados por una concepción informal de la racionalidad. In Reason, Truth and History, Hilary Putnam characterized informal rationality as an alternative that allows to overcome limitations evidenced by the formalist conceptions of rationality. Initially, the paper reviews the characterization provided by Putnam and establishes that, while Putnam denies any universal principle of rationality, he accepts relative, general and vague principles, that remain subject to needs of cognitive interrelationship with the environment. Secondly, we show that principles make exceptions and defend the possibility of reviewing principles whose denial is currently not conceivable. Finally, we state that both expressing and maintaining beliefs of controversy are historical elements that should be contemplated by an informal conception of rationality. (shrink)

Estudios de filosofía contemporánea, lleva por título este volumen que reúne varios trabajos del Prof. Ricardo Navia, algunos publicados previamente en revistas especializadas de Brasil y Perú, otros que se editan por primera vez. No obstante tratarse de artículos independientes, la obra presenta continuidad temática en torno a problemas de teoría del conocimiento, filosofía del lenguaje y metafilosofía, especialmente centrados en la filosofía de la segunda mitad del siglo XX.

I will present a comparative analysis between Thomas Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution published in 1957 and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions published in 1962, ir order to identify divergences in the views contained in each work. I shall set forth a comparative analysis of the historiographical assumptions employed by Kuhn in each of his books. I will explore some proposals which have pointed out several discontinuities between both books, as I introduce some tools to widen this interpretative trend. I will (...) argue that although Kuhn’s work in 1957 contains some concerns and problems which anticipate his later stances, these anticipations coexist with historiographical formulations and premises which are incompatible with the core of SSR. Therefore, I will assert that Kuhn adopts different historiographical frameworks in CR and in SSR. Finally, I will conclude that these differences are expressions of Kuhn's adoption of a more externalist view in the former, and a more internalist frame in the latter. (shrink)

El problema de determinar cuál es el método de la Ciencia de la Información ha sido objeto de distintos abordajes y propuestas metodológicas. En este trabajo defendemos que dichos problemas usualmente se han planteado de manera errónea, y que su planteo no contribuye a una mejora del campo. Comenzamos con un recorrido por diferentes propuestas metodológicas, señalando el consenso existente sobre el impacto de la indagación metodológica en el status científico de la disciplina. Luego rastreamos la influencia del positivismo en (...) la metodología de la CI, sosteniendo que la concepción positivista del método científico aún sigue gobernando de forma implícita la autopercepción epistemológica de la disciplina. Finalmente ensayamos una lectura de algunos problemas metodológicos basada en la filosofía de Thomas Kuhn, enfatizando que no es la reflexión metodológica, sino el desarrollo de una tradición exitosa de resolución de problemas lo que consolida el status científico. (shrink)

The present paper proposes a critical revision of the massive truth notion, in the context of Donald Davidson’s criticism to skepticism. It´s distinguished in Davidson’s work a cuantitative sense and a cualitative sense of the massive truth, asserting that the first one has been more frequently used and has had just an intuitive level of elucidation. The main problems associated to the cuantitative notion of massive truth are revised in relation to the quantification of beliefs, the detection of error on (...) a background of truth and the application of the Davidsonian methodology to non perceptual beliefs. Over this revision it is proposed the substitution of the cuantitative notion of massive truth for a cualitative notion, and are analized its advantages over eventual skeptical objections. (shrink)

En 1983 Thomas Kuhn introdujo la distinción entre interpretación y traducción, con el propósito de fortalecer la tesis de la inconmensurabilidad y responder a objeciones formuladas por Donald Davidson y Hilary Putnam. A partir de este contexto de debate, este trabajo revisa la distinción kuhniana con el objetivo de explorar las conexiones que pueden establecerse entre las teorías rivales y las comunidades científicas que las defienden. Para ello examino el papel de la traducción, la interpretación y la comunicación en el (...) cambio teórico, con el propósito de ampliar la distinción de Kuhn y ahondar en algunas consecuencias no contempladas en su planteo original. Concluyo que la distinción entre estos planos lingüísticos resulta fundamental para comprender y evaluar el alcance de las divergencias suscitadas en casos de inconmensurabilidad. (shrink)

Este trabajo discute una de las objeciones de N. Hall al análisis contrafactual de D. Lewis. Según Hall, los intentos de fortalecer el análisis contrafactual se apoyan en la aceptación de la transitividad, la localidad y el carácter intrínseco de las relaciones causales. Esto es problemático en cuanto el concepto de doble prevención evidencia tensiones entre estas tres tesis y el concepto de dependencia, central en el análisis de Lewis. Revisando uno de los ejemplos de Hall, se defiende que su (...) crítica al análisis contrafactual cumple parcialmente su objetivo en referencia a la localidad, ya que sólo una de las estructuras causales que Hall presenta acepta la dependencia y no la localidad, no tratándose de un típico caso de doble prevención. Finalmente se propone la denominación early doble prevention para los casos que aceptan la dependencia y no la localidad, y late doble prevention para los que aceptan ambas tesis. This paper discusses one of the objections made by N. Hall to D. Lewis's counterfactual analysis. According to Hall, the attempts to strengthen the counterfactual analysis are supported by the acceptance of transitivity, locality and intrinsic nature of causal relationships. This is problematic, as the concept of double prevention demonstrates the tensions existing among these three theses and the concept of dependence which is central in Lewis's analysis. By studying one of the examples given by Hall, we can sustain that his criticism to counterfactual analysis partially fulfills its goal in reference to locality, taking into account that only one of the causal structures exposed by Hall accept dependence but not locality and is not a typical example of double prevention. Finally we suggest the name of early double prevention for those cases that accept the dependency but not the locality, and late double prevention for those accepting both theses. (shrink)

The paper discusses certain discrepancies between The Copernican Revolution (1957) and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) by Thomas Kuhn. It shows that they present a different consideration of extra-scientific factors, that in the former have a higher explanatory weight. It states that in 1957 Kuhn applies a casuistical historiography, focused on the Copernican revolution, and in 1962 a structural historiography, focused on the invariable features of scientific revolutions. The paper concludes that the differences between these two works are significant (...) enough so as not to be considered an expression of the same view of science. (shrink)

Resumen: Janet Folina ha propuesto una interpretación del convencionalismo de Poincaré contraria a la que ofrecen Michael Friedman y Robert DiSalle. Ambos afirman que la propuesta de Poincaré queda refutada por la relati-vidad general pues supone una noción restrictiva de los principios a priori. Folina sostiene que el convencionalismo de Poincaré no es contradictorio con la relatividad general porque permite una noción relativizada de los princi-pios a priori. Intento mostrar que la estrategia de Folina es ineficaz porque Poincaré no puede (...) explicar el papel de la variedad de Riemann en la rela-tividad general. Concluyo que la tentativa de reconstruir el desarrollo de la relatividad general a partir de la filosofía de Poincaré puede constituir un obs-táculo para comprender la radicalidad del cambio que la relatividad generó en las relaciones entre física y geometría.: Janet Folina has proposed an interpretation of Poincaré’s conven-tionalism against Michael Friedman and Robert DiSalle. They both state that Poincaré’s proposal is refuted by general relativity, since it implies a restrictive notion of a priori principles. Folina claims that Poincaré’s conventionalism is not in conflict with general relativity because from Poincaré’s proposal it is possible to extract a relativized notion of a priori principles. I intend to show that Folina’s strategy is ineffective due to Poincaré’s inability to explain the role of Riemann manifold in general relativity. I conclude that the attempt to reconstruct the development of general relativity from Poincaré’s philosophy may be an obstacle to understanding the radical nature of the change that relativity brought to the relationship between physics and geometry. (shrink)

Frecuentemente se atribuye al empirismo apelar a principios no empíricos para defender el conocimiento empírico, por ello se le ha acusado de incurrir en cierta clase de autorrefutación. Con el advenimiento del empirismo lógico, esta objeción tomó la forma de cuestionamiento al criterio empirista de significado, señalando que, al no tratarse de una proposición lógica ni empírica, no cumple con sus propias condiciones de significatividad. En este artículo pretendo mostrar que dentro del empirismo lógico se desarrollaron respuestas a estas críticas, (...) lo suficientemente consistentes como para resistir la objeción de autorrefutación. Asimismo, defiendo que la afirmación de autorrefutación del criterio empirista de significado parte de comprensión inadecuada de los niveles lingüísticos involucrados en su formulación, así como de algunos supuestos no explícitos respecto de su estatus. Empiricism has frequently been said to appeal to non-empirical principles to defend empirical knowledge, which is why it has been accused of falling into some form of self-refutation. With the advent of logical empiricism, this objection became a questioning of the empiricist criterion of meaning, noting that since it is neither a logical nor an empirical proposition, it does not fulfill its own conditions of meaningfulness. This paper intends to show that responses to this criticism, consistent enough to resist the objection of self-refutation, have been developed whithin logical empiricism. In addition, the article claims that the assertion that the empiricist criterion of meaning is self-refuting is based on an inadequate understanding of the linguistic levels involved in its formulation, as well as on some unspecified assumptions regarding its status. (shrink)

In this work we attempt to analyze the intra-theoretic characterization provided by Hilary Putnam and Werner Heisenberg between quantum mechanics and other theories. The first defended the idea that physical theories include macro principles that under specific definite historical conditions can be revised on the light of rival principles. Putnam will concentrate in the impact that quantum mechanics has produced in the classical image of knowledge. Heisenberg, on the other hand, develops his analysis from the notion of closed theories, assuming (...) the independence and incommensurability of physical theories. These divergences between the two authors will allow us to analyze how the disagreement in the consideration of the status of physical theories, goes deeper into more profound aspects related to the nature of knowledge and the relation between theory and world. (shrink)

This article proposes to analyse some aspects of the appropriation of New School thinking in Brazil, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, in the 1950s and 1960s. The analysis is based on the assumption that the developmentalist ideology that punctuated the debate on the economic, political and social restructuring of the country in these two decades constituted fertile ground for the return and expansion of pragmatist thinking amongst Brazilian educators, articulating itself, sometimes in contradictory ways, with this ideology. The focus of the analysis (...) will be on the writings of the group of educators which circulated around the figure of Anísio Teixeira, at the time director of the National Institute for Pedagogic Studies, an organ linked to the Ministry of Education and Culture, which set itself the task of producing research that would support public policy in the field of education, as well as constituting itself as a center for teacher education and the stimulus and development of innovative experiences in the public school system. The appropriation of Deweyan pragmatism, in this context, had a triple perspective: pragmatism as scientific method, implying a specific conception of science, particularly the social sciences, with emphasis on the application of scientific knowledge in the solution of practical problems; as a way of democratic life; and as a synonym for experimentalism, in the sphere of schooling. (shrink)

Este artigo examina algumas aproximações e distanciamentos de Merleau-Ponty em relação à filosofia de Bergson, tendo em vista que Merleau-Ponty parece dividido quanto ao seu parecer sobre a concepção bergsoniana do tempo. Essa oscilação entre crítica e elogio é certamente visível na Fenomenologia da percepção, na qual Merleau-Ponty reconhece que Bergson teria dissolvido a questão do dualismo ao afirmar que “o corpo e o espírito se comunicam pela mediação do tempo”. Entretanto, Merleau-Ponty vai denunciar outra espécie de dualismo bergsoniano, que (...) pretende reencontrar a unidade na multiplicidade por meio do conceito de “multiplicidade de fusão”. Nesse sentido, a metáfora bergsoniana da “bola de neve” procura caracterizar a essência do tempo enquanto duração. (shrink)

How should political power and influence be allocated in democratic systems? That is, roughly, the core of the boundary problem in democratic theory. As of late, some authors have begun paying increased attention to the methodological aspects of this dispute. This paper attempts to make a twofold contribution to this ‘methodological turn’. On the one hand, it identifies and analyzes five desiderata of a successful principle of democratic inclusion. Any such principle, I argue, must be grounded in a clearly identifiable (...) set of values, must provide a clear standard of inclusion, must specify the relevant modalities of inclusion, must provide sound bridging principles, and must be extensionally adequate. In the first half of the paper, these desiderata are developed and critically scrutinized. On the other hand, I also extract three lessons from the previous discussion. First, that a unique answer to the boundary problem (i.e. one grounded in one single principle) is unlikely. Second, that a satisfactory answer to the boundary problem need not necessarily appeal, as some have argued, to distinctively democratic values. And third, that intuitions about political exclusion (i.e. those requiring or permitting the exclusion of some individuals) should be treated with special caution. (shrink)

El tema del hombre ha sido el centro de la reflexión filosófica de los últimos siglos, siendo motivo de debate desde comienzos de la modernidad. El filósofo italiano Michele Federico Sciacca (1908-1975) tuvo conciencia clara de esto, estableciendo que la filosofía debe ser ontología y, sobre todo, ontología del hombre como existente. Esto para él significa, por lo menos, dos cosas: que el autoconocimiento es el punto de partida en el estudio filosófico y que desde el conocimiento del hombre concreto, (...) de la persona humana, podemos entender todo lo real. (shrink)

“But surely if it's not irrational, it can’t be OCD!” my friend exclaimed, when I told them about the paper Carolina Flores and Brent Kious provided their excellent comments for. In all fairness, my friend is not working in philosophy, or psychiatry, or in psychology. Still, I take their sentiment to be expressive of a widely held view: if you have a certain mental illness, then you must be irrational. Conversely, rationality guarantees mental health; the sane life is the rational (...) life. -/- In my paper, I attempted to complicate this picture. My main line of thought was that if the sane life is the rational life, we do not have a good conception of rationality yet. For, our best theories of rationality fail to capture what is going wrong in some cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Addressing the criticisms raised by my commentators will allow me to clear up some misunderstandings and sketch avenues for further work. (shrink)

The relevance of Martin Heidegger’s thinking to Paul Celan’s poetry is well known. Between Celan and Heidegger proposes that, while the relation between them is undeniable, it is also marked by irreducible discord. Pablo Oyarzun begins with a deconstruction of Celan’s Todtnauberg, written after the poet visited Heidegger in his Schwarzwald cabin. The poem stands as a milestone, not only in the complex relationship between the two men but also in the state of poetry and philosophy in late modernity, (...) in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Discussion then turns to The Meridian, Celan’s acceptance speech for the prestigious Büchner Prize for German language literature. Other issues are insistently addressed—place, art, language, pain, existence, and the Heideggerian notion of dialogue—as Oyarzun revisits several essential poems from Celan’s oeuvre. A rare translation of Oyarzun’s work into English, Between Celan and Heidegger affirms the uniqueness of Celan’s poetry in confrontation both with Heidegger’s discourse on Dichtung (a poetic saying centered in the idea of gathering) and with Western philosophical notions of art, technē, mimesis, poiesis, language, and thinking more broadly. (shrink)

Grounded in a will to adapt to dangers, and espouse both responsibility and resilience, voluntary measures have largely replaced one of the oldest public health strategies, quarantine. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, elicited a broad sweep of tactics from the archive of public health armoury. On a general level, this review essay addresses the common measures rolled out by various authorities against the pandemic - the lock-downs, reopening process, financial support and vaccination. By relating these measures to 1) the “plague-stricken town”, (...) deployed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe by the Polizeistaat; 2) the “self-regulation strategy” that emerged with liberal ideas at the end of the eighteenth century; and 3) the “minimum security” programmed by neoliberal governmentality in the second half of the twentieth century, it is suggested that tensions between freedom and security during, and after, the pandemic can be better understood. To end, the essay noticed that the pandemic has enforced tensions in the administration and calibration of individual wishes and collective wellbeing, creating a fragile “freedom-security relationship” and new problem space for self-regulation. (shrink)

The theme of consent is, without question, associated with the origins of bioethics and is one of its most significant paradigms that has remained controversial to the present, as is confirmed by the proposal for its debate during the last World Congress of Bioethics. Seen broadly as a compulsory minimum procedure in the field of biomedical ethics, even today it keeps open the issues that it has raised from the start: whether it is really necessary and whether it can be (...) proven to be effective. My goal will be to attempt to determine the most genuine and relevant meaning of consent, going back from its present dominant normative meaning and, from there, identifying or simply sketching other possible forms of its expression in the world we live in, so as to justify its pertinence and validity. This objective will involve three stages: (1) ‘Consent’ as a privileged paradigm of bioethics (the ethical-juridical sense), (2) The symbolic value of ‘consent’ (the social-cultural sense), and (3) ‘Consent’ as promotion of the human (the humanistic-personal sense) .It is concluded that the common notion of normative consent is not the only one, nor does it hold universal validity; that, from a historical-cultural perspective, new expressions of consent appear, adapted to different social contexts and to possibly be implemented in developing countries; and, finally, that consent is strictly indispensable in situations of extreme dependence, in its symbolic relational character, in as much as it promotes ethical relationships among strangers and ensures that they remain so. (shrink)

This study investigates whether employees attribute different motives to their organization's corporate social responsibility efforts and if these motives influence employee performance. Specifically, we investigate whether employees could distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motives by surveying 229 employee–supervisor dyads from various industries , and the impact of these perceptions on in-role and extra-role performance of subordinates. We found that employee task performance increases when employees attribute both intrinsic and extrinsic motives for CSR. Moreover, when employees perceive that their organization (...) invests in a CSR practice that is both intrinsic and extrinsic, they also tend to exert extra effort in their work. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed alongside future research directions. (shrink)

This article is a critical study of the recently published edition of the young Descartes's texts: Descartes, Étude du bon sens; La recherche de la verité et autres écrits de jeunesse (1616-1631). Edición, traducción, presentación y notas de Vincent Carraud y Giles Olivo, con la colaboración de Corinna Vermeulen, París, PUF, colección Épiméthée, 2013, 453 pp.

The bridge between psychiatry and neuroscience is not the only one we have to build; it is also necessary to narrow the gap between neuroscience and philosophy. This does not imply reducing the latter to the former or vice versa, but rather linking each other without eliminating their own characteristics. Taking that into account, Dan Zahavi’s phenomenology of mind can make a great contribution by presenting itself like a different option within philosophy of mind, which up until the last few (...) years was dominated by the analytic tradition. In this chapter I present Zahavi’s proposal in four steps. Firstly, I clarify the term phenomenology. This question is not accidental because nowadays this concept is used by diverse traditions and with different meanings. Secondly, I make the fundamental distinction between first-person-perspective—which corresponds to Phenomenology—and third-person-perspective—compatible with neuroscience. Thirdly, I explain the methodological stages assumed by Zahavi from the Husserlian tradition. These stages enable him to study from the first-person-perspective rigorously: epoché, phenomenological reduction, eidetic variation, and intersubjective verification. Finally, I develop the issue of naturalization of Phenomenology in order to establish a dialogue between science and philosophy. For Zahavi that naturalization does not necessarily imply reductionism, but can be understood as something necessary for a fruitful exchange between those disciplines. (shrink)

El artículo tiene como objetivo presentar y valorar críticamente la propuesta de John Rogers Searle sobre la libertad. Para esto, en un primer momento mostraremos que para él la libertad debe entenderse desde la perspectiva de la primera persona, es decir desde la experiencia subjetiva. Desde allí establece que la libertad se expresa en el llamado fenómeno de la brecha, es decir, en el salto que experimentamos entre la causa y el efecto en el proceso de realización de una acción. (...) Este salto se manifiesta en los actos llevados a cabo por razones independientes del deseo, como puede observarse en el altruismo fuerte. Y para Searle, solo un Yo, cuyas características emergen del cerebro, puede asumir estas razones para actuar acorde a ellas. En un segundo momento, dedicado a la valoración crítica de la propuesta de Searle, consideramos la importancia de la perspectiva de primera persona para entender la libertad. Luego mostramos que una noción analógica de causa permite entender mejor el acto libre, como así también evitar el dualismo y el reduccionismo materialista. Esta visión, propia de la tradición aristotélico-tomista y que podríamos denominar de tercera persona, debe complementarse con una reflexión desde la interioridad, como realiza Michele Federico Sciacca, es decir, desde una perspectiva de primera persona. Ambas líneas filosóficas confluyen en la consideración metafísica del hombre. Concluimos luego con una breve reflexión sobre el tema del vínculo interdisciplinar como forma de entender las temáticas antropológicas. (shrink)

The main purpose of these introductory remarks is to give the reader a sense of Philip Rossi’s philosophical project and its importance. I will then advance an interpretation of what motivates Kant’s commitment to community, and, on its basis, object to Rossi’s views on radical evil –a point which affects how one should conceive the moral vocation of humanity and the role that politics and religion play within it. My reconstruction concludes with a sketch of how the five contributions to (...) this Symposium fit together and deepen our understanding of Rossi’s overall project. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate a semantics for first-order logic originally proposed by R. van Rooij to account for the idea that vague predicates are tolerant, that is, for the principle that if x is P, then y should be P whenever y is similar enough to x. The semantics, which makes use of indifference relations to model similarity, rests on the interaction of three notions of truth: the classical notion, and two dual notions simultaneously defined in terms of it, (...) which we call tolerant truth and strict truth. We characterize the space of consequence relations definable in terms of those and discuss the kind of solution this gives to the sorites paradox. We discuss some applications of the framework to the pragmatics and psycholinguistics of vague predicates, in particular regarding judgments about borderline cases. (shrink)

The text analyses rituals as endeavours to preserve the identity of a people or a portion of a people. Rituals present or re-present the supposed common history of all the migrants. Social memory and history then tend to merge and to forget... forgetfulness is the driving force behind the writing of history. Particularly critical is the moment when the migration starts, because the need to adapt to new conditions as well as to maintain what is represented as their social identity (...) makes dual – and at times contradictory – demands on the migrants’ imagination. Examples taken from Portuguese migrations are offered as expressions of the conceptual issues raised. (shrink)

This paper stems from the current global worsening of the scarcity of resources for healthcare, which will deepen even more in future public emergencies. This justifies strengthening the reflection on the allocation of resources which, in addition to considering technical issues, should also involve ethical concerns. The two plans in which the allocation of resources develops—macro and micro—are then systematized, both requiring the identification of ethical criteria for the respective complex decision-making. Then, we describe how the complexity at the macro (...) level focuses on the joint consideration of the rectitude of the principles, the goodness of the ends, and the integrity—respectively the deontological, teleological, and procedural perspectives; and at the micro level, it focuses in prioritizing people, which can result in the exclusion of some, as happened with the elderly during peaks of COVID-19. The main objective of this article is to show that, in public health emergency situations, in which the daily criteria for prioritizing access to health care are not efficient, it is possible not only to ration the available means but also to rationalize them. We argue that rationing and rationalization are different concepts, entail different consequences, have different ethical foundations, and draw different guidelines for patient care. We apply them to the distribution of intensive care and vaccines to the elderly thus demonstrating the ethically legitimate domain of implementation of each of these two prioritization criteria. We conclude that rationalization respects more strictly the core ethical principles of our common morality. (shrink)

This Dictionary presents a broad range of topics relevant in present-day global bioethics. With more than 500 entries, this dictionary covers organizations working in the field of global bioethics, international documents concerning bioethics, personalities that have played a role in the development of global bioethics, as well as specific topics in the field.The book is not only useful for students and professionals in global health activities, but can also serve as a basic tool that explains relevant ethical notions and terms. (...) The dictionary furthers the ideals of cosmopolitanism: solidarity, equality, respect for difference and concern with what human beings- and specifically patients - have in common, regardless of their backgrounds, hometowns, religions, gender, etc. Global problems such as pandemic diseases, disasters, lack of care and medication, homelessness and displacement call for global responses.This book demonstrates that a moral vision of global health is necessary and it helps to quickly understand the basic ideas of global bioethics. (shrink)

Cultural diversity is an inescapable reality and a concern in many businesses where it can often raise ethical questions and dilemmas. This paper aims to offer suggestions to certain problems facing managers in dealing with cultural diversity through the inspiration of Thomas Aquinas. Although he may be perceived as a voice from the distant past, we can still find in his writings helpful and original ideas and criteria. He welcomes cultural differences as a part of the perfection of the universe. (...) His systemic approach leads one to place the problem in its proper context, and to reflect on it from the perspective of virtue ethics, with a central role for practical wisdom and giving primacy to neighborly love and natural moral law. Rather than a set of rigid standards with no consideration of diversity Aquinas focuses on the common human ground, which allows for the indispensable dialogue between different positions. When dealing with practical questions, the problem is one of finding the right balance between general principle and cultural specifics, tolerance, and dialogue, always guided by practical wisdom. In this way, Aquinas’ approach is neither rigid ethical universalism with no consideration for diversity nor moral relativism with no place for any transcultural and absolute morals. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a way to add a transparent truth predicate to classical logic, such that and A are everywhere intersubstitutable, where all T-biconditionals hold, and where truth can be made compositional. A key feature of our framework, called STTT (for Strict-Tolerant Transparent Truth), is that it supports a non-transitive relation of consequence. At the same time, it can be seen that the only failures of transitivity STTT allows for arise in paradoxical cases.

Frost's article advocates for universal models of reading and critiques recent models that concentrate in what has been described as “cracking the orthographic code.” Although the challenge to develop models that can account for word recognition beyond Indo-European languages is welcomed, we argue that reading models should also be constrained by general principles of visual processing and object recognition.