William James offers an ethical view consistently arising out of valorization of energy of his days, and effecting a counter-tendency to the two great popular ...

Definiciones de epistemología hay muchas, al igual que clases y estilos. Sin embargo, más allá de esta diversidad, es necesario contar con una definición básica que guíe nuestra comprensión del tema. Dos serán las preguntas que nos ayuden a ello en este artículo: a) ¿qué es la epistemología? y b) ¿para qué le sirve al científico?

The prehistory of science and technology studies -- The Kuhnian revolution -- Questioning functionalism in the sociology of science -- Stratification and discrimination -- The strong programme and the sociology of knowledge -- The social construction of scientific and technical realities -- Feminist epistemologies of science -- Actor-network theory -- Two questions concerning technology -- Studying laboratories -- Controversies -- Standardization and objectivity -- Rhetoric and discourse -- The unnaturalness of science and technology -- The public understanding of science -- (...) Expertise and public participation -- Political economies of knowledge. (shrink)

Genetic testing has familial implications. Counsellors find themselves in (moral) conflict between medical confidentiality (towards the patient) and a potential right or even duty to warn at-risk relatives. Legal regulations vary between countries. English literature about German law is scarce. We reviewed the literature of relevant legal cases, focussing on German law, according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. This article aims to familiarise counsellors with their responsibilities, compare the situation between countries and point out (...) legally unresolved areas.According to the German Genetic Diagnostics Act (Gendiagnostikgesetz) in case of an ‘avoidable or treatable’ genetic disorder, geneticists ought to confine themselves to the obligated advice to the patient. Whether a breach of the duty of confidentiality can be justified in exceptional cases by ‘necessity as justification’ for actively informing relatives at risk remains legally unclear. In case of a ‘neither avoidable nor treatable’ genetic disease, geneticists should also refrain from actively informing relatives as the justifiable state of emergency does not permit to break the duty of confidentiality. (shrink)

Morality in Sport Sport continues to make its presence known throughout the world as it prospers at all levels. Amazingly, there is no end in sight to the popularity and growth of sport. Essential to sport's continued prosperity, growth, and overall livelihood is the sustenance of a firm moral base. It is the goal and hope of the author that you find this textbook to be a useful guide in helping you maintain and build upon the foundation of moral good (...) that is required for sport to exist now and in the future. The need to make good moral decisions in sport is constant. And, although opportunities to make such decisions in sport are seemingly endless, what is "moral" can be somewhat unclear. Given the various perspectives on morality and the lack of clear-cut distinctions between moral and immoral actions, disagreements regarding moral behavior and sport are likely to always exist. However, having a blatant disregard for good moral behavior in sport is difficult to defend from most any position. (shrink)

Accidie, depression, and dejection seem to be psychological phenomena that are best characterized as cases in which an agent has no motivation to pursue what he or she judges to be good or valuable. The phenomena thus seem to present a challenge to any view that draws a close connection between motivation and evaluation. ‘Accidie, Evaluation, and Motivation’ aims to show that the phenomena are actually best explained by a theory that postulates a conceptual connection between motivation and evaluation.

Wicked problems’ are tricky to solve because of their many interconnected components and a lack of any single optimal solution. At the science–policy interface, all problems can look wicked: research exposes the complexity that is relevant to designing, executing and implementing policy fit for ambitious human needs. Expertise in philosophical research can help to navigate that complexity.

This article discusses madness and saintliness in Dostoevsky’s novels and investigates how the madman and the saint discern between good and evil. I first explore the metaphysical, spiritual, and moral universe of Dostoevsky’s characters by drawing on William Desmond’s philosophy of the between. Second, I argue that the madman’s misconstrual of reality can be grasped as an idolatrous, divisive, and parodic imitation of the good. Third, I reflect on disembodied discernment. In some cases, due to the weakness of the moral (...) agent, the good cannot be properly embodied in space and time, even if a person exhibits ethically sound discernment. Fourth, I look at examples of holy discernment and examine how, through love, the genuinely good person is able to transform idolatry into a universal and cosmic sacramentalism. (shrink)

John R. Schneider explores the problem that animal suffering, caused by the inherent nature of Darwinian evolution, poses to belief in theism. Examining the aesthetic aspects of this moral problem, Schneider focuses on the three prevailing approaches to it: that the Fall caused animal suffering in nature (Lapsarian Theodicy), that Darwinian evolution was the only way for God to create an acceptably good and valuable world (Only-Way Theodicy), and that evolution is the source of major, God-justifying beauty (Aesthetic (...) Theodicy). He also uses canonical texts and doctrines from Judaism and Christianity - notably the book of Job, and the doctrines of the incarnation, atonement, and resurrection - to build on insights taken from the non-lapsarian alternative approaches. Schneider thus constructs an original, God-justifying account of God and the evolutionary suffering of animals. His book enables readers to see that the Darwinian configuration of animal suffering unveiled by scientists is not as implausible on Christian theism as commonly supposed. (shrink)

Volume I. Dall'Antica Grecia al Classicismo -- Volume II. Dal Romanticismo alla contemporaneità.

Les recompositions familiales touchent l’ensemble des liens familiaux et des liens intergénérationnels. Or, si l’on observe, tant sur le plan juridique que dans les pratiques des familles conjugales, une acception plus complexe et plus riche de la parentalité, les grands-parents restent souvent méconnus. Comment construisent-ils leurs rapports à leurs « beaux-petits-enfants »? Nous avons examiné la littérature et interrogé des « belles-grands-mères » pour tenter d’y voir plus clair. Quelles représentations le champ social offre-t-il des beaux-grands-parents? Et quelles sont concrètement (...) les conditions et les étapes qui rendent possible une identité « beau-grand-parentale »? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Emergent Spacetime, the Megastructure Problem, and the Metaphysics of the SelfSusan Schneider (bio)The aim of this article is to introduce new thoughts on some pressing topics relating to my book, Artificial You, ranging from the fundamental nature of reality to quantum theory and emergence in large language models (LLM) like GPT-4. Since Artificial You was published, the innovations in the domain of AI chatbots like GPT-4 have been (...) rapid-fire, and at times dizzying. The thoughtful discussion in this symposium offers an important opportunity for cross-cultural engagement on these issues and more. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from the insights of these authors and editors. [End Page 314]The order of my comments will be as follows: in the context of considering Christian Coseru's intriguing response (section 1), I begin by discussing the nature of the self, which I use as a springboard into larger, vexing issues about the nature of fundamental reality, given work on emergent spacetime (ES) (section 2). I offer a "Prototime Interpretation" of quantum mechanics in which spacetime emerges from a prototemporal arena, and use this idea to explore the nature of the self and mind.Using the assumption of ES, I devise an approach to metaphysically fundamental objects (which I call "quantum objects") based on quantum entanglement and the bundle theory of substance. I illustrate how the self or mind, insofar as it is a substance that supervenes on quantum objects, could be partly or fully determined by the properties of the quantum objects on which it supervenes. Intriguingly, this would mean that the self or mind is not located in any singular point in space at a given time. I also explain how the Prototime Interpretation of quantum mechanics is compatible with change and causation at the fundamental level.In section 3 I turn to Inês Hipólito's interesting article, discussing the import of not underestimating AI autonomy in light of the increasingly sophisticated large-language models (LLMs).1 I raise the "AI Megastructure Problem," a new problem of AI control arising in the context of the incipient AGI systems that are now populating the AI ecosystem. The problem, which arose from a collaboration with Kyle Kilian, considers the possibility of emergent properties from the interaction of the LLMs and other AI's in the AI ecosystem (Schneider and Kilian 2023). Then, turning to Noam Cook's intriguing discussion of Japanese philosophy, I consider the pressing issue of testing for machine consciousness, devising a modified version of my AI consciousness test (ACT), originally developed with astrophysicist Edwin Turner. I add an "interpretability component" to the ACT to deal with the case of LLMs (section 4).I. Patternism and the Biological Process ViewChristian Coseru's intriguing piece focuses on the chapters on personal identity in Artificial You, proposing that when it comes to the nature of the self, one should adopt "a biologically informed process-ontology perspective on personal identity," which "means recognizing that organic identity is different in kind: it is an identity of form rather than of matter."His position is akin to the patternist views that I argue against in Artificial You in the sense that it embraces the idea that form, rather than the particular matter that comprises one's brain and body, is key to one's survival over time. But there are important differences as well. For transhumanists tend to believe that the self can survive radical changes in one's substrate, transitioning from thinking with a biological brain to computing with a network of microchips, for instance. Coseru departs from this, writing: [End Page 315]As organisms, persons endure by undergoing constant change on a fundamentally cellular level, including the change in the neural pathways that realize the cognitive processes of thinking and expressing these very thoughts right now.Furthermore:[I]f persons are processes rather than things, then they cannot be cognitively enhanced by augmenting, replacing or transferring their functioning parts (e.g., brain cells).I will call this position the "Biological Process View" (BPV). I have several questions about it. First, how does this position solve one of the key problems I raised for... (shrink)

'We desire all and only those things we conceive to be good; we avoid what we conceive to be bad.' This slogan was once the standard view of the relationship between desire or motivation and rational evaluation. Many critics have rejected this scholastic formula as either trivial or wrong. It appears to be trivial if we just define the good as 'what we want', and wrong if we consider apparent conflicts between what we seem to want and what we seem (...) to think is good. In Appearances of the Good, Sergio Tenenbaum argues that the old slogan is both significant and right, even in cases of apparent conflict between our desires and our evaluative judgements. Maintaining that the good is the formal end of practical inquiry in much the same way as truth is the formal end of theoretical inquiry, he provides a fully unified account of motivation and evaluation. (shrink)

The Venezuelan-Chilean humanist Andrés Bello has been recognized as one of the most distinguished intellectuals of the 19th century—one of the last polymaths of the stature of figures such as Athanasius Kircher, Gottfried Leibniz or Benjamin Franklin. Indeed, his numerous contributions span fields such as grammar, poetry, civil law, diplomacy, education, political theory, philology and philosophy. However, despite having composed one of the most important philosophical treatises ever written in Spanish, his philosophical proposals have not been engaged with a substantial (...) way by scholars of the Anglophone world. Only a few scholars such as... (shrink)

O presente artigo visa estabelecer relações entre a teoria do Neodocumentalismo da Ciência da Informação e alguns aspectos expostos nos sistemas filosóficos da Filosofia de Ludwig Wittgenstein, sobretudo da sua segunda fase, tal como exposto em sua obra Investigações Filosóficas. Neste sentido, pretende-se estabelecer relações convergentes entre o conceito de jogos de linguagem e os aspectos relativos ao documento como instrumento de veiculação de informação, ordenação e prática social. Após uma introdução do tema, serão apresentados os conceitos e configurações do (...) Neodocumentalismo no âmbito da Ciência da Informação. Em seguida, será feita uma apresentação do sistema de Wittgenstein, sobretudo o sistema de sua segunda fase e, logo após, serão abordados aspectos convergentes e considerações entre Neodocumentalismo e jogos de linguagem. (shrink)

Prologue. It is evident from the title that this is a philosophical discussion. I shall not apologize for the philosophy, though I am well aware that most scientists, engineers, and mathematicians have little regard for it; instead, I shall give this short prologue to justify the approach.

The challenges public comprehensive universities face today are expanding—they have been challenged to enroll and graduate more students, adopt new technologies that lower cost without sacrificing quality, and align program and curricular offerings with the skills that employers require. While these universities have a long history of adapting to change, today’s environment will likely test the capabilities of even the most adaptive institutions. This volume assembles a team of experts from a variety of disciplines to examine both the history of (...) the comprehensive university and what lies ahead. Overall, the book grapples with such questions as: How do these institutions adapt to serve the growing population of non-traditional students? How well do they prepare graduates for the labor market? Can partnerships between community colleges and comprehensive universities bolster student success? The University Next Door draws much-needed attention to a set of institutions that has historically received little notice, yet play an important role in meeting our new attainment goals and helping the American economy grow. Book Features: Examines the role of comprehensive universities from start to finish—their history and future. Uses empirical analysis to explore complex questions about which students choose these universities and why. Explores how these institutions might struggle under a federal ratings system such as the one proposed by President Obama. Discusses how these institutions can better monitor the needs of the economy and better educate students to fill those needs. Provides recommendations to inform future decisions about higher education policy. (shrink)