In recent years there has been an explosion of interest by companies in developing approaches to instill values in their decision‐making processes and to manage and report on their social performance. The emerging field of social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting (SEAAR) is characterised by considerable differentiation not only in terminology, but also in methodology and focus. This article aims to analyse the key conceptual and methodological differences between internally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with ethics (behavioural) issues, and (...) externally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with social (stakeholder) issues. In their discussion of the benefits and potential pitfalls of exclusively internally or externally focussed approaches the authors suggest two organisational metaphors as heuristics – the Cultish and the Chameleon organisation. The authors then propose an integrative approach to SEAAR which will overcome this dissonance and initiate a mutually reinforcing process that, in the long‐term, can build both internal trust and cohesiveness and external credibility. The suggested approach is characterised as social and ethical alchemy since the aim is to achieve more than the sum of the two separate parts – a business ethics programme and a social reporting process – by creating leverage and synergy between the key components. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Taxonomies of living things and the methods used to produce them changed little with the institutionalization of evolutionary thinking in biology. Instead, the relationships expressed in existing taxonomies were merely reinterpreted as the result of evolution, and evolutionary concepts were developed to justify existing methods. I argue that the delay of the Darwinian Revolution in biological taxonomy has resulted partly from a failure to distinguish between two fundamentally different ways of ordering identified by Griffiths : classification and systematization. Classification consists (...) of ordering entities into classes, groups defined by the attributes of their members; in contrast, systematization consists of ordering entities into systems, more inclusive entities whose existence depends on some natural process through which their parts are related. Evolutionary, or phylogenetic, systematics takes evolutionary descent to be the natural process of interest in biological taxonomy. I outline a general framework for a truly phylogenetic systematics and examine some of its consequences. (shrink)

Can trust evolve on the Internet between virtual strangers? Recently, Pettit answered this question in the negative. Focusing on trust in the sense of ‘dynamic, interactive, and trusting’ reliance on other people, he distinguishes between two forms of trust: primary trust rests on the belief that the other is trustworthy, while the more subtle secondary kind of trust is premised on the belief that the other cherishes one’s esteem, and will, therefore, reply to an act of trust in kind (‘trust-responsiveness’). (...) Based on this theory Pettit argues that trust between virtual strangers is impossible: they lack all evidence about one another, which prevents the imputation of trustworthiness and renders the reliance on trust-responsiveness ridiculous. I argue that this argument is flawed, both empirically and theoretically. In several virtual communities amazing acts of trust between pure virtuals have been observed. I propose that these can be explained as follows. On the one hand, social cues, reputation, reliance on third parties, and participation in (quasi-) institutions allow imputing trustworthiness to varying degrees. On the other, precisely trust-responsiveness is also relied upon, as a necessary supplement to primary trust. In virtual markets, esteem as a fair trader is coveted while it contributes to building up one’s reputation. In task groups, a hyperactive style of action may be adopted which amounts to assuming (not: inferring) trust. Trustors expect that their virtual co-workers will reply in kind while such an approach is to be considered the most appropriate in cyberspace. In non-task groups, finally, members often display intimacies while they are confident someone else ‘out there’ will return them. This is facilitated by the one-to-many, asynchronous mode of communication within mailing lists. (shrink)

By giving the proper emphasis to both radical skepticism and naturalism as two independent standpoints in Hume, I wish to propose a more satisfactory account of some of the more puzzling Humean claims on causation. I place these claims alternatively in either the philosophical standpoint of the radical skeptic or in the standpoint of everyday and scientific beliefs. I characterize Hume’s radical skeptical standpoint in relation to Hume’s perceptual model of the traditional theory of ideas, and I argue that Hume‘s (...) radical skeptical argument concerning our causal inferences is inextricably linked to his skeptical argument concerning our idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect. I discuss Hume’s naturalistic account of the origin of our idea of necessity and offer a new reading of Hume’s two “definitions” of cause. I argue along the way against central aspects of two opposing styles of interpretation---Norman Kemp Smith’s and Annette Baier’s, on the one hand, and Robert Fogelin’s, on the other---that in my view do not appreciate the mutual autonomy of radical skepticism and naturalism in Hume. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest by companies in developing approaches to instill values in their decision‐making processes and to manage and report on their social performance. The emerging field of social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting (SEAAR) is characterised by considerable differentiation not only in terminology, but also in methodology and focus. This article aims to analyse the key conceptual and methodological differences between internally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with ethics (behavioural) issues, and (...) externally focussed approaches to SEAAR, dealing with social (stakeholder) issues. In their discussion of the benefits and potential pitfalls of exclusively internally or externally focussed approaches the authors suggest two organisational metaphors as heuristics – the Cultish and the Chameleon organisation. The authors then propose an integrative approach to SEAAR which will overcome this dissonance and initiate a mutually reinforcing process that, in the long‐term, can build both internal trust and cohesiveness and external credibility. The suggested approach is characterised as social and ethical alchemy since the aim is to achieve more than the sum of the two separate parts – a business ethics programme and a social reporting process – by creating leverage and synergy between the key components. (shrink)

Genetic engineering evokes a number of objections that are not directed at the negative effects the technique might have on the health and welfare of the modified animals. The concept of animal integrity is often invoked to articulate these kind of objections. Moreover, in reaction to the advent of genetic engineering, the concept has been extended from the level of the individual animal to the level of the genome and of the species. However, the concept of animal integrity was not (...) developed in the context of genetic engineering. Given this external origin, the aim of this paper is to critically examine the assumption that the concept of integrity, including its extensions to the level of the genome and the species, is suitable to articulate and justify moral objections more specifically directed at the genetic engineering of animals. (shrink)

In many logics dealing with information one needs to make statements not only about cognitive states, but also about transitions between them. In this paper we analyze a dynamic modal logic that has been designed with this purpose in mind. On top of an abstract information ordering on states it has instructions to move forward or backward along this ordering, to states where a certain assertion holds or fails, while it also allows combinations of such instructions by means of operations (...) from relation algebra. In addition, the logic has devices for expressing whether in a given state a certain instruction can be carried out, and whether that state can be arrived at by carrying out a certain instruction. This paper deals mainly with technical aspects of our dynamic modal logic. It gives an exact description of the expressive power of this language; it also contains results on decidability for the language with 'arbitrary' structures and for the special case with a restricted class of admissible structures. In addition, a complete axiomatization is given. The paper concludes with a remark about the modal algebras appropriate for our dynamic modal logic, and some questions for further work. The paper only contains some sketchy examples showing how the logic can be used to capture situations of dynamic interest, far more detailed applications are given in a companion to this paper (De Rijke [33]). (shrink)

This paper addresses the two interpretations that a combination ofnegative indefinites can get in concord languages like French:a concord reading, which amounts to a single negation, and a doublenegation reading. We develop an analysis within a polyadic framework,where a sequence of negative indefinites can be interpreted as aniteration of quantifiers or via resumption. The first option leadsto a scopal relation, interpreted as double negation. The secondoption leads to the construction of a polyadic negative quantifiercorresponding to the concord reading. Given that (...) sentential negationparticipates in negative concord, we develop an extension of thepolyadic approach which can deal with non-variable binding operators,treating the contribution of negation in a concord context assemantically empty. Our semantic analysis, incorporated into agrammatical analysis formulated in HPSG, crucially relies on theassumption that quantifiers can be combined in more than one wayupon retrieval from the quantifier store. We also considercross-linguistic variation regarding the participation ofsentential negation in negative concord. (shrink)

A theory of collective violence must explain both why it is collective and why it is violent. Whereas my earlier work addresses the question of why collective violence is violent, here I apply and extend Donald Black's theory of partisanship to the question of why violence collectivizes. I propose in general that the collectivization of violence is a direct function of strong partisanship. Strong partisanship arises when third parties support one side against the other and are solidary among themselves. Such (...) support occurs when third parties are socially close to one side and remote from the other and when one side has more social status than the other. Third parties are solidary when they are intimate, culturally homogeneous, and interdependent. I focus in particular on lynching: Lynching is a joint function of strong partisanship toward the alleged victim and weak partisanship toward the alleged offender. Unequal strong partisanship appears in both classic lynchings and communal lynchings across societies and history. Where partisanship is weak or strong on both sides, lynching is unlikely to occur. Evidence includes patterns of lynching in various tribal societies, the American South, imperial China, and medieval Europe. (shrink)

With the advent of the cloud computing model allowing a shared access to massive computing facilities, a surging demand emerges for the protection of the intellectual property tied to the programs executed on these uncontrolled systems. If novel paradigm as confidential computing aims at protecting the data manipulated during the execution, obfuscating techniques (in particular at the source code level) remain a popular solution to conceal the purpose of a program or its logic without altering its functionality, thus preventing reverse-engineering (...) on the program even with the help of computing resources. The many advantages of code obfuscation, together with its low cost, makes it a popular technique. This paper proposes a novel methodology for source code obfuscation that can be used together with other traditional obfuscation techniques, making the code more robust against reverse engineering attacks. Three program complexity metrics are used to define three different single-objective combinatorial optimization versions of the problem, which are solved and analysed. Additionally, three multi-objective problems are defined, those considering each of the selected metrics together with the program execution time, in order to avoid strong obfuscations penalizing the performance. The goal of the defined problems is to find sequences of LLVM optimizations that lead to highly obfuscated versions of the original code. These transformations are applied to the back-end pseudo-assembly code (i.e., LLVM Intermediate Representation), thus avoiding any further optimizations by the compiler. Classical genetic algorithms (GAs) are used to solve the studied problems, namely a basic cellular GA for the single-objective problems and the popular NSGA-II for the multi-objective ones. The promising results show the potential of the proposed technique. (shrink)

Davidson’s anomalous monism, his argument for the identity between mental and physical event tokens, has been frequently attacked, usually demanding a higher degree of physicalist commitment. My objection runs in the opposite direction: the identities inferred by Davidson from mental causation, the nomological character of causality and the anomaly of the mental are philosophically problematic and, more dramatically, incompatible with his famous argument against the third dogma of empiricism, the separation of content from conceptual scheme. Given the anomaly of the (...) mental and the absence of psychophysical laws, there are no conceptual resources to relate mental and physical predicates. We fall in the third dogma if we claim that the very same token event is mental and physical. One of the premises must be rejected: I will claim that we do not need a law to subsume cause and effect to be entitled to speak of causation. Davidson has never offered an argument to back this premise. Against such a dogma I will sketch some ideas pointing towards a different conception of causality, singularist and undetachable from explanatory practices. (shrink)

O presente artigo contempla a contextualização da educação superior na contemporaneidade, seus desafios e exigências demandados pelos novos tempos e espaços de formação em relação aos estudos da Educação a Distância (EaD) e aos avanços frente aos processos de ensino e aprendizagem em EaD. Este estudo é parte da investigação qualitativa realizada junto aos cursos de Pedagogia EaD da Universidade de Caxias do Sul (UCS) e da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). O lastro teórico que embasou esta (...) investigação foram os estudos apresentados por Belloni (2003), Litwin (2001), Leite (2002), Sancho (2006) e outros. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam que a EaD, mediada pelas tecnologias, apresenta características que propõem avanços aos processos de ensino e aprendizagem dessa modalidade, produzindo mudanças na cultura dos sujeitos, tornando os autônomos, participativos e integrantes da cultura digital. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The "Thinking of Thinking" in MetaphysicsA.9 JOSEPH G. DE FILIPPO a+~6v &Qa voE[, e~eQ ~o~t ~6 XQ&~O~OV, xetl. I~o~tv ~1VdOloLgvo1]o~t0g v6"qotg. (A.9, 1o74b33-34) Therefore it thinks itself, if indeed it is most powerful, and its thinking is the thinking of thinking. Thus culminates Aristotle's treatment of God's activity in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics. The conclusion seems transparent. God is an intellect (vo~Sg); since he is also the (...) best thing, and it is absurd that he should think anything worse than himself, he therefore thinks himself. And since he is nothing other than a thinking (v6"qotg), what he thinks of is thinking (vo~loEe0g). "Thinking of thinking," however, is a notion that is as ambiguous in ancient Greek as it is in English. It is just not clear what sort of thing such a reflexively self-thinking mind would be, though it might seem natural to construe the activity of Aristotle's God as somehow an act of pure self-awareness, self-consciousness or self-knowledge. On such an understanding God would be a separately existing consciousness, with himself or his activity as the only object of that consciousness. In 196 9 R. Norman published a paper which disputed this sort of interpretation.' He argued that when one considers Aristotle's theory of, R. Norman, "Aristotle's Philosopher-God," Phronesis 14 (1969): 63-74 (reprinted in Articles on Aristotle, vol. 4, ed. J. Barnes, M. Schofield and R. Sorabji [London, 1979], 93-1o2). While I a-m indebted to Norman's basic approach, my treatment of God's self-thought differs substantially from his in two respects. First, although it isessential to recognize that in Aristotle human thought too thinks itself, this does not justify the conclusion that God's thinking is "of the same kind as our own normal abstract thought" (73). As 1shall argue below in section 4, the characterization of the Prime Mover as v6"qoLgvo~o~t0g is meant specifically to differentiate its activity from the selfthinking of human volSg;human thought could never be characterized as v6"qotgvofioEt0g.Secondly, Norman does not isolate the real source of A.9's argument, which, as l shall argue, is the potential conflict between Aristotle's own physical and psychological theories. M. Wedin, Mind and Imagination in Aristotle (New Haven, 1988), 229-45, also argues against Norman's thesis that human and divine thought are the same in kind. [543] 544 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER 1995 volSg from De Anima III.4-8, it is clear that the conception of God as a selfthinking mind does not entail that he engages in self-contemplation in the normal sense of the term. On Norman's interpretation, God thinks himself because he thinks a definite content with which he is numerically identical, according to the well-known Aristotelian doctrine of the unity of vo~g with its object of thought (vo~lx6v). To describe this act simply as self-contemplation belies the fact that its object must have an intelligible content, which in the case of God is not adequately described as his "self," for this self would indeed be nothing more than an act of self-contemplation. While many commentators have followed Norman in recognizing that the description of God as "thinking himself" is drawn from the De Anima's characterization of self-thinking, there has persisted a tendency to interpret Aristotle 's God as engaged in an act of pure self-awareness or under some similar description.' The reason for this persistence is due, I believe, to a crucial difference between chapters 7 and 9 of book A. Whereas both chapters characterize the Prime Mover (PM) as a self-thinker, in chapter 9 he is also said to be ~1 v61]otg vo~loec0g V6tlOtg (the thinking of thinking), which understandably appears to be a much more specific delineation of his thought content. A. 7 tells us that the PM is a vofJg that thinks itself (to72b18-3o); according to De Anima III. 4 that simply is what voa)g does at the highest level of actuality, since it... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The "Thinking of Thinking" in MetaphysicsA.9 JOSEPH G. DE FILIPPO a+~6v &Qa voE[, e~eQ ~o~t ~6 XQ&~O~OV, xetl. I~o~tv ~1VdOloLgvo1]o~t0g v6"qotg. (A.9, 1o74b33-34) Therefore it thinks itself, if indeed it is most powerful, and its thinking is the thinking of thinking. Thus culminates Aristotle's treatment of God's activity in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics. The conclusion seems transparent. God is an intellect (vo~Sg); since he is also the (...) best thing, and it is absurd that he should think anything worse than himself, he therefore thinks himself. And since he is nothing other than a thinking (v6"qotg), what he thinks of is thinking (vo~loEe0g). "Thinking of thinking," however, is a notion that is as ambiguous in ancient Greek as it is in English. It is just not clear what sort of thing such a reflexively self-thinking mind would be, though it might seem natural to construe the activity of Aristotle's God as somehow an act of pure self-awareness, self-consciousness or self-knowledge. On such an understanding God would be a separately existing consciousness, with himself or his activity as the only object of that consciousness. In 196 9 R. Norman published a paper which disputed this sort of interpretation.' He argued that when one considers Aristotle's theory of, R. Norman, "Aristotle's Philosopher-God," Phronesis 14 (1969): 63-74 (reprinted in Articles on Aristotle, vol. 4, ed. J. Barnes, M. Schofield and R. Sorabji [London, 1979], 93-1o2). While I a-m indebted to Norman's basic approach, my treatment of God's self-thought differs substantially from his in two respects. First, although it isessential to recognize that in Aristotle human thought too thinks itself, this does not justify the conclusion that God's thinking is "of the same kind as our own normal abstract thought" (73). As 1shall argue below in section 4, the characterization of the Prime Mover as v6"qoLgvo~o~t0g is meant specifically to differentiate its activity from the selfthinking of human volSg;human thought could never be characterized as v6"qotgvofioEt0g.Secondly, Norman does not isolate the real source of A.9's argument, which, as l shall argue, is the potential conflict between Aristotle's own physical and psychological theories. M. Wedin, Mind and Imagination in Aristotle (New Haven, 1988), 229-45, also argues against Norman's thesis that human and divine thought are the same in kind. [543] 544 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER 1995 volSg from De Anima III.4-8, it is clear that the conception of God as a selfthinking mind does not entail that he engages in self-contemplation in the normal sense of the term. On Norman's interpretation, God thinks himself because he thinks a definite content with which he is numerically identical, according to the well-known Aristotelian doctrine of the unity of vo~g with its object of thought (vo~lx6v). To describe this act simply as self-contemplation belies the fact that its object must have an intelligible content, which in the case of God is not adequately described as his "self," for this self would indeed be nothing more than an act of self-contemplation. While many commentators have followed Norman in recognizing that the description of God as "thinking himself" is drawn from the De Anima's characterization of self-thinking, there has persisted a tendency to interpret Aristotle 's God as engaged in an act of pure self-awareness or under some similar description.' The reason for this persistence is due, I believe, to a crucial difference between chapters 7 and 9 of book A. Whereas both chapters characterize the Prime Mover (PM) as a self-thinker, in chapter 9 he is also said to be ~1 v61]otg vo~loec0g V6tlOtg (the thinking of thinking), which understandably appears to be a much more specific delineation of his thought content. A. 7 tells us that the PM is a vofJg that thinks itself (to72b18-3o); according to De Anima III. 4 that simply is what voa)g does at the highest level of actuality, since it... (shrink)

Perhaps the commonest reasons for the keeping of pets are companionship and as a conduit for affection. Pets are, therefore, being “used” for human ends in much the same way as laboratory or farm animals. So shouldn’t the same arguments apply to the use of pets as to those used in other ways? In accepting the “rights” of farm animals to fully express their natural behavior, one must also accept the “right” of pets to express their intrinsic natural behavior. Dogs (...) kept in houses for most of the day are being kept in an unnatural environment. So are rabbits kept in hutches, and guinea-pigs or birds in cages. These conditions infringe the animals’ telos. Dogs are naturally pack animals, so is a dog in isolation being denied its telos? Other actions more deliberately infringe telos and autonomy. Enforced shampooing – or even exercise; hair-cutting of poodles; putting animals in clothes; and tail-docking. If de-beaking of chickens is considered wrong, then the same must be true for tail-docking of dogs. One should also question the ethics of specialist breeding – especially when that results in physiological disadvantages. There would appear to be no advantage to the animals in having such health problems and when these are the direct result of the breeders’ desire for specific cosmetic traits, we should question the ethics of the practice at least as much as when animals are bred for specific agricultural traits. (shrink)

Scientists, the medical profession, philosophers, social scientists, policy makers, and the public at large have been quick to embrace the accomplishments of genetic science. The enthusiasm for the new biotechnologies is not unrelated to their worthy goal. The belief that the new genetic technologies will help to decrease human suffering by improving the public’s health has been a significant influence in the acceptance of technologies such as genetic testing and screening. But accepting this end should not blind us to the (...) need for an evaluation of whether a particular means is adequate to achieve it. Lack of such evaluation notwithstanding, discussions of the ethical, legal, and social implications have tended to presuppose that the development and implementation of genetic testing will be an appropriate means to reduce human suffering in significant ways. I argue here that such an assumption is mistaken. In part this is the case because human biology is more complex than sometimes it is made to appear in these debates. But, the idea that human suffering resulting from disease can be reduced in significant ways with the use of genetic testing also ignores the social contexts in which these technologies are being developed and implemented. (shrink)

A review of the chemical education research literature suggests that the term constructivism is used in two ways: experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. These two perspectives are examined as an epistemology in relation to the teaching and learning of the concept of idealization in chemistry. It is claimed that experience-based constructivism is powerless to inform the origin of such concepts in chemistry and while discipline-based constructivism can admit such theoretical concepts as idealization it does not offer any unique perspectives that (...) cannot be obtained from other models. Chemical education researchers do not consistently appeal to constructivism as an epistemology or as a teaching/learning perspective and it is shown that, while it draws attention to worthwhile teaching/learning strategies, it cannot be considered as foundational to chemical education research and tends to be used more as an educational label than as an undergirding theory. (shrink)

This paper addresses the two interpretations that a combination ofnegative indefinites can get in concord languages like French:a concord reading, which amounts to a single negation, and a doublenegation reading. We develop an analysis within a polyadic framework,where a sequence of negative indefinites can be interpreted as aniteration of quantifiers or via resumption. The first option leadsto a scopal relation, interpreted as double negation. The secondoption leads to the construction of a polyadic negative quantifiercorresponding to the concord reading. Given that (...) sentential negationparticipates in negative concord, we develop an extension of thepolyadic approach which can deal with non-variable binding operators,treating the contribution of negation in a concord context assemantically empty. Our semantic analysis, incorporated into agrammatical analysis formulated in HPSG, crucially relies on theassumption that quantifiers can be combined in more than one wayupon retrieval from the quantifier store. We also considercross-linguistic variation regarding the participation ofsentential negation in negative concord. (shrink)

In this paper we consider an intuitionistic variant of the modal logic S4 (which we call IS4). The novelty of this paper is that we place particular importance on the natural deduction formulation of IS4— our formulation has several important metatheoretic properties. In addition, we study models of IS4— not in the framework of Kirpke semantics, but in the more general framework of category theory. This allows not only a more abstract definition of a whole class of models but also (...) a means of modelling proofs as well as provability. (shrink)

Theories about the changes on the organisms, in the time scale, are know since the 18th century. However, the most famous, as well as the more debated, was the one by Charles Robert Darwin, in his great book On the origin of species. It is interesting to note that while this naturalist was born, in 1809, a book by the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Antoine Pierre de Monet, known as Lamarck, was published, Philosophie zoologique, where another theory of the transformations (...) of the organisms were also proposed. Darwin cited that theory quite enthusiastically, as he himself said in the On the origin; his first scientific work were, in fact, inspired in Lamarck, his theory of inheritance, in another of his books, Variation of animals and plants under domestication, was basically lamarckian, particularly related to the inheritance of acquired characters. And, “from so simple beginning”, as Darwin expressed in the last lines of The origin, the “theory of species transmutations”, as he called at first his theory, was changed in the following years, until achieving the hegemonic theory of the XXth century, called The Evolutionary Synthesis. Is this journey that will be presented here, culminating with a contemporary proposal, in 2010, called The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis which is still being confronted with the former theory. Keywords: Biological evolution. Processes of evolution. Genetics. History and philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Mental disorders are often thought to be harmful dysfunctions. Jerome Wakefield has argued that such dysfunctions should be understood as failures of naturally selected functions. This suggests that evolutionary biology and other Darwinian disciplines hold important information for anyone working on answering the philosophical question, "What is a mental disorder?". In this article, the author argues that Darwinian theory is not only relevant to the understanding of the disrupted functions, but it also sheds light on the disruption itself, as well (...) as on the harm that attends the disruption. The arguments advanced here are partially based on the view that a core feature of Darwinism is that it stresses the environmental relativity of functions and dysfunctions. These arguments show a very close empirical connection between social judgments and dysfunctions, which is of interest for psychiatric theory. Philosophically, they lead to the conclusion that the concept of mental disorder is identical to the concept of mental dysfunction. Consequently, it is both misleading and redundant to conceptualize mental disorders as 'harmful dysfunctions', and not simply as 'mental dysfunctions'. (shrink)

The theme of training engineering is still relatively absent in Brazilian academic writing, appearing only in the early 2000s. In Brazil, research on “didactic engineering” is more frequent. In this article, we study the uses of the construct of didactic engineering in Brazilian scientific writing. This exploratory study is based on an analysis of theses and articles in Brazilian scientific journals. In Master’s and doctoral programs, references to didactic engineering mask an uncritical and unoriginal appropriation of ideas most often imported (...) from French didactics. (shrink)

This article is an account of the dynamics of interaction across the social sciences and neurosciences. Against an arid rhetoric of ‘interdisciplinarity’, it calls for a more expansive imaginary of what experiment – as practice and ethos – might offer in this space. Arguing that opportunities for collaboration between social scientists and neuroscientists need to be taken seriously, the article situates itself against existing conceptualizations of these dynamics, grouping them under three rubrics: ‘critique’, ‘ebullience’ and ‘interaction’. Despite their differences, each (...) insists on a distinction between sociocultural and neurobiological knowledge, or does not show how a more entangled field might be realized. The article links this absence to the ‘regime of the inter-’, an ethic of interdisciplinarity that guides interaction between disciplines on the understanding of their pre-existing separateness. The argument of the paper is thus twofold: (1) that, contra the ‘regime of the inter-’, it is no longer practicable to maintain a hygienic separation between sociocultural webs and neurobiological architecture; (2) that the cognitive neuroscientific experiment, as a space of epistemological and ontological excess, offers an opportunity to researchers, from all disciplines, to explore and register this realization. (shrink)

The goal of the present paper is to assess Hans Vaihinger’s understanding of the notion of the given in Die Philosophie des Als Ob. The claim will be advanced that the overall framework of Vaihinger’s theory of knowledge and, more specifically, his understanding of both the given and fictions should be sought for in the manner in which R. Hermann Lotze assesses the problem of knowledge, namely, the relation between thought and being in both his early and late Logik. As (...) we will argue, the way in which Vaihinger recasts the opposition between what is given objectively (data of sensations) and what is added subjectively is to be deemed a direct radicalization of Lotze’s own stance. As the conclusion will further add, what is at stake inVaihinger’s fictionalism is a quite specific understanding of the ideas of reason and transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

This article investigates the gender diversity of the corporate board of European Union banks. Employing a large sample of 612 European banks from 20 European countries, it identifies organizational characteristics that could be predictive of women’s presence on bank boards. We identify three factors that play a particularly important role in defining bank board gender diversity. First, the proportion of women on the board is higher for lower-risk banks. We argue that there may be some statistical discrimination behind this relation, (...) although it could also be explained by a real risk-aversion hypothesis. Second, banks with larger boards have a higher proportion of women on their boards, which could be considered a signal of some kind of preference for homogeneity on small boards. Finally, banks that have a growth orientation are more prone to include women on their board, since they may be seen as providers of diverse external resources that are more valued by firms operating under critical circumstances. (shrink)

In Chapter II of his work The Philosophy of Spinoza, Wolfson accepts Descartes' distinction between the geometrical method of philosophizing and the geometrical form of literary exposition. The geometrical method of philosophizing is a method of demonstration and is essentially identical with “valid syllogistic reasoning as practised throughout the history of philosophy.” The geometrical form of literary exposition is one modelled after the literary form of Euclid's Elements. Wolfson proceeds to present two theses which serve as the premises of a (...) conclusion respecting the relation between form and content in Spinoza's Ethics. The first thesis is that as a consequence of Spinoza's “mathematical way of looking at things” the geometrical method “is adopted by Spinoza and used consistently in his discussions of metaphysical matters throughout his chief philosophic work.” The second thesis is to the effect that there is no logical connection between the geometrical method of philosophizing and the geometrical literary form of exposition, i.e., a geometrizing philosopher, e.g., Descartes, need not employ the geometrical literary form. From these theses, serving as premises, Wolfson concludes that “there is no logical connection between the substance of Spinoza's philosophy and the form in which it is written” and, hence, “his choice of the Euclidian geometrical form is to be explained on other grounds.” Wolfson proceeds to present four possible reasons which, either individually or conjointly, may lie behind Spinoza's employment of the geometrical literary form: on pedagogical grounds, in reaction against certain literary forms which had developed since the Renaissance, to avoid arguing against his opponents, and for the sake of novelty. (shrink)

Several feminist philosophers of science have argued that social and political values are compatible with, and may even enhance, scientific objectivity. A variety of normative recommendations have emerged regarding how to identify, manage, and critically evaluate social values in science. In particular, several feminist theorists have argued that scientific communities ought to: 1) include researchers with diverse experiences, interests, and values, with equal opportunity and authority to scrutinize research; 2) investigate or "study up" scientific phenomena from the perspectives, interests, and (...) conditions of marginalized stakeholders potentially affected by the research; and 3) make gender, ethnicity, class, and geographical location "visible," or use them as categories of analysis when appropriate. Yet, more work is needed to determine what exactly these recommendations would require, and the benefits they would yield, in specific research contexts. Using the recent development of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, we examine how these three feminist recommendations would have applied. We argue that these principles would have yielded several epistemic and social benefits in the HPV case, as well as in biomedical research more generally. That is, biomedical research guided by these principles would not only be epistemically superior, but also more socially responsible. (shrink)

The notion of “responsibility gap” with artificial intelligence (AI) was originally introduced in the philosophical debate to indicate the concern that “learning automata” may make more difficult or impossible to attribute moral culpability to persons for untoward events. Building on literature in moral and legal philosophy, and ethics of technology, the paper proposes a broader and more comprehensive analysis of the responsibility gap. The responsibility gap, it is argued, is not one problem but a set of at least four interconnected (...) problems – gaps in culpability, moral and public accountability, active responsibility—caused by different sources, some technical, other organisational, legal, ethical, and societal. Responsibility gaps may also happen with non-learning systems. The paper clarifies which aspect of AI may cause which gap in which form of responsibility, and why each of these gaps matter. It proposes a critical review of partial and non-satisfactory attempts to address the responsibility gap: those which present it as a new and intractable problem (“fatalism”), those which dismiss it as a false problem (“deflationism”), and those which reduce it to only one of its dimensions or sources and/or present it as a problem that can be solved by simply introducing new technical and/or legal tools (“solutionism”). The paper also outlines a more comprehensive approach to address the responsibility gaps with AI in their entirety, based on the idea of designing socio-technical systems for “meaningful human control", that is systems aligned with the relevant human reasons and capacities. (shrink)

This paper addresses the two interpretations that a combination ofnegative indefinites can get in concord languages like French:a concord reading, which amounts to a single negation, and a doublenegation reading. We develop an analysis within a polyadic framework,where a sequence of negative indefinites can be interpreted as aniteration of quantifiers or via resumption. The first option leadsto a scopal relation, interpreted as double negation. The secondoption leads to the construction of a polyadic negative quantifiercorresponding to the concord reading. Given that (...) sentential negationparticipates in negative concord, we develop an extension of thepolyadic approach which can deal with non-variable binding operators,treating the contribution of negation in a concord context assemantically empty. Our semantic analysis, incorporated into agrammatical analysis formulated in HPSG, crucially relies on theassumption that quantifiers can be combined in more than one wayupon retrieval from the quantifier store. We also considercross-linguistic variation regarding the participation ofsentential negation in negative concord. (shrink)

This paper provides an exploratory comparative assessment of the institutional pressures influencing corporate social responsibility in a developed country, UK, vs. a developing country, Brazil, based on a survey of different actors. Information on sustainability concerns, organizational strategies and mechanisms of pressure was collected through interviews with environmental regulatory agencies, financial institutions, media and non-governmental organizations. Our results confirm that the more advanced awareness and CSR responsiveness in the UK is a consequence of a predominance of coercive and normative forces (...) on the organizational field. The institutional forces tend to build a Brazilian organizational field that is relational based and risk intensive. The findings lend support to the view that CSR responses are unlikely to be easily transformed into uniform standardized practices across the globe. This paper contributes to a collective understanding of the organizational field and a common template for CSR in the context of developed and developing countries. (shrink)

On the ethics of extending human life: healthy people have a right to carry on livingHumanity has long demonstrated a paradoxical ambivalence concerning the extension of a healthy human lifespan. Modest health extension has been universally sought, whereas extreme health extension has been regarded as a snare and delusion—a dream beyond all others at first blush, but actually something we are better off without. The prevailing pace of biotechnological progress is bringing ever closer the day when humanity will be able (...) to act on the latter view by rejecting a clear and present opportunity for much longer healthy lives. Indeed, some biogerontologists contend that that day has already arrived, to the extent that our hesitation in embarking on a vigorous “war on ageing” is already delaying the point at which a cure for ageing will be developed. Here I consider whether our present caution concerning the wisdom of truly curing ageing is likely to survive the increased scrutiny that it will receive in coming years as a result of these technical advances. I conclude that it will not, because of its irreconcilability with values that are more deeply held by the large majority of humanity than any values that argue against the quest for a cure. I further conclude that all the major current reasons given for not curing ageing are mere crutches to help us cope with the immutability of ageing that we have been brought up to accept. Our failure to set aside such irrationality is already shortening potential longevity—quite probably of those already alive today—to a staggering degree. Once we realise this, our determination to consign human ageing to history will be second …. (shrink)

Each person is perceived by others and by herself as an individual in a very strong sense, namely as a unique individual. Moreover, this supposed uniqueness is commonly thought of as linked with another character that we tend to attribute to persons (as opposed to stones or chairs and even non-human animals): a kind of depth, hidden to sensory perception, yet in some measure accessible to other means of knowledge. I propose a theory of strong or essential individuality. This theory (...) is introduced by way of a critical discussion of Van Inwagen’s and Baker’s ontologies of persons. Composition Theory and Constitution Theory are shown to be complementary, in their opposite strong and weak points. I argue that both theories have unsatisfactory consequences concerning personal identity, a problem which the proposed theory seems to solve more faithfully both to folk intuitions and the phenomenology of personal life. (shrink)

By giving the proper emphasis to both radical skepticism and naturalism as two independent standpoints in Hume, I wish to propose a more satisfactory account of some of the more puzzling Humean claims on causation. I place these claims alternatively in either the philosophical standpoint of the radical skeptic or in the standpoint of everyday and scientific beliefs. I characterize Hume’s radical skeptical standpoint in relation to Hume’s perceptual model of the traditional theory of ideas, and I argue that Hume‘s (...) radical skeptical argument concerning our causal inferences is inextricably linked to his skeptical argument concerning our idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect. I discuss Hume’s naturalistic account of the origin of our idea of necessity and offer a new reading of Hume’s two “definitions” of cause. I argue along the way against central aspects of two opposing styles of interpretation---Norman Kemp Smith’s and Annette Baier’s, on the one hand, and Robert Fogelin’s, on the other---that in my view do not appreciate the mutual autonomy of radical skepticism and naturalism in Hume. (shrink)

I examine the morality of sport fishing by focusing on the respect that anglers show for the interests of fish compared to the respect that hunters show for their game. Angling is a form of hunting because of the strong link between these two activities in literature, in management, and in the individual’s participation in both angling and hunting, and in the similarity of both activities during the process of pursuing an animal in order to control it. Fish are similar (...) in many ways to animals that are hunted, including their interests in survival and in avoiding pain. These interests need to be considered by anglers for moral reasons. All hunters and anglers value their sport with animals more than they respect the lives of animals they pursue. Hunters are, therefore, similar to anglers in the respect that they show for the survival interests of their game animals. Hunters, however, are significantly different from anglers in the respect that they show for an animal’s interest in avoiding pain and suffering. While hunters make every effort to reduce pain and suffering in their game animals, anglers purposefully inflict these conditions on fish. These similarities and differences have three important consequences: (1) The moral argument justifying the killing of animals for sport in hunting must apply to all of angling as well. (2) Angling, unlike hunting, requires a second justification for the intentional infliction of avoidable pain and suffering in fish. (3) If ethical hunters hold true to their principle of avoiding all suffering in the animals that they pursue, then hunters must reject all sports fishing. (shrink)

John Locke's account of personal identity is one of his most discussed theories. Opposing the Cartesian ontology of mind, Locke argued that the soul does not always think - for thinking is simply one of its operations, but not its essence -, and that personal identity consists in consciousness alone. Against Locke, an anonymous commentator published the Remarks upon an Essay concerning Humane Understanding charging Locke's view with possible immorality. Catharine Cockburn rebuffed the Remarker's objections, in her Defence of Mr. (...) Locke's Essay, depicting his view as more dangerous for morality than Locke's. This paper shifts the focus from Cockburn's defence of Locke's moral thought, to her apology for his theory of personal identity, including his probabilistic arguments in favour of the immortality of the soul. This shift of focus yields an alternative account of Cockburn's originality: first, because she offered a non-substance interpretation of Locke's theory of personal identity, that, for its time, was unusual, and remains relevant for contemporary philosophical debates over Locke; and second, because, following Kristeller, in the very act of defending and articulating anew Locke's theory, Cockburn in some sense appropriated it. (shrink)

Davidson's anomalous monism, his argument for the identity between mental and physical event tokens, has been frequently attacked, usually demanding a higher degree of physicalist commitment. My objection runs in the opposite direction: the identities inferred by Davidson from mental causation, the nomological character of causality and the anomaly of the mental are philosophically problematic and, more dramatically, incompatible with his famous argument against the third dogma of empiricism, the separation of content from conceptual scheme. Given the anomaly of the (...) mental and the absence of psychophysical laws, there are no conceptual resources to relate mental and physical predicates. We fall in the third dogma if we claim that the very same token event is mental and physical. One of the premises must be rejected: I will claim that we do not need a law to subsume cause and effect to be entitled to speak of causation. Davidson has never offered an argument to back this premise. Against such a dogma I will sketch some ideas pointing towards a different conception of causality, singularist and undetachable from explanatory practices. (shrink)