Ethical issues flow from and are embedded in contexts of practice. Contexts of practice refer to the diverse social settings where interventions occur. Primary prevention activities require new professional roles in these diverse social settings. These new roles engage the professional in new activities, which in mm allow new ethical issues to arise. This article takes an ecological perspective on ethical issues arising from the enactment of new preventive roles intended to affect groups or communities. Within this perspective, the concepts (...) of context and culture take on special conceptual significance. Four ecological assumptions about preventive interventions intended to affect groups or communities are offered as a means of framing ethical issues in such interventions. Finally, several approaches to developing ecological knowledge about the contexts of practice are presented as ways of furthering our ability to conceptualize and cope with ethical issues in preventive interventions intended to affect groups or communities. (shrink)

Research and intervention involving primary prevention have grown dramatically in the past 10 years. However, little attention has been paid to ethical issues in primary prevention. This article proposes a framework for increasing awareness of such issues. The framework centers on explicating the contexts where prevention activities occur and the roles adopted by interventionists engaging in these activities. Several assumptions underlying primary prevention are stated, and ways of clarifying ethical issues are proposed.

The term conceptual simulation refers to a type of everyday reasoning strategy commonly called “what if” reasoning. It has been suggested in a number of contexts that this type of reasoning plays an important role in scientific discovery; however, little direct evidence exists to support this claim. This article proposes that conceptual simulation is likely to be used in situations of informational uncertainty, and may be used to help scientists resolve that uncertainty. We conducted two studies to investigate the relationship (...) between conceptual simulation and informational uncertainty. Study 1 was an in vivo study of expert scientists; the results suggest that scientists do use conceptual simulation in situations of informational uncertainty, and that they use conceptual simulation to make inferences from their data using the analogical reasoning process of alignment by similarity detection. Study 2 experimentally manipulated experts' level of uncertainty and provides further support for the hypothesis that conceptual simulation is more likely to be used in situations of informational uncertainty. Finally, we discuss the relationship between conceptual simulation and other types of reasoning using qualitative mental models. (shrink)

We conducted two in vivo studies to explore how scientists respond to anomalies. Based on prior research, we identify three candidate strategies: mental simulation, mental manipulation of an image, and comparison between images. In Study 1, we compared experts in basic and applied domains (physics and meteorology). We found that the basic scientists used mental simulation to resolve an anomaly, whereas applied science practitioners mentally manipulated the image. In Study 2, we compared novice and expert meteorologists. We found that unlike (...) experts, novices used comparison to address anomalies. We discuss the nature of expertise in the two kinds of science, the relationship between the type of science and the task performed, and the relationship of the strategies investigated to scientific creativity. (shrink)

Many scientific discoveries have depended on external diagrams or visualizations. Many scientists also report to use an internal mental representation or mental imagery to help them solve problems and reason. How do scientists connect these internal and external representations? We examined working scientists as they worked on external scientific visualizations. We coded the number and type of spatial transformations (mental operations that scientists used on internal or external representations or images) and found that there were a very large number of (...) comparisons, either between different visualizations or between a visualization and the scientists’ internal mental representation. We found that when scientists compared visualization to visualization, the comparisons were based primarily on features. However, when scientists compared a visualization to their mental representation, they were attempting to align the two representations. We suggest that this alignment process is how scientists connect internal and external representations. (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

Millas, J. Las máscaras filosóficas de la violencia.--Otero Bello, E. El tema de la violencia y sus implicaciones para la filosofía.

Smart grids are rolling out internationally, with the United States nearing completion of a significant USD4-plus-billion federal program funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The emergence of smart grids is widespread across developed countries. Multiple approaches to analyzing the benefits of smart grids have emerged. The goals of this white paper are to review these approaches and analyze examples of each to highlight their differences, advantages, and disadvantages. This work was conducted under the auspices of a joint U.S.-China (...) research effort, the Climate Change Working Group Implementation Plan, Smart Grid. We present comparative benefits assessments of smart grid demonstrations in the U.S. and China along with a BA of a pilot project in Europe. In the U.S., we assess projects at two sites: the University of California, Irvine campus, which consists of two distinct demonstrations: Southern California Edison’s Irvine Smart Grid Demonstration Project and the UCI campus itself; and the Navy Yard area in Philadelphia, which has been repurposed as a mixed commercial-industrial, and possibly residential, development. In China, we cover several smart-grid aspects of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city and the Shenzhen Bay Technology and Ecology City. In Europe, we look at a BA of a pilot smart grid project in the Malagrotta area west of Rome, Italy, contributed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The Irvine sub-project BAs use the U.S. Department of Energy Smart Grid Computational Tool, which is built on methods developed by the Electric Power Research Institute. The TEC sub-project BAs apply Smart Grid Multi-Criteria Analysis developed by the State Grid Corporation of China based on the analytic hierarchy process with fuzzy logic. The B-TEC and TNY sub-project BAs are evaluated using new approaches developed by those project teams. JRC has adopted an approach similar to EPRI’s but tailored to the Malagrotta distribution grid. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

In a free society, it is common to hear the request that one â ~keep an open mind.â Just what exactly is it, however, to keep an open-mind? How does open-mindedness function? How does it square with important personal commitments? These issues are particularly acute when it comes to matters of religious belief in which open-mindedness can sound to the pious a bit too much like doubt. Certainly, in a discipline whose discourse remains rational dialogue, effort should be spent discerning (...) the contours of this virtue, especially in light of its formal role in establishing responsiveness to new inquiries in matters philosophical and religious. This book provides a collection of essays serving to promote conversation about open-mindedness, its virtue, and its role and application in problems in the philosophy of religion in particular. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the “Standard View” of the semantics of ‘I’—according to which ‘I’ is a pure, automatic indexical—from a challenge posed by “deferred reference” cases, in which occurrences of ‘I’ are (allegedly) not speaker-referential, and thus non-automatic. In reply, I offer an alternative account of the cases in question, which I call the “Description Analysis” (DA). According to DA, seemingly deferred-referential occurrences of the first person pronoun are interpreted as constituents of a definite description, whose operator scopes (...) over an open sentence Rxy—where R is a contextually selected relation ranging over pairs of people and objects. The role of intentions is thus limited to the determination of R, which is posterior to the fixation of the reference of ‘I’. In support of the DA I present evidence that, in the cases in question, the (Determiner) phrase containing ‘I’ behaves in relevant ways like a description. I show that the DA can account for the problematic examples, while preserving the simplicity of the standard semantics of ‘I’. Finally, I examine a rival account of the data, offered by Nunberg (Linguist Philos 16:1–43, 1993), and argue for the superiority of the DA. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem por objetivo destacar a importância da felicidade dentro do sistema moral kantiano, mesmo que ela esteja baseada nos sentimentos de prazer e desprazer, ou seja, proveniente da ordem empírica. Para isso, faz-se necessário diferenciar deveres diretos de deveres indiretos, ou seja, os primeiros como deveres perfeitos que são obrigatórios e necessários, e os últimos como imperfeitos, que dizem respeito simplesmente àquilo que é bom que se faça, por isso são altamente recomendáveis. Os deveres indiretos ou imperfeitos, (...) que nada mais são do que deveres de virtude, somente tendem a acrescentar à qualificação moral. O dever indireto de promover a felicidade coloca-se, na filosofia prática de Kant, como um meio para a moralidade, visto que a falta de felicidade pode apresentar-se como um obstáculo à prática moral e não o contrário. (shrink)

Moral distress has been characterised as one of the main ethical problems affecting nurses in all health systems, and has been depicted as a threat to nurses’ integrity and to the quality of patient care. In recent years, several studies tried to investigate moral distress, its causes and consequences for health professionals, clients and organisations. However, such studies are considered controversial and vulnerable, mainly because they lack a solid philosophical and empirical basis. The present article aimed at elaborating a theoretical (...) model for moral distress, considering the process of moral deliberation, spaces of power and resistance and patient advocacy, and sought to carry out a reflection that culminated with the creation of a broader concept of moral distress. (shrink)

Este trabalho busca discutir, a partir de dados obtidos em trabalho de campo etnográfico coletivo multissituado, elementos de uma cultura comunicacional dos torcedores no Brasil. Tradicionalmente tratados como coletivo, massa, povo ou multidão pelos meios de comunicação tradicionais, a abordagem proposta evidencia, nas falas dos próprios torcedores, uma compreensão sofisticada do universo afetivo, familiar, econômico e político que envolve o torcer por uma equipe de futebol no Brasil contemporâneo.

As tentativas de invasões germânicas iniciadas no século II a.C. culminaram com a tomada de Roma em 476. Os novos chefes adotaram o latim como língua oficial, e grande parte dos textos latino-germânicos foi reunida e publicada por G.H.Pertz (MGH).

I review and challenge the views on simplicity and its role in linguistics put forward by Ludlow. In particular, I criticize the claim that simplicity—in the sense pertinent to science—is nothing more than ease of use or “user-friendliness”, motivated by economy of labor. I argue that Ludlow’s discussion fails to do justice to the diversity of factors that are relevant to simplicity considerations. This, in turn, leads to the neglect of crucial cases in which the rationale for simplification is unmistakably (...) epistemic, as well as instances where simplicity is part of the content of substantive, empirical hypotheses. I illustrate these points with examples from the history of generative linguistics, such as: the shaping influence exerted by simplicity, via its involvement in the notion of “linguistically significant generalization”, its methodological and substantive contribution to the goal of explanatory adequacy, and its central role in the Minimalist Program’s search “beyond explanatory adequacy”. (shrink)

Según la Propositional Attitude View (PAV), un hablante es competente en su idioma en virtud de poseer actitudes proposicionales cuyo contenido es su gramática interna. En este artículo desarrollo una objeción a PAV, llamada �el reto de la integración�, originalmente propuesto por Stich (1978) y Evans (1981), y que está constituido por dos premisas: (1) las actitudes proposicionales se caracterizan por su integración inferencial, y (2) los estados que contienen información gramatical no están inferencialmente integrados. En este artículo considero y (...) rechazo las respuestas a este argumento formuladas por Dwyer y Pietroski (1996), Higginbotham (1987) y Knowles (2000). (shrink)

Proponho comparar e aproximar as fundamentações normativas para o socialismo de Axel Honneth e John Rawls. Parto, para tanto, de alguns traços da teoria de Honneth desenvolvidos em seu escrito sobre socialismo e dos próprios contrastes estabelecidos por ele frente ao projeto de Rawls. Destrincho a comparação em duas frentes: a primeira, tratando do conteúdo normativo das noções de liberdade de ambos os autores, a segunda, tratando do que Honneth e outros autores da tradição da teoria crítica chamam de base (...) social ou imanente das teorias. Da primeira, concluo que o contraste estabelecido por Honneth entre o seu ideal de liberdade social e o ideal de liberdade encontrado na filosofia política de Rawls não encontra respaldo em uma análise acurada da proposta rawlsiana, e que a filosofia de Rawls também pode fornecer uma normatividade crítica para o Socialismo. Da segunda, concluo, a despeito da crítica de Honneth de que haveria uma deficiência ‘prático-política’ na filosofia de Rawls, que é possível encontrar na obra deste, de uma forma mais ou menos similar àquela do autor alemão, os três elementos que Honneth julga serem necessários para uma teoria crítica que não queira ser apenas uma crítica ‘puramente normativa’ da sociedade. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide an approach to the etho-aesthetic dimension in Marcuse’s thought. The approach in this paper is built upon the following thesis: the etho-aesthetic dimension consists of the transformation of subjectivity based on artistic sensitivity and critical rationality from which social relations opposed to an advanced industrial society and its one-dimensional man are reconstructed materially and intellectually. The conclusion is the following: a Marcusian critical theory, inherited from Marx and Schiller, would be one capable (...) of analyzing the potential qualitative changes of the subjects and social institutions to generate a higher level of rational development, equitable in the distribution of resources and in the generation of greater spaces of freedom. Its basis would be an etho-aesthetic attitude that does not take pleasure in squandering, but in the reflective experience of the sensible. (shrink)

Abstrak: Filsafat telah memiliki perjalanan panjang dalam hubungannya dengan Kristianitas. Sumbangan filsafat untuk Kristianitas begitu banyak terutama dalam kaitannya dengan teologi. Tulisan ini meneliti soal integrasi filsafat dalam Kristianitas yang selama ini sering diperdebatkan. Periode apologi yang dimulai pada awal abad kedua sampai dengan pertengahan abad ketiga Masehi, memberikan suatu penjelasan konkrit untuk permasalahan ini. Melalui para apologet, yang sebelumnya adalah filsuf, bahkan mampu melangkah lebih jauh dalam penemuan kebijaksanaan yang sesungguhnya yang merupakan obyek dan tujuan filsafat. Bahkan mereka sampai (...) pada suatu pemikiran bahwa filsafat adalah ranah semai yang mempersiapkan filsafat yang sesungguhnya, yaitu Kristianitas. Berkat para apologet, filsafat menjadi bagian penting dalam Kristianitas, bukan saja di bidang teologi, tetapi juga di dalam ranah eksegese, hermeneutika dan terlebih-lebih di dalam hidup. Penulis Kristiani setelah periode apologi mengintegrasikan filsafat dalam tulisan dan di dalam rumusan iman. Berbagai terminologi filosofis yang diintegrasikan ke Kristianitas belum tergantikan sampai dengan saat ini. Kata-kata Kunci: Filsafat, filsuf, teologi, apologi, apologet, kebijaksanaan. Abstract: Philosophy is having a long journey in its relationship with Christianity. There is much influence of philosophy on Christian thinking, but especially on theology. This article researches the integrity of philosophy within Christianity, an integral relationship which has always been debated. During the period of the Apologies, which was begun at the beginning of the second century up to the middle of the third century, an important concrete solution to this debate was given. Through the Apology Fathers of the Church who previously were philosophers, had the capacity to go farther in finding real wisdom, which is the subject and the goal of all research in philosophy. They were able to reach a consideration that their philosophy was a field seed which had prepared for the real philosophy, which is Christianity. Through the apologies, philosophy created an important partnership with Christianity in the areas of theology and biblical exegeses, and even in hermeneutics and way of life. After the period of the Apology Fathers, Christian writers integrated philosophy in a certain way into their writings, even as a formula of faith. And some philosophical terminology, which was integrated into Christianity, could not be replaced after this time. Keywords: Philosophy, philosopher, theology, apology, apolog, virtue. (shrink)

Should we regard Jennifer Lackey’s ‘Creationist Teacher’ as understanding evolution, even though she does not, given her religious convictions, believe its central claims? We think this question raises a range of important and unexplored questions about the relationship between understanding, factivity and belief. Our aim will be to diagnose this case in a principled way, and in doing so, to make some progress toward appreciating what objectual understanding—i.e., understanding a subject matter or body of information—demands of us. Here is the (...) plan. After some ground clearing in §1, §2 outlines and motivates a plausible working model—moderate factivity—for characterising the sense in which objectual understanding should be regarded as factive. §3 shows how the datum that we can understand false theories can, despite initial suggestions to the contrary, be assimilated straightforwardly within the moderate factivity model. §4 highlights how the inverse kind of case to that explored in §3—viz., a variant of Lackey’s creationist teacher case—poses special problems for moderate factivity. With reference to recent work on moral understanding by Hills, §5 proposes a solution to the problem, and §6 attempts to diagnose why it is that we might originally have been led to draw the wrong conclusion. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in philosophy of using a priori methods to draw conclusions about what is possible and what is necessary, and often in turn to draw conclusions about matters of substantive metaphysics. Arguments like this typically have three steps: first an epistemic claim , from there to a modal claim , and from there to a metaphysical claim.

The overarching guiding principle of Alan Turing’s work was directed towards modelling the human mind as a machine. It is extraordinary that Turing introduced, in his early papers, ideas that are only now beginning to be investigated. Throughout his life, he considered conjectures to be of great importance because they suggest useful lines of research. In my own conjecture, I am asking the question: what is the brain’s geometry? Can it ever be unravelled, or does its complexity defy any form (...) of visual representation? Recent research reveals that the detailed workings of the brain take place in a ‘global workspace’, where conscious contents appear to be disseminated globally to a great multitude of networks throughout the brain that are unconscious. During conscious tasks, neurons contributing to the global workspace enter into a coherent activation pattern by being tightly connected through long axons. Is it possible, therefore, that my proposed geometric pattern (an Islamic latticework) can be envisaged as a useful means of interconnecting multiple long axons in a unified global workspace dedicated to conscious thought? I share and communicate my idea through a process that combines visual imagery with musical performance (i.e. visual music). It is a method that can assist in clarifying concepts that might otherwise remain elusive or esoteric. (shrink)

My researches into 'architecture as music' have led me to investigate how a synchronicity of sound and space, acting together, can enable buildings to become not only smart but also sentient. It was one particular building in the City of London that prompted me to join the patterns of architecture with the rhythms of music in an experimental audio-visual performance called Citirama. Each of the piece's three movements throws some new light on what makes a building 'musical' ‐ i.e. capable (...) of exerting some power over our emotional response. I take a journey back in time to find that architecture is a world of relationships very close to that of the performing musician but, if we are to apply the lessons of music more widely, it will be necessary that we obtain some understanding of how our brains' pathways and neural mechanisms enable us to see and hear through a process of pattern recognition. Only then will the indelible links between architecture and music enable architects to act more as composers in rebalancing the challenges that underpin the future of our cities. I illustrate what I mean by 'musicality' with reference to a specific urban community that is close to home ‐ the Barbican. (shrink)

This article deals with the cognitive relationship between a speaker and her internal grammar. In particular, it takes issue with the view that such a relationship is one of belief or knowledge (I call this view the ‘Propositional Attitude View’, or PAV). I first argue that PAV entails that all ordinary speakers (tacitly) possess technical concepts belonging to syntactic theory, and second, that most ordinary speakers do not in fact possess such concepts. Thus, it is concluded that speakers do not (...) literally ‘know’ or ‘believe’ much of the contents of their grammars, and moreover, that these contents can only be attributed at a subpersonal level. (shrink)

John DePoe takes issue with Christians who accept Berkeleyan idealism, essentially arguing that there is a special problem from evil for the Christian idealist. While DePoe’s treatment of idealism is commendable, his argument ultimately fails in one of two ways. It either (1) turns on common misunderstandings of idealism or (2) results in consequences unacceptable to Christians. In our article, we respond to DePoe’s argument by remotivating idealism, pointing out ways in which DePoe misunderstands idealists’ responses to the charge of (...) a special problem of evil, and pointing out problems with DePoe’s proposals of materialist solutions to the problem of evil. (shrink)

The increasing passengerization of transportation through shared ride services and driverless vehicles has the potential to vastly change the transportation system. Although values are sometimes considered in the design of information tools and through attitudes toward travel, the systematic approach of value sensitive design should be used in the design of transportation infrastructure to create a sustainable transportation future.

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

Protagoras, of all the ancient philosophers, has perhaps attracted the most interest in modern times. His saying ‘Man is the measure of all things’ caused Schiller to adopt him as the patron of the Oxford pragmatists, and has generally earned him the title of the first humanist. Yet the exact delineation of his philosophcal position remains a baffling task. Neumann, writing on Die Problematik des ‘Homo-mensura’ Satzes in 1938,2 concludes that no certainty whatever can be reached on the meaning of (...) the dictum, since ‘man’, ‘measure’, and ‘things’ are all ambiguous, nor can we tell which of the three is the predicate. The time is past when it was believed that a man's philosophy could be understood apart from the events of his life and the circumstances of his age: yet in the case of Protagoras the historical method of approach has hardly been attempted, although the impact of environment was perhaps more decisive in the formation of philosophical concepts in the Greek world than anywhere else. The reality about which the Greek philosopher spoke had three aspects: it was either the one universe of physics, or the political unity, or God. For example, the book of Heracleitus Περ φσεως was divided into three chapters or logoi, About the Whole, a political, and a theological. Neither physics nor theology supplies from its own subject-matter the form in which this reality was described. (shrink)

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)