Este trabajo se propone mostrar cómo la Teoría Neoclásica de la Ley Natural fundamenta la existencia de normas morales absolutas, cuál es su relevancia para la filosofía moral, y qué críticas pueden ser formuladas a la argumentación de los autores. Ellos postulan que la ley natural, mediante normas, lleva a elegir y proteger bienes humanos básicos, correspondientes a los diversos aspectos de la naturaleza humana, evitando su destrucción, daño o impedimento. Aunque la mayoría de las normas morales admiten excepción, nunca (...) lo hacen las que prohíben realizar un acto que siempre daña directamente un bien básico, pues tal acto no puede compatibilizarse con la propia autorrealización, y atenta contra la dignidad humana. La división del trabajo tomará la siguiente forma: en los primeros cuatro apartados se abordarán los conceptos clave para la defensa de una norma absoluta en la Teoría Neoclásica, en el quinto se enlazarán los conceptos al modo que los autores lo hacen para demostrar la existencia de absolutos morales y someter el consecuencialismo a crítica, y en el sexto se hará una breve revisión crítica de los argumentos presentados. (shrink)

A questão da racionalidade, da avaliação do pensamento, é uma questão antiga e um terreno tradicional da filosofia - é difícil, ou mesmo impossível, nomear um filósofo que não tenha pensado sobre os princípios que guiam a forma como pensamos e agimos. O que é novo é a forma como essa avaliação pode e deve ser feita considerando dados da ciência cognitiva. O que se procura, de qualquer forma, com uma teoria da racionalidade é - (i) uma descrição ou caracterização (...) dos factores em jogo nas ocasiões em que agentes passam de determinadas crenças para outras crenças, adicionam ou eliminam crenças do seu corpo de crenças, ou optam, a partir de um conjunto de crenças e desejos, por um curso de acção por entre várias alternativas; (ii) um conjunto de hipóteses acerca da forma como decidimos entre critérios de correcção quando falamos da justificação ou racionalidade de crenças e acções; (iii) um conjunto de hipóteses acerca das razões por que queremos saber (se de facto queremos) se as nossas crenças são verdadeiras e os nossos raciocínios e acções racionais. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary (...) philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

El Foro Global de Bioética en Investigación (GFBR por sus siglas en inglés) se reunió el 3 y 4 de noviembre en Buenos Aires, Argentina, con el objetivo de discutir la ética de la investigación con mujeres embarazadas. El GFBR es una plataforma mundial que congrega a actores clave con el objetivo de promover la investigación realizada de manera ética, fortalecer la ética de la investigación en salud, particularmente en países de ingresos bajos y medios, y promover colaboración entre países (...) del norte y del sur.a Los participantes en el GFBR provenientes de Latinoamérica incluyeron a eticistas, investigadores, miembros de comités de ética y representantes de autoridades sanitarias provenientes de Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panamá, Perú, Nicaragua y la República Dominicana. Una legítima preocupación por la protección de las mujeres embarazadas y sus embriones o fetos ha llevado a la mayoría de los países de la Región de las Américas a limitar la realización de estudios con mujeres embarazadas exclusivamente a aquellos estudios específicos sobre el embarazo, y a requerir la exclusión sistemática de las mujeres embarazadas o de las mujeres que quedan embarazadas en el curso del estudio. Ciertamente, a lo largo de la historia de la ética de la investigación, se ha creído erróneamente que proteger a una población es sinónimo de excluirla de los estudios. Se sabe ahora que proceder así implica exponer a riesgos mucho mayores a la población que se busca proteger. El embarazo implica cambios fisiológicos sustantivos e impacta profundamente la manera como el cuerpo metaboliza los medicamentos. Sin embargo, por evitar hacer investigación con mujeres embarazadas, no se ha producido la evidencia científica necesaria para tomar decisiones sobre tratamientos e intervenciones preventivas con dosis eficaces y seguras para ellas y sus embriones o fetos. A manera de ilustración, en el 2001 había en los Estados Unidos apenas más de una docena de medicamentos aprobados para uso en el embarazo (1) y en el 2011 la Food and Drug Administration (FDA) aprobó por primera vez en 15 años un medicamento para su uso en el embarazo (2). Como consecuencia de no haber producido la evidencia necesaria, se pone en riesgo la salud de las mujeres embarazadas cada vez que se les da atención médica. Las mujeres embarazadas se enferman y las mujeres enfermas se embarazan, y no se sabe si los medicamentos que se les da son eficaces o siquiera seguros para ellas y sus embriones o fetos. (shrink)

The progress of electronic health technologies and biobanks holds enormous promise for efficient research. Evidence shows that studies based on sharing and secondary use of data/samples have the potential to significantly advance medical knowledge. However, sharing of such resources for international collaboration is hampered by the lack of clarity about ethical and legal requirements for transfer of data and samples across international borders. Here, the International Clinical Trial Center Network reports the legal and ethical requirements governing data and sample exchange (...) across four continents. The most recurring requirement is ethical approval, whereas only in specific conditions approval of national health authorities is required. Informed consent is not required in all sharing situations. However, waiver of informed consent is only allowed in certain countries/regions and under certain circumstances. The current legal and ethical landscape appears to be very complex and under constant evolution. Regulations differ between countries/regions and are often incomplete, leading to uncertainty. With this work, ICN illuminates the unmet need for a single international collaborative framework to facilitate DSE. Harmonising requirements for global DSE will reduce inefficiency and waste in research. There are many challenges to realising this ambitious vision, including inconsistent terminology and definitions, and heterogeneous and dynamic legal constraints. Here, we identify areas of agreement and significant difference as a necessary first step towards facilitating international collaboration. We propose the establishment of a working group to continue the comparison across jurisdictions, create a standardised glossary and define a set of basic principles and fundamental requirements for DSE. (shrink)

The book analyses the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes in connection with the tradition of natural law and modern liberal thought. It emphasizes Hobbes's peculiar contribution to modern individualism. The main concepts of his philosophy such as natural condition of mankind, social contract, sovereignty and political obligation are analyzed.

There is a metaphysical affinity among beings that can be called ontological principle of continuity. According to this principle, the lowest level of being has its origin in the attenuation of higher grade, and the reality is understood as an analogy hierarchical of beings, which are arranged in cascades descending to the last degree. In this paper consign the most important passages related to De Veritate in which this argument is present.

Este artículo se ocupa del sentido de la teología políti-ca en las dos últimas partes de Leviatán, o la materia, forma y poder de un Estado eclesiástico o civil: “De un Estado cristiano” y “El reino de las tinieblas”. El análisis de estas secciones del opus magnum hobbe-siano se centra en tres temas: la forma política de los reinos de Dios en la tierra, la interpretación “materia-lista” de los espíritus y la concepción del soberano ci-vil como suprema autoridad interpretativa. A (...) partir de la querella entre Carl Schmitt y Erik Peterson respecto de la legitimidad política y doctrinal de la teología, se identifican presupuestos teóricos y metodológicos que están presentes en la argumentación presentada por Hobbes cuando aborda el vínculo entre religión y polí-tica. Si bien se adopta una perspectiva hermenéutica textualista que se restringe a un corpus limitado de la producción de Thomas Hobbes, el objetivo del artículo es reconocer en la teología política una práctica teórico política útil para conceptualizar las formas políticas representativas de una época. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo determine whether gait and accelerometric features can predict disorientation events in young and older adults.MethodsCognitively healthy younger and older participants navigated on a treadmill through a virtual representation of the city of Rostock featured within the Gait Real-Time Analysis Interactive Lab system. We conducted Bayesian Poisson regression to determine the association of navigation performance with domain-specific cognitive functions. We determined associations of gait and accelerometric features with disorientation events in real-time data using Bayesian generalized mixed effect models. The accuracy (...) of gait and accelerometric features to predict disorientation events was determined using cross-validated support vector machines and Hidden Markov models.ResultsBayesian analysis revealed strong evidence for the effect of gait and accelerometric features on disorientation. The evidence supported a relationship between executive functions but not visuospatial abilities and perspective taking with navigation performance. Despite these effects, the cross-validated percentage of correctly assigned instances of disorientation was only 72% in the SVM and 63% in the HMM analysis using gait and accelerometric features as predictors.ConclusionDisorientation is reflected in spatiotemporal gait features and the accelerometric signal as a potentially more easily accessible surrogate for gait features. At the same time, such measurements probably need to be enriched with other parameters to be sufficiently accurate for individual prediction of disorientation events. (shrink)

The cultural politics of Catholic restoration under Mary Tudor have been as crucial to the historical legacy of Thomas More as More's image was to the regime's own historical self-presentation. Not only did the Marian period see the first reappearance in print of many of More's writings after twenty years, the overwhelming presence of More's figure and work in official Catholic discourse, especially from 1556 onwards, also generated many instances of implicit Morean echoes pervading a great variety of Marian (...) literary texts and genres. This essay analyses a number of such hidden presences of More within classical translations of the period, from John Brende's History of Quintus Curtius, which was issued almost simultaneously with the 1553 Marian edition of More's Dialogue of Comfort, to George Colvile's Boethius and Nicholas Grimald's De officiis, whose appearance coincided with the preparation of More's English Workes for print. As it emerges, such implicit echoes and allusions to More's life and writings not only reshaped the classical works themselves, both updating them and enriching them with additional cultural and political significations; above all they helped to invest the program of Marian religious restoration with the credentials of classical learning promoted by the early Tudor humanists. (shrink)

Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart were exponents of the experimental philosophy of mind in the Scottish Enlightenment. The unique character of their philosophical project lies in the adoption of the mind-matter dualism as a necessary condition for the study of mental phenomena. This fact led them to recognize the importance of Descartes, both for being the first to clearly delimit the mental and material realms and for emphasizing the relevance of reflection as an instrument for the study (...) of mind. But at the same time, the Frenchman was also the target of their criticism for dismissing the value of experimentation and appealing to hypotheses to explain natural behaviour. This paper aims to review this group of Scottish philosophers’ views of the mind, explaining, at the same time, the reasons for their ambivalent attitude towards Descartes. In order to make sense of this ambivalence, I will argue that it is useful to bear in mind two different aspects of the methodology that the Scots put forward to study mental phenomena: firstly, the one between analogy and reflection and, secondly, the one between induction and hypothesis making. (shrink)

En la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII tuvo lugar un debate entre Thomas Reid y Joseph Priestley acerca de la naturaleza de la mente y su interacción con el cuerpo. En el marco de la defensa de la religión cristiana y en nombre de principios metodológicos experimentalistas y newtonianos, los autores defienden propuestas radicalmente diferentes acerca de la relación entre la mente y la materia. Sus divergencias se vinculan con la interpretación del método newtoniano y su concepción de la (...) materia, lo que delineará dos actitudes: una dualista, de carácter más conservador por parte de Reid y una materialista, heterodoxa e innovadora por parte de Priestley. (shrink)

Se efectuó un estudio en dos fases: una observacional descriptiva y otra correlacional, para caracterizar psicológicamente al niño y adolescente con Retinosis Pigmentaria y su familia, en el Centro Provincial que atiende a este paciente en la ciudad de Camagüey. El estudio se hizo aplicando una encuesta elaborada a los efectos del trabajo y una batería de pruebas psicológicas para niños y otra para adolescentes. Se realizó un muestreo intencional puro, no probabilístico de 41 pacientes. Las Pruebas Psicológicas aplicadas fueron: (...) Encuesta, Dibujo Libre, Rotter, Wechller Bellevue, Test Gráfico de la Familia para ambos grupos e Historietas de Madelaine Thomas, 3 Alegrías, 3 Roñas y 3 Miedos para niños y Técnica de los 10 Deseos, Inventario de Problemas Juveniles, Escala de Autovaloración de Dembo Rubinstein, para los adolescentes. A todas las madres de los pacientes se les aplicó el Cuestionario FFSIL para determinar su funcionamiento familiar. En lo metodológico, se realizaron modificaciones a las pruebas psicológicas, adaptándolas al entorno sociocultural cubano. Se reportaron hallazgos típicos explicables por el tipo de enfermedad. Como resultado de este estudio, se confirmó lo expuesto por otros autores que más que la enfermedad misma, lo que influye en su formación personológica es el proceso de socialización que se efectúe An study was made to characterize psychologically the childs and adolescent suffering from pigmentary retinosis and their family, in the Provincial Center that assists those patients in Camagüey. The study was carried out applying a battery of psychological tests for children and another for adolescents. The applied Psychological Tests were: interviews, Free Drawing, Rotter, Graphic Test of the Family for both groups and Comics of Madelaine Thomas, 3 Happiness, 3 Dirts and 3 Fears for children and Technique of the 10 Desires, Inventory of Juvenile Problems and the Scale of Dembo Rubinstein, for the adolescents. Methodological modifications to the psychological tests were carried out, adapting them to the Cuban sociocultural environment. Accountable typical discoveries were reported by the illness type. As results of this study, the most important fact for the patients' personalities is the socialization process. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone indagar el estatuto del miedo y sus declinaciones políticas en los pensamientos de Thomas Hobbes y Baruch Spinoza para interpretar su impacto en la democracia como un problema teórico político. Cuando se comparan a Hobbes y Spinoza, las interpretaciones predominantes, incluso aquellas que identifican algunas coincidencias respecto de los sentidos y efectos políticos de miedo, tienden a poner en primer plano las diferencias entre ambos. Sin embargo, la problematización de esta emoción es un punto (...) de partida para aproximarse a las teorías políticas de Hobbes y de Spinoza desde una óptica distinta. Con ese propósito, en una primera instancia, se repondrá, de manera sintética, la doctrina de los afectos de cada uno de los autores mencionados. Luego, se procederá a realizar una comparación entre dichas doctrinas, destacando un afecto en particular, el miedo. Finalmente, y es en esta sección donde se planteará el argumento central del artículo, se explotarán los corolarios de las conceptualizaciones del miedo de Hobbes y de Spinoza en relación con la política contemporánea. (shrink)

This is the translation of the Quaestio I "De sacra doctrina, qualis sit, et ad quae se extendat"" of Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologiae".

This article presents the development, validation and application of an instrument to measure everyday moral distress in different health care settings. The concept of moral distress has been discussed and developed over 20 years. A few instruments have been developed to measure it, predominantly in nursing. The instrument presented here consists of two factors: level of moral distress, and tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas. It was tested in four medical departments and three pharmacies, where 259 staff members completed a questionnaire. The (...) two factors were found to be reliable. Differences in levels of moral distress were found between pharmacies and clinical departments, and between the youngest and oldest age groups; departmental staff and the youngest group experienced higher levels of moral distress. Departments reported less tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas than pharmacies. The instrument needs to be tested further, but its strengths are the focus on everyday ethical dilemmas and its usefulness in different health care settings. (shrink)

Given that it seems uncontroversial that Socrates displays considerable contempt towards rhetoric in theGorgias,the title of this paper might strike one as an oxymoron. Indeed, a reading of the text has more than once encouraged scholars to posit an Opposition between the elenctic procedures championed by Socrates and the rhetorical procedures of his interlocutors. At least three features have been highlighted that seem to indicate this contrast:1.the Socratic interest in short questions and answers versus his interlocutors’ use of long speeches;2.the (...) Socratic interest in truth regardless of the opinion of the many, the latter seeming an important concern of the rhetorician;3.the supposed Socratic appeal to the intellectual powers of the interlocutor, which is usually contrasted with the appeal to the emotions which is distinctive of rhetoric. (shrink)

O presente trabalho parte do pressuposto de que determinadas experiências de escrita se propõem não apenas como estéticas, mas como modos de compromisso que, por meio da forma, talvez reconhecida como artística, perseguem a abertura e a inauguração, no mundo e na realidade, de novas possibilidades de vida, ainda que, como realização, sejam inéditas. Para tal, ele se desenvolve em três movimentos: no primeiro, partimos da consideração de que, no texto de Maria Gabriela Llansol, há uma aposta na união (...) entre _liberdade de consciência_, ou elemento ético, e _dom poético_, ou elemento estético, que pode ser afirmada como uma aspiração pela ressurreição. No segundo, realizamos um percurso por compreensões a respeito da ressurreição, de encontro com dois textos bíblicos – _Lazare, veni foras _e _Noli me tangere_ – que marcam reflexões a respeito da ressurreição em relação com a literatura. Por fim, procuramos compreender como, em Maria Gabriela Llansol, tais considerações se fazem presentes pela “continuidade de problemáticas”, conforme é possível reconhecer na figura de Thomas Müntzer. (shrink)

El artículo propone recuperar la experiencia de les estudiantes que participaron en los conversatorios para pensar históricamente la democracia. El objetivo consiste en plasmar las reflexiones y sensaciones que surgieron antes, durante y después de los espacios de encuentro. Si bien la reconstrucción implica tramar las distintas subjetividades, no se trata de un trabajo que recopila experiencias individuales, sino de una elaboración de carácter colectivo que problematiza, desde la marca generacional que se expresa en la definición “nietes de 1983”, “hijes (...) del 2001”, los desafíos de los 40 años de democracia y las relaciones entre pasado, presente y futuro. (shrink)

El objetivo de este escrito es presentar, a partir de la doctrina del término medio expuesta por Aristóteles en su Ética Nicomáquea, una réplica al artículo de Fabio Morales. Así, se revisará la idea de Morales, según la cual parece haber un círculo vicioso en la explicación de las acciones voluntarias, con lo cual la libertad de dichas acciones quedaría comprometida. A esto se contrapondrá la exposición de la doctrina mencionada, así como el papel que la deliberación y la elección (...) juegan en ella; a partir de lo cual se concluye que, a pesar de que es posible compartir ciertas ideas de Morales, el círculo que él postula en realidad no es tal y, aunque sea posible decir que Aristóteles no se ocupó a profundidad del tema de la libertad, ésta parece estar salvaguardada en su teoría. (shrink)

How should we adjust our beliefs in light of the testimony of those who are in a better epistemic position than ourselves, such as experts and other epistemic superiors? In this paper, I develop and defend a deference model of epistemic authority. The paper attempts to resolve the debate between the preemption view and the total evidence view of epistemic authority by taking an accuracy-first approach to the issue of how we should respond to authoritative and expert testimony. I argue (...) that when we look at the debate through the lens of accuracy, it becomes clear that matters are more complicated than either the preemption view or the total evidence view are able to account for. Consequently, a deference model, outlined within a credence-based framework, does a better job of capturing the relevant phenomena, and explaining how we should update our beliefs in response to epistemically authoritative testimony. (shrink)

Em sua obra O segundo sexo “fatos e mitos”, Simone de Beauvoir se propõe uma genealogia do ser mulher considerando a questão do que fez da mulher o “outro”. Isto porque, em sua análise existencial, a filósofa percebe a situação da mulher como a do inessencial e inautêntico. A mulher estranha a si mesma pois se constitui como o outro do homem. E, por sua vez, vista pelo olhar masculino, a mulher é o misterioso de duas faces, é tudo aquilo (...) que o homem não é e não pode ser, o que faria da mulher o angustiante inexplicável da existência. Nesta alteridade negativa, é construída uma história da mulher no mundo e diversos mitos sobre o que é ser mulher, que resultam em uma situação. Evidentemente, uma situação opressiva, para a qual a autora considera ainda soluções, como a possibilidade de não se encerrar no destino materno e o ganho de poder aquisitivo — que livrariam as mulheres de sua sujeição social. Assim, expomos neste artigo como Simone de Beauvoir caracteriza a situação e os mitos da mulher, a fim de compreender porquê seria a mulher o segundo sexo. (shrink)

Este estudo tem como objetivo relatar a experiência de duas alunas matriculadas em uma disciplina de estágio básico com foco no desenvolvimento da observação sistemática. A experiência ocorreu em 2016, no contexto do quinto semestre do curso de Psicologia de uma universidade particular do estado de São Paulo. Os alunos matriculados na disciplina deveriam realizar 4 horas de observação e 2 horas de supervisão acadêmica por semana. Nove observações orientadas foram realizadas, partindo-se da observação aleatória até a realização de uma (...) observação sistemática. Os resultados mostraram que a disciplina promoveu a aproximação entre teoria e prática e possibilitou uma integração com outras disciplinas cursadas anteriormente. Verificou-se que o conhecimento adquirido ao longo do semestre, o desenvolvimento pessoal no campo e os avanços percebidos na disciplina foram centrais para a formação profissional das alunas e para a preparação das etapas subsequentes do curso de psicologia – foco da disciplina. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo plantea una reflexión sobre la historiografía del arte centroamericano y latinoamericano, para establecer algunas tendencias en cómo se han estudiado y qué aportes han realizado estos campos de conocimiento al entendimiento de las artes visuales regionales y la historia cultural centroamericana. Adicionalmente, en contraste con este estado de la cuestión, se plantean las contribuciones que realiza la tesis doctoral “Hacer exportable a Centroamérica: activación de circuitos artísticos internacionales y su impacto en la consolidación de los museos de (...) arte moderno y sus colecciones en Guatemala y Costa Rica, 1950-1996”, al conocimiento de esta historiografía. Se analizan dos aportes puntuales que realiza la tesis: por un lado, la investigación evidencia contundentemente que determinados/as artistas centroamericanos/as participaron con vigor de las redes artísticas internacionales en la segunda mitad del siglo XX; esto se logra reconstruir mediante un mapeo de los eventos en los que participaron. Seguidamente, se abarca otro aporte, en el que la investigación problematiza lo que se ha dicho sobre las características del arte moderno centroamericano mediante un análisis de las colecciones de tres museos regionales. (shrink)

Neste artigo pretendemos mostrar as diferentes implicações epistemológicas e éticas da ideia de princípio fisiológico do conhecimento nas filosofias de Schopenhauer e Nietzsche. Pois, se para o primeiro isto será a garantia de afirmação de um conhecimento irracional, para o segundo é a confirmação da não possibilidade de conhecimento. Assim, veremos como, para Schopenhauer, o princípio fisiológico do conhecimento nos liga a essência do mundo e nos torna capazes de atingir em certas vias a própria coisa em si, a vontade. (...) Na filosofia de Nietzsche, tal princípio é a justa prova de que todo o conhecimento não se liga a nada mais do que a manutenção da vida, de forma que a linguagem e a “verdade” são apenas construtos para a sobrevivência humana. Observaremos também qual valoração de vida ambos filósofos imputam em suas considerações, já que, em Schopenhauer, vislumbrar a verdade é se dar conta do quão pouco valor a vida possui, enquanto em Nietzsche a tragédia da vida se mostra sempre afirmativa. (shrink)

Issues of reliability are claiming center-stage in the epistemology of machine learning. This paper unifies different branches in the literature and points to promising research directions, whilst also providing an accessible introduction to key concepts in statistics and machine learning – as far as they are concerned with reliability.

Feasting on a plethora of social media platforms, news aggregators, and online marketplaces, recommender systems (RSs) are spreading pervasively throughout our daily online activities. Over the years, a host of ethical issues have been associated with the diffusion of RSs and the tracking and monitoring of users’ data. Here, we focus on the impact RSs may have on personal autonomy as the most elusive among the often-cited sources of grievance and public outcry. On the grounds of a philosophically nuanced notion (...) of autonomy, we illustrate three specific reasons why RSs may limit or compromise it: the threat of manipulation and deception associated with RSs; the RSs’ power to reshape users’ personal identity; the impact of RSs on knowledge and critical thinking. In our view, however, notwithstanding these legitimate concerns, RSs may effectively help users to navigate an otherwise overwhelming landscape. Our perspective, therefore, is not to be intended as a bulwark to protect the _status quo_ but as an invitation to carefully weigh these aspects in the design of ethically oriented RSs. (shrink)

In this commentary, as philosophers of evolutionary biology, we will consider the evolutionary framework used in the Target Article by: (i) emphasising the fruitfulness of the interdisciplinary approach employed; (ii) highlighting some potentially controversial aspects of the proposal; and finally (iii) outlining some ideas for further integration within the UAL framework. The critical analysis will focus on the relationship between learning and consciousness, on the assumed need for a function for consciousness, and on the type of phylogenetic demarcation introduced by (...) UAL. (shrink)

As is well known, Heinrich Scholz and his academic society maintained good scientific contacts with Polish logicians before, during, and after the Second World War. My interest here is to examine the details of their collaboration by presenting Scholz’s unpublished correspondence with Fr. Józef M. Bocheński. The following topics are discussed here: Polish logicians who survived the war and their current place of work; reorganization of the scholarly environment, didactic activities, duties, scholarly trips; current research topics, prospects for post-war publications, (...) and future publishing plans; information about Jan Łukasiewicz, Bolesław Sobociński, and Joachim Metallmann; personal matters. (shrink)

Empirical research in bioethics has developed rapidly over the past decade, but has largely eschewed the use of technology-driven methodologies. We propose “design bioethics” as an area of conjoined theoretical and methodological innovation in the field, working across bioethics, health sciences and human-centred technological design. We demonstrate the potential of digital tools, particularly purpose-built digital games, to align with theoretical frameworks in bioethics for empirical research, integrating context, narrative and embodiment in moral decision-making. Purpose-built digital tools can engender situated engagement (...) with bioethical questions; can achieve such engagement at scale; and can access groups traditionally under-represented in bioethics research and theory. If developed and used with appropriate rigor, tools motivated by “design bioethics” could offer unique insights into new and familiar normative and empirical issues in the field. (shrink)

Thomas Reid, the Scottish natural and moral philosopher, was one of the founding members of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and a significant figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Reid believed that common sense should form the foundation of all philosophical inquiry. He criticised the sceptical philosophy propagated by his fellow Scot David Hume and the Anglo-Irish bishop George Berkeley, who asserted that the external world did not exist outside the human mind. Reid was also critical of the theory of ideas (...) propagated by Locke and Descartes, arguing that it was incompatible with physical and experiential facts. For Reid, our senses demonstrate that the external world must exist, and this work is organised in chapters examining each of the senses in turn. The book, based on his lectures, was first published in 1764 when Reid was a regent professor at King's College, Aberdeen, and was reissued in 1818. (shrink)

In a special issue of “Ethics and Information Technology” (September 2012), various philosophers have discussed the notion of online friendship. The preferred framework of analysis was Aristotle’s theory of friendship: it was argued that online friendships face many obstacles that hinder them from ever reaching the highest form of Aristotelian friendship. In this article I aim to offer a different perspective by critically analyzing the arguments these philosophers use against online friendship. I begin by isolating the most common arguments these (...) philosophers use against online friendship and proceed to debunk them one by one by pointing out inconsistencies and fallacies in their arguments and, where needed, offering empirical findings from media and communication studies that offer a more nuanced view on online friendships. I conclude my analysis by questioning the correctness of the application of the Aristotelian theory of friendship by the critics of online friendship: in my view, the critics are applying the Aristotelian theory to online friendships in a rather narrow and limited way. Finally, I conclude my thesis by proposing that in the rapidly changing online landscape, a one-size-fits-all application of the Aristotelian theory on friendship is not sufficient to accurately judge the multitude of relationships that can exist online and that the various positive and valuable elements of online friendships should also be acknowledged and analyzed. (shrink)

Human-wildlife conflicts involving protected predators are a major social and environmental problem worldwide. A critical aspect in such conflicts is the role of state institutions regarding predators' conservation, and how this is construed by affected local populations. These interpretations are frequently embodied in conspiratorial rumours, sharing some common traits related to wild and domestic categories, spatial ordering and power relations. In southern Chile, a one-year, multi-sited ethnographic study of human-animal relations in and adjacent to protected areas was undertaken, foregrounding conspiratorial (...) rumours concerning protected predators. Through an analysis of this study and related international cases, this article argues that the uncritical dismissal of rumours and the categories used to interpret such conflicts have detrimental impacts on the conservation of wild predators. Such rumours should be understood as significant comment devices within human-animal relations and the power dynamics that frame human groups affected by them. (shrink)

Worldwide interest in understanding art and creative practices as valid forms of knowledge production has led to the establishment of research-creation as an interdisciplinary academic field in the last twenty years in Canada as elsewhere. Its establishment relates to a growing interest in critical making and technological innovation and to the legacies of feminism(s) and its critique of the power dynamics of knowledge production within academia. This article outlines a series of interactive projects that bring visibility to Latin American women (...) in art, science and technology and speculates on the legacies of feminism(s) in the emergence of research-creation. The four projects discussed build on each other and explore re-mediation, re-activation and re-enactment as part of a collaborative feminist research-creation methodology. I theorize their potential to activate political memory by highlighting how these three approaches to creation share a preoccupation for revisiting the past through repetition, iteration and the facilitation of intergenerational encounters among humans, non-humans and across media and technologies. While discussing the feminist orientation of these approaches, I suggest a critique of dominant modes of knowledge production that have obscured the contributions of Latin American women and offer four research-creation interventions in the media arts archive. (shrink)