Lucretius devotes some sections of his De rerum natura to the treatment of dreams. He is particularly interested in the phenomenon of dream deception, namely the belief that the dreamt object is the object itself. This psychological phenomenon has some both unwanted and philosophically interesting implications. Firstly, from an ethical point of view, it can stimulate uncontrolled worries and feelings in the dreamer that undermine his/her mental tranquility and health. Secondly, from a physiological perspective, it seems to reveal a failure (...) in the mechanism undergoing the formation of mental representation. Thirdly, from the epistemological point of view, it seems to compromise the veracity of mental representations. This paper aims to explain how Lucretius dealt with this phenomenon. In particular, it will show how he succeeded, on the one hand, to explain the nature and the origin of dream deception and of its emotional aspect, and, on the other hand, to preserve the informative contents of dreams and their correspondence to reality. For this purpose the present essay will address the following issues: which is the condition of the soul and of the mind while sleeping; what kind of mental activity is dreaming; which is the nature and the origin of the simulacra responsible for dreams; which is the contents of dreams and how dream deception comes about; and finally why and how dream deception emotionally effects the dreamer. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 4, Page 981-998, October 2022.

In this paper art history and visual studies, the disciplines that study visual culture, are presented as a field whose conjectural paradigm can be used to understand the epistemic problems associated with abduction. In order to do so, significant statements, concepts and arguments from the work of several specialists in this field have been highlighted. Their analysis shows the fruitfulness and potential for understanding the study of visual culture as a field that is interwoven with the assumptions of abductive cognition.

Como casi todos los conceptos fi losófi cos, el de «validez normativa» tiene altos grados de ambigüedad y de vaguedad. En este trabajo me encargo de analizar la postura de distintos autores que han tratado de dar respuesta a la pregunta ¿qué significa que una norma sea «válida»? Para ello, tomo como hilo conductor la obra de Ernesto Garzón Valdés. Esto se debe a que los trabajos de Ernesto Garzón dedicados a este tema, le ofrecen al lector un análisis crítico (...) y comprensivo de algunas de las posturas teóricas más relevantes sobre el concepto de validez normativa. Asimismo, trabajar a través de su obra tiene un doble benefi cio: por un lado, no sólo nos permite conocer a fondo la postura teórica de autores que pertenecen a distintas corrientes del pensamiento, como Hans Kelsen, H.L.A. Hart, Francisco Suárez o von Wright por ejemplo, sino que, por el otro, nos permite conocer la postura del mismo Garzón y sus críticas a los diferentes modelos conceptuales. (shrink)

The tree-based data structure of -tree for propositional formulas is introduced in an improved and optimised form. The -trees allow a compact representation for negation normal forms as well as for a number of reduction strategies in order to consider only those occurrences of literals which are relevant for the satisfiability of the input formula. These reduction strategies are divided into two subsets (meaning- and satisfiability-preserving transformations) and can be used to decrease the size of a negation normal form A (...) at (at most) quadratic cost. The reduction strategies are aimed at decreasing the number of required branchings and, therefore, these strategies allow to limit the size of the search space for the SAT problem. (shrink)

Using a recent result of Busch and Gudder, we reconsider a theorem of Ludwig which allows one to identify a class of effect automorphisms as the symmetry transformations in quantum mechanics.

Take the following version of scientific realism: we have good reason to believe that (some of the) current scientific theories tell us something specific about the underlying, i.e. unobservable, structures of the world, for instance that there are electrons with a certain electric charge, or that there are viruses that cause certain diseases. Popper, the rationalist, would not have adhered to the proposed formulation of scientific realism in terms of the rationality of existential beliefs concerning unobservables. Popper did not believe (...) in belief. According to Van Fraassen, the empiricist, one may yet have a rational existential belief concerning unobservables, given a liberal notion of rationality of belief. In this paper I will investigate to what extent a reassessment of both Popper’s rejection of the rationality of belief and Van Fraassen’s reformulation of the rationality of belief, points towards a new and pragmatist dissolution of the ‘problem of scientific realism’. (shrink)

Semantic Automata Johan van Ben them. INTRODUCTION An attractive, but never very central idea in modern semantics has been to regard linguistic expressions ...

The aim of this text is to examine the issue of truth telling in doctor-patient relationships, namely in the case of terminal patients. We analyze the problems and attitudes regarding truth telling that there are present when patients suffer from mortal diseases. We conclude that it is very important to keep a fluent and truthful communication in the doctor-patient relationship. We also examine and stress the role that general practitioners can play in the care of terminal patients at their home (...) and with their friends and/or relatives. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a concepção de liberdade encontrada em "Discourses concerning government" de Algernon Sidney. Mantendo a perspectiva republicana, a liberdade é definida pela ausência de dominação, ou seja, pela não submissão, sujeição ou exposição à vontade arbitrária de outra pessoa; e assumindo a perspectiva jusnaturalista, a liberdade é considerada um direito natural, inerente à condição humana, que deve ser preservado e assegurado pela autoridade política. Pretende-se discutir como Sidney articula essas duas perspectivas em sua teoria (...) política, projetando a concepção republicana de liberdade na modernidade.ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is to analyze the concept of freedom found in Algernon Sidney’s "Discourses Concerning government". Keeping the republican thought, freedom is defined by the absence of domination, i.e., the denial of submission, bondage or exposure to the arbitrary will of another person; and taking the jusnaturalist thought, freedom is considered a natural right inherent to the human condition, which must be preserved and guaranteed by the political authority. I intend to discuss how Sidney articulates these two perspectives in his political theory, outlining the republican conception of freedom in modernity. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making in school administration has received considerable attention in educational leadership literature. However, most research has focused on principals working in secondary school settings while studies that explore ethical reasoning processes of academic deans have been significantly few. This qualitative study aims to describe the ethical decision-making processes employed by a select group of Filipino college deans in solving ethical dilemmas using the ethical paradigms proposed in the works of Starratt (Educ Adm Q 27:185–202, 1991) and Shapiro and Stefkovich (...) (Ethical leadership and decision-making in education: applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas, 2005) as frameworks for the analysis. Data was gathered using semi-structured interviews and field text was analyzed using deductive thematic analysis. Findings of this study show that majority of the deans chose to share ethical dilemmas involving students and teachers. The findings also show the ethical frameworks of care, justice, and profession as the dominant paradigms utilized by Filipino deans and their preference for adopting multiple ethical frameworks when making their decisions. Most of the ethical dilemmas which the deans narrated relate to their tasks of academic administration such as monitoring student performance, faculty evaluation and maintaining school discipline. Interestingly, only a few dilemmas involving university administrators were expressed, and dilemmas that refer to broader societal issues usually associated with school administrators’ utilization of the ethic of critique were also significantly left out in the narratives of this study. This paper intends to contribute to current literature by expanding research to administrators working in the context of higher education in the Philippine setting. The findings of this study could serve as knowledge base in designing ethics courses to enhance educational leaders’ ethical decision-making skills. The study also provides useful insights of ethical decisions and reasoning processes employed by academic administrators in resolving real life ethical dilemmas that could be useful at the practical level for aspiring and practicing deans. (shrink)

This article represents the genre of auto-ethnographic, autobiographical research. It consists of questions which evoke narrative responses because the questions register a life story in itself. Pieter G.R. de Villiers is the interpellator and Andries G. van Aarde the respondent. They are long-standing friends and both professors of New Testament studies. De Villiers is presently the editor at LitNet Academic (Religious Studies), and Van Aarde is the editor of HTS Theological Studies. Since 1990, De Villiers has been Executive Director of (...) the Centre for Christian Spirituality and Ethics and has been a Research Fellow and Professor Extraordinarius in Biblical Spirituality at the Department of Old and New Testament Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State (since 2001).Contribution: The article reflects a conversation between Andries G. van Aarde and Pieter G.R. de Villiers. It contributes to an understanding of contemporary South African church history, including the protest by academics in Afrikaans ecclesial circles against apartheid and gender injustice. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende discutir os conceitos de direito natural e propriedade no Iuri universi distributio (1578) e as suas conseqüências políticas no Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1566) e no Les Six Livres de la République (1576), de Jean Bodin.