Globalization focuses on the development of new productive, trade, and economic techniques. However, this process, evolutionary technologically, has involved, paradoxically, an involution in important roles of our political, social, and cultural life, basically, about the misinformation in administrative procedures, the lack of legal security, and an atomization of the individual wills. That’s Ulrich Beck has called “the global risk society”. A society where organized irresponsibility and power relations of some international actors with political and enterprise weight govern important financial and (...) economic resources for their own benefit. “The risk society” has imposed its own political rules of control and loss of control, defining new ways of organization -out of citizens or politicians- governed by those economic forces. In this new scenario, the past does not determine the present events but the future, uncertain and fearsome, makes conditional on the present courses of action. A kind of prevision or precaution on impending disasters determines our future which nowadays does not depend on us but on those in economic and technological control. The new precautionary scenario begins with threats and ends with the demolition of social gains made in recent decades. The outcome of this risk society is the systematic destruction of public values like solidarity, trust, or common good, and their replacement by the primacy of economics over politics and the consideration of the market as the only effective means of allocating resources. Some resources, public in many cases, that are managed in a totally private way, and whose benefits are given up from traditionally considered public goods: education, health care, dwelling, social services, pensions, and indeed justice. Against this, the most consistent solution, most daring and the most difficult passes to reassign new powers to the states, to reinstate the sovereignty of citizens in decisions that affect us, and to share goods and public resources with parameters of ethics and social justice. A task that is not limited to simple political choice of our representatives, but in a personal involvement in all areas of our political, economic and social life. (shrink)

Fair trade is an ethical alternative to neoliberal market practices. This article examines the development of the fair trade movement, both in Mexico and abroad, beginning with the experience of UCIRI (Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Región del Istmo – Union of Indigenous Communities of the Isthmus Region), an association of small coffee growers in Mexico and a main actor in the creation of the first fair trade seal in the world, Max Havelaar, in 1988. Future success of the (...) fair trade movement depends mainly on resolving the tension between the capitalist business goals and the activist transformation goals of its diverse practitioners. (shrink)

Scientific research is based on the division of cognitive labour: every scientist has to trust that other colleagues have checked whether the items that are taken as knowledge, and she cannot check by herself, are reliable enough. I apply ideas from the field known as ‘information economics’ to analyse the scientists’ incentives to produce items of knowledge of an ‘adequate’ quality, under the assumption that a big part of what one observes in her empirical research is not available for the (...) readers of the paper. I also discuss some criticisms to this ‘marketization’ of science studies. (shrink)

Most current management systems of healthcare institutions correspond to a model of market ethics with its demands of competitiveness. This approach has been called managerialism and is couched in terms of much‐needed efficiencies and effective management of budgetary constraints. The aim of this study was to analyse the decision‐making of nurses through the impact of health institution management models on clinical practice. Based on Foucault's ethical theory, a qualitative study was conducted through a discourse analysis of the nursing records in (...) a hospital unit. The results revealed that the health institution standardises health care practice, which has an impact on professional and patient autonomy as it pertains to decision‐making. The results of this research indicate that resistance strategies in the internal structures of health organisations can replace the normalisation and instrumentalisation of professional practice aimed at promoting patient self‐determination. (shrink)

Although US and European research has documented improvement in earnings quality associated with corporate governance characteristics, the situation in Latin America is questionable, given the business environment in which firms operate, which is characterized by controlling family ownership and weak legal protection. The purpose of this study is to examine the relation between the internal mechanisms of Corporate Governance and Earnings Management measured by discretionary accrual. We use a sample of listed Latin American non-financial companies from the period 2006–2009. Our (...) results show how in the Latin American context the role of external directors is limited and that Boards which meet more frequently take a more active position in the monitoring of insiders, so showing a lower use of manipulative practices. In addition, we find a non-linear relation between insider ownership and discretionary accruals, also pointing to the fact that ownership concentration may be a manipulative practices constrictor mechanism only when the ownership of main shareholders is moderate. The findings have important policy implications since this is, to the best of our knowledge, the first study to analyze the relation between the effectiveness of the government and the earnings management behavior. As policy implications, we document how when a country implements controls aimed at reducing corruption, strengthening the rule of law or improving the effectiveness of government, this leads to a reduction in firm earnings management. (shrink)

In recent years there have been evergrowing concerns regarding environmental decline, causing some companies to focus on the implementation of environmentally friendly supply, production and distribution systems. Such concern may stem either from the set of beliefs and values of the company's management or from certain pressure exerted by the market - consumers and institutions - in the belief that an environmentally respectful management policy will contribute to the transmission of a positive image of the company and its products. Sometimes, (...) however, ethics and market rules are not enough to deal with this situation and specific laws must be considered. This is the case when companies base their activity on the 'ethics of self-interest' concentrating their efforts on projecting an adequate image - e.g. environmental respect - rather than fundamentally behaving in environmentally respectful ways. This article, taking as reference the SME context, discusses the reasons for implementing environmentally friendly systems. Both ethics and business seem to be relevant and, therefore, a certain balance between market and interventionism seems to be necessary. (shrink)

Se analizan en este artículo las características simbólicas del género en el espacio de lo sagrado. Para ello se realiza un estudio de la imagen del budismo que los publicistas vienen haciendo en los últimos tiempos. Oriente ha identificado virtudes como la compasión y la sabiduría con géneros que nuestro marco cultural ha cambiado por completo. Se ejemplifican las conclusiones con un breve análisis publicitario, que emplea imágenes, tanto visuales como narrativas, del budismo en un intento de proporcionar un valor (...) añadido a los productos publicitados. En el proceso de mostrar las virtudes “budistas” asociadas al producto, cambia el género de las mismas adaptándolas a nuestro modo occidental de entenderlas. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to problematize, from a sociopolitical and psychoanalytic point of view, the current rise of the new rights, especially in Latin America. Although this extremist renaissance is loosely and indicatively referred to as fascism, we believe that, after careful analysis, today’s far-rights are not simple repetitions of the fascisms of the s. XX. It is about an unprecedented governmentality and ideology that, on the one hand, is not reduced to neoliberalism and, on the other hand, (...) surpasses the European-Anglo-Saxon alt-right and contemporary libertarianism. We give it the particular name of liber-fascism, to the extent that it brings a new mode of political subjectivation: the defender of himself. We divide the text into two sections. In the first, we discuss the sociopolitical particularities of liber-fascism: the emergence of a social ontology of the defender of himself that conceives of the capitalist market as an instance to be defended using false news, conspiracy theories and, of course, organized violence. In the second, we clarify the functioning of the liber-fascist unconscious by analyzing the peculiarity of its fantasy: it is an ideology that, in its relationship with others, uses violence no longer as a simple means, but as a vehicle for jouissance. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is increasingly viewed as a strategic management tool for companies to draw in candidates. In this arena, international responsible rankings such as ‘The Great Place to Work’, ‘Family Responsible Employer Index ’ or ‘The Best Companies for Working Mothers’ put emphasis on the value of responsible behaviours, not only for surviving in the market, but also to ‘win the war for talent’. Using a sample of Spanish University students, this research aims to analyse the process of selecting (...) responsible organizations to work and whether there is a possible future conflict of interest by students between their own and organizational values. Surprisingly, the university students assessed two opposing situations with the highest values: of looking to change employer and of letting time pass in order to ignore the conflict. The implications of the students’ assessments and the related factors which affect their decision-making criteria are explored in this article. (shrink)

Disenchantment, disillusion and despair reign in a world where technical rationality and globalization create a market culture and the merchandise of audio-visual images to close the order of symbols and the hermeneutics of meaning. Techno-digital ignorance; the repression of sensitivity by an ideol..

In recent years there have been ever-growing concerns regarding environmental decline, causing some companies to focus on the implementation of environmentally friendly supply, production and distribution systems. Such concern may stem either from the set of beliefs and values of the company’s management or from certain pressure exerted by the market – consumers and institutions – in the belief that an environmentally respectful management policy will contribute to the transmission of a positive image of the company and its products. Sometimes, (...) however, ethics and market rules are not enough to deal with this situation and specific laws must be considered. This is the case when companies base their activity on the ‹ethics of self-interest’ concentrating their efforts on projecting an adequate image – e.g. environmental respect – rather than fundamentally behaving in environmentally respectful ways. This article, taking as reference the SME context, discusses the reasons for implementing environmentally friendly systems. Both ethics and business seem to be relevant and, therefore, a certain balance between market and interventionism seems to be necessary. (shrink)

Following the bloodshed of 11th March 2004 in Madrid, a number of questions have arisen, questions that, according to our continental understanding of democracy, require prompt answers. A number of these questions have not even been asked yet by the intellectuals of Europe in general and those of Spain in particular. How can a democracy fight terrorism? This is deliberately referred to as the continental-European tradition in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon tradition. The latter has, yet again, embraced Hobbes’s old question (...) and pleads for security at the expense of freedom in all uncertain cases. 11th March in Madrid demonstrated that the terrorist scene has been organising its finances through the trafficking of drugs and arms. Can the systems of democracy with their policies that rest on careful management measures control this black market at all? All these questions are linked closely to the good old question of the limits of freedom. How do we define freedom in a society that must arm itself for the fight against all forms of arbitrary acts of terror, authoritarian rules and various forms of fanaticism? (shrink)

In order to answer this question, we need to clarify what it refers to. We have to find out if “globalization” can semantically be related to ideology. Ideology denotes the entirety of our personal judgments, ideas and views based on knowledge, experience and sensation by which we perceive and interpret the world, our position in it and the whole society. If we use an enlightened perspective we consider ideology as a kind of prejudice by which reason is dominated. Why is (...) this relevant for the context of globalization? Generally speaking, globalization stands for the process of ongoing international interconnection and progress in nearly all areas of life, such as e.g. in economy, politics, culture and communication. This view involves the implicit experience of change that affects not only our environment, our society and its institutions but also the national states and their citizens. The environment and its resources are a pre-requisite for globalization. Due to the process of constant market liberalization the resources are changed and ultimately destroyed. In this paper we will discuss as whether political measures have the power of exerting any control upon this dialectic mechanism. (shrink)

El estudio de la motivación de la utilización de los sistemas de control avanzado de música ambiental y el hecho de crear un buen ambiente, una buena experiencia de cara al cliente que entra en un local a realizar una compra debido al atractivo generado por la música es el objetivo de esta investigación. El estudio de las emociones que se derivan de la utilización de la música en locales comerciales y la repercusión que tiene en el comportamiento de compra (...) del consumidor serán analizados con el estudio de varios casos de éxito sobre esta cuestión. (shrink)

Barnett and Block claim that Bagus and Howden support indirectly the concept of market failure. In this paper, we show that maturity mismatching in an unhampered market may imply entrepreneurial error but cannot be considered a market failure. We demonstrate why fractional-reserve banking leads to business cycles even if there is no central bank and why maturity mismatching does not per se lead to clusters of errors in a free market. Finally, in contrast to the examples provided by Barnett and (...) Block, we assure that maturity mismatching does not imply the creation of two incompatible contracts due to the fungible nature of money. (shrink)

This study examines the case of community resource mobilization within the context of a farmers market incentive program in Washington D.C., USA to illustrate the ways in which providing opportunities for people impacted by food inequities to develop and lead programming can help to promote food access. Through an analysis of interviews with 36 participants in the Produce Plus program, some of whom also served as paid staff and volunteers with the program, this study examines the ways that group-level social (...) interactions among program participants helped to ensure the program was accessible and accountable to the primarily Black communities that it serves. Specifically, we explore a particular set of social interactions, which we collectively term social solidarity, as a community-level form of social infrastructure that program volunteers and participants mobilized to support access to fresh, local food in their communities. We also examine the elements of the Produce Plus program that contributed to the flow of social solidarity within the program, providing insight into the ways in which the structure of food access programs can serve as a social conduit to facilitate or hinder the mobilization of community cultural resources like social solidarity. (shrink)

This article uses Memo Akten’s art installation Learning to See to challenge the belief that machine learning and machine vision are neutral and objective technologies. Furthermore, this article follows Bernard Stiegler to contend that not only machine vision but also human vision is the result of constant training processes that rely directly on technology. From this perspective, human vision is always already technical. Likewise, in an age dominated growingly by machine learning technologies, it is possible to speak not only of (...) machine vision but also of a machinic imagination and a machinic unconscious, two notions that can be illustrated through Akten’s art installation. (shrink)

Socially responsible consumption reflects a consumer's political and ethical act. Its measurement is dependent on the socio-economic and cultural context. Consequently, measurement instruments reflecting various behaviour profiles of global consumers have been developed. This study employs a Latin-American-specific measurement instrument to compare socially responsible consumption behaviours in Colombia, Mexico and Peru, countries with the same cultural cluster, that is they reflect a set of values shaped by religion, family, a sense of authority and a nationalist bias in their cultural pattern. (...) The empirical test included confirmatory factorial analysis exercise, factorial invariance analysis and a contrast analysis of variance. The results for the three Latin American countries show the following. (i) The Mexican consumer, compared to the Peruvian and Colombian one, exhibits a stronger tendency to evaluate external practices of corporate social responsibility as a criterion of consumption. (ii) The rationality of the Mexican consumer is better in terms of consumption volume of products, resources and services. Finally, (iii) Peruvian and Mexican consumers (vs. Colombian consumers) exhibit a tendency to assess the responsible practices of companies in labour matters more as a consumption criterion. This study provides empirical evidence of the context-dependent nature of measuring socially responsible consumption. For practitioners, identifying consumer profiles based on the market context enables them to customise goods and services. Moreover, policymakers should implement a sustainable consumption agenda with public policy guidelines tailored to the specific context. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta apontamentos sobre “marketing de guerra santa ” , o planejamento estratégico de gerenciamento de mercado religioso aplicado por algumas das igrejas cristãs da contemporaneidade. Vale-se de reflexões a partir de observação participante e de consulta a bibliografia especializada. Apontam-se algumas das formas com as quais essas igrejas se midiatizam e se inserem num contexto de espetacularização e mercadorização próprios da sociedade do tempo presente e imediato. O mercado religioso no qual se inserem as agências que praticam (...) este tipo de marketing passa por contextos de adequação ao capital simbólico e ao arcabouço cultural dos fiéis, sendo possível identificar o investimento ideológico e econômico na fabricação e veiculação de suas estratégias, discursos e mercadorias. O objetivo é o de perceber algumas das maneiras com as quais firmas religiosas (tomando como maior exemplo as igrejas neopentecostais) veiculam as mercadorias que produzem ou se apropriam, e os discursos que reverberam, relacionando-os a uma cultura de massa e a uma sociedade espetacular; fomentando a discussão sobre como tais igrejas e outros segmentos religiosos aplicam o marketing de guerra santa para melhor posicionarem sua marca no mercado e conquistarem mais fiéis. Palavras-chave : Marketing de guerra santa. Neopentecostalismo. Mídia. Mercado. Espetáculo da fé.This article presents some notes on Jesus´ marketing, strategic planning of management of religious market applied by some of contemporary Christian churches. For this purpose, the reflections from participant observation and literature on the subject are validated. Some of the ways these churches mediate themselves and are part of a context of spectacle and commoditization are also pointed out. The religious market has adequate to the symbolic capital and to the cultural framework of the participants of the churches. Because of that it is possible to identify the ideological and economic investment in the manufacturing and delivery of their strategies, discourses and products. This article aims to highlight some of the ways in which neo-Pentecostal churches convey the goods they produce and the speeches that reflect them, relating them to a mass culture and a society of the spectacle. Finally, the article wants to encourage the debate on the ways these churches apply the marketing of Jesus in order to co-opt their members and flatten their units Keywords : Holy War’s marketing. Neopentecostalism. Media. Market. Show of faith. (shrink)

In recent centuries Christians of various denominations have endorsed many different political philosophies that they see as being truly biblical in their approach. Over this time there has been an increasing hostility, by some Christians, towards free markets and political philosophies that hold human liberty as the highest goal such as libertarianism and classical liberalism. This criticism is unwarranted and misplaced as libertarianism and free markets are not only compatible with Christianity, they are also the most biblically sound of all (...) economics systems and political philosophies endorsed by Christians today. Therefore, this paper will argue that Christians of all denominations should endorse free markets and libertarianism if they wish to create a world that follows biblical principles and the teachings of Jesus. (shrink)

The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency -- the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources (...) while others focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The contributors first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action ; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two contributors engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four essays, directly responding to each other in their follow-up essays. As the action -oriented perspective becomes more influential in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, this volume offers a long-needed debate over foundational issues. Contributors: Fred Adams, Jesús H. Aguilar, John Bishop, Andrei A. Buckareff, Randolph Clarke, Jennifer Hornsby, Alicia Juarrero, Alfred R. Mele, Michael S. Moore, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Josef Perner, Johannes Roessler, David-Hillel Ruben, Carolina Sartorio, Michael Smith, Rowland Stout The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

Grit, which is originally conceptualized as passion and perseverance for long-term goals, has been associated with optimal performance. Although previous meta-analytic and systematic reviews summarized how grit relates to performance outcomes, they possess considerable shortcomings, such as (a) absence of summary on the association of grit with well-being outcomes; (b) absence of discussion on social, psychological, and emotional mechanisms linking grit to well-being; and (c) lack of elaboration on how alternative models can resolve fundamental problems in the grit construct. This (...) integrative review provides a comprehensive summary on the link of grit to performance and well-being outcomes. Importantly, it elaborates how alternative models can potentially address flaws in the existing grit theory. Future research directions are discussed on how to move forward the science of grit. (shrink)

In their recent book Radicalizing Enactivism. Basic minds without content, Dan Hutto and Erik Myin make two important criticisms of what they call autopoietic enactivism. These two criticisms are that AE harbours tacit representationalists commitments and that it has too liberal a conception of cognition. Taking the latter claim as its main focus, this paper explores the theoretical underpinnings of AE in order to tease out how it might respond to H&M. In so doing it uncovers some reasons which not (...) only appear to warrant H&M’s initial claims but also seem to point to further uneasy tensions within the AE framework. The paper goes beyond H&M by tracing the roots of these criticisms and apparent tensions to phenomenology and the role it plays in AE’s distinctive conception of strong life-mind continuity. It is highlighted that this phenomenological dimension of AE contains certain unexamined anthropomorphic and anthropogenic leanings which do not sit comfortably within its wider commitment to life-mind continuity. In light of this analysis it is suggested that AE will do well to rethink this role or ultimately run the risk of remaining theoretically unstable. The paper aims to contribute to the ongoing theoretical development of AE by highlighting potential internal tensions within its framework which need to be addressed in order for it to continue to evolve as a coherent paradigm. (shrink)

La libre movilidad internacional es una meta política clásica del igualitarismo cosmopolita. Sin embargo, en la actualidad, el impacto de las fronteras en las oportunidades de las personas a nivel global no deriva solo de sus mecanismos de exclusión, sino también de su permeabilidad a ciertas formas de migración. Este artículo analiza las implicaciones de la emigración cualificada para la justicia productiva y defiende que, en determinadas circunstancias, los igualitaristas cosmopolitas deberían apoyar restricciones a la libertad de movimiento para articular (...) una defensa de ese derecho básico que sea más coherente con el conjunto de sus compromisos normativos. (shrink)

O mundo das afeições e das emoções ocupa um posto certamente secundário na história da filosofia. Seu caráter difuso e ambíguo não se enquadra no modelo clássico de filosofia inspirado na certeza do conhecimento matemático. De mãos dadas à irrupção da fenomenologia, tratamos de mostrar como se produz uma reabilitação do componente afetivo e corporal da existência humana; a tal afeto, tomamos em conta o significado filosófico que Heidegger e Scheler outorgam respectivamente aos sentimentos da angustia e do amor ao (...) momento de abrir e compreender o mundo. (shrink)

In this paper, an attempt is made to solve various problems posed to current theories of verisimilitude: the problem of linguistic variance; the problem of which are the best scientific methods for getting the most verisimilar theories; and the question of the ontological commitment in scientific theories. As a result of my solution to these problems, and with the help of other considerations of epistemological character, I conclude that the notion of 'Tarskian truth' is dispensable in a rational interpretation of (...) the scientific enterprise. As a logical result, however, falsificationism will be vindicated. (shrink)

A phenomenological model is developed as an alternative to current analyses of the imagination in sport philosophy, heirs to an Enlightenment notion that conceptualizes imaginings as abstract, eidetic, and representational. EC describes how Eidetic and Corporeal Imaginings phenomenologically structure our imaginative undertakings. EIs keep the ‘ideal’ aspect, but CIs—enacted, corporeal, non-representational—are more fundamental and foundational. Sports are particularly suited to express CIs’ muscular imaginings, which result in novel performances. An enactive framework theorizes CIs as non-representational interactions.

We may succed in the fulfilment of our desires but still fail to properly own our practical life, perhaps because we acted as addicts, driven by desires that are alien to our will, or as “wantons,” satisfying the desires that we simply happen to have (Frankfurt, 1988 ). May we equally fail to own the outcomes of our epistemic life? If so, how may we attain epistemic ownership over it? This paper explores the structural parallellism between practical and epistemic rationality, (...) building on Williamson’s ( 2002 ) suggestion that we should commence with successful performances as the foundation for both domains, be it action or knowledge. By highlighting the limitations of higher-order regulative approaches in epistemology, exemplified by Sosa ( 2007, 2011, 2015, 2021 ), the paper introduces a form of teleological epistemic constitutivism inspired by Velleman ( 2000, 2009 ). The proposal is that epistemic ownership is not attained in the mere pursuit of truth or knowledge, but requires furthermore a struggle to understand what we know. (shrink)

According to robust versions of virtue epistemology, the reason why knowledge is incompatible with certain kinds of luck is that justified true beliefs must be achieved by the agent . In a recent set of papers, Pritchard has challenged these sorts of views, advancing different arguments against them. I confront one of them here, which is constructed upon scenarios affected by environmental luck, such as the fake barn cases. My objection to Pritchard differs from those offered until now by Carter (...) , Jarvis or Littlejohn in that it is based on the claim that cognitive performances may not be properly considered as achievements beyond the scope of the agent’s intentional action—an idea that confers more explanatory power on my argument, and contributes to stregthening links between knowledge and agency. (shrink)

We are witnessing a certain tendency in epistemology to account for the anti-luck intuition in terms of risk. I.e., instead of the traditional anti-luck diagnosis of Gettier cases and fake barn cases, a new anti-risk diagnosis seems to be preferable by many. My goal in this paper is twofold: first, I contribute to motivate that drift; and second, I defend that we ought to partially resist it. An anti-risk diagnosis is valid and preferable for fake barn cases, but we still (...) need an anti-luck diagnosis for classic Gettier cases. The paper thus defends the Solomon-like result that we need both concepts—epistemic luck and epistemic risk—to deal with all the cases where knowledge is undermined. (shrink)

This paper advances new theses about the relationship between luck and risk, using recent work by Duncan Pritchard (2014, 2015, 2016) as its foil. Once Pritchard’s views are introduced in section 1, the rest of the paper completes two different tasks, one critical and one constructive. By focussing on some epistemological cases that Pritchard’s model would fail to identify, section 2 shows that it relies on a difference that is in fact inessential: the one between the occurrence and the non‐occurrence (...) of an event. Section 3 sketches and defends an alternative account of the luck/risk distinction, based on the consideration of situations (instead of events) from different temporal perspectives: luck assessments track a situation’s past, considering it the actual outcome of some previous event, whereas risk assessments look at the situation’s future, regarding it as the initial condition of some unsettled event. (shrink)

We are witnessing a certain tendency in epistemology to account for the anti-luck intuition in terms of risk. I.e., instead of the traditional anti-luck diagnosis of Gettier cases and fake barn cases, a new anti-risk diagnosis seems to be preferable by many. My goal in this paper is twofold: first, I contribute to motivate that drift; and second, I defend that we ought to partially resist it. An anti-risk diagnosis is valid and preferable for fake barn cases, but we still (...) need an anti-luck diagnosis for classic Gettier cases. The paper thus defends the Solomon-like result that we need both concepts—epistemic luck and epistemic risk—to deal with all the cases where knowledge is undermined. (shrink)

The claims of some authors to have introduced a new type of explanation in cosmology, based on the anthropic principle, are examined and found wanting. The weak anthropic principle is neither anthropic nor a principle. Either in its direct or in its Bayesian form, it is a mere tautology lacking explanatory force and unable to yield any prediction of previously unknown results. It is a pattern of inference, not of explanation. The strong anthropic principle is a gratuitous speculation with no (...) other support than previous religious commitment or the assumption of an actual infinity of universes, for which there is no the slightest empirical hint. But even assuming so much, it does not work. In particular, the assumption of an infinity of different universes is no guarantee of finding among them one like this one. The loose anthropic way of reasoning does not stand up to the usual methodological standards of empirical science. And it does not signal any anthropocentric turn in contemporary science. (shrink)

According to enactivism all living systems, from single cell organisms to human beings, are ontologically endowed with some form of teleological and sense-making agency. Furthermore, enactivists maintain that: there is no fixed pregiven world and as a consequence all organisms “bring forth” their own unique “worlds” through processes of sense-making. The first half of the paper takes these two ontological claims as its central focus and aims to clarify and make explicit the arguments and motivations underlying them. Our analysis here (...) highlights three distinct but connected problems for enactivism: these arguments do not and cannot guarantee that there is no pregiven world, instead, they end up generating a contradiction whereby a pregiven world seems to in fact be tacitly presupposed by virtue of a reliance on a tacit epistemic perspectivalism which is also inherently representationalist and as a consequence makes it difficult to satisfactorily account for the ontological plurality of worlds. Taking these considerations on board, the second half of the paper then aims to develop a more robust ontologically grounded enactivism. Drawing from biosemiotic enactivism, science and technology studies and anthropology, the paper aims to present an account which both rejects a pregiven world and coherently accounts for how organisms bring forth ontologically multiple worlds. (shrink)

According to enactivism all living systems, from single cell organisms to human beings, are ontologically endowed with some form of teleological and sense-making agency. Furthermore, enactivists maintain that: there is no fixed pregiven world and as a consequence all organisms “bring forth” their own unique “worlds” through processes of sense-making. The first half of the paper takes these two ontological claims as its central focus and aims to clarify and make explicit the arguments and motivations underlying them. Our analysis here (...) highlights three distinct but connected problems for enactivism: these arguments do not and cannot guarantee that there is no pregiven world, instead, they end up generating a contradiction whereby a pregiven world seems to in fact be tacitly presupposed by virtue of a reliance on a tacit epistemic perspectivalism which is also inherently representationalist and as a consequence makes it difficult to satisfactorily account for the ontological plurality of worlds. Taking these considerations on board, the second half of the paper then aims to develop a more robust ontologically grounded enactivism. Drawing from biosemiotic enactivism, science and technology studies and anthropology, the paper aims to present an account which both rejects a pregiven world and coherently accounts for how organisms bring forth ontologically multiple worlds. (shrink)

The scientist's decision of accepting a given proposition is assumed to be dependent on two factors: the scientist's 'private' information about the value of that statement and the proportion of colleagues who also accept it. This interdependence is modelled in an economic fashion, and it is shown that it may lead to multiple equilibria. The main conclusions are that the evolution of scientific knowledge can be path, dependent, that scientific revolutions can be due to very small changes in the empirical (...) evidence, and that not all possible equilibria are necessarily efficient, neither in the economic nor in the epistemic sense. These inefficiencies, however, can be eliminated if scientists can form coalitions. (shrink)

This paper presents a series of meta-analyses of the validity of general mental ability (GMA) for predicting five occupational criteria, including supervisory ratings of job performance, production records, work sample tests, instructor ratings, and grades. The meta-analyses were conducted with a large database of 467 technical reports of the validity of the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) which included 630 independent samples. GMA showed to be a consistent predictor of the five criteria, but the magnitude of the operational validity was (...) not the same across the five criteria. Results also showed that job complexity is a moderator of the GMA validity for the performance criteria. We also found that the GMA validity estimates are slightly smaller than the previous ones obtained by Hunter (1983a; Hunter & Hunter, 1984). Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for the research and practice of personnel selection. (shrink)

Este artículo muestra que la ética del discurso en versión de la ética cordis contribuye a mantener una actitud crítica de discernimiento ante las tecnologías de la inteligencia artificial. Propone distinguir entre opinión pública y razón pública, para destacar el sentido crítico del uso público de la razón en la línea de Kant, Rawls, Habermas y Cortina. Y afrontar las dificultades para ejercer la razón pública en la era digital: impacto de la inteligencia artificial en la comunicación, hiperconectitividad, datificación, “panóptico (...) digital” y la espiral del silencio, que ponen en peligro el uso de la razón y la intimidad personal. (shrink)

Scientific research is reconstructed as a language game along the lines of Robert Brandom's inferentialism. Researchers are assumed to aim at persuading their colleagues of the validity of some claims. The assertions each scientist is allowed or committed to make depend on her previous claims and on the inferential norms of her research community. A classification of the most relevant types of inferential rules governing such a game is offered, and some ways in which this inferentialist approach can be used (...) for assessing scientific knowledge and practices are explored. Some similarities and differences with a game-theoretic analysis are discussed. (shrink)

Resumo A situação actual intelectual caracteriza-se pelo auge de uma neurofilosofia, baseada nos novos dados das neurociências, que tenta substituir os métodos tradicionais da filosofia pelo método das ciências naturais. A minha intenção é a de mostrar que a filosofia de Zubiri, que também está ligada às ciências naturais, constitui uma fecunda alternativa à neurofilosofia cientificista e reducionista, porque a sua análise está estreitamente ligada à neurobiologia, especialmente através das noções de formalidade e de formalização, que constituem a base de (...) uma nova concepção da inteligência e da realidade. Palavras-chave : cérebro, formalidade, formalização, impressão, inteligência, realidadeCurrent intellectual situation is characterized by the vigour of neurophilosophy, founded in the new data of neurosciences, which try to replace the traditional philosophical methods of philosophy by the method of natural sciences. My aim is to show that Zubiri’s philosophy, which is also connected with the natural sciences, is a successful alternative to the pseudoscientific and reducing neurophilosophy, because his analysis is intrinsically connected with neurobiology, especially through the concepts of formality and formalization, which are the basis for grounding a new conception of intelligence and reality. Keywords : brain, formality, formalization, impression, intelligence, reality. (shrink)