When a patient with a serious mental illness expresses a desire for children, mental health professionals are faced with an ethical dilemma. To date, little research has been conducted into their strategies for dealing with these issues.

O presente artigo investiga a relação entre a construção de formalizações e a criação de novidades na ação de projetar Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVAs). Para tanto, realiza um estudo de caso sobre a ação de projetar AVAs no Núcleo de Tecnologia Digital Aplicada à Educação (Nuted) da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Entende-se que o debate acerca desse tema contribui para uma reflexão sobre os desenvolvimentos científico e tecnológico em informática na educação, bem como sobre sua (...) natureza interdisciplinar. Tal abordagem agrega uma perspectiva teóricometodológica piagetiana, a qual orientou os questionamentos, a elocução conceitual, a coleta e a análise dos dados. Com isso, enfoca-se o jogo entre forma e conteúdo que caracteriza a ação de projetar, de modo que os observáveis apontados e as coordenações realizadas pelos projetistas se configuram como os observáveis deste estudo. (shrink)

Examines men's efforts to escape from the fear of death by performing acts of human wickedness through socially-sanctioned institutions.

Drawing from religion and the human sciences, particularly psychology after Freud, the author attempts to demonstrate that the fear of death is man's central ...

Much scientific research is characterized by a high degree of multidisciplinarity and interdependence between the experts. In these cases research may be described as a group activity, and as such analysed in terms of the intentions of the participants. In this paper I apply Bratman's notion of shared intentionality to explain the relations between social and epistemic elements in groups with a truth-oriented common goal. I argue that in truth-oriented activities the disposition to help – which is a constitutive part (...) of Bratman's notion of shared intentionality – takes the form of a commitment not to lie, and that mutual knowledge of this commitment gives the members an entitlement to rely on other members' testimonies. Thus, in truth-oriented group activities, common knowledge of the disposition toward mutual support gives epistemic relevance to cooperation. Scientific research is shaped by the coexistence of social and epistemic elements: social relations influence knowledge attributions, and the epistemic goal of the activity confers a particular character to these relations. (shrink)

Pluralist mathematical realism, the view that there exists more than one mathematical universe, has become an influential position in the philosophy of mathematics. I argue that, if mathematical pluralism is true (and we have good reason to believe that it is), then mathematical realism cannot (easily) be justified by arguments from the indispensability of mathematics to science. This is because any justificatory chain of inferences from mathematical applications in science to the total body of mathematical theorems can cover at most (...) one mathematical universe. Indispensability arguments may thus lose their central role in the debate about mathematical ontology. (shrink)

From governments to the general public, one may ask about the possible contributions of historians, if any, to the understanding and management of global disasters, as e.g. the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019. Given the confuse situation at the onset of the pandemic in terms of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, a look into past experience with nonconventional medicine seemed relevant. In the present study I surveyed secondary literature on the role of Chinese medicine, Āyurveda, and homeopathy over time. The quantitative results (...) were disappointing: nothing on Āyurveda, and one single study each on Chinese medicine and homeopathy. The quality of the former compensates for the numerical short age. The case of homeopathy is rather sui generis, since this medical system was born and blossomed during epidemics and pandemics. I conclude with a short comment on reference sources, which might serve as point of departure for future studies of Āyurveda in epidemics. (shrink)

I argue that recent attempts to deflect Access Problems for realism about a priori domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, and modality using arguments from evolution result in two kinds of explanatory overkill: the Access Problem is eliminated for contentious domains, and realist belief becomes viciously immune to arguments from dispensability, and to non-rebutting counter-arguments more generally.

The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue (...) that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not. 11. (shrink)

Public engagement is one of the fundamental pillars of the European programme for research and innovation _Horizon 2020_. The programme encourages engagement that not only fosters science education and dissemination, but also promotes two-way dialogues between scientists and the public at various stages of research. Establishing such dialogues between different groups of societal actors is seen as crucial in order to attain epistemic as well as social desiderata at the intersection between science and society. However, whether these dialogues can actually (...) help attaining these desiderata is far from obvious. This paper discusses some of the costs, risks, and benefits of dialogical public engagement practices, and proposes a strategy to analyse these argumentative practices based on a three-tiered model of epistemic exchange. As a case study, we discuss the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, arguably a result of suboptimal public engagement, and show how the proposed model can shed new light on the problem. (shrink)

Can art, religion, or philosophy afford ineffable insights? If so, what are they? The idea of ineffability has puzzled philosophers from Laozi to Wittgenstein. In Ineffability and its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion and Philosophy, Silvia Jonas examines different ways of thinking about what ineffable insights might involve metaphysically, and shows which of these are in fact incoherent. Jonas discusses the concepts of ineffable properties and objects, ineffable propositions, ineffable content, and ineffable knowledge, examining the metaphysical pitfalls involved (...) in these concepts. Ultimately, she defends the idea that ineffable insights as found in aesthetic, religious, and philosophical contexts are best understood in terms of self-acquaintance, a particular kind of non-propositional knowledge. Ineffability as a philosophical topic is as old as the history of philosophy itself, but contributions to the exploration of ineffability have been sparse. The theory developed by Jonas makes the concept tangible and usable in many different philosophical contexts. (shrink)

This article presents the first, systematic analysis of the ethical challenges posed by recommender systems through a literature review. The article identifies six areas of concern, and maps them onto a proposed taxonomy of different kinds of ethical impact. The analysis uncovers a gap in the literature: currently user-centred approaches do not consider the interests of a variety of other stakeholders—as opposed to just the receivers of a recommendation—in assessing the ethical impacts of a recommender system.

What are the relevant values to the appraisal of research programs? This question remains hotly debated, as philosophers have recently proposed many lists of values potentially relevant to scientific appraisal. Surprisingly, despite being mentioned in many lists, little attention has been paid to fruitfulness. It is unclear how fruitfulness should be explicated, and whether it has any substantial role in scientific appraisal. In this paper, I argue we should explicate fruitfulness as the capacity to develop of research programs. Moreover, I (...) provide a novel strategy to assess and compare the fruitfulness of programs focused on their research questions and heuristics. To illustrate how this strategy would work, I will discuss a case study, namely the adaptationist program in evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

Chapter One THE MAN-APES A Lesson for Thomas Hobbes Probably the most exciting development in modern anthropology is the discovery of the australopithecines ...

It is well-established that algorithms can be instruments of injustice. It is less frequently discussed, however, how current modes of AI deployment often make the very discovery of injustice difficult, if not impossible. In this article, we focus on the effects of algorithmic profiling on epistemic agency. We show how algorithmic profiling can give rise to epistemic injustice through the depletion of epistemic resources that are needed to interpret and evaluate certain experiences. By doing so, we not only demonstrate how (...) the philosophical conceptual framework of epistemic injustice can help pinpoint potential, systematic harms from algorithmic profiling, but we also identify a novel source of hermeneutical injustice that to date has received little attention in the relevant literature: epistemic fragmentation. Epistemic fragmentation is a structural characteristic of algorithmically-mediated environments that isolate individuals, making it more difficult to develop, uptake and apply new epistemic resources. This, in turn, can impede the identification and conceptualisation of emerging harms in these environments. We trace the occurrence of hermeneutical injustice back to the fragmentation of the epistemic experiences of individuals, who are left more vulnerable by the inability to share, compare, and learn from shared experiences. (shrink)

Modulating connectivity measures in EEG-based neurofeedback studies is assumed to be a promising therapeutic and training tool. However, little is known so far about its effects and trainability. In the present study, we investigated the effects of up- and down-regulating SMR coherence by means of neurofeedback training on EEG activity and memory functions. Twenty adults performed 10 neurofeedback training sessions in which half of them tried to increase EEG coherence between Cz and CPz in the SMR frequency range, while the (...) other half tried to down-regulate coherence. Up-regulation of SMR coherence led to between- and within-session changes in EEG coherence. SMR power increased across neurofeedback training sessions but not within training sessions. Cross-over training effects on baseline EEG measures were also observed in this group. Up-regulation of SMR coherence was also associated with improvements in memory functions when comparing pre- and post-test results. Participants were not able to down-regulate SMR coherence. This group did not show any changes in baseline EEG measures or memory functions comparing pre- and post-test. Our results provide insights in the trainability and effects of connectivity-based neurofeedback training and indications for its practical application. (shrink)

The editors, working with a team of 325 renowned authorities in the field of ethics, have revised, expanded and updated this classic encyclopedia. Along with the addition of 150 new entries, all of the original articles have been newly peer-reviewed and revised, bibliographies have been updated throughout, and the overall design of the work has been enhanced for easier access to cross-references and other reference features. New entries include * Cheating * Dirty hands * Gay ethics * Holocaust * Journalism (...) * Political correctness * and many more. (shrink)

Trotz großer Verbesserungen in der Versorgung von Menschen mit Typ-1-Diabetes (MmT1D) werden auch bei hoher Motivation und hohem Wissensstand der T1D-Grundlagen und -Therapie die angestrebten Blutglukose-Werte häufig nicht erreicht. Daher hat sich aus der Gruppe der MmT1D und ihrer Angehörigen eine Gemeinschaft zusammengefunden, die auf Basis kommerzieller Technologien sogenannte Open-Source-Closed-Loop-Systeme (OSCLS) entwickelt, welche eine automatisierte Insulinabgabe ermöglichen. OSCLS haben das Potenzial, das Management der Erkrankung zu erleichtern und normnähere Blutglukose-Werte zu erzielen. Die OSCLS sind jedoch weder offiziell geprüfte noch zugelassene (...) Systeme. Aus dem Blickwinkel der Technikfolgenabschätzung untersucht die vorliegende Arbeit mittels leitfadengestützter qualitativer Interviews mit Nutzenden und Fachkräften vorrangig, warum sich die Nutzenden der OSCLS für die Systeme entscheiden und wie sich diese auf das Leben der Nutzenden sowie auf das Gesundheitswesen auswirken. Zudem ordnet diese Arbeit die OSCLS-Bewegung in vergleichbare aktivistische Bewegungen in Medizin und Gesundheit ein sowie in den Kontext der derzeit immer stärker werdenden Bewegung der Patient Innovation. Die Autorin Silvia Woll war als Geisteswissenschaftlerin seit 2015 als Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS) im Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) tätig. Ihre inhaltlichen Schwerpunkte umfassten dabei Technologien für Gesundheit und Ernährung, Technikethik und partizipative Verfahren wie die Citizen Science. (shrink)

Uses the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, sociology and psychiatry to explain what makes people act the way they do.

A Steiner triple system (STS) is a set S together with a collection B of subsets of S of size 3 such that any two elements of S belong to exactly one element of B. It is well known that the class of finite STS has a Fraïssé limit M_F. Here, we show that the theory T of M_F is the model completion of the theory of STSs. We also prove that T is not small and it has quantifier elimination, (...) TP2, NSOP1, elimination of hyperimaginaries and weak elimination of imaginaries. (shrink)

The paper considers one of the most enigmatic problems of Wittgenstein`s Tractatus - the problem of solipsism. The authorś task is to reveal how the discussion of solipsism illuminates Wittgenstein`s metaphysical view in this treatise. Wittgenstein`s method is considered as one through which the status of what cannot be said is demonstrated. Wittgenstein has not embrased solipsism or idealism in the Tractatus, and neither has he rejected metaphysics as a whole. His attack has been directed against dogmatic philosophy and ethics, (...) against the effort to say what cannot be said in true/false propositions. The discussion of solipsism brings into philosophy the importance of metaphysical "I" as a transcendental limit of the world and language. Wittgenstein`s aim in the Tractatus has been twofold: a) to show the nonsensicality of philosophical, ethical, aesthetical propositions , b) to emphasize, that the inexpresibility of the higher is the most important thing in our lives. (shrink)

In two studies, children's concepts of various types of ordinarily unobservable entities were examined. Study 1 confirmed earlier findings in showing that children aged 4–9 years are confident of the existence of scientific entities such as germs as well as religious beings such as God. At the same time, both age groups are skeptical of the existence of various mythical beings such as mermaids. In Study 2, older children aged 10–12 years were probed for their concepts of religious as compared (...) to scientific phenomena. Despite considerable confidence in each type, older children differentiated between them, both with respect to their level of confidence and their pattern of justification. (shrink)

This article analyses the ethical aspects of multistakeholder recommendation systems (RSs). Following the most common approach in the literature, we assume a consequentialist framework to introduce the main concepts of multistakeholder recommendation. We then consider three research questions: who are the stakeholders in a RS? How are their interests taken into account when formulating a recommendation? And, what is the scientific paradigm underlying RSs? Our main finding is that multistakeholder RSs (MRSs) are designed and theorised, methodologically, according to neoclassical welfare (...) economics. We consider and reply to some methodological objections to MRSs on this basis, concluding that the multistakeholder approach offers the resources to understand the normative social dimension of RSs. (shrink)

In recent years, aggressive and conservative nationalistic forces have been growing stronger worldwide (Rydgren 2018). Increased random terrorist attacks are now occurring in sites previously thoug...

This book draws on Iris Murdoch's philosophy to explore questions related to the importance of attention in ethics. In doing so, it also engages with Murdoch's ideas about the existence of a moral reality, the importance of love, and the necessity but also the difficulty, for most of us, of fighting against our natural self-centred tendencies. Why is attention important to morality? This book argues that many moral failures and moral achievements can be explained by attention. Not only our actions (...) and choices, but the possibilities we choose among, and even the meaning what we perceive, are to a large extent determined by whether we pay attention, and what we attend do. In this way, the book argues that attention is fundamental, though often overlooked, in morality. While the book's discussion of attention revolves primarily around Murdoch's thought, it also engages significantly with Simone Weil, who introduced the concept of attention in a spiritual context. The book also engages with contemporary debates concerning moral perception and motivation, empirical psychology, animal ethics, and Buddhist philosophy. The Ethics of Attention will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on Iris Murdoch, Simone Weil, ethics and moral psychology, and the philosophy of attention. (shrink)

We examine two different descriptions of the behavioral functions of the hippocampal system. One emphasizes spatially organized behaviors, especially those using cognitive maps. The other emphasizes memory, particularly working memory, a short-term memory that requires iexible stimulus-response associations and is highly susceptible to interference. The predictive value of the spatial and memory descriptions were evaluated by testing rats with damage to the hippocampal system in a series of experiments, independently manipulating the spatial and memory characteristics of a behavioral task. No (...) dissociations were found when the spatial characteristics of the stimuli to be remembered were changed; lesions produced a similar deficit in both spatial and nonspatial test procedures, indicating that the hippocampus was similarly involved regardless of the spatial nature of the task. In contrast, a marked dissociation was found when the memory requirements were altered. Rats with lesions were able to perform accurately in tasks that could be solved exclusively on the basis of reference memory. They performed at chance levels and showed no signs of recovery even with extensive postoperative training in tasks that required working memory. In one experiment all the characteristics of the reference memory and working memory procedures were identical except the type of memory required. Consequently, the behavioral dissociation cannot be explained by differences in attention, motivation, response inhibition, or the type of stimuli to be remembered. As a result of these experiments we propose that the hippocampus is selectively involved in behaviors that require working memory, irrespective of the type of material that is to be processed by that memory. (shrink)

The situation caused by the 2019 coronavirus disease has been representing a great source of concern and a challenge to the psychological well-being of many individuals around the world. For couples in particular, this extraordinary rise in concern, combined with the stress posed by the virus containment measures, such as prolonged cohabitation and lack of support networks, may have increased the likelihood of couple problems. At the same time, however, COVID-19 concerns may have been a stimulus to activate couples’ stress (...) management processes. A couple’s resource, which may have an important role in dealing with COVID-19 concerns and stress, is dyadic coping, i.e., the process through which partners face stress together. Drawing on a sample of 1,823 Italian individuals involved in a couple relationship, the current study tested a serial mediation model in which concerns about COVID-19 predicted psychological well-being, through both explicit stress communication and perceived partner dyadic coping responses. In addition, the study explored whether this dyadic coping process functioned the same way in satisfied and dissatisfied couples. Results showed that concerns about the situation related to COVID-19 significantly threatened individuals’ psychological well-being. However, these concerns positively predicted explicit stress communication, which in turn positively predicted perceived partner’s dyadic coping responses, which finally positively predicted psychological well-being. In addition, in the group of dissatisfied individuals, the association between explicit stress communication and perceived partners’ dyadic coping responses was not significant. The present study adds to the research on couples’ coping by testing for the first time the whole theoretical model of dyadic coping and does so during a global emergency situation. The study also suggests key components of preventive interventions for individuals in couples. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by a puzzling observation made when conducting a case study of ProCredit, a well-known social bank. The HR practices that this social enterprise adopted to cultivate mission identification were unfavorably impacting its retention rate. Building on prior research and our analysis of the case, we argue the need for SEs to embrace HRM systems that are both mission-identification proactive and employee-retention preemptive. It theorizes that these HRM systems should be attuned to the labor market conditions that (...) frame how SEs develop and sustain Person-Organization fit. Attuned HRM systems are adapted to labor market conditions and tuned to support SEs’ adeptness to operate against the grain of country and industry norms. (shrink)

The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was there (...) a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress. (shrink)

Maimonides famously holds that, while it is perfectly possible to know (and say) that God exists, it is impossible to know (and say) what God is like because any positive attri- bution contradicts God’s essential oneness. Consequently, pure equivocity obtains between descriptions of the divine and descriptions of any other being. But this raises a puzzle: Knowledge of God seems vacuous if we lack all comprehension of God’s nature - so how can we have any comprehension of the divine without (...) being able to say what it is that we know? In this essay, I defend the substantiality of the concept of knowledge of God on Maimonides’ apophatic picture. Drawing on the concept of non-propositional knowledge, I argue that knowledge and comprehension can come apart, which lends support to Maimonides’ thesis that knowledge of God, though substantial and objective, cannot be expressed. (shrink)

In a recent study, Becker and Elliott [Becker, C., & Elliott, M. A. . Flicker induced color and form: Interdependencies and relation to stimulation frequency and phase. Consciousness & Cognition, 15, 175–196] described the appearance of subjective experiences of color and form induced by stimulation with intermittent light. While there have been electroencephalographic studies of similar hallucinatory forms, brain activity accompanying the appearance of hallucinatory colors was never measured. Using a priming procedure where observers were required to indicate (...) the presence of one of eight target colors we compared electrophysiological correlates of hallucinatory color with brain states associated with other visual phenomena. Different target colors were accompanied by different patterns of EEG activation. However, in general, we found that the appearance of hallucinatory colors is preceded by a power decrease in the lower alpha band alongside an increase in gamma band frequencies. We argue that decreasing activity in the lower alpha band acts as a gating mechanism, inducing a switch in perception between different colors. The increasing gamma activation may correlate with the formation of a coherent conscious percept. (shrink)

Gaze plays a fundamental role in the processing of facial expressions from birth. Gaze direction is a crucial part of the social signal encoded in and decoded from faces. The ability to discriminate gaze direction, already evident early in life, is essential for the development of more complex socially relevant tasks, such as joint and shared attention. At the same time, facial expressions play a fundamental role in the encoding of gaze direction and, when combined, expression and gaze communicate behavioural (...) motivation to approach or avoid. However, the investigation of how gaze direction and emotional expression interact during the processing of a face has been relatively neglected, and is the key question of this review. (shrink)

: Duncan Pritchard has recently highlighted the problem of veritic epistemic luck and claimed that a safety‐based account of knowledge succeeds in eliminating veritic luck where virtue‐based accounts and process reliabilism fail. He then claims that if one accepts a safety‐based account, there is no longer a motivation for retaining a commitment to reliabilism. In this article, I delineate several distinct safety principles, and I argue that those that eliminate veritic luck do so only if at least implicitly committed to (...) reliabilism. (shrink)

Drawing an analogy between modal structuralism about mathematics and theism, I o er a structuralist account that implicitly de nes theism in terms of three basic relations: logical and metaphysical priority, and epis- temic superiority. On this view, statements like `God is omniscient' have a hypothetical and a categorical component. The hypothetical component provides a translation pattern according to which statements in theistic language are converted into statements of second-order modal logic. The categorical component asserts the logical possibility of the (...) theism struc- ture on the basis of uncontroversial facts about the physical world. This structuralist reading of theism preserves objective truth-values for theistic statements while remaining neutral on the question of ontology. Thus, it o ers a way of understanding theism to which a naturalist cannot object, and it accommodates the fact that religious belief, for many theists, is an essentially relational matter. (shrink)

This essay provides an overview of the ways in which contemporary philosophers have tried to make sense of ineffability as encountered in aesthetic contexts. Section 1 sets up the problem of aesthetic ineffability by putting it into historical perspective. Section 2 specifies the kinds of questions that may be raised with regard to aesthetic ineffability, as well as the kinds of answer each one of those questions would require. Section 3 investigates arguments that seek to locate aesthetic ineffability within the (...) object of aesthetic experiences, i.e. within aesthetic content. Section 4 discusses arguments that seek to locate aesthetic ineffability within the subject of aesthetic experience. (shrink)