With an increasing number of international schools, traditional EFL teaching methods may not satisfy students’ needs. This study aims to investigate perceptions of social media technologies and willingness to adopt such technologies to collaborate and communicate in multicultural classrooms among novice EFL schoolteachers in the Czech Republic. The participants were 100 novice EFL schoolteachers in Prague and the South Moravian regions of the Czech Republic. The study used a mixed research method consisting of a survey and a semi-structured interview. The (...) survey examined the participants’ appraisal and concerns of using social media technologies to collaborate and to communicate as well as the level of willingness to use social media technologies. A hierarchical cluster analysis using participants’ responses regarding their attitudes and behavioural tendency towards using Web 2.0 social media technologies in language classrooms identified three clusters of teachers. The teachers who were most likely to adopt social Web 2.0 technologies were those who had the highest ratings on both appraisals and concerns regarding the use of social media in language classrooms. The results from the semi-structured interviews were consistent with those from the survey. Together, the results from the two stages demonstrated that most pre-service teachers favoured using Web 2.0 technology for collaboration and communication among colleagues and stakeholders in a broader community, but they displayed contrasting levels of appraisal of and concerns towards using social media technologies. Participants believed that this might be due to their different levels of ICT proficiency, workload, and working environment. The political and practical implications in K-12 education in the Czech context are also discussed. (shrink)

The study focuses on the implementation of curriculum reform in grammar schools in the Czech Republic. The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes of grammar school teachers towards the reform and its implementation. The perceived benefits of and problems with the curriculum reform were measured using closed-ended items (on a Likert scale). The research sample of this questionnaire survey consisted of 1,098 teachers from 58 schools. The results indicate that the reform has been more readily accepted in (...) pilot schools than in non-pilot schools. In general, it can be concluded that although there was support for the main ideas behind the reform, the majority of teachers have not accepted the reform as a whole. The multiple regression analysis revealed that gender, position, length of teaching experience, and knowledge of specific characteristics of curriculum reform did not significantly contribute to teachers’ acceptance of the curriculum reform. (shrink)

We argue that prediction success maximization is a basic objective of cognition and cortex, that it is compatible with but distinct from prediction error minimization, that neither objective requires subtractive coding, that there is clear neurobiological evidence for the amplification of predicted signals, and that we are unconvinced by evidence proposed in support of subtractive coding. We outline recent discoveries showing that pyramidal cells on which our cognitive capabilities depend usually transmit information about input to their basal dendrites and amplify (...) that transmission when input to their distal apical dendrites provides a context that agrees with the feedforward basal input in that both are depolarizing, i.e., both are excitatory rather than inhibitory. Though these intracellular discoveries require a level of technical expertise that is beyond the current abilities of most neuroscience labs, they are not controversial and acclaimed as groundbreaking. We note that this cellular cooperative context-sensitivity greatly enhances the cognitive capabilities of the mammalian neocortex, and that much remains to be discovered concerning its evolution, development, and pathology. (shrink)

Digital Voice Assistants have become a ubiquitous technology in today’s home and childhood environments. Inspired by original study on how children’s ontological conceptualizations of life and technology were systematically associated with their real-world exposure to robotic entities, the current study explored this association for children in their middle childhood and with different levels of DVA-exposure. We analyzed correlational survey data from 143 parent–child dyads who were recruited on ‘Amazon Mechanical Turk’. Children’s ontological conceptualization patterns of life and technology were measured (...) by asking them to conceptualize nine prototypical organically living and technological entities with respect to their biology, intelligence, and psychology. Their ontological conceptualization patterns were then associated with their DVA-exposure and additional control variables. Compared to biology and psychology, intelligence was a less differentiating factor for children to differentiate between organically living and technological entities. This differentiation pattern became more pronounced with technological affinity. There was some evidence that children with higher DVA-exposure differentiated more rigorously between organically living and technological entities on the basis of psychology. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study exploring children’s real-world exposure to DVAs and how it is associated with their conceptual understandings of life and technology. Findings suggest although psychological conceptualizations of technology may become more pronounced with DVA-exposure, it is far from clear such tendencies blur ontological boundaries between life and technology from children’s perspective. (shrink)

Two important questions arise concerning the properties that constitute the phenomenal characters of our experiences: first, where these properties exist, and, second, whether they are tied to our consciousness of them. Such properties can either exist externally to the perceiving subject, or internally to her. This article argues that phenomenal characters, and specifically the phenomenal characters of colours, may exist independently of consciousness and that they are internal to the subject. We defend this combination of claims against a recent criticism (...) according to which the unconscious phenomenal character of colours exists externally to the subject. We defend internalism about (potentially unconscious) phenomenal character by appealing to recent neuroscientific and behavioural evidence, and by rejecting the claim that externalism about phenomenal character is dialectically in a better position than internalism. In addition, we briefly present certain difficulties for externalist views of phenomenal character. These concern cases where the perceptual relation fails, but a perceptual experience still results. These points suffice to defuse the externalist critique of our view, and support the internalist variant of the consciousness-independence claim as the most plausible account of the unconscious phenomenal character of colours. (shrink)

Abstract: Daniel Wegner’s theory of apparent mental causation is often misread. His aim was not to question the causal effectiveness of conscious mental states like intentions. Rather, he attempted to show that our subjective sense of agency is not a completely reliable indicator of the actual causality of action, and needs to be replaced by more objective means of inquiry.

Text se formou polemiky zabývá otázkou, zda je možné rozřešit filozofický spor mezi realismem a konstruktivismem. Oproti mínění Jaroslava Peregrina hájí autor tezi, že tento spor rozřešit lze, a to ve prospěch realismu. Argumenty pro realismus jsou výrazně přesvědčivější, zatímco konstruktivistické argumenty nejsou ničím podložené a zároveň vedou k absurdním důsledkům. The text adresses, in a polemical fashion, the question whether the philosophical dispute between realism and constructivism can be resolved. Against the opinion of Jaroslav Peregrin, the author defends the (...) thesis that this dispute can be resolved, in favor of realism. The arguments for realism are much more convincing, while constructivist arguments are baseless and at the same time lead to absurd consequences. (shrink)

Tento článek se zabývá problémem těžké volby při srovnávání dvou velmi odlišných alternativ. Takové srovnání můžeme akceptovat jako skutečné dilema, nebo odmítnout jako chybné posouzení, protože se srovnává něco nesrovnatelného. Ale co přesně namítáme, když někoho kritizujeme, že srovnává nesrovnatelné? Co vlastně znamená, když o někom řekneme, že srovnává jablka s hruškami? Ukážeme si, že hlavním zdrojem problému není skutečnost, že se srovnávají položky různého druhu, ale spíše potřeba zohledňovat relevantní kontexty. Náročnost porovnání je úzce svázána s náročností jeho zdůvodnění. (...) Skutečnost, že se srovnává nesrovnatelné, se pak projevuje ve vadách takového zdůvodnění. Zejména v tom, že se nedostává uspokojivá odpověď na praktické otázky, proč se v daném kontextu porovnávají zrovna tyto dvě položky, proč se zde porovnávají podle tohoto a ne jiného kritéria a co z takového porovnávání pro tento kontext vlastně vyplývá. Problém srovnávání nesrovnatelného bude ilustrován na příkladech z estetiky, etiky a teorie práva. This article deals with the hard choice when comparing two very different alternatives. Such a comparison can be accepted as a true dilemma or it can be rejected as a wrong evaluation because it is compared something incomparable. But what exactly do we object to by criticizing someone for comparing the incomparable? What does it mean to say that someone compares apples with oranges? I will show that the main source of the problem is not the fact that items of different kinds are compared, but rather the need to take into account relevant contexts. The difficulty of comparison is closely linked to the hardness of its justification. The fact that it is comparing the incomparable is then reflected in the defects of such a justification. Especially in the absence of a satisfactory answer to the practical questions why just these two items are compared in the given context, why they are compared here according to this and not another criterion, and what follows from such a comparison for this context. The problem of comparing the incomparable will be illustrated by examples drawn from aesthetics, ethics and legal theory. (shrink)

The present article revolves around the notion of universality and its relation to freedom and temporal orientation in contemporary political thought, with a focus on Susan Buck-Morss' notion of universality. The purpose is twofold. Firstly, I discern and critique the historico-political premises of her approach. Secondly, I suggest an alternative historico-political approach to universality addressing the drawbacks of her approach. I present three objections to her approach. Drawing on Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom, I first present (...) a critique of the conceptualisation of freedom on which Buck-Morss' approach hinges, arguing that she overemphasises the moment of liberation. Thereafter, I turn to her reflections on historical orientation. My third objection concentrates on Buck-Morss' concept of universality. As a heuristic tool to expound on my critique, I activate the distinction between fictive and ideal universality as suggested by Étienne Balibar. I contend that Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom efficiently elucidates the questions at stake in Balibar's discussion, as well as how his distinction points to the limits of Buck-Morss' argumentation. Ultimately, I contend that these critical remarks open up for a more dialectical approach to universality as a historical-political problem. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a new questionnaire for the assessment of self-control as an individual trait. We describe the process of construction of this assessment tool. We also report the results of relevant validation studies. The questionnaire has two independent versions, one based on self-reports and another one based on other-reports. The first version consists of five subscales, called Initiative and Persistence, Proactive Control, Switching and Flexibility, Inhibition and Adjournment, and Goal Maintenance. Seven samples of participants took part in (...) the validation study. The second version has not been split into subscales. Both versions obtained satisfactory indices of internal consistency, assessed with Cronbach’s alpha. The NAS-50 and NAS-40 scores were highly correlated with other measures of self-control, including Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone’s self-control scale. They also proved to be entirely independent of general intelligence. In conclusion, both versions can be regarded reliable and valid enough, and therefore suitable for the assessment of trait self-control for research purposes. (shrink)

In this interview, Tomasz Zarębski speaks with Allan Janik, co-author of _Wittgenstein’s Vienna_ (1973, with Stephen Toulmin), on the occasion of the 50 th anniversary of the publication of this pathbreaking book. The conversation concerns the circumstances, motivations and reasons for his undertaking the work on the book, as well as its reception and place in Wittgenstein scholarship. A large part of the discussion refers to his perspective of Wittgenstein, Toulmin’s philosophical writings, and Janik’s own vision of philosophy. The interview (...) took place in Innsbruck on 23 rd and 25 th August 2023. (shrink)

Chemotherapy is one of the most common treatments used in cancer therapy despite its serious side effects, which remain a huge concern. To the most common side effects include memory and concentration problems as well as changes in taste. This paper presents a very preliminary study focusing on cognitive dysfunction after chemotherapy in breast cancer. This phenomenon, called Cancer-Related Cognitive Dysfunction, is a frequent occurrence. The obtained results prove the impact of chemotherapy on the participant’s ability to concentrate. The QEEG (...) method and digital data analysis were used as the measurement methods. (shrink)

The paper addresses the recurrent charge that Richard Rorty is a “linguistic idealist”. I show what the charge consists of and try to explain that there is a charitable reading of Rorty’s works, according to which he is not guilty of linguistic idealism. This reading draws on Putnam’s well-known conception of “internal realism” and accounts for the causal independence of the world on our linguistic practices. I also show how we can reconcile this causal independence of things and the sense (...) of our discourse being guided by them with our autonomy with regard to the construction of various “vocabularies” with which we describe, or cope with, reality. In the final part, I address in some detail Rorty’s animadversions concerning the idea of the intrinsic nature of reality. I show them to be only partly successful. (shrink)

This is a remarkable book about a man (perhaps the most important and original philosopher of our age), a society (the corrupt Austro-Hungarian Empire on the eve of dissolution), and a city (Vienna, with its fin-de siecle gaiety and corrosive melancholy). The central figure in this study of a crumbling society that gave birth to the modern world is Wittgenstein, the brilliant and gifted young thinker. With others, including Freud, Viktor Adler, and Arnold Schoenberg, he forged his ideas in a (...) classical revolt against the stuffy, doomed, and moralistic lives of the old regime. As a portrait of Wittgenstein, the book is superbly realized; it is even better as a portrait of the age, with dazzling and unusual parallels to our own confused society. Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin have acted on a striking premise: an understanding of prewar Vienna, Wittgenstein s native city, will make it easier to comprehend both his work and our own problems .This is an independent work containing much that is challenging, new, and useful. New York Times Book Review.". (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that our ordinary English words man and woman are “gender terms,” and gender is distinct from biological sex. That is, they believe womanhood and manhood are not defined even partly by biological sex. This sex/gender distinction is one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century on the broader culture, both popular and academic. Less well known are the reasons to think it’s true. My interest in this paper is to show that, upon investigation, the arguments (...) for the sex/gender distinction have feet of clay. In fact, they all fail. We will survey the literature and tour arguments in favor of the sex/gender distinction, and then we’ll critically evaluate those arguments. We’ll consider the argument from resisting biological determinism, the argument from biologically intersex people and vagueness, the argument from the normativity of gender, and some arguments from thought experiments. We’ll see that these arguments are not up to the task of supporting the sex/gender distinction; they simply don’t work. So, philosophers should either develop stronger arguments for the sex/gender distinction, or cultivate a variety of feminism that’s consistent with the traditional, biologically-based definitions of woman and man. (shrink)

Modalists think that knowledge requires forming your belief in a “modally stable” way: using a method that wouldn't easily go wrong, or using a method that wouldn't have given you this belief had it been false. Recent Modalist projects from Justin Clarke-Doane and Dan Baras defend a principle they call “Modal Security,” roughly: if evidence undermines your belief, then it must give you a reason to doubt the safety or sensitivity of your belief. Another recent Modalist project from Carlotta Pavese (...) and Bob Beddor defends “Modal Virtue Epistemology”: knowledge is a belief that is maximally modally robust across “normal” worlds. We'll offer new objections to these recent Modalist projects. We will then argue for a rival view, Explanationism: knowing something is believing it because it's true. We will show how Explanationism offers a better account of undermining defeaters than Modalism, and a better account of knowledge. (shrink)

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at epistemic risk (...) just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher-order safety. (shrink)

Feminism has long grappled with its own demarcation problem—exactly what is it to be a woman?—and the rise of trans-inclusive feminism has made this problem more urgent. I will first consider Sally Haslanger’s “social and hierarchical” account of woman, resulting from “Ameliorative Inquiry”: she balances ordinary use of the term against the instrumental value of novel definitions in advancing the cause of feminism. Then, I will turn to Katharine Jenkins’ charge that Haslanger’s view suffers from an “Inclusion Problem”: it fails (...) to class many trans women as women. Jenkins offers a novel norm-relevancy account of woman to avoid the Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ account has serious internal problems, i.e. problems by Jenkins’ own lights: it is unintelligible, or it suffers from an Inclusion Problem of its own. After that, I will develop novel arguments for the conclusion that the project of Ameliorative Inquiry is both incoherent and also impossible to complete—at least, impossible to complete in a trans-inclusive way. Trans-inclusive feminism, therefore, would do well to move beyond Ameliorative Inquiry. Insofar as that’s not possible, trans-inclusive feminism inherits the incoherence of Ameliorative Inquiry. (shrink)

Las 15 piezas que ahora lo conforman abrevan en la Historia, en confeciones personales y entrevistas, y mezclan la literatura y el periodismo de manera audaz y perfecta. Los protagonistas son hombres excepcionales y el momento que se ha elegido para contar son las visperas de sus muertes -tal vez el momento de mayor soledad y de mayor intimidad de un hombre. A traves de la magistral escritura de Tomas Eloy Martinez tenemos el privilegio de asistir a los ultimos minutos (...) de sus vidas, el momento previo a perderlo todo y cuando, resistiendo a la indiferencia del mundo, se suena con alguna inmortalidad. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We exist only because we inhabit a world in common, embedded within networks of associations between humans and nonhumans. This is endlessly disclosed by our experience of the world. And yet, despite its palpability, it is clear that we have failed to mobilize a notion of the common world into something capable of guiding our modes of thought and collective forms of activity—our attitudes, our affective lives, our politics. How have we arrived here? Bruno Latour's work suggests that an (...) answer can be found in the common world's status as information—its self-evidence works to exclude it from a world of values. What, then, should be done? In his recent work on the modes of existence Latour develops a pragmatic metaphysics inspired by the speculative method of Alfred North Whitehead. Metaphysical speculation becomes a tool for moving beyond the “bifurcation of nature” through the construction of abstractions with which to interpret the pluralism of experience. Rather than thinking of the common world as either a given fact or as a totalizing universal, Latour develops a notion of a common world out of the messiness of experience and, as such, hopes to transform us into beings who would be moved to actively pursue and care for such a notion. (shrink)

Do the facts of evolution generate an epistemic challenge to moral realism? Some think so, and many “evolutionary debunking arguments” have been discussed in the recent literature. But they are all murky right where it counts most: exactly which epistemic principle is meant to take us from evolutionary considerations to the skeptical conclusion? Here, I will identify several distinct species of evolutionary debunking argument in the literature, each one of which relies on a distinct epistemic principle. Drawing on recent work (...) in epistemology, I will show that most of these initially plausible principles are false, spoiling the arguments that rely on them. And we will see that each argument threatens only one popular view of moral psychology: a “Representationalist” view on which our moral judgments rely crucially on a mental intermediary—e.g. a sentiment, gut reaction, or affect-laden intuition—delivered by our evolved moral faculty. In the end, only one evolutionary debunking argument remains a menace: an “ Argument from Symmetry ” that I will introduce to the literature. But we will see that it should worry only all naturalists, pressuring them into a trilemma: give up moral realism, accept a rationalism that is incongruous with naturalism, or give up naturalism. Non-naturalists are free and clear. (shrink)

Recent literature in experimental philosophy has postulated the existence of the abstract/concrete paradox : the tendency to activate inconsistent intuitions depending on whether a problem to be analyzed is framed in abstract terms or is described as a concrete case. One recent study supports the thesis that this effect influences judicial decision-making, including decision-making by professional judges, in areas such as interpretation of constitutional principles and application of clear-cut rules. Here, following the existing literature in legal theory, we argue that (...) the susceptibility to such an effect might depend on whether decision-makers operate in a legal system characterized by the formalist or particularist approach to legal interpretation, with formalist systems being less susceptible to the effect. To test this hypothesis, we compare the results of experimental studies on ACP run on samples from two countries differing in legal culture: Poland and Brazil. The lack of significant differences between those results suggests that ACP is a robust effect in the legal context. (shrink)

Every student of the twentieth century has heard both of the great Viennese economist Friedrich von Hayek and of the equally great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. But what isn't well known is that the two were distant cousins and that, shortly after Wittgenstein's death in 1951, Hayek set out to write a biography of his cousin. The project was derailed by Wittgenstein family members, who felt it was to soon to publish such a work - especially one like Hayek's, so candid (...) about his cousin's difficulties and depressions. But Hayek's draft acquired an underground readership, and Wittgensteins biographers have used it extensively. Here finally, is the text of that work itself - a true goldmine in being one great thinker's view of another, whom he knew personally, even if not well. Hayek's account has the great merit of being close to its subject; the draft, moreover sheds light, not only on Wittgenstein but on Hayek as well. (shrink)

What is a woman? The definition of this central concept of feminism has lately become especially controversial and politically charged. “Ameliorative Inquirists” have rolled up their sleeves to reengineer our ordinary concept of womanhood, with a goal of including in the definition all and only those who identify as women, both “cis” and “trans.” This has proven to be a formidable challenge. Every proposal so far has failed to draw the boundaries of womanhood in a way acceptable to the Ameliorative (...) Inquirists, since not all those who identify as women count as women on these proposals, and some who count as women on these proposals don’t identify as women. This is the Trans Inclusion Problem. Is there any solution? Can there be? Recently, Katharine Jenkins, pointing to the work of Mari Mikkola, suggests that the Trans Inclusion Problem can be “deflated” rather than solved. We will investigate this proposal, and show that, unfortunately, Jenkins is mistaken: Mikkola’s project will not help us answer the Trans Inclusion Problem. After that, we’ll look at Robin Dembroff’s suggestion that we “imitate” the linguistic practices of trans inclusive and queer communities, and we will evaluate whether this would help us solve the Trans Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, this strategy also fails to solve the problem. By the end, we’ll have a better appreciation of the challenges faced by Ameliorative Inquirists in their project of redefining “woman,” and clearer view of why the Trans Inclusion Problem cannot, in fact, be solved. That’s primarily because, no matter what it means to be a woman, it’s one thing to be a woman, and another thing to identify as a woman. (shrink)

This article introduces the Special Issue on cameraless photography and the translation of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s treatise on electrical figures. It summarizes previous discussions on cameraless photography, namely those by Geoffrey Batchen and suggests relating the photogram to current post-lenticular technologies such as radiography, digital scanning or machine vision. It outlines the emergence of cameraless imaging in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century scientific research, taking Lichtenberg’s figures as an emblem of automatically generated images situated between duration and instantaneity, between image (...) making and measurement, between nature and culture. (shrink)

According to Ted Nannicelli, ethical disputes about art today often concern not the controversial attitudes expressed by the works but the ways in which they have been created, that is, as well as interpretation-oriented ethical criticism of art, we find production-oriented ethical criticism. The main question that I explore in this article is: are the interpretation- and production-oriented approaches to ethical art criticism essentially disconnected or can there be a connection between them? I argue that in the disjunctivist view, the (...) two approaches are disconnected, for ethical flaws in the production of artworks are never conditioned by ethical flaws in the attitudes expressed by those works and vice versa. I show that disjunctivism is mistaken and defend what I call contextual conjunctivism. In this view, the two approaches can be connected since attitudinal ethical flaws in artworks can indeed cause ethical flaws in their production and vice versa depending on context. I support this view using several examples of controversies about contemporary art. (shrink)

This paper addresses Arthur Danto’s claim that contemporary artworks, such as Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box, do not differ perceptually from ordinary objects, and that in order to see contemporary artworks as art the viewer has to move from mere experience to a meaning expressed by the work. I propose to supplement Danto’s thesis. I argue that, while some contemporary artworks may indeed be perceptually indistinguishable from ordinary objects, these works are distinguishable not only by means of meaning but also by (...) means of a non-perceptual aesthetic experience. I then discuss two theories that might provide a model of such an aesthetic experience. First, I focus on James Shelley’s theory of non-perceptual aesthetic experience conceived as a representation of non-perceptual aesthetic properties. Second, I discuss Jérôme Dokic’s adverbialist theory, which sees aesthetic experience as a combination of non-aesthetic attitudes. I argue that the adverbialist model is the most promising candidate for solving our problem. The model must be extended, however, if it is to account for pragmatic attitudes in response to artworks. (shrink)

According to informal logic, the possibilities of deductive logic as a tool for analysing and evaluating ordinary arguments are very limited. While I agree with this claim in general, I question it in the case of the argument from cause to effect. In this paper I first show, on the basis of carefully chosen examples, that we usually react differently to falsification of the conclusion of the argument from cause to effect than we do to the falsification of the conclusion (...) of other defeasible arguments. I then identify general conditions and assumptions under which the causal argument from cause to effect can be reconstructed as deductive. Finally, I compare the causal argument with the expert argument, which is a typical example of a defeasible argument in the narrower sense. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to challenge the idea that Toulmin’s main focus in The Uses of Argument is to critique formal deductive logic. I first try to challenge the argument that, on the basis of what Toulmin says about analytic arguments, it is impossible to determine exactly what they are. I will then attempt to determine the basic contours of analytic arguments. Finally, I will conclude that the concept of an analytic argument involves epistemological assumptions to which formal (...) logicians are in no way committed by the nature of their discipline. (shrink)

In an essay recently published in this journal (“Is Safety in Danger?”), Fernando Broncano-Berrocal defends the safety condition on knowledge from a counterexample proposed by Tomas Bogardus (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2012). In this paper, we will define the safety condition, briefly explain the proposed counterexample, and outline Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety condition. We will then raise four objections to Broncano-Berrocal’s defense, four implausible implications of his central claim. In the end, we conclude that Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety (...) condition is unsuccessful, and that the safety condition on knowledge should be rejected. (shrink)

MV-algebras stand for the many-valued Łukasiewicz logic the same as Boolean algebras for the classical logic. States on MV-algebras were first mentioned [20] in probability theory and later also introduced in effort to capture a notion of `an average truth-value of proposition' [15] in Łukasiewicz many-valued logic. In the presented paper, an integral representation theorem for finitely-additive states on semisimple MV-algebra will be proven. Further, we shall prove extension theorems concerning states defined on sub-MV-algebras and normal partitions of unity generalizing (...) in this way the well-known Horn-Tarski theorem for Boolean algebras. (shrink)

This study was designed to survey the extent to which private companies in Sweden take structural measures within the field of business ethics: Codes of Ethics; Ethics Committees; Ethics Officers and Ethics Training. This was done in two steps. Through a nation-wide telephone survey, a population of "active" companies were identified. These companies received a questionnaire with detailed questions regarding the design, usage and effects of these measures. The percentage of active companies were found to be a high 46%. National (...) and industry characteristics are proposed as explanatory factors. (shrink)

V práci sa zaoberám kritickou expozíciou argumentačných schém v kontexte pragma-dialektického prístupu k argumentácii. Nadväzujem pritom na prácu Hitchcocka a Wagemansa (2011), ktorí sa sústredili najmä na problémy súvisiace s typológiou argumentačných schém v pragma-dialektike. Pozorovania Hitchcocka a Wagemansa sú v priebehu výkladu kriticky hodnotené, prípadne upravené. Časť kritiky, ktorú v práci uvádzam, súvisí s tým, že niektoré dôležité aspekty argumentačných schém sú v rôznych pragma-dialektických publikáciách prezentované odlišne bez toho, aby sa odlišnosť akokoľvek komentovala, alebo zdôvodnila. Existencia takýchto zdôvodnení (...) nie je pritom iba znakom, ale aj nevyhnutnou podmienkou toho, aby sme akúkoľvek zmenu mohli nazývať pokrokom v teórii. Posledná časť práce je zameraná na problémy týkajúce sa hodnotenia argumentácie v pragma-dialektickom prístupe. Hoci článok prináša vlastné pozitívne návrhy, dôraz a celkový zámer spočíva predovšetkým na expozícii nedostatkov súčasného stavu pragma-dialektickej koncepcie argumentačných schém. Kľúčové slová: argumentačné schémy, kritické otázky, pragma-dialektický prístup k argumentácii, hodnotenie argumentov. (shrink)