Imagination has received a great deal of attention in different fields such as psychology, philosophy and the cognitive sciences, in which some works provide a detailed account of the mechanisms involved in the creation and elaboration of imaginary worlds. Although imagination has also been formalized using different logical systems, none of them captures those dynamic mechanisms. In this work, we take inspiration from the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, that identifies the different processes involved in the creation of imaginary worlds, (...) and we use it to define a dynamic formal system called the Logic of Imagination Acts. We build our logic by using a possible-worlds semantics, together with a new set of static and dynamic modal operators. The role of the new dynamic operators is to call different algorithms that encode how the formal model is expanded in order to capture the different mechanisms involved in the creation and development of imaginary worlds. We provide the definitions of the language, the semantics and the algorithms, together with an example that shows how the model is expanded. By the end, we discuss some interesting features of our system, and we point out to possible lines of future work. (shrink)

Imagination has received a great deal of attention in different fields such as psychology, philosophy and the cognitive sciences, in which some works provide a detailed account of the mechanisms involved in the creation and elaboration of imaginary worlds. Although imagination has also been formalized using different logical systems, none of them captures those dynamic mechanisms. In this work, we take inspiration from the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, that identifies the different processes involved in the creation of imaginary worlds, (...) and we use it to define a dynamic formal system called the Logic of Imagination Acts. We build our logic by using a possible-worlds semantics, together with a new set of static and dynamic modal operators. The role of the new dynamic operators is to call different algorithms that encode how the formal model is expanded in order to capture the different mechanisms involved in the creation and development of imaginary worlds. We provide the definitions of the language, the semantics and the algorithms, together with an example that shows how the model is expanded. By the end, we discuss some interesting features of our system, and we point out to possible lines of future work. (shrink)

In this paper, we review three influential theories of imagination in order to understand how the dynamics of imagination acts could be modeled using formal languages. While reviewing them, we notice that they are not detailed enough to account for all the mechanisms involved in creating and developing imaginary worlds. We claim those theories could be further refined into what we call the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, which defines a framework that can be used to study the dynamics of (...) imagination using formal languages, and we support our claim by showing how the framework allows to model certain imagination acts step by step. Then, we introduce the Rhombus of Imagination, which is a visual tool that can be used in conjunction with our framework to study the procedural structure of different kinds of imagination acts and identify their dynamic properties. (shrink)

In this paper, we review three influential theories of imagination in order to understand how the dynamics of imagination acts could be modeled using formal languages. While reviewing them, we notice that they are not detailed enough to account for all the mechanisms involved in creating and developing imaginary worlds. We claim those theories could be further refined into what we call the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, which defines a framework that can be used to study the dynamics of (...) imagination using formal languages, and we support our claim by showing how the framework allows to model certain imagination acts step by step. Then, we introduce the Rhombus of Imagination, which is a visual tool that can be used in conjunction with our framework to study the procedural structure of different kinds of imagination acts and identify their dynamic properties. (shrink)

Technology has become one of the main channels through which people engage in most of their everyday activities. When working, learning, or socializing, the affordances created by technological tools determine the way in which users interact with one another and their environment, thus favoring certain actions and behaviors, while discouraging others. The ethical dimension behind the use of technology has been already studied in recent works, but the question is often formulated in a protective way that focuses on shielding the (...) users from potential detrimental effects. Nevertheless, when considering collateral ethical benefits that the use of technology could bring about, virtue ethics and the notions of “practice” and “practical wisdom” present new opportunities to harness this potential. By understanding the combination of technology, its users and their interactions as a system, technology can be seen as the space where most of its users’ daily practice happens. Through this practice, users can get the chance to collaterally develop and enhance their ethical awareness, sensitivity and reasoning capabilities. This work is shaped as a manifesto that provides the background, motivations and directions needed to ask a complementary question about the ethics of technology that aims towards the potentiality behind the use of technology. Instead of focusing on shielding the users, the proposed _ethical idealist_ approach to the ethics of technology aims to empower them by understanding their use of technology as the space where the development of their practical wisdom, understood in the virtue ethics’ sense, takes place. (shrink)

In this paper, we review three influential theories of imagination in order to understand how the dynamics of imagination acts could be modeled using formal languages. While reviewing them, we notice that they are not detailed enough to account for all the mechanisms involved in creating and developing imaginary worlds. We claim those theories could be further refined into what we call the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, which defines a framework that can be used to study the dynamics of (...) imagination using formal languages, and we support our claim by showing how the framework allows to model certain imagination acts step by step. Then, we introduce the Rhombus of Imagination, which is a visual tool that can be used in conjunction with our framework to study the procedural structure of different kinds of imagination acts and identify their dynamic properties. (shrink)

Recent technological advancements have deeply transformed society and the way people interact with each other. Instantaneous communication platforms have allowed connections with other people, forming global communities, and creating unprecedented opportunities in many sectors, making access to online resources more ubiquitous by reducing limitations imposed by geographical distance and temporal constrains. These technological developments bear ethically relevant consequences with their deployment, and legislations often lag behind such advancements. Because the appearance and deployment of these technologies happen much faster than legislative (...) procedures, the way these technologies affect social interactions have profound ethical effects before any legislative regulation can be built, in order to prevent and mitigate those effects. Ethics in Online AI-Based Systems: Risks and Opportunities in Current Technological Trends features a series of reflections from experts in different fields on potential ethically relevant outcomes that upcoming technological advances could bring about in our society. Creating a space to explore the ethical relevance that technologies currently still under development could have constitutes an opportunity to better understand how these technologies could or should not be used in the future in order to maximize their ethically beneficial outcomes, while avoiding potential detrimental effects. Stimulating reflection and considerations with respect to the design, deployment and use of technology will help guide current and future technological advancements from an ethically informed position in order to ensure that, tomorrow, such advancements could contribute towards solving current global and social challenges that we, as a society, have today. This will not only be useful for researchers and professional engineers, but also for educators, policy makers, and ethicists. (shrink)

Imagination has received a great deal of attention in different fields such as psychology, philosophy and the cognitive sciences, in which some works provide a detailed account of the mechanisms involved in the creation and elaboration of imaginary worlds. Although imagination has also been formalized using different logical systems, none of them captures those dynamic mechanisms. In this work, we take inspiration from the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, that identifies the different processes involved in the creation of imaginary worlds, (...) and we use it to define a dynamic formal system called the Logic of Imagination Acts. We build our logic by using a possible-worlds semantics, together with a new set of static and dynamic modal operators. The role of the new dynamic operators is to call different algorithms that encode how the formal model is expanded in order to capture the different mechanisms involved in the creation and development of imaginary worlds. We provide the definitions of the language, the semantics and the algorithms, together with an example that shows how the model is expanded. By the end, we discuss some interesting features of our system, and we point out to possible lines of future work. (shrink)

Imagining is something we use everyday in our lives and in a wide variety of ways. In spite of the amount of works devoted to its study from both psychology and philosophy, there are only a few formal systems capable of modelling it; besides, almost all of those systems are static, in the sense that their models are initially predefined, and they fail to capture the dynamic process behind the creation of new imaginary scenarios. In this work, we review some (...) influential theories of imagination and use their insights to distil an algorithm describing such process. Then, we use this algorithm to define a dynamic logical system built upon on a single-agent epistemic logic that provides the necessary tools to capture how the agent voluntarily creates new imaginary worlds; in other words, our system allows the model to be expanded dynamically at any time as a result of the agent performing an act of imagination. Furthermore, we provide an axiomatization and prove that the system is sound and complete. (shrink)

New technological advancements have always changed the way society and human relationships work. New affordances created by technological tools inevitable modify and affect the way people interact with such tools, as well as with one another, and with the world within which this technology is embedded. -/- Technology, Users and Uses explores and discusses ethical issues around the use of technology and AI, by focusing on the way they affect individual, social and global interactions. The collection addresses topics including social (...) networks, public opinion, fake news and information warfare; digitalisation and datafication of society and individuals; and transhumanism, super-intelligent machines and the technological singularity. -/- Technology, Users and Uses aims to offer theoretical and practical guidelines and recommendations for regulators, developers, engineers and scientists, as well as for researchers, educators and scholars in the fields of technology and AI, philosophy and sociology. (shrink)

A pesar de la relevancia que ganó el pensamiento de Jean-François Lyotard con la publicación de La Condition postmoderne (1979), solo un pequeño número de publicaciones académicas han abordado sus primeras propuestas en el campo de la estética. Este artículo pretende contribuir a la tarea de enmendar semejante error. Para ello se propone una aproximación general y sistemática a sus primeros usos del concepto de figura, comenzando por sus precedentes e influencias y concluyendo con la afirmación de que la estética (...) de Lyotard no expone una mera filosofía de las artes o una filosofía de la percepción, sino una auténtica ontología. Para facilitar la comprensión de esta cuestión, se abordarán algunos de sus conceptos más complejos, como el de figura-matriz, y se harán pequeñas aproximaciones a la producción de artistas como Joan Fontcuberta y Peter Tscherkassky, cuya obra explicita el tema central de este artículo: la poética, la política y la ontología de la figura. (shrink)

In the late fifteenth centuryMuscovy an intellectual ecclesiastical elite promotes the production of treaties on calendar tables for the calculation of the Easter date (Paskhalia) in order to quell the unrest, that the end of the seventh millennium caused. In addition, in the Paskhalia there are controversial issues against Judaizing Heresy and againstWesternisers. At the same time, the treaties outline the basis of Muscovite hegemonic political ideology.

A partir de los términos que indican “vivir de lo propio” y/o “casa alquilada” en Hch 28,16.30, el artículo se propone descubrir el valor que el autor les ha otorgado en el contexto de la conclusión de los Hechos y, particularmente, los sumarios de la estancia y predicación de Pablo en Roma. Para ello se analizará la imagen lucana de Pablo, como héroe victorioso y como mártir por la fe. Se comparará el fin de los Hechos, particularmente el sumario (...) de 28,30-31, con paralelos en la literatura judeohelenista de corte y en Josefo. Y se finalizará dando una explicación de la visión política de Lucas y la situación de su comunidad: la casa permanente de Pablo implica la esperanza de tener un espacio en la ecumene romana y de seguridad intraeclesial. (shrink)

Entre meados do século XI e meados do XVI circularam no Ocidente cristão vários relatos sobre uma suposta papisa Joana, cuja condição feminina foi revelada ao parir em plena procissão pelas ruas de Roma. História à primeira vista anti-eclesiástica, contudo aceita pela Igreja medieval. Por quê? A hipótese aqui defendida é de que o mito de Joana expressava a androginia simbólica dos papas, daí ter sido censurado só com o advento do Protestantismo e sua constestação à própria existência da (...) instituição papal. (shrink)

Gracias a unas intervenciones de recuperación que se presentaban casi imposibles, dentro del amplio plan de restauración, precedido de investigaciones y estudios, de todo el conjunto de las edificaciones que bajo Augusto fueron realizadas en la colina del Palatino, se han abierto al público en Roma las puertas de la casa que Octaviano mandó edificar en el año 36 a.C., antes de convertirse en Augusto (27 a.C.-14d.C.).

Frege begins Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, the work that introduces the project which was to occupy him for most of his professional career, with the question, 'What is the number one?' It is a question to which even mathematicians, he says, have no satisfactory answer. And given this scandalous situation, he adds, there is small hope that we shall be able to say what number is. Frege intends to rectify the situation by providing definitions of the number one and the (...) concept of number. But what, exactly, is required of a definition? Surely it will not do to stipulate that the number one is Julius Caesar - that would change the subject. It seems reasonable to suppose that an acceptable definition must be a true statement containing a description that picks out the object to which the numeral '1' already refers. And, similarly, that an acceptable definition of the concept of number must contain a description that picks out precisely those objects that are numbers - those objects to which our numerals refer. Yet, while Frege writes a great deal about what criteria his definitions must satisfy, the above criteria are not among those he mentions. Nor does he attempt to convince us that his definitions of '1' and the other numerals are correct by arguing that these definitions pick out objects to which these numerals have always referred. Yet, while Frege writes a great deal about what criteria his definitions must satisfy, the above criteria are not among those he mentions. Nor does he attempt to convince us that his definitions of ‘1’ and the other numerals are correct by arguing that these definitions pick out objects to which these numerals have always referred. There is, as we shall see shortly, a great deal of evidence that Frege’s definitions are not intended to pick out objects to which our numerals already refer. But if this is so, how can these definitions teach us anything about our science of arithmetic? And what criteria must these definitions satisfy? To answer these questions, we need to understand what it is that Frege thinks we need to learn about the science of arithmetic. (shrink)

In spite of feminist recognition that hierarchical organizations are an important location of male dominance, most feminists writing about organizations assume that organizational structure is gender neutral. This article argues that organizational structure is not gender neutral; on the contrary, assumptions about gender underlie the documents and contracts used to construct organizations and to provide the commonsense ground for theorizing about them. Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work.jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational (...) thinking, assume a disembodies and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. The positing of gender-neutral and disembodied organizational structures and work relations is part of the larger strategy of control in industrial capitalist societies, which, at least partly, are built upon a deeply embedded substructure of gender difference. (shrink)

In this article, the author addresses two feminist issues: first, how to conceptualize intersectionality, the mutual reproduction of class, gender, and racial relations of inequality, and second, how to identify barriers to creating equality in work organizations. She develops one answer to both issues, suggesting the idea of “inequality regimes” as an analytic approach to understanding the creation of inequalities in work organizations. Inequality regimes are the interlocked practices and processes that result in continuing inequalities in all work organizations. Work (...) organizations are critical locations for the investigation of the continuous creation of complex inequalities because much societal inequality originates in such organizations. Work organizations are also the target for many attempts to alter patterns of inequality: The study of change efforts and the oppositions they engender are often opportunities to observe frequently invisible aspects of the reproduction of inequalities. The concept of inequality regimes may be useful in analyzing organizational change projects to better understand why these projects so often fail and why they succeed when this occurs. (shrink)

Not only can the influence of Gottlob Frege be found in contemporary work in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of language, but his projects—and the very terminology he employed in pursuing those projects—are still current in contemporary philosophy. This is undoubtedly why it seems so reasonable to assume that we can read Frege' s writings as if he were one of us, speaking to our philosophical concerns in our language. In Joan Weiner's view, however, Frege's words (...) can be accurately interpreted only if we set that assumption aside. Weiner here offers a challenging new approach to the philosophy of this central figure in analytic philosophy. Weiner finds in Frege's corpus, from Begriffsschrift on, a unified project of remarkable ambition to which each of the writings in that corpus makes a distinct contribution—a project whose motivation she brings to life through a careful reading of his Foundations of Arithmetic. The Frege that Weiner brings into clear view is very different from the familiar figure. Far from having originated one of the standard positions on the nature of reference, Frege turns out not to have had positive doctrines on anything like what contemporary philosophers mean by "reference." Far from having served as a standard-bearer for those who take the realists' side of contemporary disputes with anti-realists, Frege turns out to have had no stake in either side of the controversy. Through Weiner's lens, Frege emerges as a thinker who has principled reasons for challenging the very assumptions and motivations that animate philosophers to dispute these doctrines. This lucidly written and accessible book will generate controversy among all readers with an interest in epistemology, philosophy of language, history of philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

There is a section in Samuel Delany’s magnificent autobiographical meditation, The Motion of Light in Water, that dramatically raises the problem of writing the history of difference, the history, that is, of the designation of “other,” of the attribution of characteristics that distinguish categories of people from some presumed norm.1 Delany recounts his reaction to his first visit to the St. Marks bathhouse in 1963. He remembers standing on the threshold of a “gym-sized room” dimly lit by blue bulbs. The (...) room was full of people, some standing, the rest an undulating mass of naked, male bodies, spread wall to wall. My first response was a kind of heart-thudding astonishment very close to fear. I have written of a space at certain libidinal saturation before. That was not what frightened me. It was rather that the saturation was not only kinesthetic but visible.2Watching the scene establishes for Delany a “fact that flew in the face” of the prevailing representation of homosexuals in the 1950s as “isolated perverts,” as subjects “gone awry.” The “apprehension of massed bodies” gave him a “sense of political power”:what this experience said was that there was a population—not of individual homosexuals … not of hundreds, not of thousands, but rather of millions of gay men, and that history had, actively and already, created for us whole galleries of institutions, good and bad, to accommodate our sex. [M, p. 174] 2. Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965 , p. 173; hereafter abbreviated M. Joan W. Scott is professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She is the author, most recently, of Gender and the Politics of History and is currently at work on a history of feminist claims for political rights in France during the period 1789-1945 as a way of exploring arguments about equality and difference. (shrink)

"Speciesism: 'A failure, in attitude or practice, to accord any nonhuman being equal consideration and respect'"--From the book's cover.

When (if ever) may a professional deceive a client for the client's own good? Under what conditions (if any) is whistle-blowing morally required? These are just some of the questions that scholars as diverse as Michael D. Bayles, Thomas Nagel, Sissela Bok, Jessica Mitford, and Peter A. French confront in this stimulating anthology. Organized around philosophical issues such as the moral foundations of professional ethics, models of the professional-client relationship, deception, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, professional dissent, and professional virtue, (...) the volume illuminates the complex ethical issues that arise in journalism, law, health care, counselling, education, engineering, business, politics, and social science research. A variety of pedagogical aids--including clear introductions to and study questions for each set of readings, concrete cases designed to focus discussion, and an appendix on preparing cases and position papers--makes the text invaluable for both students and teachers of professional ethics. (shrink)

This essay examines Arendt's descriptions of "Hottentots" in The Origins of Totalitarianism, especially the comparisons and contrasts she frequently draws between Hottentots and other peoples. In particular, Arendt highlights dehumanization of presumptively "civilized" people in comparing them to Africa "savages." Close reading of such analogies demands that we look beyond the racial explanations that other scholars have offered and focus instead on how Arendt's conception of humanity is bound up with a specific sense of culture that is antiprimitivist—exclusive of peoples (...) without history, primitives. Analysis of her moral anthropology uncovers the Cape Colony discourses and postenlightenment German philosophical supports that inform her antiprimitivism. However, Arendt's antiprimitivism may not remain confined to Origins. In later essays,Arendt analyzes the various aspects of culture in instructive ways. Yet she also synthesizes culture concepts into a schema that introduces problems for her. (shrink)

The gender-based wage gap in Swedish banks began to increase in 1983 after many years of decline. The growth in the gap between the wages of nonmanagerial women and men employees was particularly high. This article asks, How did this happen? Wage setting, part of the processes of control in capitalist economies, is accomplished through concrete practices under specific historical conditions. The author studied these practices and conditions to understand the increasing wage gap. Through interviews and examination of union and (...) management documents, the author constructs an account of a wage-setting process that, in spite of a strong union and centralized bargaining, allows management to make discretionary wage decisions that favor raises for men over raises for women. Since 1983, competition and deregulation in the banking sector as well as union strategies have created conditions in which an increasing proportion of annual wage increases have been distributed on a discretionary basis. This has led to an increase in the wage gap. The author concludes that policies to raise women's relative wages should pursue general, across-the-board bargaining rather than individualized wage setting. (shrink)

This article analyses the original core of the ‘Art’ of Ramon Llull, which, according to the author, was the result of a vision on Mount Randa. We start from the paradoxical fact that Llull describes his Art as a result of an immediate revelation, but throughout his life constantly reworked the artistic structure, in both formal and procedural aspects. We thus take a hermeneutical approach to the ontology, logic and symbolism of Llull’s Art to define as precisely as possible what (...) remained constant through the changes. We conclude that the so-called ‘illumination of Randa’ was actually a mystical vision of the cosmos and its internal relations, but not the argumentative process of the Art, which Llull clarified over the course of his life. (shrink)

In Read My Desire, Joan Copjec stages a confrontation between the theories of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault, protagonists of two powerful modern discourses - psychoanalysis and historicism. Ordinarily, these discourses only cross paths long enough for historicists to charge psychoanalysis with an indifference to history, but here psychoanalysis, via Lacan, goes on the offensive. Refusing to cede historicity to the historicists, Copjec makes a case for the superiority of Lacan's explanation of historical process, its generative principles, and its (...) complex functionings. Her goal is to inspire a new kind of cultural critique, one that would be "literate in desire," that would be able to read what is inarticulable in cultural statements. Choosing a variety of battlegrounds, from historical phenomena - the 40,000 unsettling photographs of Moroccan drapery taken by Lacan's mentor, G. G. de ClA©rambault; the coincidence between vampire literature and the eighteenth-century imperative to breast-feed; the recurrent emptiness of urban spaces in film noir; the rise of democracy and questions of human rights - to theoretical concepts such as the gaze, cause, and sexual difference, Copjec imagines the blows that each contender might strike. Although Lacan emerges the victor, one has a sense that for Copjec the contest is close, that she is interested not in simply dismissing Foucault but in seizing his theory at those moments when its concerns and strategies are similar to Lacan's. She is intent on understanding how two compelling theories come to diverge, how small differences distort common assumptions. Establishing the links between psychoanalysis and critical philosophy, Copjec treats psychoanalysis not as a private language but as the mother tongue of modernity. She thus makes Lacan's famous "return to Freud" a return, as well, to the best principles of the Enlightenment. By this maneuver she forces us to question the historicist dialect that we have been taught to speak and that we all but take for granted and to regret the loss in it of psychoanalysis's more rousing accents. (shrink)

Moral distress has received much attention in the international nursing literature in recent years. In this article, we describe the evolution of the concept of moral distress among nursing theorists from its initial delineation by the philosopher Jameton to its subsequent deployment as an umbrella concept describing the impact of moral constraints on health professionals and the patients for whom they care. The article raises worries about the way in which the concept of moral distress has been portrayed in some (...) nursing research and expresses concern about the fact that research, so far, has been largely confined to determining the prevalence of experiences of moral distress among nurses. We conclude by proposing a reconsideration, possible reconstruction and multidisciplinary approach to understanding the experiences of all health professionals who have to make difficult moral judgements and decisions in complex situations. (shrink)

Metaphysics, morals and science -- The classics : value -- The neo-classics : utility -- The Keynesian revolution -- Development and under-development -- What are the rules of the game?

This collection of John Mackie's papers on personal identity and topics in moral and political philosophy, some of which have not previously been published, deal with such issues as: multiple personality; the transcendental "I"; responsibility and language; aesthetic judgements; Sidgwick's pessimism; act-utiliarianism; right-based moral theories; cooperation, competition, and moral philosophy; universalization; rights, utility, and external costs; norms and dilemmas; Parfit's population paradox; and the combination of partially-ordered preferences.