Este trabajo investiga las interrelaciones entre la regulación y los as-pectos económicos y ambientales en una comunidad de agricultores familiares en la región conocida como Zona da Mata Mineira, en el estado brasileño de Minas Gerais. El estudio es producto de una acti-vidad de extensión realizada entre 2016 y 2018, y tuvo como objetivo asesorar a los pequeños productores en el proceso de adecuación legal de la producción. Durante este período se realizaron cerca de cinco reuniones entre investigadores y comuneros, (...) en las que se analizaron las dificultades encontradas por los pequeños productores en relación con el referido proceso. Las experiencias reportadas fueron confron-tadas con el régimen legal regulatorio para la actividad acuícola en Brasil, tomando como categorías de análisis los atributos de norma-tividad y facticidad del sistema legal. Se concluyó que la regulación ambiental en el área de la acuicultura en Brasil, diseñada para grandes productores, carga de manera desproporcionada a los pequeños pro-ductores, generando un desequilibrio económico injustificado. Como aporte a la teoría, se propone, en definitiva, la formulación de un con-cepto de regulación jurídica inclusiva, cuyos rasgos distintivos inclu-yen la participación social y la promoción de la alfabetización jurídica como derecho fundamental. (shrink)

Leading philosophical models of curiosity represent it as a desiderative attitude whose content is a question, and which is satisfied by knowledge of the answer to that question. I argue that these models do not capture the distinctive character of a form of curiosity that I call 'erotic curiosity'. Erotic curiosity addresses itself not to a question but to an object whose significance for the inquirer is affective as well as epistemic. This form of curiosity is best understood by analogy (...) to erotic love as theorized by Plato in the Symposium. (shrink)

It is widely believed that we ought not to criticize others for wrongs that we ourselves have committed. The author draws out and challenges some of the background assumptions about the practice of criticism that underlie our attraction to this claim, such as the tendency to think of criticism either as a social sanction or as a didactic intervention. The author goes on to offer a taxonomy of cases in which the moral legitimacy of criticism is challenged on the grounds (...) that the critic him- or herself engages in the behavior that he or she criticizes in others. The author argues that, in each type of case, the would-be critics should not constrain their participation in moral discourse on the grounds that they are not themselves innocent of the wrongdoing they criticize in others. (shrink)

This paper explores a distinctive form of social interaction—interpersonal inquiry—in which two or more people attempt to understand one another by engaging in conversation. Like many modes of inquiry into human beings, interpersonal inquiry partly shapes its own objects. How we conduct it thus affects who we become. I present an ethical ideal of conversation to which, I argue, at least some of our interpersonal inquiry ought to aspire. I then consider how this ideal might influence philosophical conceptions of the (...) self. (shrink)

Este artículo nos adentra en el estudio de la figura de san Martín de Tours, el apóstol de la Galia, cuya influencia se deja sentir en toda Europa, especialmente en España. Se trata del primer santo no mártir después de la paz de Constantino. Resultó ser soldado por fuerza, obispo por obligación, monje por gusto. Representa un nuevo modelo de santidad. De eremita evoluciona a la vida cenobítica, como padre de monjes; y como obispo es el defensor civitatis además del (...) gran evangelizador del mundo rural de la Galia. A su alrededor se generan otros santos. Por otra parte, Tours es la ciudad en que comienza la via turonensis del célebre Camino de Santiago. El Apóstol Santiago y Martín de Tours comparten culto y compiten en santidad como grandes taumaturgos. (shrink)

Este artículo nos adentra en el estudio del problema del “jansenismo español” durante el siglo de Ilustración. En la primera parte se presenta el origen del jansenismo teológico, moral y disciplinar. Se indican sus representantes y sus obras. Más tarde se convierte en jansenismo político, también llamado jansenismo histórico. La influencia del pensamiento de los jansenistas franceses, holandeses e italianos sobre los jansenistas españoles es evidente y fehaciente. La historiografía sobre el particular es abundante. Se presentan las características más importantes (...) del jansenismo español, en relación con el despotismo ilustrado, el regalismo y el reformismo, además de un gran interés por la Biblia, el Derecho y la Historia. (shrink)

In this introduction we present Patrick Duffley's book Linguistic Meaning meets Linguistic Form, as well as the contributions that each scholar has brought into the debate on linguistic meaning and form. They deal with semantic and foundational issues regarding a sign-based approach to meaning.

In this paper we suggest that Duffley’s sign-based semantics rests on two main claims: a methodological one and an ontological one. The methodological one is the analysis of corpora and the ontological one is the postulate of mental content. By adopting a linguistic enactivist perspective with a Wittgensteinian twist, we endorse Duffley’s methodological claim and suggest that a sign-based semantics doesn’t have to rely on mental content if it takes into account the conception of meaningful material engagement in cognitive archeology (...) and its development into sign-using as an enactive capacity. (shrink)

Logical Holism and Wittgenstein’s ‘Practical Turn’. – Logical holism is the idea that each elementary proposition belongs to a system and is logically connected to other propositions of that system. In this paper I explore this idea and draw its connections to the nature of negative propositions and the ‘problem of recognition’ on the basis of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. In the first section I argue that in January 1930 the idea leads Wittgenstein to a better understanding of how the negative feature (...) is expressed in propositions, thereby raising the problem of recognition to which he is not yet able to find a proper solution. In the second section I explore how the problem still persists during Wittgenstein’s ‘practical turn’. What he now calls the ‘problem of representation’ forces him to change again his conception of propositions. In the final section I argue that this change is mainly due to the modification of his conception of hypotheses which urges a solution to the problem of representation, though the problem remains unsolved in January 1930. (shrink)

Our objective in this paper is twofold: first, we intend to address the tenability of the enactivist middle way between realism and idealism, as it is proposed in The Embodied Mind. We do so by taking the enactivist conception of bringing forth a world literally in three conceptual levels: enaction, niche construction and social construction. Based on this proposal, we claim that enactivism is compatible with the idea of an independent reality without committing to the claim that organisms have cognitive (...) access to a world composed of properties specified prior to any cognitive activity. Our second goal is to show that our literal interpretation of bringing forth a world not only sustains the legitimacy of the middle way, but it also allows us to revive the conception of evolution as natural drift—which is perhaps the least examined aspect of the original enactivist theory and is central to the understanding of cognition in an enactive way. Natural drift focuses on how structural couplings between organism and environment trigger viable pathways of maintenance and reproduction, instead of selecting the most adapted trait to a pregiven environment. Thus, although enactivists typically do not explore the consequences of their views regarding evolutionary dynamics, we show how natural drift provides a suitable starting point. (shrink)

Research regarding ethics programs represents an important segment of business ethics literature. In the last thirty years, scientific discourse on ethics programs has flourished. Numerous studies examined their functions, composition, application in organizational practice, and impact on employee ethical behavior and many other organizational variables. However, so far there has been no study that would comprehensively map this particular field. Given that, this paper aims to examine discourse on ethics programs in its complexity within business and management literature. Based on (...) a sophistically composed search protocol in the Scopus database, and after multiple rounds of checks, we extracted a final sample of 287 documents that matched the selection criteria. The sample was thoroughly analyzed by means of advanced bibliometric analytics tools. The results show the quantitative impact of ethics program literature via publication and citation metrics, a network of co-occurring themes and clusters of scientific inquiry, and the evolution of respective discourse over time. This detailed analysis results in a set of conclusions provided in the last part of the paper summarizing the quantitative performance and thematic scope of literature on ethics programs. (shrink)

The teaching of religion in public schools – whether the subject should or should not be included in the school curricula, what the content structure should be and which approach the teacher should adopt – led to various ethical dilemmas and conflicts in many regions of the world. Our article aims at reviewing, from the perspectives of numerous authors, the different topics as well as the ways in which aspects related to the impact of religious teaching and to specific approaches (...) could be taught to economics students in a democratic society. At the same time, we underline different dilemmas and preoccupations resulting from religious values in the organizational management and in marketing, but also the synergies that could be capitalized from this standpoint, in order to obtain a competitive advantage in a context where diversity, and religious diversity in particular, is a reality that gets more and more obvious, while a good capitalization of it can bring forth loyalty in organizations and competitive advantages on the market. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda la estrategia escritural de Daniela Catrileo. Se propone revisar la elaboración del concepto de piñen examinando la relación entre lenguaje y colonialidad, para, de ese modo, subrayar el potencial político y reivindicativo que comporta en la novela del mismo nombre, Piñen (2019). Dicha hipótesis articulará el ejercicio de lectura aquí propuesto, atendiendo principalmente las estrategias narrativas empleadas –servirse de un polilingüismo que rompe estructuras gramaticales– para descentrar el lenguaje de su determinismo colonial. Así, interpretamos dicha (...) estrategia escritural en consonancia con las potencias micropolíticas y descolonizadoras del arte descritas por Suely Rolnik y, en consecuencia, apostando por la posibilidad de diagramar un devenir minoritario que dispute los imaginarios del inconsciente colonial-capital. (shrink)

How worried should we be about how impressionable we are—how susceptible we are to being influenced and even transformed by our encounters with one another? Some moral philosophers think we should be quite worried indeed: they hold that interpersonal influence is an especially morally dangerous way to change. It calls for additional moral scrutiny as compared with vectors of change that come from within the influencee’s own psyche—their antecedent values, desires, commitments, and so forth—just because it has an external source. (...) I argue that this heightened scrutiny of exogenous sources of change is unwarranted. Dramatic psychic changes do call for reflection and critical scrutiny, especially when they are sudden. But this scrutiny need not be concerned with the procedural issue of whether the impetus for the change came from inside or outside the changing person’s antecedent psychology. We can just evaluate the substantive changes themselves. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Wittgenstein’s conception of a hypothesis as articulated in Chapters XII and XXII of ‘Philosophical Remarks’. First, I argue that in Chapter XII, Wittgenstein draws on his account of infinity to begin to challenge the view that all hypotheses can be proven by empirical evidence. I then argue that in Chapter XXII that Wittgenstein sharpens this conception of hypotheses claiming that no hypotheses can be verified. Finally, I suggest that Wittgenstein’s conception of a hypothesis relates to (...) his practical view of how language functions. (shrink)

Phronesis is essential for good decision‐making and actions. This literature review shows how phronesis has been discussed and related to elements of the field of administration and organizations. A search in the database systems Scopus, EBSCO, Web of Science, and Scielo, based on eligibility criteria, resulted in 43 theoretical and 14 empirical works. The analysis of these studies showed the most significant empirical contributions, the most cited authors, methods, journals, and central themes addressed in studies on phronesis to understand ethics (...) in business. From a virtue ethics perspective, we discuss the major theoretical and empirical contributions, as well as the implications of a restricted understanding of phronesis when it is treated apart from other elements of the virtue ethics framework. We present a synthesis of the concepts of phronesis, based on dimensions of magnitude and amplitude of the conceptions, ranging from formal to substantive phronesis, and covering individual, organizational, or societal levels of analysis. We argue that a substantive conception of phronesis within virtue ethics may improve our understanding of ethics because it assumes the interdependence of phronesis and moral virtues, integral anthropology, and the common good. We present a future research agenda, considering the study's limitations and findings. (shrink)

BackgroundOrgan transplantation represents the most effective and acceptable therapy for end-stage organ failure. However, its frequent practice often leads to a shortage of organs worldwide. To solve this dilemma, some countries, such as Portugal, have switched from an opt-in to an opt-out system, which has raised concerns about respect for individual autonomy. We aimed to evaluate whether young university students are aware of this opt-out system so that they can make informed, autonomous and conscious decisions, as well as to identify (...) the factors that determine a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation.MethodsAn observational, cross-sectional study was developed and a questionnaire was administered to first-year students from six faculties of the University of Porto.ResultsOf the 841 participants, 60% were unaware that Portugal had adopted an opt-out system. Among the informed individuals, their main sources of information included social media, internet, and family. Furthermore, only 48% of all participants agreed with the current opt-out system. Female sex (p = 0.049; OR 1.393), knowledge of the law (p < 0.001; OR 4.749) and family being the primary source of information (p < 0.001; OR 2.855) were independent factors associated with a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation law.ConclusionsThere is a significant lack of knowledge among young university students regarding the presumed post-mortem organ donation law and how it works. Female sex, having family as a primary source of information and being aware of the presumed post-mortem organ donation law are the strongest independent factors that determine a positive attitude toward the opt-out system. (shrink)

I-Language introduces the uninitiated to linguistics as cognitive science. In an engaging, down-to-earth style Daniela Isac and Charles Reiss give a crystal-clear demonstration of the application of the scientific method in linguistic theory. Their presentation of the research programme inspired and led by Noam Chomsky shows how the focus of theory and research in linguistics shifted from treating language as a disembodied, human-external entity to cognitive biolinguistics - the study of language as a human cognitive system embedded within the (...) mind/brain of each individual. The recurring theme of equivalence classes in linguistic computation ties together the presentation of material from phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The same theme is used to help students understand the place of linguistics in the broader context of the cognitive sciences, by drawing on examples from vision, audition, and even animal cognition.This textbook is unique in its integration of empirical issues of linguistic analysis, engagement with philosophical questions that arise in the study of language, and treatment of the history of the field. Topics ranging from allophony to reduplication, ergativity, and negative polarity are invoked to show the implications of findings in cognitive biolinguistics for philosophical issues like reference, the mind-body problem, and nature-nurture debates.This textbook contains numerous exercises and guides for further reading as well as ideas for student projects. A companion website with guidance for instructors and answers to the exercises features a series of pdf slide presentations to accompany the teaching of each topic. (shrink)

Physicians working in the world of competitive sports face unique ethical challenges, many of which center around conflicts of interest. Team-employed physicians have obligations to act in the club's best interest while caring for the individual athlete. As such, they must balance issues like protecting versus sharing health information, as well as issues regarding autonomous informed consent versus paternalistic decision making in determining whether an athlete may compete safely. Moreover, the physician has to deal with an athlete's decisions about performance (...) enhancement and return to play, pursuit of which may not be in the athlete's long-term best interests but may benefit the athlete and team in the short term. These difficult tasks are complicated by the lack of evidence-based standards in a field influenced by the lure of financial gains for multiple parties involved. In this article, we review ethical issues in sports medicine with specific attention paid to American professional football. (shrink)

An extensive literature has focused on the impact of new public management oriented structural changes on academics’ practice and identity. These critical studies have been resolute in concluding that NPM inevitably leads to a degeneration of academics’ ethos and values. Drawing from the moral philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, we argue that these previous analyses have overlooked the moral agency of the academics and their role in ‘moralizing’ and consequently shaping the ethical nature of their practices. The paper provides a new (...) theoretical understanding of NPM-oriented reforms in light of the virtue ethics approach, thereby directing the attention to the moral character and moral agency of academics. Our analysis of interviews collected in the business department of a Danish university provides an example of how individuals have divergent ethical understandings of these structural changes and enact/resist pre-defined social roles in different ways. While in some cases the NPM agenda of the institutions has triggered internal moral conflict and a crisis of moral character, in other cases the new logic resonates with academics’ values and evaluative standards. Partially departing from the theoretical ground of MacIntyre, we conclude that academics can play a crucial role in shaping the morality of NPM-oriented institutions and in transforming these settings into suitable contexts for the cultivation of virtues. (shrink)

It is common in the cognitive and computational sciences to regard virtual reality (VR) as composed of illusory experiences, given its immersive character. In this paper, we adopt an ecological-enactive perspective on cognition (Sect. 3) to evaluate the nature of VR and one’s engagement with it. Based on a post-cognitivist conception of illusion, we reject the commonly held assumption that virtual reality experiences (VREs) are illusory (Sect. 4). Our positive take on this issue is that VR devices, like other technological (...) devices, can be embodied during use, which is why they can be the source of experiences (Sect. 5). We then propose a new concept to interpret VREs, namely, _allusion_, which means that the subject acts _as if_ the virtual experiences are real (Sect. 6). This kind of engagement has a volitional aspect, which is evident in the onboarding of VR devices and which allows us to distinguish VREs from other experiences. We conclude that, even though we have experiences that afford certain interactions in VR, the strong continuity between cognitive and biological processes is not sustained therein. This characterizes a difference of kind—given the current state of technology—between VREs and fully fledged cognitive states, which nevertheless allows for constrained experimentation in cognitive science. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty is a major problem and is thus a highly relevant area of inquiry. Considerable research has shown that key traits from the Big Five model of personality are associated with various forms of anti-social behaviour. To date, however, relatively little research interest has been devoted to study the relationship between personality traits and plagiarism. This study attempts to fill this gap by examining the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and the inclination to commit plagiarism by undergraduate (...) students. The main conclusion is that the inclination to plagiarize is negatively associated with Conscientiousness and Agreeableness traits. Neuroticism was not found to be related to the inclination to plagiarize. Implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

Seed libraries are institutions that support the creation of semi-formal seed systems, but are often intended to address larger issues that are part of the “food movement” in the global north. Over 100 SLs are reported present in California. I describe a functional framework for studying and comparing seed systems, and use that to investigate the social and biological characteristics of California SLs in 2016 and how they are contributing to alternative seed systems based on interviews with 45 SL managers. (...) At a minimum, SLs function as new seed distribution institutions founded and overseen by dedicated, values-driven individuals and groups with goals including education, seed access, local adaptation, biodiversity conservation, community-building, and human health. Annually about 4776 people borrow seeds from, and 238 people return seeds to the SLs in this study, that operate through over 17,000 hours of work/year. These SLs distribute approximately 6456 packets of seed annually, mostly of commercial seeds from small seed companies, but some SLs emphasize local and culturally meaningful seeds. The significance of a 6% seed return rate depends on SL goals and can be investigated once appropriate indicators for those goals are identified and documented. Beyond distribution, the seed system functions accomplished by SLs differ, and all can have consequences for the processes shaping the diversity and adaptation of their crops. The SLs engaged in seed system functions beyond distribution are new forms of socially-motivated community science, poised to develop biological and social innovations reflecting their values and interests. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss whether the view that understanding is the ability to relate the use of an expression to a certain purpose leads to a theory of meaning as use. In particular, I investigate the view that a theory of meaning relies on the assumption that use is related to immanent purposes of language. I inquire whether it is possible to identify those purposes that seem essential for the use of language. Interpreting Wittgenstein, I argue that this idea (...) relies on a misunderstanding between purposes and effects. Single purposes are not to be conceived of as essential for the use of language. However, if we want to speak of an essential purpose of language, I argue, this purpose is to be conceived of as an end in itself. I draw the conclusion that the use of language is an end in itself rather than a means that fulfils essential purposes. (shrink)

Care este statutul moral al copiilor? Ce înseamnă egalitatea morală dintre copii şi adulți? Care sunt constrângerile pe care le impune acceptarea acestei egalități în ceea ce priveşte felul în care pot fi tratați copiii în familie sau în societate ? Cine are ce fel de responsabilitate pentru copii ? În capitolul de față voi discuta astfel de întrebări. Voi analiza relația dintre copii, părinți şi stat, în dimensiunea ei practică (felul în care ne raportăm la copii), din punct de (...) vedere legal (constrângerile legale asupra felului în care ne raportăm la copii) şi din punct de vedere moral (cum ar trebui să ne raportăm la copii). Voi începe cu o scurtă incursiune în istoria relațiilor dintre copii, părinți, şi stat, atât din punct de vedere legal, cât şi filosofic. Voi prezenta conceptul de statut moral şi ideea de egalitate morală între copii şi adulți. Voi ilustra schimbările sociale şi legislative în ce priveşte acceptarea statutului moral al copiilor şi a egalității morale între copii şi adulți, folosind exemple din România şi Suedia. Voi examina dinamica dintre aspirațiile legale şi morale la care aderă România în ce priveşte statutul moral al copiilor şi normele sociale despre copii, copilărie, şi familie, care nu sunt întotdeauna în acord cu aceste aspirații. Voi urmări apoi schimbările care au avut loc în ultimele decenii în ce priveşte limitele responsabilității parentale. (shrink)

Over two hundred years after Immanuel Kant’s death, the first full, critical, and digital edition of his last manuscript is currently being completed by the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. This edition stands in institutional continuity with Wilhelm Dilthey’s monumental Akademieausgabe of Kant’s writings that was grounded in Dilthey’s lastingly influential concept of the national, literary-philosophical archive. The new edition showcases Kant’s dynamic writing process as a matter of investigation in its own right. As I argue here, it brings into view (...) the constitutive role of the archive for both texts and interpretative practices. A historical perspective that links the legacy of the Akademieausgabe with the digital edition of the Opus postumum highlights the changing role of the archive in emphasising or de-emphasising the manuscript’s resistance to certain appropriations and stylisations of Kant as a thinker. (shrink)

There are few doubts about the significance of science and technology for modern human culture and society. But as historians, we are still struggling to find appropriate descriptive terms to capture the broad processes of transformation brought about by “techno-science,” the merging of technical production and modern institutionalized science. This dissertation argues that the term “experience” may serve as such an analytic lens in the specific historical setting of German aviation research from the 1920s through 1945. I reconstruct, on the (...) one hand, the theorization of experience as a concept by the technical physicist Paul von Handel, influenced by the British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington’s distinction between "scientific" and "everyday" experience. On the other hand, I use the term as a historian’s analytic concept to investigate practices in the context of flight experiments that I take to be constitutive of my historical actors’ experiences. These are recordings of experimental pilots’ cognitive judgements and bodily actions, some of them—such as in-flight note taking—continuous with older cultural technologies. On both of these levels of analysis, I explore the different resonances of “experience” as a term with a legacy as a central epistemological concept in the modern sciences, and as capturing the changing everyday reality in an increasingly technicized environment. My analysis of the textual theorization and simultaneous practical constitution of "techno-scientific experience" serves to read in a new light the story of the pilot and physicist Melitta Schiller-Stauffenberg. Of Jewish descent, Schiller chose to work for the Luftwaffe, the German air force, until her death in 1945 on a flight searching for her husband, Count Alexander Stauffenberg, who was imprisoned after his brother’s failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. The concept and practical reality of “experience” are key to understanding the two striking choices Schiller made as intrinsically connected: the professional choice of working simultaneously as a pilot and a physicist, and the political choice of supporting the Reich’s war effort. Schiller’s story may be understood as exemplifying the fragile identity of the experiencing and the knowing self in 20th-century techno-scientific modernity. (shrink)

A distinguishing characteristic of the biomedical model is its compartmentalized view of man. This way of seeing human beings has its origin in Greek thought; it was stated by Descartes and to this day it still considers humans as beings composed of distinct entities combined into a certain form. Because of this observation, one began to believe that the focus of a health treatment could be exclusively on the affected area of the body, without the need to pay attention to (...) patient’s subjectivity. By seeing pain as a merely sensory response, this model was not capable of encompassing chronic pain, since the latter is a complex process that can occur independently of tissue damage. As of the second half of the twentieth century, when it became impossible to deny the relationship between psyche and soma, the current understanding of chronic pain emerges: that of chronic pain as an individual experience, the result of a sum of physical, psychological, and social factors that, for this reason, cannot be approached separately from the individual who expresses pain. This understanding has allowed a significant improvement in perspective, emphasizing the characteristic of pain as an individual experience. However, the understanding of chronic pain as a sum of factors corresponds to the current way of seeing the process of falling ill, for its conception holds a Cartesian duality and the positivist premise of a single reality. For phenomenology, on the other hand, the individual in his/her unity is more than a simple sum of parts. Phenomenology sees a human being as an intending entity, in which body, mind, and the world are intertwined and constitute each other mutually, thus establishing the human being’s integral functioning. Therefore, a real understanding of the chronic pain process would only be possible from a phenomenological point of view at the experience lived by the individual who expresses and communicates pain. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Models Analogy Metaphor Metaphorical Models Current Issues.

Role realism is a promising realist theory of fictional names. Different versions of this theory have been suggested by Gregory Currie, Peter Lamarque, Stein Haugom Olsen, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The general idea behind the approach is that fictional characters are to be analysed in terms of roles, which in turn can be understood as sets of properties. I will discuss several advantages and disadvantages of this approach. I will then propose a novel hyperintensional version of role realism, according to which (...) fictional names are analysed in terms of individual concepts that cannot be matched by a reference. I will argue that this account avoids the main disadvantages of standard role realism. (shrink)

Justified belief is a core concept in epistemology and there has been an increasing interest in its logic over the last years. While many logical investigations consider justified belief as an operator, in this paper, we propose a logic for justified belief in which the relevant notion is treated as a predicate instead. Although this gives rise to the possibility of liar-like paradoxes, a predicate treatment allows for a rich and highly expressive framework, which lives up to the universal ambitions (...) of investigating epistemological concepts. We start with a base theory for justified belief, and then systematically present putative additional axioms for justified belief. We provide an overview of consistency results when the additional principles are added to the base theory, and discuss their philosophical plausibility. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} This article aims to examine the phenomenon of social services in post-1989 Romania, underscoring the role of the religious factor in the establishment and operation of nongovernmental organisations active in the area of family and child protection/child welfare. The results are based on empirical data collected from interviews with representatives (...) of NGO-s in Iaşi that correspond to the profile of faith-based organisations and which have been included in the list of accredited providers of social services. We used an assessment grid that allowed us to highlight a number of specific characteristics to the Romanian space, found among faith-based organisations involved in the development of social and medical services. One direction that Romanian organisation took was to dilute in time the religious message and to secularise their practices under the influence of the Orthodox majority, as well as following the requirements imposed by secular donors and especially by public ones. The channelling of private resources donated to religious cults predominantly towards building and restoring establishments (churches, monasteries) rather than towards the development of social faith-based programmes aimed at vulnerable populations has caused in faith-based organisations a high level of dependency on secular donors. The process in which the practices and the discourse are secularised is accompanied by a trend towards the fragmentation of the Christian-based civil society. (shrink)

In this chapter I discuss Roger Trigg’s contribution to this volume on Wittgenstein, concepts, and human nature. Trigg shares many of the basic assumptions that form the methodological framework of cognitive science of religion (CSR) arguing that Wittgenstein’s later work shares common ground with presumptions, commitments, and accounts in cultural studies that are usually rejected by proponents of CSR. In particular, he challenges Wittgenstein’s notion of truth, that he sees under the threat of radical relativism. Against his view I argue (...) that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy never comes at the cost of losing the notion of objective truth. It rather demands a change in the conceptual framework that underlies the use of this notion of truth. In the first section I argue for the claim in terms of Wittgenstein’s development. In the second section I explore the social nature of meaning in the Later Wittgenstein, arguing, in the third section, that it does not commit us to radical relativism. Finally, I draw some conclusions from my argument for the studies of CSR. (shrink)

Our objective in this paper is twofold: first, we intend to address the tenability of the enactivist middle way between realism and idealism, as it is proposed in The Embodied Mind. We do so by taking the enactivist conception of bringing forth a world literally in three conceptual levels: enaction, niche construction and social construction. Based on this proposal, we claim that enactivism is compatible with the idea of an independent reality without committing to the claim that organisms have cognitive (...) access to a world composed of properties specified prior to any cognitive activity. Our second goal is to show that our literal interpretation of bringing forth a world not only sustains the legitimacy of the middle way, but it also allows us to revive the conception of evolution as natural drift—which is perhaps the least examined aspect of the original enactivist theory and is central to the understanding of cognition in an enactive way. Natural drift focuses on how structural couplings between organism and environment trigger viable pathways of maintenance and reproduction, instead of selecting the most adapted trait to a pregiven environment. Thus, although enactivists typically do not explore the consequences of their views regarding evolutionary dynamics, we show how natural drift provides a suitable starting point. (shrink)