The interdisciplinary field of neurorobotics looks to neuroscience to overcome the limitations of modern robotics technology, to robotics to advance our understanding of the neural system’s inner workings, and to information technology to develop tools that support those complementary endeavours. The development of these technologies is still at an early stage, which makes them an ideal candidate for proactive and anticipatory ethical reflection. This article explains the current state of neurorobotics development within the Human Brain Project, originating from a close (...) collaboration between the scientific and technical experts who drive neurorobotics innovation, and the humanities and social sciences scholars who provide contextualising and reflective capabilities. This article discusses some of the ethical issues which can reasonably be expected. On this basis, the article explores possible gaps identified within this collaborative, ethical reflection that calls for attention to ensure that the development of neurorobotics is ethically sound and socially acceptable and desirable. (shrink)

Men often make riskier decisions than women across a wide range of real-life behaviors. Whether this sex difference is accentuated, diminished, or stable under stressful conditions is, however, contested in the scientific literature. A critical blind spot lies amid this contestation: Most studies use standardized, laboratory-based, cognitive measures of decision making rather than complex real-life social simulation tasks to assess risk-related behavior. To address this blind spot, we investigated the effects of acute psychosocial stress on risk decision making in men (...) and women using a standardized cognitive measure and a novel task that simulated a real-life social situation. Participants were exposed to either an acute psychosocial stressor or an equivalent control condition. Stressor-exposed participants were further characterized as high- or low-cortisol responders. Results confirmed that the experimental manipulation was effective. On the IGT, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders made significantly riskier decisions than those characterized as high-cortisol responders. Similarly, in the online chatroom, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders were, relative to those in the Non-Stress group, significantly more likely to make risky decisions. Together, these results suggest that at lower levels of cortisol both men and women tend to make riskier decisions in both economic and social spheres. (shrink)

Is it ethical to perform a surgery whose purpose is to make a male look like a female or a female to appear male? Is it medically appropriate? Sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) violates basic medical and ethical principles and is therefore not ethically or medically appropriate. (1) SRS mutilates a healthy, non-diseased body. To perform surgery on a healthy body involves unnecessary risks; therefore, SRS violates the principle primum non nocere, “first, do no harm.” (2) Candidates for SRS may believe (...) that they are trapped in the bodies of the wrong sex and therefore desire or, more accurately, demand SRS; however, this belief is generated by a disordered perception of self. Such a fixed, irrational belief is appropriately described as a delusion. SRS, therefore, is a “category mistake”—it offers a surgical solution for psychological problems such as a failure to accept the goodness of one’s masculinity or femininity, lack of secure attachment relationships in childhood with same-sex peers or a parent, self-rejection, untreated gender identity disorder, addiction to masturbation and fantasy, poor body image, excessive anger, and severe psychopathology in a parent. (3) SRS does not accomplish what it claims to accomplish. It does not change a person’s sex; therefore, it provides no true benefit. (4) SRS is a “permanent,” effectively unchangeable, and often unsatisfying surgical attempt to change what may be only a temporary (i.e., psychotherapeutically changeable) psychological/psychiatric condition. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.1 (Spring2009): 97–125. (shrink)

This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters (...) discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle offers a solution to the problem of motivating morality based on his distinction between three types of friendship. I consider Aristotle's argument in detail, placing it in a context of similar concerns about the question of why we ought to be moral that ranges from Socrates' discussion of the ring of Gyges in Plato's Republic to Wittgenstein's distinction between internal and external rewards and punishments for action in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Contrary to J.O. Urmson's conclusion that Aristotle's (...) discussion of the highest form of friendship is an editorial insertion in Book VIII of the Ethics, I attempt to show, by filling in the necessary steps in Aristotle's inference, that the treatment of friendship is an integral part of what Aristotle considers a complete moral philosophy. According to the interpretation that I propose, Aristotle's account of being worthy of the highest form of friendship is indispensable to his explanation of an internally rewarding reason for being moral. (shrink)

An elementary algebra identifies conceptual and corresponding applicational limitations in John Kemeny and Paul Oppenheim’s (K-O) 1956 model of theoretical reduction in the sciences. The K-O model was once widely accepted, at least in spirit, but seems afterward to have been discredited, or in any event superceeded. Today, the K-O reduction model is seldom mentioned, except to clarify when a reduction in the Kemeny-Oppenheim sense is not intended. The present essay takes a fresh look at the basic mathematics of K-O (...) comparative vocabulary theoretical term reductions, from historical and philosophical standpoints, as a contribution to the history of the philosophy of science. The K-O theoretical reduction model qualifies a theory replacement as a successful reduction when preconditions of explanatory adequacy and comparable systematicization are met, and there occur fewer numbers of theoretical terms identified as replicable syntax types in the most economical statement of a theory’s putative propositional truths, as compared with the theoretical term count for the theory it replaces. The challenge to the historical model developed here, to help explain its scope and limitations, involves the potential for equivocal theoretical meanings of multiple theoretical term tokens of the same syntactical type. (shrink)

Excerpt from: Hull, D. L.. Review: Anthony O'Hear, Beyond Evolution:\nHuman Nature and the Limits of Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford:\nClarendon Press. 1997. cloth 19.99. British Journal for the Philosophy\nof Science, 49, 511-14.

L'A. pubblica una quaestio di Gilberto di Stratton, contenuta nel ms. Assisi, Bibl. Comunale, 158 dal titolo Utrum aliquod eviternum potuit fuisse Deo coeternum che, a suo avviso, rappresenta forse il primo esempio di difesa della posizione assunta da Tommaso all'interno del dibattito de aeterniate mundi, posizione che, come è noto, fu oggetto di condanna nel 1277 . Nella breve introd. che precede il testo, l'A. sottolinea il fatto che Gilberto oltre a riprendere e ad assumere la posizione di Tommaso, (...) ed in particolare quella della non contradditorietà tra l'esse factum e l'esse aeternum, mostra di conoscere le critiche che aveva mosso Bonaventura al Doctor angelicus e gli argomenti ex infinito formulati dal maestro francescano per dimostrare l'inizio temporale del mondo. Di Gilberto esiste un'altra quaestio contenuta nello stesso ms. e che sembra una versione alterata del De aeternitate di Tommaso e che l'A. ha pubblicato con O. Argerami in Leiden 1993. (shrink)

An unconventional formalization of the canonical square of opposition in the notation of classical symbolic logic secures all but one of the canonical square’s grid of logical interrelations between four A-E-I-O categorical sentence types. The canonical square is first formalized in the functional calculus in Frege’s Begriffsschrift, from which it can be directly transcribed into the syntax of contemporary symbolic logic. Difficulties in received formalizations of the canonical square motivate translating I categoricals, ‘Some S is P’, into symbolic logical notation, (...) not conjunctively as \, but unconventionally instead in an ontically neutral conditional logical symbolization, as \. The virtues and drawbacks of the proposal are compared at length on twelve grounds with the explicit existence expansion of A and E categoricals as the default strategy for symbolizing the canonical square preserving all original logical interrelations. (shrink)

Der Beitrag verfolgt die von Fichte formulierte Problemstellung, das skeptische Kritik – soll sie nicht zur bloßen Polemik verkommen – eines theoretisch-methodischen Fundaments bedarf. Nur dadurch könne sie konstruktiv wirken. In der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Skeptizismus wie auch mit anderen Kritikern seines Denkansatzes inaugurierte Fichte das wissenschaftliche Verfahren der ›immanenten Kritik‹ im Gegensatz zur ›dogmatischen‹ Kritik: Theoretische Auffassungen sind als zeitgebunden, als Momente der Vernunftentwicklung zu erklären. Den Folgen dieses Paradigmenwechsels wurde im Beitrag in unterschiedlichen Richtungen des fichteschen Denkens nachgegangen: (...) Geschichte der Philosophie/Theorieentwicklung, Religionsauffassung, Naturrechtstheorie oder die bewusst verkehrende Nutzung des Symbols im Politischen. -/- The article pursues the problem formulated by Fichte, that skeptical criticism - if it is not to degenerate into mere polemics - requires a theoretical and methodical foundation. This is the only way it can be constructive. In dealing with skepticism as well as with other critics of his approach, Fichte inaugurated the scientific procedure of 'immanent criticism' in contrast to 'dogmatic' criticism: theoretical conceptions are to be explained as time-bound, as moments of the development of reason. The consequences of this paradigm shift were followed in the article in different directions of Fichte's thinking: history of philosophy/the development of theory, conception of religion, theory of natural law or the consciously wrong use of the symbol in the political sphere. -/- El artículo persigue el problema formulado por Fichte, que la crítica escéptica -para no degenerar en meras polémicas- requiere una fundamentación teórica y metódica. Esta es la única forma en que puede ser constructivo. Al tratar con el escepticismo, así como con otros críticos de su enfoque, Fichte inauguró el procedimiento científico de la "crítica inmanente" en contraste con la crítica "dogmática": las concepciones teóricas deben explicarse como limitadas en el tiempo, como momentos del desarrollo de razón. Las consecuencias de este cambio de paradigma fueron seguidas en el artículo en diferentes direcciones del pensamiento de Fichte: historia de la filosofía/desarrollo de la teoría, concepción de la religión, teoría de la ley natural o el uso conscientemente erróneo del símbolo en el ámbito político. (shrink)

Excerpt from Staatslehre Stechnung für Die getane patriotifche S])flicht 5u präfentieren. (R)er allgemeine 9bunfch Der %efien wollte eine @rnte auf Dem %elbe Der (c)aat, wollte für Die nationalen Spfer Den nationalen 'dreiß Die 2lufrichtung geeinter nationaler 932acht. @rft alß Diefe ßoffnung 3ufchanben geworben war, gewann Der (c)ebanfe mehr und mehr an %oben, Daß Dem (c)teger nicht berfagt werben Dürfe, waß Der %efiegte befaß. (R)o wurbe Der Rampf, Der bißher in Den großen 8tegionen Der flbelt fiel) bewegt hatte, in Daß Snnere (...) Der (c)taaten berfeßt und Die lonfiitutionelle 2enbeng, Die man alß einen {fort fchritt Der Seit betrachtete, wurbe überwiegenb. (sianfe.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Creative Inner Space O True Apothecary! A Votary to Fond Desire Philosophers Gaining Altitude Insight and Delusion Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Cannabis.

A particular model of scientific achievement is embedded within the Nobel Prize, one that privileges the scientific `loner', whoachieves a distinct discovery at a particularmoment in time. A common criticism of this`individualistic' story of achievement is thatit obscures the social and cultural factors inscientific discovery. A collective story,highlighting the role of social relations andscientific milieux, may offer more explanatorypower in accounting for scientific discoveriesand inventions. This paper explores the processby which Henry Dale became recognized as thediscoverer of the chemical (...) transmission ofnerve impulses. It compares the explanatorypower of the story of individual creativitywith a story that highlights the interactionbetween a scientist and his environment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Discover the Unknown Chekhov in Your ESL ClassroomNinah Beliavsky (bio)I was born in Moscow, ate aladushki, and listened to my mother read Chekhov in Russian. Kashtanka, a tale about a young, ginger-colored pup who gets lost, made me cry. And when I read about the death of Ivan Dmitrich Kreepikov, in The Death of a Civil Servant, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. The poor (...) civil servant was sitting and watching an opera in a theater when all of a sudden he sneezed and spattered an old gentlemen, General Shpitzalov, in front of him. Now, as Chekhov writes, sneezing is not prohibited to any one or in any place; peasants sneeze, and even the chiefs of police sneeze. But, you see, the poor civil servant, being very much rank-conscious, could no longer live with himself after committing such a misconduct. He apologized profusely and went home, and without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa, and... died.And what about Van'ka Zhukov, an orphan boy of nine apprenticed to a shoemaker who is being beaten and overworked. He writes a letter to his grandfather on Christmas Eve, begging him for the dear Lord's sake to take him away from his misery. After scratching his head and thinking for a moment, he dips his pen in ink and addresses his envelope: "The Village. To Grand Dad." He then dashes out into the street and pushes his precious letter through the opening of the postbox...The second part of my childhood I spent in Jerusalem; there I ate falafel with humus, was obsessed with perfecting the pronunciation of the Hebrew guttural "r," and read Miriam Yalan Shtekelis's children's poetry, which was filled with magical objects that laughed and cried. By the time I was in high school I was living in Milwaukee, eating fries and ice cream sundaes and reading O. Henry.The literature that one comes in contact with during childhood and young [End Page 101] adulthood is often deeply engraved on a person's psyche. It is similar to an adult craving sweets because of the psychological association with her childhood and a safe and protected environment. We tend to think back to the "good old days" because we find comfort in our past. Today, as an adult, a wife, and a mother, I often find refuge in my childhood memories. And, like most people, much of what I encounter and read today I tend to associate with my past. If I come across a story that I heard in my childhood, as I search for something new and amusing to give to my college English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students, I try to incorporate it into my curriculum. A few years ago I came across the story The Necklace by Guy de Mappassant and immediately recalled reading it in my adolescence. This story brought back the warm memories of home that I felt would be understood and identified with by my foreign students. Today, this story is one of my students' favorites. By using stories from my own past, I feel that I can bring to my class discussions a unique perspective—my own recollections and feelings and an interpretation not only academic in nature but also personal. Often, my international students will recall hearing or reading some of the same stories (that I bring to class) in their childhood, in their native tongues, and thus these stories will not seem out of context anymore because there will be a sense of connection.I teach ESL to college students—reading and writing at the intermediate and advanced levels. Aside from following the standard curriculum of using grammar and writing textbooks, I bring to my ESL classes music, opera, art, young adult novels by American writers, and short stories by both international and American writers. For instance, my students enjoy reading O. Henry's "The Christmas Present," "The Last Leaf," and "The Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen." These stories are about real people—just like my students—they are about everyday events, they are humorous and tragic in nature, and they have an unexpected twist... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 147-151 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism. By DaleS.Wright. Cambridge, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xv +227 pp. In a work brimming with unobtrusive erudition and centered on the figure of Huang Po (d. 850), Dale Wright offers a seasoned account of a topic that is still very much in need of clarification, (...) namely, the roles of language, conceptuality, textuality, interpretation, and historical development in Zen Buddhism. Some recent critics tend to see Zen as incoherent or even hypocritical in that this "special transmission outside the sutras, not dependent on language and texts, pointing directly to mind" (quoted, p. 64) in reality developed complex and varied textual and ritual traditions from [End Page 147] which the supposedly pure enlightenment experience cannot be siphoned out. Wright argues that the critics themselves are often naive, giving an inverted reflection of the naiveté of earlier scholars such as John Blofeld, who saw Zen as centered on an ineffable Supreme Experience, quite independent of the language used to point to it. Nonetheless, Wright himself is in basic agreement with the critics and in radical opposition to Blofeld (and to D. T. Suzuki). But he points out that the early Chinese Zen masters speak in many voices, often anticipating the most sophisticated insights of their critics.Wright's style is very unlike that of Bernard Faure, being slow, serene, reflective, scrupulous, and imbued with the deepest respect for the Zen tradition. Yet his thought rejoins Faure's at many points.The thrust of Wright's argument is to demystify Zen enlightenment by reinserting it in its varied linguistic, social, institutional, and historical contexts. He gives a realistic and holistic account of what Zen experience must have been like for disciples of Huang Po (pp. 187-192). His stress on the linguisticality of all experience certainly illuminates the texture of Huang Po's world. But I am left wondering if there is not another aspect of Zen that is missed here. Modern philosophers have derived much insight from the realization that thought and perception are deeply embedded in language. But I do not know that anyone has proven that there can never be a thinking or perception that is independent of language. Even the supposedly pan-textualist Derrida states somewhere that he does not exclude the possibility of nonlinguistic thought. In most fields of inquiry this abstruse question makes no practical difference, but in the case of Zen it is of crucial import. The presupposition of universal linguisticality, especially if it hardens into a dogma, may block access to the core of Zen experience.Wright argues that though some Zen masters sought prelinguistic immediacy, the majority were deeply aware of the inseparability of experience and the language in which it is grasped. But could it not be that prelinguistic immediacy was so much taken for granted in Zen that the masters scarcely needed to insist on it? Wright says that enlightenment itself is a linguistic event, since it is often occasioned by a verbal statement and given immediate expression in another verbal statement. But to recognize the indispensability of language for conveying experience is not necessarily to imply that the experience itself is dependent on language. Although a certain poem of Huang Po "strives to make its anti-textual point, the master must enter into the textual world to do so, thus abandoning the position of 'no dependence on texts'" (p. 22). Is it really necessary to see a contradiction here, given that, as Wright himself points out, "no unanimity on the meaning of the mandate against 'words and letters' existed" (p. 26)? Let us suppose that the point is nonattachment to texts and a realization of the intrinsic independence of enlightenment from the limited perspectives of textuality, language, and conceptual thought. This is quite compatible with intensive use of texts in practice.Blofeld explains that texts were useful to the learner but cast aside when enlightenment was reached. Wright argues that the enlightened experience must "continue to hold within it, and... (shrink)

Landscapes are public environments in which different communities and individuals dwell and which matter to them in ways which are not always consistent. As such they are open to strong conflicts about what the future of landscapes ought to be and who has an entitlement to involvement in a decision about that future. How should such conflicts be resolved? One influential approach is that embodied in the practice of cost-benefit analysis: the strength of preferences for different landscapes is measured by (...) individuals' willingness to pay and the potential Pareto improvement efficiency criterion is employed as a rule of choice. This paper contends that this approach is flawed. It examines an economic valuation study of landscapes in the Yorkshire Dales. Drawing on interviews with farmers in the Dales and on in-depth discussion groups with respondents to other economic valuation studies, it argues that landscape conflicts involve issues of identity that cannot be captured in terms of preference satisfaction and conflicts of perceived rights which could not in principle be resolved by cost-benefit analysis. (shrink)

Le Obiezioni contro la Teoria medica di G.E. Stahl, tradotte per la prima volta in italiano, rappresentano un documento di particolare interesse storico-filosofico. Da una parte Georg Ernst Stahl (1659-1734), medico, chimico, fisico, sostenitore di una fisiologia corporea a impronta “vitalista” e dall’altra Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), genio universale della matematica e della filosofia dell’età barocca. Il fulcro della polemica riguarda la possibilità di capire se e in che misura l’organizzazione meccanica di un corpo organico sia di per (...) se sufficiente a spiegare il fenomeno della vita “biologica”, o se invece si debba postulare la presenza di princìpi vitali capaci di integrare le leggi fisiologiche che strutturano la corporeità. A dispetto della lontananza storica, o anzi forse proprio in virtù di tale lontananza, la polemica tra Leibniz e Stahl ci aiuta a decifrare le radici di uno dei refrain più abusati di tanta filosofia contemporanea, il tema cioè della ‘naturalizzazione’ della vita e dello spirito. L’idea di espungere tutti gli elementi “soprannaturali” (l’anima, gli spiriti, etc.) dal novero delle spiegazioni scientifiche non è certo un’idea novecentesca e si confronta in questo caso non solo con la sua tesi opposta, ma soprattutto con una vasta gamma di soluzioni intermedie e di varianti non riduzioniste, di cui proprio la filosofia di Leibniz è uno splendido esempio. Il volume è accompagnato da un saggio di postfazione intitolato Vita e organismo tra filosofia e medicina: le ragioni di una polemica. (shrink)

Rahel Jaeggi argues that forms of life ought to be the main reference point for a critical theory of society because the internal normative structure of life forms allows for immanent critique. In this article, I extend her model by systematically considering the possibility of oppressive forms of life. Oppressive forms of life are clusters of practices in which subordinated groups are systematically excluded or disabled from participating in the social processes of interpretation through which the values and purposes of (...) those very practices are determined. The possibility of oppressive forms of life poses a challenge to the method of immanent critique because it seems that any such critique must rely on immanent norms that are at least partly constituted by interpretations and that can therefore be distorted by oppression. I argue that Jaeggi’s model of immanent critique can be extended to respond to that challenge, either by recovering a constitutive form of freedom within all forms of life or by consciously adopting a partisan stance in favour of oppressed and marginalised self-understandings. (shrink)

When we criticize social institutions and practices, what kinds of reasons can we offer for such criticism? Political philosophers often assume that we must rely on universal moral principles that are not necessarily connected to the particular social practices of our communities. Traditionally,continental critical theory has rejected this claim through its endorsement of the method of immanent critique. Immanent critique is a critique of social practices that draws on norms already present within these practices to demand social change, rather than (...) merely conservatively reproducing them. This book defends the claim that such a critique is not only possible, but also has politically powerful potential. Taking up recent developments in analytic collective intentionality theory and in the philosophy of language, the book argues that all social practices rest on structures of mutual recognition between persons that allow social theorists to reconstruct hidden norms present within these practices. Starting from a comprehensive critique of contemporary critical theory, the book also spells out the consequences of this line of thought for the practice of social critique, for the social sciences and for political philosophy. (shrink)

Dale Dorsey considers one of the most fundamental questions in philosophical ethics: to what extent do the demands of morality have normative authority over us and our lives? Must we conform to moral requirements? Most who have addressed this question have treated the normative significance of morality as simply a fact to be explained. But Dorsey argues that this traditional assumption is misguided. According to Dorsey, not only are we not required to conform to moral demands, conforming to morality's (...) demands will not always even be normatively permissible---moral behavior can be wrong. This view is significant not only for understanding the content and force of the moral point of view, but also for understanding the basic elements of how one ought to live. (shrink)

Much of knowing what to do is knowing what to do for ourselves, but knowing how to act in our best interest is complex---we must know what benefits us, what burdens us, and how these facts present and constitute considerations in favor of action. Additionally, we must know how we should weigh our interests at different times---past, present, and future. Dale Dorsey argues that a theory of prudence is needed: a theory of how we ought to act when we (...) are acting for ourselves. A Theory of Prudence provides a comprehensive account of prudence, including the metaethics of prudential value, the nature of the personal good, the reasons of prudence, and the structure of prudential normativity over time. (shrink)

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide a response to Christiansen's paper, Ellen Christiansen “From ‘ethics of the eye’ to ‘ethics of the hand’ by collaborative prototyping”,Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 12 No. 1.Design/methodology/approach– Reflection and critique of Christiansen's position.Findings– The paper raises questions about the conceptual basis, the realisation of participation and the conditions required for participative practice to be more broadly employed.Originality/value– It is an original response.

In Morality and Socially Constructed Norms, Laura Valentini argues that moral obligations to respect social norms can be explained without invoking the concept of ‘joint commitment.’ Her resulting account is, in one important sense, individualistic, and therefore struggles to account for widely held intuitions about the normative significance of social norms. I argue that we can rescue the notion of joint commitment from Valentini’s objections, and incorporate it into a version of her account that preserves its insights.

This paper discusses recent evidence that violations of core knowledge offer special learning opportunities for infants and young children. Children make predictions about the world from the youngest ages. When their fail to match observed data, they show an enhanced drive to seek and retain new information about entities that violated their expectations. Finally, the authors draw comparisons between children and adults, and with other species, to explore how surprise shapes thought more broadly.

Computer-based design environments for skilled domain workers have recently graduated from research prototypes to commercial products, supporting the learning of individual designers. Such systems do not, however, adequately support the collaborative nature of work or the evolution of knowledge within communities of practice. If innovation is to be supported within collaborative efforts, thesedomain-oriented design environments (DODEs) must be extended to becomecollaborative information environments (CIEs), capable of providing effective community memories for managing information and learning within constantly evolving collaborative contexts. In (...) particular, CIEs must provide functionality that facilitates the construction of new knowledge and the shared understanding necessary to use this knowledge effectively within communities of practice. (shrink)

Dne 31. července 2013 poskytl dr. Josef Zumr rozhovor, zaměřující se na jeho dlouholetého přítele a spolupracovníka Karla Kosíka. Doktor Zumr zde představuje dobu 60. let, vzpomíná na to, jak se s Karlem Kosíkem potkal, co prožili. Popisuje Kosíkovo mládí, důvody, proč se rozhodl studovat filosofii. Líčí politickou situaci v Československu a různé nástroje a způsoby politické perzekuce, která postihla většinu pracovníků FÚ ČSAV (a nejen jich), a popisuje, jakým způsobem se s touto situací vyrovnával on sám i Karel Kosík. (...) Dále se vyjadřuje k ohlasům na Dialektiku konkrétního i na jiné Kosíkovy stěžejní texty, které vzbudily pozornost společnosti.On 31st July 2013, dr. Josef Zumr gave an interview concerning his long-time friend and co-worker Karel Kosík. Dr. Zumr acquaints reader with the 60’s and recalls how he first met Karel Kosík and what they have experienced. He describes Kosík’s youth and reasons that have led Kosík to the decision to study philosophy. Political situation in former Czechoslovakia is described as well as different instruments of political persecution that affected many employees of the Department of Philosophy of Czechoslovak Academy of Science and many others. Dr. Zumr also recounts how he himself and Karel Kosík dealt with persecution. He also comments on different receptions that The Dialectics of the Concrete and other Kosík’s works have elicited. (shrink)

A common presupposition in contemporary moral and political philosophy is that individuals should be provided with some basic threshold of goods, capabilities, or well-being. But if there is such a basic minimum, how should this be understood? Dale Dorsey offers an underexplored answer: that the basic minimum should be characterized not as the achievement of a set of capabilities, or as access to some specified bundle of resources, but as the maintenance of a minimal threshold of human welfare. In (...) addition, Dorsey argues that though political institutions should be committed to the promotion of this minimal threshold, we should reject approaches that seek to cast the basic minimum as a human right. His book will be important for all who are interested in theories of political morality. (shrink)