Cognitive neuroscience research has found that individuals from different cultures have different neural responses and emotional perceptions. Differences in executives’ perception of external pay gaps in different cultures can affect their work attitudes and behavior. In this study, we explore the direct relationship between executive compensation fairness and executive innovation motivation. We also investigate the moderating effects of Confucian culture and western culture between executive compensation fairness and executive innovation motivation. Data were collected from the Chinese listed firms from 2011 (...) to 2019 and test the relationship using the fixed-effect panel regression models. The results demonstrate that executive compensation fairness positively influences the executive innovation motivation. This effect is more pronounced in Confucian culture regions, while Western culture weakens this effect. The findings of this study confirmed that executive compensation fairness, provide a cross-cultural comparison for compensation research, validate the findings of cultural neuroscience, and provide useful insights into the research of common prosperity. To improve the corporate compensation structure, it is necessary to consider the relative pay equity with firms in the same region and the influence of corporate culture. (shrink)

The first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. This landmark work is the first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists that considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. With twenty-six chapters by leading researchers, the book connects and integrates findings from fields that range from philosophy of mind to sociology of sports. The chapters show not only that (...) sports can tell scientists how the human mind works but also that the scientific study of the human mind can help athletes succeed. Sports psychology research has always focused on the themes, notions, and models of embodied cognition; embodied cognition, in turn, has found striking confirmation of its theoretical claims in the psychological accounts of sports performance and athletic skill. Athletic skill is a legitimate form of intelligence, involving cognitive faculties no less sophisticated and complex than those required by mathematical problem solving. After presenting the key concepts necessary for applying embodied cognition to sports psychology, the book discusses skill disruption ; sensorimotor skill acquisition and how training correlates to the development of cognitive faculties; the intersubjective and social dimension of sports skills, seen in team sports; sports practice in cultural and societal contexts; the notion of “affordance” and its significance for ecological psychology and embodied cognition theory; and the mind's predictive capabilities, which enable anticipation, creativity, improvisation, and imagination in sports performance. Contributors Ana Maria Abreu, Kenneth Aggerholm, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza, Duarte Araújo, Jürgen Beckmann, Kath Bicknell, Geoffrey P. Bingham, Jens E. Birch, Gunnar Breivik, Noel E. Brick, Massimiliano L. Cappuccio, Thomas H. Carr, Alberto Cei, Anthony Chemero, Wayne Christensen, Lincoln J. Colling, Cassie Comley, Keith Davids, Matt Dicks, Caren Diehl, Karl Erickson, Anna Esposito, Pedro Tiago Esteves, Mirko Farina, Giolo Fele, Denis Francesconi, Shaun Gallagher, Gowrishankar Ganesh, Raúl Sánchez-García, Rob Gray, Denise M. Hill, Daniel D. Hutto, Tsuyoshi Ikegami, Geir Jordet, Adam Kiefer, Michael Kirchhoff, Kevin Krein, Kenneth Liberman, Tadhg E. MacIntyre, Nelson Mauro Maldonato, David L. Mann, Richard S. W. Masters, Patrick McGivern, Doris McIlwain, Michele Merritt, Christopher Mesagno, Vegard Fusche Moe, Barbara Gail Montero, Aidan P. Moran, David Moreau, Hiroki Nakamoto, Alberto Oliverio, David Papineau, Gert-Jan Pepping, Miriam Reiner, Ian Renshaw, Michael A. Riley, Zuzanna Rucinska, Lawrence Shapiro, Paula Silva, Shannon Spaulding, John Sutton, Phillip D. Tomporowski, John Toner, Andrew D. Wilson, Audrey Yap, Qin Zhu, Christopher Madan. (shrink)

The quarantine model, recently proposed by Pereboom and Caruso, is one of the most influential models developed to date in the context of criminal justice. The quarantine model challenges the very idea of criminal punishment and asserts that nobody deserves punishment on a fundamental level. Instead, in order to deal with offenders, it proposes a series of incapacitation measures based on public safety concerns. In this article, we examine several objections to the quarantine model that demonstrate how, in our view, (...) it can be improved. These mainly pertain to (2.1) the difficulty of reliably identifying dangerous individuals and consequently the need to base confinement decisions on probability, and (2.2) the potential for the quarantine model not to properly deter certain crimes. Three additional objections are raised with respect to (3.1) the rights that are potentially suppressed in the quarantine model; (3.2) the role of “genetic justice”; and (3.3) the difficulty it faces accommodating reasons-responsiveness. Whereas these objections do not constitute knock-down arguments against the quarantine model, they highlight issues that invite closer scrutiny, at least if it is to be considered as a credible framework for the development of viable policies in criminal justice. (shrink)

The central claim of this article is that post-truth requires a political and socio-economical perspective, rather than a moral or epistemological one. The article consists of two parts. The first part offers a critical examination of the dominant analyses of post-truth in terms of shifting standards of the origin and the evaluation of facts. Moreover, the claim that postmodernism is the cause of post-truth is examined and refuted. In the second part an alternative perspective is developed, centring around the notion (...) of gatekeepers. Rather than linking post-truth to bullshit and postmodernism, it should be understood as a symptom of a contemporary shift in the gatekeepers of truth and knowledge. Knowledge and truth are always mediated in society through the hands of gatekeeping institutions such as journalism or science. Post-truth is a symptom of a broader transformation of the gatekeeping institutions of our current society. It therefore requires a political philosophy of these institutional shifts and the new risks they involve. (shrink)

This paper investigates the claim that artificial Intelligence Systems cannot be held morally responsible because they do not have an ability for agential self-awareness e.g. they cannot be aware that they are the agents of an action. The main suggestion is that if agential self-awareness and related first person representations presuppose an awareness of a self, the possibility of responsible artificial intelligence systems cannot be evaluated independently of research conducted on the nature of the self. Focusing on a specific account (...) of the self from the phenomenological tradition, this paper suggests that a minimal necessary condition that artificial intelligence systems must satisfy so that they have a capability for self-awareness, is having a minimal self defined as ‘a sense of ownership’. As this sense of ownership is usually associated with having a living body, one suggestion is that artificial intelligence systems must have similar living bodies so they can have a sense of self. Discussing cases of robotic animals as examples of the possibility of artificial intelligence systems having a sense of self, the paper concludes that the possibility of artificial intelligence systems having a ‘sense of ownership’ or a sense of self may be a necessary condition for having responsibility. (shrink)

This is a collective study of philosophical questions to do with experts and expertise, such as: What is an expert? Who decides who the experts are? Should we always defer to experts? How should expertise inform public policy? What happens when the experts disagree? Must experts be unbiased? Does it matter what the source of the expertise is?

This article argues that pseudoscience lacks an adequate philosophical analysis. Using conspiracy theories as a case study, it is claimed that such an analysis needs to go beyond a mere epistemological approach. In the first part, it is shown that the existing philosophical literature shares the assumption that conspiracy theories are primarily deficient scientific hypotheses. This claim is contested, because such an approach can only understand what conspiracy theories fail to be, but not what they are and why people tend (...) to endorse them. To develop an alternative, the second part starts from recent sociology of science, applied to conspiracy theories, that claims that both true and false theories are in need of a symmetrical social explanation. However, this opens the path to relativism because it does not allow for a significant distinction between scientific and conspiracy theories. In the third section an alternative analysis of conspiracy theories is offered, which does not abandon this distinction. Moreover, it is claimed that the most important element of conspiracy theories is not their truth value but rather their symbolic structures of meaning. The aim of conspiracy theories, and perhaps of pseudoscience in general, is then not to know facts about the world, but rather to offer a meaningful framework within which to live. (shrink)

This article takes the scientific study of conspiracy theories itself as an object of inquiry. It looks at the three main frameworks to look at conspiracy theories: a psychological, epistemological and a sociological approach. These different approaches exist somewhat separately and often do not get along. The central claim that follows from a genealogy of these research programs is that the conflicts between these different approaches should be understood not merely as disagreements about how the world works, but as a (...) fundamental disagreement about the underlying diagnosis of what is at stake in conspiracy theories. In other words, the conflicts stem in part from political differences, not merely empirical ones. The purpose of this article is to bring these different diagnoses back into dialogue with each other and to point out that despite their differences, they also have something in common: a concern about the state of contemporary democratic institutions. Depending on which project one subscribes to, conspiracy thinking will appear either as the cause or the solution of these democratic concerns. (shrink)

Within continental philosophy of biology the work of Michel Serres has not received a lot of attention. Nonetheless, this chapter wants to argue that Serres was part of a group of thinkers – together with Jacques Monod and Henri Atlan – that started to think about biology in terms of second-order cybernetics and information theory. Therefore, this chapter aims to do four things. First of all, it maps the relation between Serres and Canguilhem, one that was mediated by authors such (...) as Louis Althusser or Jacques Monod. Secondly, it fleshes out Serres’s own ‘biophilosophy’. I label this alternative tradition as a ‘biophilosophy without a subject’. Finally, this chapter explores the consequences of this alternative biophilosophy through a brief examination of two authors whose work lies in the line of this tradition: René Girard and Bruno Latour. Though at first sight different, they both draw inspiration from this biophilosophy to develop a framework that, paradoxically, ‘jumps over’ the subject. Hence, the reason why biology is neither a prominent theme in Girard’s nor in Latour’s work. This is not because of a lack of biophilosophy, but because of an implicit one: a biophilosophy without a subject. (shrink)

This article argues that historical epistemology offers the history of philosophy and science more than a mere tool to write the history of concepts. It does this, first of all, by rereading historical epistemology through Michel Foucault's “techniques of the self.” Second, it turns to the work of Léon Brunschvicg and Gaston Bachelard. In their work we see a proposal for what the subjectivity of scientists and philosophers should be. The article thus argues that their work is driven by a (...) normative psychology: a set of prescriptions for which mental constitution a scholarly self has to have. In the Conclusion, it returns to existing analyses of “open‐mindedness” as a virtue and explores in what way these cases challenge these analyses, as well as to what extent Foucault's “techniques of the self” can be applied to other cases in the history of French philosophy. (shrink)

This article intends to summarise the content of my book Insurgent Universality: An Alternative Legacy of Modernity and expand the meaning of the term ‘universality’. Universality is not defined in abstract legal terms or by juxtaposition vis-à-vis a common enemy. Instead, I clarify the meaning of a more concrete and open practice of universality through historical examples and theories that I excavate from social practices.

En este trabajo consideramos los discursos políticos y económicos actuales proponiendo el fenómeno start-up como el síntoma de un cambio profundo en la gubernamentalidad neoliberal y un nuevo episodio en la larga historia de las prácticas de organización de la fuerza de trabajo, de su gobierno y movilización. Nos basamos en los textos de Michel Foucault y en la literatura neomanagerial actual para analizar las recientes transformaciones de la racionalidad neoliberal. Con este punto de partida, proponemos que el emprendedor neoliberal (...) del yo, el empresario de sí mismo, tal y como lo concibió Foucault, se está transformando, además, en una especie de inversor de sí mismo administrando permanentemente sus activos personales y buscando constantemente la autoevaluación y la autovalorización en la lógica del rendimiento.In this paper we consider the political and economic discourses hyping the «start-up phenomenon» as the symptom of a deep change in neoliberal governmentality and a new episode in the long history of the practices of workforce government and mobilisation. After pointing out the recent transformations of neoliberal rationality of government, we concentrate on the forms of subjectification implied by what could be defined as the start-up subject: the typically neoliberal entrepreneur of the self is thus transforming into a sort of investor of the self permanently managing his personal assets and incessantly searching for self-evaluation and self-valorisation. (shrink)

What place is left for semantic notions? There are three main positions in response to that question: eliminativism, physicalism and semanticalism. This book argues in favour of a version of semanticalism. That version of semanticalism does not make semantic notions mysterious as if they are added from outside the realm of nature, as is the case with the Cartesian conception of mental properties. Semantic properties are treated as emergent properties reference to which serves to play a normative role in the (...) account of the nature of linguistic expressions. The need for positing semantic properties stems from the fact that the best explanation of the nature of linguistic expressions as guides to reality, to inform and to learn about the states of the world, invokes semantic properties. It consists in endowing linguistic expressions with semantic properties that correlate them to things and states of the world. Semantics, then, should be kept distinct from the theory of meaning. We need the theory of meaning for giving an account of linguistic competence in order to explain speakers' linguistic behaviour, but we need semantics in order to explain the nature of the objects produced by the behavioural output of linguistic competence. Consider a speaker who reads the sentence "it will be sunny and warm tomorrow" on the weather forecast page of the newspaper. We do not need to model his understanding as if he knew the semantic properties of the expressions occurring in that sentence. Rather, we need to invoke the semantic properties of that sentence, and of its constituents, in order to explain the social practice of uttering and writing it to inform people about weather conditions. This book argues that liberal naturalists are entitled to endorse the same attitude towards semantic properties as W.V.O. Quine's towards mathematical entities. We ought to accept semantic properties since our best theory of the world makes reference to them. The metaphysical principle of the supervenience of semantic properties over naturalistic properties, though unexplained, is justified to the extent that it too belongs to our best overall theory of the world, which as a whole faces the tribunal of experience. (shrink)

What it means for conspiracy theories to become mainstream In debates about conspiracy theories, it is often claimed that conspiracy thinking is on the rise or has even become mainstream. In this article, I want to explore this claim conceptually, and argue that there are at least three ways to interpret the claim that ‘conspiracy thinking has become mainstream’. First, there is the individual level, where it is a matter of counting heads. Mainstream then means that the majority believes in (...) conspiracy theories. But there are two other levels. There is the institutional level, which is about whether conspiracy theories circulate within social institutions in an acceptable way. Is it acceptable to express conspiracy theories as a politician, scientist or journalist? Mainstream here means that dominant institutions in society view conspiracy thinking as an acceptable form of communication. Finally, there is the cultural level. Here the question is whether conspiracy thinking is a culturally acceptable way of speaking and thinking about society. Is it socially accepted as normal behavior, or is it rather a form of deviant behavior, accompanied by (informal) sanctions or demands for additional justification or proof? Mainstream here means that conspiracy thinking is seen as a normal way of speaking, without being accompanied by strange looks, shunning or the need to justify oneself as a conspiracy thinker. By making this distinction, we can think more clearly about whether conspiracy thinking is actually on the rise, and how we should deal with it. (shrink)

Raymond Aron was a student of Léon Brunschvicg, a representative of French historical epistemology. This article explores Aron’s relation to this tradition through three claims. First of all, it contests that Raymond Aron’s philosophy of history constituted a complete break with this tradition. Secondly, resituating Aron in this tradition is valuable, because it highlights how Aron’s own philosophy of history is to be understood as a normative project, seen as an alternative to that of Brunschvicg. Finally, Aron’s philosophy can still (...) hold valuable lessons for present-day historical epistemology and history and philosophy of science in general. (shrink)

Este artículo expone algunas actualizaciones del cronotopo bajtiniano del camino en tres filmes del “novísimo cine chileno”. En primer lugar, se estudiarán las modalidades viajeras que las tres obras proponen, gracias a nociones de la filosofía y la teoría del turismo.2 Se identificará, luego, una serie de submotivos cronotópicos, verdaderos momentos afectivos, que desembocarán en nuestra hipótesis de trabajo; a saber, que las protagonistas de cada filme recorren un “espacio liso”, genérico, hecho de intensidades, un “medio” donde lo que prima (...) es la “experiencia”, el aprendizaje y el encuentro con sí mismas. (shrink)

L’autore si propone di investigare i rapporti tra retorica e tempo nel “Dialogo sui due massimi sistemi del mondo” di Galileo Galilei, giustificando l’analisi retorico-stilistica della prosa scientifica sintesi di ragione e immaginazione, stabilendo un parallelo tra l’abbattimento della discontinuità tra Cielo e Terra e alcune innovazioni retoriche della prosa galileiana che precede il Dialogo e prendendo in considerazione passi del “Dialogo” in cui Galileo manipola i concetti di ‘tempus’ e ‘aeternitas’ tramite metafore, similitudini e altre figure, che sono strumento (...) essenziale alla dimostrazione della tesi che interessa, cioè quella della fondamentale identità tra cielo e terra, dell’unità del tempo cosmico. (shrink)

Las características de la enseñanza universitaria actual hacen necesaria una constante búsqueda de innovaciones que permitan introducir mejoras en la misma. Este artículo pretende dar a conocer las principales metodologías y herramientas empleadas durante el curso 2021-2022 para mejorar el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje en la asignatura de Historia Económica, del Grado en Administración y Dirección de Empresas, en la Universidad de Jaén. Se ha constatado que el empleo de nuevas metodologías alternativas a las tradicionales ha contribuido a mejorar significativamente la (...) comprensión de los contenidos, la adquisición y la evaluación de competencias relacionadas con la asignatura, obteniéndose resultados bastante satisfactorios. (shrink)

I argue that the contextualist account of the referential/attributive interpretation of definite descriptions, presented by Recanati and Bezuidehnout and based on the idea that definite descriptions are semantically underdetermined and in need of completion through optional top-down pragmatic processes, suffers from an explanatory gap. I defend the contextualist view but hold that the determination of the content of definite descriptions is a mandatory, linguistically driven process based on saturation rather than on optional pragmatic processes.

Commonsense ontology often conflicts with the ontology of our best scientific and philosophical theories. However, commonsense ontology, and commonsense belief systems in general, seems to be remarkably efficient and cognitively fundamental. In cases of contrast, it is better to find a way to reconcile commonsense and ”theoretical” ontologies. Given that commonsense ontologies are typically expressed within natural language, a classical procedure of reconciliation is semantical. The strategy is that of individuating the ”ontologically problematic” expressions of natural language and paraphrasing the (...) sentences in which they appear in a (formal) language whose commitments are compatible with those of our best theories. We believe that this strategy of reconciliation, though quite standard, especially in the philosophical literature, is problematic: for a start, it forces us to conclude that the ”real content” of our commonsense expressions and beliefs is different from what it appears. Commonsense ontology becomes just an illusion. We will thus propose an alternative approach: according to our view, a commonsense ontology is reconciled with a theoretical ontology in case it is shown that the explanation of why we believe in the existence of a problematic entity is compatible with our best theories. We will call this kind of reconciliation ”epistemic”. The advantage of an epistemic reconciliation is that commonsense ontology is treated in its own right and could be taken prima facie. Another advantage of the view is that epistemic reconciliation can be analysed through the notion of explaining away: a commonsense ontology is epistemically reconciled with a theoretical ontology if and only if the problematic entities of the commonsense ontology are explained away by ”respectable” entities of the theoretical ontology. In the final part of the paper, we sketch a formal analysis of explaining away. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the controversial issue of sense perception in the Zhuangzi 莊子. Although scholars have not explicitly addressed this aspect of the Chinese text, a common assumption is that the Zhuangzi proposes a mysticism that undermines sense perception in favour of a transcendent self. After an overview of this interpretation, and after analysing some key passages of the text that deal with heart fasting (xinzhai 心齋), sitting and forgetting (zuowang 坐忘) and skill mastery, I demonstrate that some (...) interpreters of the Zhuangzi read the text as if it has a metaphysical bent, recommending that sense perception be transcended as a prerequisite to perfection. In contrast, my thesis is that the text does not propose a withdrawal from the senses and from the world, but rather warns about the danger of abiding to doctrinal knowledge, which has the consequence of a person losing their responsive awareness. Indeed, in the Zhuangzi, sense perception is not an impediment on the way to a supersensible reality, but an integral part of one's own being in the world. Through my analysis, I object to the idea that the Zhuangzi proposes a mystical union with something not immediately available, which moreover needs to be achieved by transcending the lived world that is encountered through sense perception. My view is that such a move not only postulates union with a transcendent entity, it also forces a dualism between a person's capacities. This is problematic because the Zhuangzi does not point to another world–in a two worlds theory–where one must ideally attain the condition of a transcendent self. On the contrary, in rejecting a univocal ethos, the text suggests one should keep responding to changing circumstances without turning one's perceptual awareness into entrenched habits. Thus, the Zhuangzi shows how sense perception should be seen, not as a “problem” but as an ethical possibility through which the univocity of doctrinal knowledge can be undermined. (shrink)

We start by introducing the idea of echo chambers. Echo chambers are social and epistemic structures in which opinions, leanings, or beliefs about certain topics are amplified and reinforced due to repeated interactions within a closed system; that is, within a system that has a rather homogeneous sample of sources or people, which all share the same attitudes towards the topics in question. Echo chambers are a particularly dangerous phenomena because they prevent the critical assessment of sources and contents, thus (...) leading the people living within them to deliberately ignore or exclude opposing views. In the second part of this paper, we argue that the reason for the appearance of echo chambers lies in the adoption of what we call ‘epistemic vices’. We examine which vices might be responsible for their emergence, and in doing so, we focus on a specific one; ‘epistemic violence’. In assessing and evaluating the role of this epistemic vice, we note that it can be triggered by epistemic contexts characterized by high stakes that may turn ordinary intellectual virtues (such as skepticism) into vices (such as denialism). In the third part of this contribution, we suggest a way to deal with echo chambers. The solution focuses on advocating a responsibilist pedagogy of virtues and vices that -we claim- might be capable of preventing their emergence. (shrink)

According to the so-called strong variant of Composition as Identity (CAI), the Principle of Indiscernibility of Identicals can be extended to composition, by resorting to broadly Fregean relativizations of cardinality ascriptions. In this paper we analyze various ways in which this relativization could be achieved. According to one broad variety of relativization, cardinality ascriptions are about objects, while concepts occupy an additional argument place. It should be possible to paraphrase the cardinality ascriptions in plural logic and, as a consequence, relative (...) counting requires the relativization either of quantifiers, or of identity, or of the is one of relation. However, some of these relativizations do not deliver the expected results, and others rely on problematic assumptions. In another broad variety of relativization, cardinality ascriptions are about concepts or sets. The most promising development of this approach is prima facie connected with a violation of the so-called Coreferentiality Constraint, according to which an identity statement is true only if its terms have the same referent. Moreover - even provided that the problem with coreferentiality can be fixed - the resulting analysis of cardinality ascriptions meets several difficulties. (shrink)

The book discusses the multiple issues of a digital research ethic in its interdisciplinary diversity. Digitization and mediatization alter social behavior and cultural traditions, thereby generating new objects of study and new research questions for the social sciences and humanities. Furthermore, mediatization and digitization increase the data volume and accessibility of research and proliferate methodological opportunities for scientific analyses. Hence, they profoundly affect research practices in multiple ways. While consequences concerning the subjects, objects, and addressees of research in the social (...) sciences and humanities have rarely been reflected upon, this reflection lies at the center of the book. (shrink)

The article analyzes, at different levels, the relationship between war and borders. The question of the borders may provide an interesting point of view. At stake, in “new wars” is not the path of interstate frontiers but different borders developments. To analyze these dynamics the article emphasizes the useful relationship between two different bibliographies, on one hand the strategic literature about “new wars”, on the other hand the territorial and regional studies analyzing the new form of political, economic and juridical (...) spatiality. The aim is to catch the types of non homogeneous territorialities striated by flux spaciality, scaling and rescaling processes and different regimes of temporality and mobility, at stake in the “new wars”. (shrink)

This critical essay evaluates the potential integration of distinct kinds of expertise in policymaking, especially during situations of critical emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This article relies on two case studies: herd immunity and restricted access to ventilators for disabled people. These case studies are discussed as examples of experts’ recommendations that have not been widely accepted, though they were made within the boundaries of expert epistemic authority. While the fundamental contribution of biomedical experts in devising public health policies (...) during the COVID-19 pandemic is fully recognized, this paper intends to discuss potential issues and limitations that may arise when adopting a strict expert-based approach. By drawing attention to the interests of minorities, the paper also claims a broader notion of “relevant expertise.” This critical essay thus calls for the necessity of wider inclusiveness and representativeness in the process underlying public health policymaking. (shrink)

In this short paper we consider Linnebo's thin/thick dichotomy: first, we show that it does not overlap with the very common one between abstract/concrete objects; second, on the basis of some difficulties with the distinction, we propose, as a possible way out, to move from thin/thick objects to thin/thick concepts.

Background Respect for human rights and bioethical principles in prisons is a crucial aspect of society and is proportional to the well-being of the general population. To date, these ethical principles have been lacking in prisons and prisoners are victims of abuse with strong repercussions on their physical and mental health. Methods A systematic review was performed, through a MESH of the following words (bioethics) AND (prison), (ethics) AND (prison), (bioethics) AND (jail), (ethics) AND (jail), (bioethics) AND (penitentiary), (ethics) AND (...) (penitentiary), (prison) AND (human rights). Inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined and after PRISMA, 17 articles were included in the systematic review. Results Of the 17 articles, most were prevalence studies (n.5) or surveys (n.4), followed by cross-sectional studies (n.3), qualitative studies (n.1), retrospective (n.1) and an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study design (n.1). In most cases, the studies associated bioethics with prisoners’ access to treatment for various pathologies such as vaccinations, tuberculosis, hepatitis, HIV, it was also found that bioethics in prisons was related to the mental health of prisoners, disability, ageing, the condition of women, the risk of suicide or with the request for end-of-life by prisoners. The results showed shortcomings in the system of maintaining bioethical principles and respect for human rights. Conclusions Prisoners, in fact, find it difficult to access care, and have an increased risk of suicide and disability. Furthermore, they are often used as improper organ donors and have constrained autonomy that also compromises their willingness to have end-of-life treatments. In conclusion, prison staff (doctors, nurses, warders, managers) must undergo continuous refresher courses to ensure compliance with ethical principles and human rights in prisons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:About and Beyond Comorbidity:Does the Crisis of the DSM Bring on a Radical Rethinking of Descriptive Psychopathology?Massimiliano Aragona (bio)Keywordscomorbidity, nosography, phenomenology, philosophy of scienceThe problem of psychiatric comorbidity is part of a series of difficulties of the current diagnostic system which at once were considered as a consequence of the way the system itself is organized (Aragona 2006). It was then believed that a Kuhnian reformulation of the (...) contemporary debate on the problems of the psychiatric diagnosis was very useful because it allowed clarification in a comprehensive picture of the many rivulets of conceptual research in that field.In their comments Zachar (2009) and Banzato (2009) seem to agree with my analysis of psychiatric comorbidity (Aragona 2009a) when it stresses that abnormally high frequencies of co-occurrence are to be explained, in important respects, as a consequence of the way mental disorders are operationalized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; also showing the importance of conceptual clarification to deal with this sort of only apparently pure factual problems). On the contrary, they are both unconvinced of the appropriateness and/or fruitfulness of the use of the Kuhnian technical terms and theory in this context.It could be said that the major aim of the paper was to let clinicians understand the effect of conceptual decisions on what would otherwise seem as a simple empirical finding (in this case, high levels of comorbidity), and that this result seems to be achieved in any case, thus minimizing the importance of a disagreement about the philosophical terms as a pure terminological dispute. Nevertheless, in my work the Kuhnian model had a significant role in the clarification of this matter and it also suggests to the reader a range of possible consequences that are not trivial (Zachar, for example, says to be skeptical about the possibility of a crisis and also about the possibility that a new paradigm could eliminate what I call the [End Page 29] comorbidity anomaly). As a consequence, some of the Kuhnian concepts that seemed to be at odds in this context have to be considered in detail to justify my analysis and its consequences. For reasons of space, I avoid a point-by-point reply to all the comments and I concentrate my discussion on three main points. First, I discuss the background of Kuhn's definition of terms such as anomaly and paradigm, as well as my own reasons for using them. In doing so the details of the psychiatric items under study that I wanted to highlight through the use of these philosophical concepts should emerge more clearly. Second, I discuss the problem of having distinguished between artifactual and real comorbidity. Third, I reconsider some of these problems, looking for their implications for future psychopathological research.Anomalies and ParadigmsBanzato (2009) stresses that comorbidity cannot be a truly Kuhnian anomaly because it is an anticipated side effect of the initial setup of the DSM, and not some unexpected discovery that violates the paradigm-induced expectation. This is a basically correct account of the most known version of Kuhnian anomalies; that is, the tale of some evident nature's failure to conform to clear paradigm expectations, which immediately forces researchers to recognize its importance as a possible source of crisis. However, as is the case for many other Kuhnian terms, he discussed anomalies in several scripts and there are other possible versions of its meaning. In particular, Kuhn (1977, XVII) highlighted that only in very rare cases are anomalies completely unexpected and come out of blue to announce an imminent crisis that leads to a large revolution. More frequently, scientific revolutions are much more smaller, like the discovery of oxygen, and in these cases the process is so gradual that historians find it difficult to say exactly when a discovery was made and who did it. Even in these much smaller cases the usual prelude to changes of this sort is the awareness of anomaly, but here anomalies are not extraordinary events; rather, they are "countless discrepancies between theory and experiment [that] during the course of his career, every natural scientist again and again notices and passes by" (Kuhn... (shrink)

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into a promising (...) philosophy of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

El autor comienza por delimitar el significado de los conceptos universal y singular, y continúa con una reseña histórica acerca de su utilización en el pensamiento de algunos filósofos, para finalmente establecer la comprensión de la relación entre el universal y lo singular referida a Jesucristo en la trama de algunas Cristologías. The author begins by defining the concepts of singular and universal, continuing with a historical review regarding their use in the thought of some philosophers, in order to finally (...) establish the connection between the universal and the singular referred to Jesus Christ in the plot of some Christologies. (shrink)