In recent years, the sharing economy has attracted considerable attention, both scholarly and popular, relating to its capacity to enforce or undermine extant economic conventions. However, the process through which technological developments can effectively have this outcome of altering extant conventions on what is morally acceptable or desirable is still unclear. In this paper, we draw on the work of Boltanski and Thévenot and the notion of agencement to investigate the moral and performative dimension of controversies related to the SE. (...) The research stems from a qualitative case-based study of the controversy following Uber’s implementation in Montréal’s taxi market. We contribute to the literature on the SE through an empirical study of the moral debates entailed in the unfolding in situ of a SE device. We also add to the literature using the ‘Orders of Worth’ framework by showing how a compromise is solidified. We find that beyond discursive strategies, it is the concrete recomposition of laws, conventions, devices, persons, etc. that harmonised different definitions of the common good. Finally, we contribute to the literature on the relationship between technology, ethics, and social change by capturing the specific values that legitimise Uber, and by following their unfolding throughout a controversy. (shrink)

Euthanasia remains controversial in Canada and an issue of debate among physicians. Most studies have explored the opinion of health professionals regarding its legalization, but have not investigated their intentions when faced with performing euthanasia. These studies are also considered atheoretical. The purposes of the present study were to fill this gap in the literature by identifying the psychosocial determinants of physicians’ intention to practice euthanasia in palliative care and verifying whether respecting the patient’s autonomy is important for physicians.

Intention was seen traditionally as a philosophical concept, before being debated more recently from psychological and social perspectives. Today the cognitive sciences approach intention empirically, at the level of its underlying mechanisms. This naturalization of intention makes it more concrete and graspable by empirical sciences. This volume offers an interdisciplinary integration of current research on intentional processes naturalized through action, drawing on the theoretical and empirical approaches of cognitive neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and sociology. Each chapter integrates several disciplinary perspectives. Taken (...) together, the chapters show that the reunification of the different dimensions of intentional processes may constitute an adequate basis for a general model of intentional processes and their links to action. This can be applied at various levels, from neuronal activity to self-constitution, from the expression of intentional actions at the individual level to their expression in social contexts, and to the recognition of intention in actions executed by others.ContributorsColin Allen, Mireille Bonnard, Vittorio Gallese, Jozina B. de Graaf, Franck Grammont, Patrick Haggard, Marco Iacoboni, Dorothée Legrand, Pierre Livet, Albert Ogien, Jean Pailhous, Jean-Luc Petit, Jean-Michel Roy, Jessica A. Sommerville, Manos Tsakiris, Amanda L. Woodward. (shrink)

Roy Sorenson offers a unique exploration of an ancient problem: vagueness. Did Buddha become a fat man in one second? Is there a tallest short giraffe? According to Sorenson's epistemicist approach, the answers are yes! Although vagueness abounds in the way the world is divided, Sorenson argues that the divisions are sharp; yet we often do not know where they are. Written in Sorenson'e usual inventive and amusing style, this book offers original insight on language and logic, the way world (...) is, and our understanding of it. (shrink)

Scientific theories of consciousness identify its contents with the spatiotemporal structure of neural population activity. We follow up on this approach by stating and motivating Dynamical Emergence Theory, which defines the amount and structure of experience in terms of the intrinsic topology and geometry of a physical system’s collective dynamics. Specifically, we posit that distinct perceptual states correspond to coarse-grained macrostates reflecting an optimal partitioning of the system’s state space—a notion that aligns with several ideas and results from computational neuroscience (...) and cognitive psychology. We relate DET to existing work, offer predictions for empirical studies, and outline future research directions. (shrink)

Learning from a text–picture multimedia document is particularly effective if learners can link information within the text and across the verbal and the pictorial representations. The ability to create a mental model successfully and include those implicit links is related to the ability to generate inferences. Text processing research has found that text cohesion facilitates the generation of inferences, and thus text comprehension for learners with poor prior knowledge or reading abilities, but is detrimental for learners with good prior knowledge (...) or reading abilities. Moreover, multimedia research has found a positive effect from adding visual representations to text information, particularly when implementing signaling, which consists of verbal or visual cues designed to guide attention to the pictorial representation of relevant information. We expected that, as with text-only documents, struggling readers would benefit from high text cohesion and that signaling would foster inference generation as well. Further, we hypothesized that better learning outcomes would be observed when text cohesion was low and signaling was present. Our first experimental study investigated the effect of those two factors on three levels of comprehension. Participants were adolescents in prevocational schools, where some of the students are struggling readers. The results showed a trend in favor of high cohesion, but with no significant effect, a significant positive effect of cross-representational signaling on comprehension from local inferences, and no interaction effect. A second experiment focused on signaling only and attention toward the picture, with collection of eye-tracking data in addition to measures of offline comprehension. As this study was conducted with university students, who are expected to have higher reading abilities and thus are less likely to benefit from high cohesion, the material was presented in its low cohesive version. The results showed no effect of conditions on comprehension performances but confirmed differences in processing behaviors. Participants allocated more attention to the pictorial representation in the CRS condition than in the no signaling condition. (shrink)

Though dividing one’s attention between two input streams typically impairs performance, detecting a behaviorally relevant stimulus can sometimes enhance the encoding of unrelated information presented at the same time. Previous research has shown that selection of this kind boosts visual cortical activity and memory for concurrent items. An important unanswered question is whether such effects are reflected in processing quality and functional connectivity in visual regions and in the hippocampus. In this fMRI study, participants were asked to memorize a stream (...) of naturalistic images and press a button only when they heard a predefined target tone. Images could be presented with a target tone, with a distractor tone, or without a tone. Auditory target detection increased activity throughout the ventral visual cortex but lowered it in the hippocampus. Enhancements in functional connectivity between the ventral visual cortex and the hippocampus were also observed following auditory targets. Multi-voxel pattern classification of image category was more accurate on target tone trials than on distractor and no tone trials in the fusiform gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus. This effect was stronger in visual cortical clusters whose activity was more correlated with the hippocampus on target tone than on distractor tone trials. In agreement with accounts suggesting that subcortical noradrenergic influences play a role in the attentional boost effect, auditory target detection also caused an increase in locus coeruleus activity and phasic pupil responses. These findings outline a network of cortical and subcortical regions that are involved in the selection and processing of information presented at behaviorally relevant moments. (shrink)

In their reviews, Chater and Oaksford, Dutilh Novaes, and Sterelny are critical of our modularist approach to reason. In this response, we clarify our claim that reason is one of many cognitive modules that produce intuitive inferences each in its domain; the reason module producing intuitions about reasons. We argue that in‐principle objections to the idea of massive modularity based on Fodor's peculiar approach are not effective against other interpretations that have led to insightful uses of the notion in psychology (...) and biology. We explain how the reason module evaluates reasons on the basis of their metacognitive properties. We show how the module fulfils a social function, that of producing reasons to justify oneself and convince others and of evaluating the reasons others produce to convince us. (shrink)

Many fields of study have shown that group discussion generally improves reasoning performance for a wide range of tasks. This article shows that most of the population, including specialists, does not expect group discussion to be as beneficial as it is. Six studies asked participants to solve a standard reasoning problem—the Wason selection task—and to estimate the performance of individuals working alone and in groups. We tested samples of U.S., Indian, and Japanese participants, European managers, and psychologists of reasoning. Every (...) sample underestimated the improvement yielded by group discussion. They did so even after they had been explained the correct answer, or after they had had to solve the problem in groups. These mistaken intuitions could prevent individuals from making the best of institutions that rely on group discussion, from collaborative learning and work teams to deliberative assemblies. (shrink)

Responding to the provocative phrase ‘The Age of Grammatology’, I propose to question the notion of ‘age’, and to interrogate the powers or forces, the dynameis or dynasties attached to the interpretative model of historical periodisation. How may we think the undeniable actuality of the event beyond the sempiternal history of ages, and beyond the traditional, onto-teleological chain of power, possibility, force or dynamis that undergirds such history?

Because reasoning allows us to justify our beliefs and evaluate these justifications it is central to folk epistemology. Following Sperber, and contrary to classical views, it will be argued that reasoning evolved not to complement individual cognition but as an argumentative device. This hypothesis is more consistent with the prevalence of the confirmation and disconfirmation biases. It will be suggested that these biases render the individual use of reasoning hazardous, but that when reasoning is used in its natural, argumentative, context (...) they can represent a smart way to divide labor without loosing epistemic value. (shrink)

On the Dummettian understanding, anti-realism regarding a particular discourse amounts to (or at the very least, involves) a refusal to accept the determinacy of the subject matter of that discourse and a corresponding refusal to assert at least some instances of excluded middle (which can be understood as expressing this determinacy of subject matter). In short: one is an anti-realist about a discourse if and only if one accepts intuitionistic logic as correct for that discourse. On careful examination, the strongest (...) Dummettian arguments for anti-realism of this sort fail to secure intuitionistic logic as the single, correct logic for anti-realist discourses. Instead, antirealists are placed in a situation where they fail to be justified in asserting monism (that intuitionistic logic is the unique correct logic). Thus, antirealists seem forced either to accept pluralism (i.e. one or more intermediate logic is at least as `correct’ as intuitionistic logic–an option I take to be unattractive from the anti-realist perspective), or they must be anti-realists about the realism/anti-realism debate (and, in particular, must refuse to assert the instance of excluded middle equivalent to logical monism or logical pluralism). (shrink)

Coherence plays an important role in psychology. In this article, I suggest that coherence takes two main forms in humans’ cognitive system. The first belong to ‘system 1’. It relies on the degree of coherence between different representations to regulate them, without coherence being represented. By contrast other mechanisms, belonging to system 2, allow humans to represent the degree of coherence between different representations and to draw inferences from it. It is suggested that the mechanisms of explicit coherence evaluation have (...) social functions. They are used as means of epistemic vigilance—to evaluate what other people tell us. They can also be turned inwards to examine the coherence of our own beliefs. Their function is then to minimize the chances that we are perceived as being incoherent. Evidence from different domains of psychology is briefly reviewed in support of these hypotheses. (shrink)

Unique in presenting a thoroughgoing examination of the mathematical aspects of the neo-logicist project (and the particular philosophical issues arising from these technical concerns).

During the Winter of 2011 I visited SADAF and gave a series of talks based on the central chapters of my manuscript on the Yablo paradox. The following year, I visited again, and was pleased and honored to find out that Eduardo Barrio and six of his students had written ‘responses’ that addressed the claims and arguments found in the manuscript, as well as explored new directions in which to take the ideas and themes found there. These comments reflect my (...) thoughts on these responses (also collected in this issue), as well as my thoughts on further issues that arose during the symposium that was based on the papers and during the many hours I spent talking and working with Eduardo and his students. Durante el invierno de 2011, visité SADAF y dí una serie de conferencias sobre los capítulos centrales de mi manuscrito sobre la paradoja de Yablo. El año siguiente, visité Buenos aires nuevamente y tuve el placer y el honor de descubrir que Eduardo Barrio y seis de sus estudiantes habían escrito respuestas que abordan las afirmaciones y argumentos de mi manuscrito, además de explorar nuevas direcciones en las cuales considerar las ideas y temas encontrados allí. El presente trabajo refleja mis pensamientos sobre estas respuestas (también incluidas en este volumen), así como mis ideas sobre otras cuestiones que surgieron durante el simposio en el que se presentaron los artículos y en las muchas horas que nosotros discutimos y trabajamos con Eduardo y sus estudiantes. (shrink)

Philosophy and Contemporary Issues contains contemporary readings of philosophical significance designed to introduce philosophy to college and university students. The authors' goal is to demonstrate how philosophy illuminates and helps solve some of the important problems facing contemporary man. This edition contains additional readings.

In many circumstances we tend to assume that other people believe or desire what we ourselves believe or desire. This has been labeled 'egocentric bias.' This is not to say that we systematically fail to understand other people and forget that they can have a different perspective. If it were the case, then it would be highly difficult, if not impossible, to communicate, cooperate or compete with them. In those situations, we need to take the other person's perspective and to (...) inhibit our own. But can the other's perspective furtively intrude even when no reason seems to require it, or even when it is detrimental for us? We shall see a series of evidence of what has been called altercentric bias (Samson et al., 2010; Apperly, 2011): other people's beliefs can unduly influence us even when they are wrong. At first sight, altercentric bias questions 1st person priority. In particular, it may appear as incompatible with simulation-based accounts of 3rd person mindreading. We shall argue, on the contrary, that the simulationist framework enables confusions between self and others that go both ways: taking one's beliefs for the other's beliefs (egocentric bias) and vice-versa, taking the other's beliefs for one's beliefs (altercentric bias). We shall then see how the risk of such confusion may be disadvantageous from an evolutionary perspective, questioning thus the evolutionary plausibility of the simulation theory. (shrink)

Journalism educators who appear as expert witnesses and consultants in media law cases such as libel and invasion of privacy are often unfamiliar with the practical aspects of serving as an eflective, efficient, and ethical expert. These practical dimensions include federal and state rules of evidence and civil procedure, the process of deciding whether or not to accept a case, negotiations over fees and employment conditions, ethical conflicts associated with representation, the litigation process, and post-trial issues. It is unusual, especially (...) in media law cases, for an expert's testimony to make or break a case, but a client has a right to expect aggressive and rigorous representation and ready accessibilityfrom the expert. The challenge facing the journalism educator who serves as an expert witness is balancing those demands with the responsibilities of being a professor while avoiding conflicts of interest. (shrink)

Strange is our situation here upon the earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.1.

Cytokinins are plant hormones which have long been associated with cell division and plastid differentiation. Recently, they have been found to play a central role also in the growth of plant tumors. Certain phytopathogenic bacteria, notably Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Pseudomonas syringae pv. savastanoi, can incite tumors on dicotyledonous plants and such tumors exhibit growth which is characteristic of the presence of excess auxin and cytokinin. Genes specifying cytokinin biosynthesis have now been isolated from both sets of bacteria. The genes encode (...) prenyl transferase responsible for cytokinin biosynthesis which, upon expression in E. coli,cause the production of the active cytokinin, zeatin. Expression of these genes in association with the plant is responsible for at least part of the tumor phenotype, although the molecular mechanisms of infection by these bacteria are apparently quite dissimilar. There is extensive homology between the cytokinin biosynthetic genes from the two sets of bacteria. (shrink)

v. 1. Introduction -- v. 2. Comparaison -- v. 3. Conclusion.

The 21st International Climate Conference (COP21) demonstrated that a global consensus is possible among 195 countries. For this reason, we could say that climate change is a chance (perhaps the last) for humanity.It is indeed the only area where worldly governance now seems possible, although it also is needed to fight, for example, against global terrorism or to regulate international migration. - Through the ongoing experience concerning climate policy, a triple dynamic, which would establish a genuine global governance, can be (...) drawn: recognizing interdependencies, regulating contradictions, making actors aware of their responsibilities. It is therefore urgent we learn the lessons of the COP 21. (shrink)

Malgré le développement des droits de l’homme et l’apparition d’une justice pénale internationale, la mondialisation lance de nouveaux défis à l’humanisme juridique : durcissement du contrôle des migrations, aggravation des exclusions sociales, multiplication des atteintes à l’environnement, persistance des crimes internationaux « les plus graves », risques d’asservissement créés par les nouvelles technologies. Humaniser la mondialisation renvoie à trois objectifs : résister à la déshumanisation, responsabiliser les acteurs, anticiper sur les risques à venir. Pour y contribuer, il faudrait une mutation (...) de la notion d’ordre juridique car le modèle souverainiste (ordre international), postulant l’autonomie de chaque État, est dépassé. Mais l’universalisme (ordre supranational), comme l’ultra-libéralisme (ordre transnational), risquent de conduire à l’impérialisme du plus puissant. D’où la recherche d’un «pluralisme ordonné», combinant souverainisme intégré, universalisme assoupli et libéralisme régulé. (shrink)

Le droit à la sûreté soumet l’État au droit tout en pouvant légitimer des atteintes aux libertés, apparemment contraires à l’État de droit. On propose d’analyser ici les mutations de l’État de droit, notamment depuis la pérennisation de l’état d’exception après 2001 et l’apparition de régimes de suspicion, comme l’expression de trois processus juridiques distincts de suspension, de contournement et de détournement. Il s’agit aussi de rappeler comment, au-delà de la distinction entre politique autoritaire et libérale, un double mouvement, interne (...) et international, de constitutionnalisation et d’internationalisation des systèmes de droit, constitue un ferment de résistance, limité mais déjà effectif, à toute raison d’État. (shrink)

By entering positive law, human rights reveal not only internal contradictions, but also external conflicts between the practical reasons which inspire them. These contradictions and conflicts could pull us in the doldrums (Pot au noir), this mythical place where ships, caught in violent storms and world winds, could shipwreck.