Introduction: Congruence, understood as the agreement between the patient's preferred place of death and their actual place of death, is emerging as one of the main variables indicating the quality of end-of-life care. The aim of this research was to conduct a systematic literature review on levels and determinants of congruence in palliative patients over the period 2010–2021.Method: A systematic review of the literature in the databases of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Cuiden, the Cochrane Library, CSIC Indexes, (...) and IBECS. Information was extracted on research characteristics, congruence, and associated factors.Results: A total of 30 studies were identified, mainly of retrospective observational design. The congruence values varied substantially between the various studies, ranging from 21 to 100%. The main predictors of congruence include illness-related factors, individual factors, and environmental factors.Conclusion: This review, in comparison with previous studies, shows that treatment-related factors such as physical pain control, marital status, having a non-working relative, age, discussing preferred place of death with a healthcare professional, and caregiver's preference have been associated with higher levels of congruence. Depending on the study, other factors have been associated with either higher or lower congruence, such as the patient's diagnosis, gender, or place of residence. This information is useful for designing interventions aimed towards greater congruence at the end of life. (shrink)

This book is dedicated to clarify ambiguous concepts from the world of creativity and innovation. One of the initial triggers for the development of the book was the perceived ambiguity of the binomials Design vs. Design Thinking and Innovation vs. Invention. Frequently, designers and innovation consultants are questioned by their clients about the relationships between these kind of concepts. Has the second emerged through the first, or vice-verse? Is one part of the other? Where are the similarities and which are (...) the differences? This conceptual incomprehension makes itself noticeable between many ambiguous concepts in the world of innovation and creativity. What is the difference between Radical and Disruptive Innovation? Or is Social Innovation the same as Social Intervention? And regarding Creativity, are Creativity and Creative Thinking the same? In this book the reader will find answers to these kinds of questions and doubts. 28 authors from 10 different countries and cultural backgrounds are questioning current definitions and perceptions, by comparing different sources and ideas, or simply by giving their personal opinions. Some of the authors have an academic background, others a practical one, being either entrepreneurs, working with innovation in companies, or being innovation/design consultants. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se tratará de reflexionar acerca del estatus ontológico del concepto de identidad personal a partir de las así denominadas propuestas «narrativistas» de los filósofos Daniel Dennett y Clément Rosset. No se pretende tanto abordar la pregunta sobre la existencia última de dicha identidad cuanto hacerse cargo de cómo se nos aparece, las similitudes que presenta el proceso de construcción identitaria con el proceso narrativo y el papel activo tanto de uno mismo como de los demás en (...) su edificación. (shrink)

Thanks to his unsurpassed eye and his fearless willingness to take a stand, Clement Greenberg (1909 1994) became one of the giants of 20th century art criticism a writer who set the terms of critical discourse from the moment he burst onto the scene with his seminal essays Avant Garde and Kitsch (1939) and Towards a Newer Laocoon (1940). In this work, which gathers previously uncollected essays and a series of seminars delivered at Bennington in 1971, Greenberg provides his most (...) expansive statement of his views on taste and quality in art, arguing for an esthetic that flies in the face of current art world fashions. Greenberg insists despite the attempts from Marcel Duchamp onwards to escape the jurisdiction of taste by producing an art so disjunctive that it cannot be judged that taste is inexorable. He argues that standards of quality in art, the artist's responsibility to seek out the hardest demands of a medium, and the critic's responsibility to discriminate, are essential conditions for great art. The obsession with innovation the epidemic of newness leads, in Greenbergs view, to the boringness of so much avant garde art. He discusses the interplay of expectation and surprise in aesthetic experience, and the exalted consciousness produced by great art. Homemade Esthetics allows us particularly in the transcribed seminar sessions, never before published to watch the critics mind at work, defending (and at times reconsidering) his theories. His views, often controversial, are the record of a lifetime of looking at and thinking about art as intensely as anyone ever has. (shrink)

This article explores universal normative bases that could help to shape a workable legal construct that would facilitate a global use of advance directives. Although I believe that advance directives are of universal character, my primary aim in approaching this issue is to remain realistic. I will make three claims. First, I will argue that the principles of autonomy, dignity and informed consent, embodied in the Oviedo Convention and the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, could arguably be regarded (...) as universal bases for the global use of advance directives. Second, I will demonstrate that, despite the apparent consensus of ethical authorities in support of their global use, it is unlikely, for the time being, that such consensus could lead to unqualified legal recognition of advance directives, because of different understandings of the nature of the international rules, meanings of autonomy and dignity which are context-specific and culture-specific, and existing imperfections that make advance directives either unworkable or hardly applicable in practice. The third claim suggests that the fact that the concept of the advance directive is not universally shared does not mean that it should not become so, but never as the only option in managing incompetent patients. A way to proceed is to prioritize work on developing higher standards in managing incompetent patients and on progressing towards the realization of universal human rights in the sphere of bioethics, by advocating a universal, legally binding international convention that would outlaw human rights violations in end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

The first part of this paper proposes a precise definition of what a worldview is, and why there is a necessity to have one. The second part suggests how to construct integrated scientific worldviews. For this attempt, three general scientific approaches are proposed: the general systems theory as the endeavor for a universal language for science, a general problem-solving approach and the idea of evolution, broadly construed. We close with some remarks about limitations of scientific worldviews.

Barbara Vetter, Potentiality. From Dispositions to Modality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015, 321pp., ISBN: 978–0–19–871431–6.

An important challenge when creating automatically processable laws concerns open-textured terms. The ability to measure open-texture can assist in determining the feasibility of encoding regulation and where additional legal information is required to properly assess a legal issue or dispute. In this article, we propose a novel conceptualisation of open-texture with the aim of determining the extent of open-textured terms in legal documents. We conceptualise open-texture as a lever whose state is impacted by three types of forces: internal forces (the (...) words within the text themselves), external forces (the resources brought to challenge the definition of words), and lateral forces (the merit of such challenges). We tested part of this conceptualisation with 26 participants by investigating agreement in paired annotators. Five key findings emerged. First, agreement on which words are open-texture within a legal text is possible and statistically significant. Second, agreement is even high at an average inter-rater reliability of 0.7 (Cohen’s kappa). Third, when there is agreement on the words, agreement on the Open-Texture Value is high. Fourth, there is a dependence between the Open-Texture Value and reasons invoked behind open-texture. Fifth, involving only four annotators can yield similar results compared to involving twenty more when it comes to only flagging clauses containing open-texture. We conclude the article by discussing limitations of our experiment and which remaining questions in real life cases are still outstanding. (shrink)

Most countries are facing the societal challenging need for a new quarantine period due to the increasing number of COVID-19 infections, indicating a second or even third wave of disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the surface existential issues that are typically less present in people's focal attention. The first aim of this study was to identify some of these existential struggles such as increased feelings of loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God. Secondly, we explored the association of (...) these factors with the increased fear of coronavirus during the quarantine. Data was collected from 1,340 Romanian adults using a cross-sectional web-based survey design in the midst of the national lockdown period of COVID-19. Participants completed measures of COVID-19 related loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God twice; first, thinking about the period before the pandemic, and second, for the current situation during the quarantine. Then, they completed a fear of COVID-19 measure. Participants perceived an increase in the feelings of loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God during the confinement. Furthermore, gender, knowing someone diagnosed with COVID-19, loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God predicted fear of COVID-19. Interestingly, days in isolation did not predict fear of COVID-19 nor were associated with feelings of loneliness. In line with existential positive psychology, these results highlight the importance of policies and interventions targeting the experience of loneliness, spiritual beliefs, and particularly those aimed to promote death acceptance, in order to alleviate intense fear of COVID-19. (shrink)

Legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania establish several types of material liability of workers engaged in labour (professional) relations: material liability applied pursuant to the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter referred to as the LC) and material liability applied pursuant to the Law on Public Service of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter referred to as the LPC). In the present article, theoretical and practical aspects of material liability of Lithuanian public servants for material damage caused are (...) analysed. The authors of the article study the conditions for the application of the material liability and identify the main circumstances that must be determined in applying this type of legal compulsion. Furthermore, the authors investigate the relation between the material and disciplinary liabilities, study the limits of the application of labour law norms (that regulate material liability of employees) and civil law norms (regulating personal civil liability) in professional legal relations, identify the means and procedure for solving disputes arising in the application of the material liability. Practical mistakes in the application of the material liability of public servants and violations are analysed on the basis of a rather sparse case-law of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania related to the material liability. (shrink)

Cet essai présente une description de plusieurs travaux inédits de Jacques Derrida au sujet de Marx et d'Althusser datant des années 1960 et 1970. Au-delà du travail philologique, il s'agit aussi d'une étude théorique de notions telles que 'idéologie', 'fétichisme', 'reproduction', 'division du travail', 'différence sexuelle', 'domination', 'économie politique', 'matérialisme dialectique', ou 'production culturelle' — tout autant à travers les textes marxistes que dans les lectures déconstructives qu'en propose alors Derrida. Durant les années 1970, dans le cadre de son séminaire, (...) Derrida s'efforce de penser une autre économie politique, au-delà de l'économie du propre qu'il identifie aussi bien chez les économistes classiques que chez leurs critiques marxistes. Ces lectures détaillées et combattives de textes marxistes restent aujourd'hui inédites. Leur prise en compte contribue à redéfinir l'image de Derrida et de la déconstruction, en témoignant de ses discussions très avancées de Marx, d'Althusser, et de la pensée marxiste — et ce dès la fin des années 1960 et le début des années 1970, plus de 20 ans avant la publication de Spectres de Marx (1993). -/- Une version plus courte de cet article fut traduite en espagnol par Ramiro Parodi, et publiée en 2019 dans le numéro 7 de la revue Demarcaciones — numéro consacré au 25ème anniversaire de la publication de Spectres de Marx. (shrink)

This article explores universal normative bases that could help to shape a workable legal construct that would facilitate a global use of advance directives. Although I believe that advance directives are of universal character, my primary aim in approaching this issue is to remain realistic. I will make three claims. First, I will argue that the principles of autonomy, dignity and informed consent, embodied in the Oviedo Convention and the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, could arguably be regarded (...) as universal bases for the global use of advance directives. Second, I will demonstrate that, despite the apparent consensus of ethical authorities in support of their global use, it is unlikely, for the time being, that such consensus could lead to unqualified legal recognition of advance directives, because of different understandings of the nature of the international rules, meanings of autonomy and dignity which are context‐specific and culture‐specific, and existing imperfections that make advance directives either unworkable or hardly applicable in practice. The third claim suggests that the fact that the concept of the advance directive is not universally shared does not mean that it should not become so, but never as the only option in managing incompetent patients. A way to proceed is to prioritize work on developing higher standards in managing incompetent patients and on progressing towards the realization of universal human rights in the sphere of bioethics, by advocating a universal, legally binding international convention that would outlaw human rights violations in end‐of‐life decision‐making. (shrink)

El año 2001 representó un momento de quiebre en la historia reciente argentina. Las repercusiones de la crisis económica, social y de representatividad política se hicieron presentes en todo el espectro cultural. El presente artículo parte de una hipótesis central: la omnipresencia del sonido durante la crisis explica el giro hacia lo sonoro en la producción musical posterior. Nuestro estudio se estructurará en tres partes: en una primera sección, examinaremos los sonidos de la crisis y su historicidad. En las otras (...) dos secciones, analizaremos las obras de compositores y colectivos artísticos durante la crisis y la poscrisis – BAS (Buenos Aires Sonora), Nicolás Varchausky, Juan Pampín y Carmen Baliero, entre otros ejemplos. Este análisis nos permitirá evaluar cómo los sonidos de la crisis y esta particular experiencia de la escucha permearon dentro del campo sonoro y musical. (shrink)

This article analyses Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most recent novel, Americanah (2013), which brings to the fore the complex issues faced by female migrants in a globalized world. Given the centrality of digital platforms in Americanah and their impact and ubiquity in modern societies, the essay examines cyberspace as a tool for identity formation, specifically of Ifemelu, the novel’s Nigerian female protagonist, and as a platform that enhances transnational solidarity by offering female migrants the opportunity to be heard and gain agency. (...) By examining different forms of social discrimination Ifemelu encounters during her long stay in America, and the agency she gains by setting up a blog to openly express her views and those of her readers, my analysis shows the importance of an intersectional approach for understanding and encompassing the multidimensionality of women’s experiences in today’s interconnected world. The article concludes that Americanah is a representative example of transmodern fiction that captures both the challenges and the opportunities created by the mobility, transnational and transcultural reality of our times. (shrink)

Desde una perspectiva compleja aparecen claros cuestionamientos a los fundamentos y los razonamientos de la Economía Neoclásica (que es lo que se enseña en Chile cuando se enseña Economía), por ejemplo, la noción de emergencia: “el todo es más y menos que la suma de la partes” (Morin, 1981), la sociedad no es sólo un agregado de individuos. El conocimiento es incompleto: no hay información absoluta. Los contextos son determinantes para la comprensión de lo estudiado. Las esferas del conocimiento no (...) están aisladas, surge la necesidad de la transdisciplinariedad. Desde el teorema de la incompletitud de Gödel las demostraciones matemáticas no aseguran la veracidad de los resultados ni la ausencia de subjetividad (además de haber comportamientos, como el humano, que no son reductibles a la lógica matemática). Es necesario replantearse las comprensiones de la Economía y su enseñanza. Diseñar nuevas cátedras de economía que incluyan otros contenidos, metodologías y reflexiones epistemológicas, ya que, dada la complejidad de los tiempos que afrontamos, y la importancia de las decisiones que se toman en nombre de la Economía, no podemos contar con profesionales que cuenten con una visión reduccionista de los fenómenos económicos. (shrink)

En esta investigación se propuso y aplicó una evaluación exploratoria de la sustentabilidad de tres socio-ecosistemas ubicados en el Matorral y Bosque Esclerófilo (MBE) de Chile central: 1. Los Yuyos (75 ha.), Colliguay, V Región; 2. Tantehue (110 ha.), Provincia Melipilla, Región Metropolitana y 3. Panamá (138 ha.), Provincia de Colchagua, VI Región. Sustentabilidad fue definida como la interacción de 3 tipos de sustentabilidades: ecológica, económica y social. La sustentabilidad ecológica fue definida como: 1. Relación entre la Máxima Explotación Sustentable (...) y la Explotación Efectiva, 2. Grado de Naturalidad (Machado, 2004) y 3. Grado de Intervención Antrópica (González, 2000). La sustentabilidad económica fue definida como: 1. Rentabilidad y 2. Sostenibilidad de la Rentabilidad en el Tiempo. Y la sustentabilidad social fue definida como: 1. Nivel Socioeconómico, 2. Traspaso Generacional y 3. Nivel Educativo del núcleo familiar. En Colliguay se encontró un escenario general de “Sustentabilidad” y en Tantehue y Panamá se encontró una situación de “Insustentabilidad”. Se concluye que los socio-ecosistemas estudiados en el MBE de Chile central están en una situación crítica de sustentabilidad por lo que se enfatiza la importancia de conservar este tipo de ecosistema. (shrink)

A nivel nacional e internacional los desembarques de pesca se han incrementado cuantiosamente en los últimos decenios generando el colapso de diversas pesquerías. Los testimonios de los miembros de la comunidad de pescadores artesanales de la V región son uno de los ejemplos concretos de este proceso. Se argumentó que estas crisis eran provocadas por la “Tragedia de los Comunes” y que era necesario establecer Cuotas Individuales Transferibles (CIT) para asegurar los derechos de propiedad. La versión nacional, con la ley (...) 19.713, estableció la privatización del acceso a la pesca con los Límites Máximos de Captura por Armador (LMCA), para el sector industrial, y, posteriormente, con la ley 19.849, los Regímenes Artesanales de Extracción (RAE), para el sector artesanal. El 2012 vencen estas leyes y los pescadores artesanales deberían tener un rol significativo en la determinación de la nueva administración pesquera, por cuanto ellos, al depender de los ecosistemas marinos para su subsistencia, tienen genuino interés en la sustentablidad del manejo pesquero. (shrink)

In this paper, we point out that explainability is useful but not sufficient to ensure the legitimacy of algorithmic decision systems. We argue that the key requirements for high-stakes decision systems should be justifiability and contestability. We highlight the conceptual differences between explanations and justifications, provide dual definitions of justifications and contestations, and suggest different ways to operationalize justifiability and contestability.

Con el objetivo de contextualizar los aportes intelectuales más contemporáneos de Étienne Balibar, el presente artículo estudia la filosofía de la historia presente en su obra de madurez, es decir, la manera en la que el filósofo interpreta el cambio histórico en el campo político. En primer lugar, se aborda la significación relativamente benjaminiana que adquiere el «momento insurreccional» constitutivo del principio de la igualibertad, estableciendo los puntos de contacto y las diferencias entre la idea de Balibar y la de (...) Benjamin. En un segundo momento, se rastrean los orígenes de dicha concepción del tiempo, que remiten a los trabajos tempranos elaborados junto a Althusser. Por último, y retomando algunos argumentos de la primera parte, se explica el sentido dialéctico del par ciudadanía/democracia y su relevancia en la actualidad. (shrink)

El presente artículo razona sobre la construcción de la subjetividad de Emma Bovary, situando en el discurso amoroso enunciado por ella los fundamentos de su individualidad, que son profundamente modernos. En paralelo, se efectúa asimismo una lectura social de la insatisfacción permanente que caracteriza al personaje, analizando los aspectos de su sensibilidad que coinciden con la lógica de acumulación perpetua instaurada, también en el plano de la subjetividad, por el sistema de producción capitalista. El objetivo principal es contextualizar sociohistóricamente las (...) problemáticas planteadas en la obra de Flaubert y estimular la reflexión sobre el papel ambivalente de su protagonista. (shrink)

La Revolución de Octubre vivió debates y posicionamientos cruzados en paralelo a una explosión de vanguardias artísticas que se sumaron a la causa socialista, lo que no estuvo exento de problemas. Este artículo repasa la relación teórica y práctica de algunas de las vanguardias más políticamente comprometidas con la nación soviética y aborda también el otro gran estilo popularizado entonces por críticos y políticos de dicha órbita: el llamado realismo socialista. Así pues, a partir de un análisis comparado de las (...) declaraciones y actuaciones de los principales representantes de sendas corrientes, el texto pretende contribuir al esclarecimiento de la cuestión fundamental: ¿existe un «método artístico socialista»? Y, en tal caso, ¿en qué consiste?; o, por el contrario, ¿se trata de un término difuso del que se apropiaron indistintamente ambas escuelas? (shrink)

This article explores the phenomenological analytics strategies ofmentally ill subject. With the help of phenomenological method the ontological conditions for the existence of the subject in a clinical discourse of philosophizing of twentieth century and meaning of its existence were revealed. The use of phenomenological descriptions provided an opportunity to describe how the mentally il lsubject is represented. It is shown that the world of feelings of the mentally ill can be understood with the assistance of methodology, based on the (...) Husserl's studies of human existence mode. The author disparated the methodological positions of phenomenology of L. Binswanger, M. Boss and Karl Jaspers about the studies of mentally ill subjects. In the submitted paper these methodologies are specified in clinical areas of philosophizing of Dasein-analysis and phenomenological psychiatry. L. Binsvanher's Dasein-analysis is considered as a synthesis of phenomenology, psychoanalysis and existential ideas transformed into a new paradigm. It is revealed that L.Binsvanher considers the reason of the mental illness of the subject as a narrowed horizon in which the subject builds its possible projects. Boss methodology is based not only on the phenomenological reduction for understanding of essential, but on the articulation of the organic unity of separate subject existence with being of others and being in general. Psychiatric pathology is considered as a consequence of the loss of openness and freedom. Jaspers phenomenology as a thorough description of the subjective experiences of patients is synthesized with method of comprehension. Involvement of phenomenology enabled the reconstruction of the inner world of the mentally ill subject through the study of the way he is going through categories of time, space, materiality and other categories. The article reveals that phenomenology for many professionals today is an alternative to the physiological direction of psychiatry. (shrink)

The purpose is to identify common and distinctive features of concepts and methodology of the problem of subject within different discourses, implicitly or explicitly relevant to the definition of "clinical" mode of human existence. The research methodology combines techniques of discourse analysis and basic principles of historical and philosophical studies. Scientific novelty of the research lies in definition of the clinical philosophical discourse as a special communicative process, where utterances not only focus on disease syndromes, and reveal phenomenology of inner (...) experience of a pathological self, but also structure a certain type of sociality. Clinical discourse represents the space where the patient is treated not as a subject but as an object of disease. Ontology of clinical discourse prevails over ontology of disease, since its structures determine the notion of disease as such. Categorization of the disease, the idea of disease as a phenomenon subdued to professional authority leads to the idea of the need for patient's isolation from the natural environment and removing him to special social institutions. A great while authenticity of the individual had been determined through the testimony of others and manifestation of one's connection to others; then authenticity begun to establish trough the discourse, which individual was able or obliged to deliver about himself/herself. The clinicist doctrines share the intention to reduce the patient's self to its bodily dimension, while ignoring social determinants of psychological deviations. Conclusions of the study are summarized in the following positions: the current clinical discourse is based on the positivist-biological trend in humanitarian knowledge and it is the basis for the production and reproduction of medical and pharmaceutical repressive ideology; philosophical clinical discourse opens the possibility of overcoming the dominance of purely clinicist discourse; such a transformation is possible only after a paradigm shift in understanding the category of subject. (shrink)

Мета роботи полягає в аналітиці сучасних когнітивних та філософських досліджень патологічності суб’єкта. За допомогою феноменологічного методу були досліджені онтологічні умови конституювання суб’єкта в філософсько-клінічному дискурсі та смисл його існування. Проте, виявилося, що феноменологія не долає об’єктність фізикалізму, формально стверджуючи унікальність Dasein, але фактично ізолюючи девіантів у межах особистісного внутрішнього простору. У статті використовувалися методи міждисциплінарної епістемології насамперед структурно-семіотичні, які дозволили осмислити матеріали, де традиційна філософська проблематика суб’єкта синтезована із клінічними текстами. Науковою новизною є філософсько-клінічна аналітика патологічності суб’єкта, яка спрямована на (...) елімінацію категоріальної матриці фізикалізму в контексті інтеграції різноспрямованих філософських дискурсів. У діахронічному зрізі філософської традиції визначені діагностичні та терапевтичні стратегії переосмислення метафізики суб’єкта, що утворили предмет парадигмального узагальнення філософсько-клінічного дискурсу у горизонті сучасності. Показана необхідність трансформація концептуалізацій суб’єкта з орієнтованих на власне ствердження та автономію (тобто патологічних суб’єктів) у теорії, які нормальність суб'єкта пов'язують із відповідальністю та турботою про суще. Досліджено, що когнітивістська реставрація біологізму в клінічних теоріях суб’єктивності є симптомом того, що сучасна філософія втратила актуальний зв’язок з дискурсом клініки. Проаналізований філософський дискурс патології суб’єкта, який сформований доробками екзистенціально-феноменологічної традиції та представниками соціокультурної антропології хвороби парадигми. Доведено розуміння вад особистісного розвитку, за виключенням органічних патологій, як вкорінених не в тілесності особистості, а як похідних від системи відносин, у яких даний суб’єкт бере участь. (shrink)

Butler, Judith (2022)¿Quina mena de món és aquest?: Fenomenologia i pandèmia Barcelona: Arcàdia, 136 p.ISBN 978-84-124717-2-4.

Philosophy lacks criteria to evaluate its philosophical theories. To fill this gap, this essay introduces nine criteria to compare worldviews, classified in three broad categories: objective criteria (objective consistency, scientificity, scope), subjective criteria (subjective consistency, personal utility, emotionality), and intersubjective criteria (intersubjective consistency, collective utility, narrativity). The essay first defines what a worldview is and exposes the heuristic used in the quest for criteria. After describing each criterion individually, it shows what happens when each of them is violated. From the (...) criteria, it derives assessment tests to compare and improve different worldviews. These include the is-ought, ought-act, and is-act first-order tests; the critical and dialectical second-order tests; the mixed-questions and first-second-order third-order tests; and the we-I, we-it, and it-I tests. The essay then applies these criteria and tests to a concrete example, comparing the Flying Spaghetti Monster deity with Intelligent Design. For another application, it draws more general fruitful suggestions for the dialogue between science and religion. (shrink)

Psychologists have emphasized children's acquisition of information through firsthand observation. However, many beliefs are acquired from others' testimony. In two experiments, most 4yearolds displayed sceptical trust in testimony. Having heard informants' accurate or inaccurate testimony, they anticipated that informants would continue to display such differential accuracy and they trusted the hitherto reliable informant. Yet they ignored the testimony of the reliable informant if it conflicted with what they themselves had seen. By contrast, threeyearolds were less selective in trusting a reliable (...) informant. Thus, young children check testimony against their own experience and increasingly recognise that some informants are more trustworthy than others. (shrink)

In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review important distinctions such as the dimensionless and dimensional physical constants, and the classification of constants proposed by Lévy-Leblond. Then we explore how two great analogies, computational and biological, can give new insights into our problem. This paper includes a preliminary study to examine the two analogies. Importantly, (...) analogies are both useful and fundamental cognitive tools, but can also be misused or misinterpreted. The idea that our universe might be modelled as a computational entity is analysed, and we discuss the distinction between physical laws and initial conditions using algorithmic information theory. Smolin introduced the theory of "cosmological natural selection" with a biological analogy in mind. We examine an extension of. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1106, Page 536-553, July 2022.

The field of computational law has increasingly moved into the focus of the scientific community, with recent research analysing its issues and risks. In this article, we seek to draw a structured and comprehensive list of societal issues that the deployment of automatically processable regulation could entail. We do this by systematically exploring attributes of the law that are being challenged through its encoding and by taking stock of what issues current projects in this field raise. This article adds to (...) the current literature not only by providing a needed framework to structure arising issues of computational law but also by bridging the gap between theoretical literature and practical implementation. Key findings of this article are: (1) The primary benefit (efficiency vs. accessibility) sought after when encoding law matters with respect to the issues such an endeavor triggers; (2) Specific characteristics of a project—project type, degree of mediation by computers, and potential for divergence of interests—each impact the overall number of societal issues arising from the implementation of automatically processable regulation. (shrink)