Communication strategies to shape public opinion can be applied to the philosophical program of conceptual engineering. I propose to look for answers to the implementation challenge for conceptual engineering on similar challenges that arise in other contexts, such as that of social movements. I claim that conceptual engineering is successfully practiced in other areas with direct consequences on the political landscape, and that we can apply to philosophy what we might learn from those successful practices. With that end in mind, (...) I explain the psychological approach to conceptual engineering. I present what has been called “the implementation challenge”, which is the problem that emerges from the possibility of control over the content of our concepts. The challenge consists in that if there is not such a control, conceptual engineering is not implementable. Then, I review some of the reactions that have been given to that challenge, and I defend the feasibility of conceptual engineering appealing to the collective action frames that social movements endorse as an instance of a successful kind of conceptual engineering and derive some strategies that might be of use for conceptual engineering in philosophy. Finally, I reply to some anticipated objections to my proposal. (shrink)

In this paper, we take Darwall’s analytical project of the second-person standpoint as the starting point for a naturalistic project about our moral psychology. In his project, Darwall contends that our moral notions constitutively imply the perspective of second-personal interaction, i.e. the interaction of two mutually recognized agents who make and acknowledge claims on one another. This allows him to explain the distinctive purported authority of morality. Yet a naturalized interpretation of it has potential as an account of our moral (...) psychology. We propose a naturalistic interpretation of Darwall’s work to address some of the main issues about our moral psychology. First, we explain why moral norms motivate us; namely, because of these second-personal relations. We provide a naturalized version of this solution. Second, we articulate how intersubjective interactions take place effectively; grounding duties to particular other subjects, and being related to distinctive moral emotions. Third, we address the question of the limits of the moral community, proposing that it comprises all agents capable of second-personal interactions. Finally, we explain the emergence of community norms through intersubjective interaction. Since all group members can adopt alternatively the second-personal stance to each other, demands are sanctioned and recognized in a triangulation process which explains the emergence of group norms. (shrink)

We show that externalization is a feature not only of moral judgment, but also of value judgment in general. It follows that the evolution of externalization was not specific to moral judgment. Second, we argue that value judgments cannot be decoupled from the level of motivations and preferences, which, in the moral case, rely on intersubjective bonds and claims.

Emotional contagion is a phenomenon that has attracted much interest in recent times. However, the main approach on offer, the mimicry theory, fails to properly account for its many facets. In particular, we focus on two shortcomings: the elicitation of emotional contagion is not context-independent, and there can be cases of emotional contagion without motor mimicry. We contend that a general theory of emotion elicitation is better suited to account for these features, because of its multi-level appraisal component. From this (...) standpoint, emotional contagion is viewed as a particular kind of emotional response that involves the same components and processes of emotional responses in general. (shrink)

Joint attention is a social-cognitive phenomenon in which two or more agents direct their attention together towards the same object. Definitions range from this rather broad conception to more specific definitions which require that, in addition, attention be directed to the same aspect of that object and that agents need to be mutually aware of their jointly attending. Joint attention is an important coordination mechanism in joint action. The capacity for engaging in joint attention, in particular in the sense of (...) this narrower definition, is frequently taken to indicate the presence of theory of mind in the participating agents, and is also implicated in the development of theory of mind. However, the prominence of sensorimotor components in establishing and sustaining episodes of joint attention — e.g., eye and head movements, pointing and vocalizations — suggests that sensorimotor approaches to social interaction may be well-placed to account for important parts of joint attention without invoking theory-of-mind abilities, and may therefore provide a valuable alternative to approaches emphasizing theory of mind. In particular, sensorimotor accounts may explain aspects of joint attention through the dynamics and regularities in the sensorimotor processes that coordinate the activities of the agents. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss Prinz’s Kantian arguments in “Is Empathy Necessary for Morality?”. They purport to show that empathy is not necessary for morality because it is not part of the capacities required for moral competence and it can bias moral judgment. First, we show that even conceding Prinz his notions of empathy and moral competence, empathy still plays a role in moral competence. Second, we argue that moral competence is not limited to moral judgment. Third, we reject Prinz’s (...) notion of empathy because it is too restrictive, in requiring emotional matching. We conclude that once morality and empathy are properly understood, empathy’s role in morality is vindicated. Morality is not reduced to a form of rational judgment, but it necessarily presupposes pro-social preferences and motivation and sensitivity to inter-subjective demands. (shrink)

The love that we feel for our friends plays an essential role in both our moral motivation to act towards them; and in our moral obligations towards them, that is, in our special duties. We articulate our proposal as a reply to Stephen Darwall’s second-person proposal, which we take to be a contemporary representative of the Kantian view. According to this view, love does not have a necessary role neither in moral motivation, nor in moral obligation; just a complementary one. (...) Yet this proposal faces three difficulties: a psychological problem, a practical problem, and a theoretical problem. In contrast, we argue that both moral motivation, and moral obligations emerge from our interpersonal relations with particular others. We further argue that obligations in the context of friendship are moral because they come with a feeling of obligation and have been internalized. Thus, the three problems raised to the Kantian position are clarified, and the role of love is emphasized in both our moral motivation, and our moral obligations towards friends. (shrink)

Building on the discussion between Stephen Darwall and Michael Tomassello, we propose an alternative evolutionary account of moral motivation in its two-pronged dimension. We argue that an evolutionary account of moral motivation must account for the two forms of moral motivation that we distinguish: motivation to be partial, which is triggered by the affective relationships we develop with others; and motivation to be impartial, which is triggered by those norms to which we give impartial validity. To that aim, we present (...) the second-person standpoint of morality, first as Darwall conceives of it, and then as we reinterpret it from a naturalistic approach. Then we synthesize Tomasello’s evolutionary account of morality, and Darwall’s objections to it. To reply to those objections, building on Tomasello’s proposal, we argue that the motivation to be impartial, and the feeling of obligation to comply with normative requirements, appeared when humans anticipated and, critically, internalized others’ sanctions to the violation of social norms. Consequently, we posit that social norms and sanctions appeared first at the community level, and only after that were they internalized in the form of self-directed reactive attitudes. Finally, we derive some corollaries that follow from our proposal. (shrink)

This paper proposes an intermediate account of personhood, based on the capacity to participate in intersubjective interactions. We articulate our proposal as a reply to liberal and restrictive accounts, taking Mark Rowlands’ and Stephen Darwall’s proposals as contemporary representatives of each view, respectively. We argue that both accounts fall short of dealing with borderline cases and defend our intermediate view: The criteria of personhood based on the second-person perspective of mental state attribution. According to it, a person should be able (...) to participate in intersubjective interactions. We apply our proposal to the borderline cases of non-human primates and human infants. (shrink)

This study of internal auditors and auditees, who engage in both financial and operational internal audits in Israel, extends theory and research on internal audits in organizational units. It develops and tests a model that examines the role of top management and internal auditors in facilitating learning from internal audits and driving perceived performance improvement. We argue that support from the top management for the internal audit as well as the auditor’s capacity facilitate learning from audits and help audited units (...) to improve ethicality, efficiency, and effectiveness in organizations. The results of time-lagged survey data provide general support for the hypothesized indirect relationships between auditor capacity, auditor–auditee relational exchanges, learning from audits, and three different perceived performance measures: ethical behavior, efficiency, and effectiveness. We discuss the implications for research on internal audits, proactive learning, ethics, and performance improvement of organizational units in the public sector. (shrink)

Nos proponemos con este artículo, profundizar en uno de los personajes más sugerentes y enigmáticos de la literatura del siglo XIX: el vampiro, partiendo de una doble perspectiva de análisis. En primer lugar, definir las características literarias del arquetipo creado por Stoker, para posteriormente analizar cómo el primitivo arquetipo literario pasará al cine, adaptando y cambiando su visualización estética en la gran pantalla. Nos centraremos, concretamente, en dos producciones cinematográficas, que desde nuestro punto de vista, representan un gran cambio en (...) la concepción del subconsciente colectivo del monstruo: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) de Coppola porque representa la humanización del personaje en la gran pantalla; y la última superproducción de Hollywood Dracula Untold (2014) de Shore, porque representa una mirada al mito antropológico fundacional del vampiro. (shrink)

Monographic issue on the Philosophy of Emotions. Contents: Resentment, Empathy and Indignation; Jacqueline Taylor / Compassion without Cognitivism; Charlie Kurth / “I Don’t Want Your Compassion!”. The Importance of Empathy for Morality; Manuel Camassa / Making sense of emotional contagion; Carme Isern-Mas, Antoni Gomila / On Pride; Lorenzo Greco / Envy and its objects; Alessandra Fussi / Admiration, moral knowledge and transformative experiences; Maria Silvia Vaccarezza / Fear as Related to Courage: An Aristotelian-Thomistic Redefinition of Cognitive Emotions; Claudia (...) Navarini, Ettore De Monte / On Courage. The Sense Of θυμός; Tiziana Migliore / Shades of Schadenfreude. A phenomenological account of pleasure at another’s misfortune; Danilo Manca / Concern and the Structure of Action; Alexander A. Jeuk / On Sexual Lust as an Emotion; Larry A. Herzberg / Emotions and Literature in Musil; Zeynep Talay Turner. (shrink)

Las teorías clásicas de estratificación social se bao basado en la familia como unidad de estratificación, utilizándose la ocupación del hombre como medida de clase social. Estas teorías fueron criticadas sobre todo desde el feminismo, reclamando la visualización de las mujeres en el análisis de la estratificación social. Este artículo describe el concepto de clase social, debate sobre la medida de la clase social en las mujeres y revisa el impacto de las distintas medidas en las desigualdades en salud según (...) clase social en las mujeres. (shrink)

As a discourse genre, statements of purpose are characterized by their occluded status in the academy and by their hybrid nature. Statements of purpose are required in applications for a place in a postgraduate course, and they are requested to obtain information about the academic and professional background and skills of each applicant. A study of the genre’s linguistic and textual features is needed in Spanish to discover and understand writers’ and readers’ perception of this genre. A corpus of 50 (...) motivation letters in Spanish is analyzed here. We study the distinguishing macro- and microtextual features of this particular genre and co-occurrences between both kinds of features. At the macrotextual level, statements of purpose display prototypical rhetorical moves, which can be classified as writers’ moves and readers’ moves. On the microtextual level, modalization resources and discourse markers are discussed. This multiple perspectives analysis of the corpus shows evidence of significant co-occurrences among modalization, discourse markers, and rhetorical moves. Writers’ ideal representations of this discourse genre, which spans the academic and professional fields, can also be deduced. (shrink)

En este artículo trabajamos dentro del campo de la música tradicional, vinculándola con la perspectiva de género a través del análisis de los roles establecidos tanto en la tradición como en la actualidad. Para ello establecemos una metodología basada en la realización de entrevistas como medio para suplir la falta de referencias bibliográficas. Nuestros resultados se centran en la continuidad de los roles de género y su distribución a través de relaciones de poder, independientemente de los cambios de contexto acaecidos (...) entre la tradición y la actualidad. Por último reflejaremos el interés actual y las posibilidades didácticas sobre el tema. (shrink)

En este artículo tratamos el “romance do Comandante Moreno” como parte de la música de tradición oral gallega y de la memoria histórica en relación a la Guerra Civil española. Metodológicamente trabajamos con análisis de corte etnomusicológico que se centran en parámetros musicales, literarios y de contexto, además de trabajar con referencias bibliográficas y audiovisuales. Así, nos encontramos con características propias de la música de tradición gallega y una descripción concisa de los hechos, siendo este romance un testigo fidedigno de (...) los asesinatos ocurridos en 1937 y, por ello, un elemento con oportunidades didácticas para la creación de proyectos interdisciplinares. (shrink)

Convencida de que con un deseo profundo de verdad y una atención sin límites se puede alcanzar la verdad, Simone Weil emprende un camino interior de búsqueda de la verdad, que tiene a la realidad como principal referente. La atención a lo real en su experiencia de trabajo como obrera, en su participación en los dramas de la guerra de España y la Segunda guerra mundial, durante el trabajo como profesora de filosofía, y a lo largo de tantos acontecimientos y (...) encuentros, supusieron para la filósofa un camino personal de hallazgo de lo sobrenatural, que generó una orientación metafísica en su concepción del mundo. Sin embargo, aunque tanto vital como intelectualmente Simone Weil atravesó varios umbrales, en su pensamiento permanece un mismo hilo conductor; esto puede comprobarse leyendo algunos escritos de juventud. El presente trabajo muestra etapas significativas de la vida y el pensamiento de Simone Weil, y considera igualmente vivencias de carácter místico al final de su vida, fruto de la irrupción en ella de lo sobrenatural como una dimensión de lo real. (shrink)

This article deals with the form and use of reformulation markers in research papers written in English, Spanish and Catalan. Considering the form and frequency of the markers, English papers tend to prefer simple fixed markers and include fewer reformulators than Spanish and Catalan. On the contrary, formal Catalan and Spanish papers include more markers, some of which are complex and allow for some structural variability. As for use, reformulation markers establish dynamic relationships between portions of discourse which can be (...) identified in our corpus with expansion, reduction and permutation. The analysis of the corpus shows that English authors usually reformulate to add more information to the concept, whereas Catalan and Spanish authors reduce the contents or the implicatures of the previous formulation more frequently than English. (shrink)

This article deals with interactions between citizenship and political ecology by examining the ‘pulp mills conflict’ in Gualeguaychú, Argentina. The conflict burst in 2003 when the Uruguayan authorities announced the construction of a cellulose plant on the shore of the Uruguay River. The citizens of Gualeguaychú, a city right across the border, initiated a movement of protest that soon transcended the local dimension. I argue that this protest was a battle over sovereignty and an environmental conflict between different conceptions of (...) development and diverse views of the use of a common resource, the river. The notion of ecological citizenship formed in this process is assessed by examining how this concept was constructed by local stakeholders and by unveiling the motivations informing citizens’ engagement. (shrink)

While studies have investigated the moral issue associated with downsizing, little research attention has been directed to leaders’ behaviors that result in organizational decline and eventually lead them to make a downsizing decision. This study tests a sequence-based model to assess (1) the impact of leaders’ risk-aversion and self-centeredness on organizational decline and downsizing and (2) the impact of organizational and industry decline on organizational downsizing. We address a gap in the decline literature that has only implicitly alluded to leadership (...) characteristics as forerunners of decline. Data collected from 85 firms indicate that both leadership risk-aversion and self-centeredness are significantly related to organizational decline. This results in intensified organizational downsizing. However, industry decline affects downsizing more significantly. (shrink)

Recently we presented a new special relativity theory for cosmology in which it was assumed that gravitation can be neglected and thus the bubble constant can be taken as a constant. The theory was presented in a six-dimensional hvperspace. three for the ordinary space and three for the velocities. In this paper we reduce our hyperspace to four dimensions by assuming that the three-dimensional space expands only radially, thus one is left with the three dimensions of ordinary space and one (...) dimension of the radial velocity. (shrink)

The relation between noise and disturbance is investigated within the general framework of Galois connections. Within this framework, we introduce the notion of leak of information, mathematically defined as one of the two closure maps arising from the observable-channel compatibility relation. We provide a physical interpretation for it, and we give a comparison with the analogous closure maps associated with joint measurability and simulability for quantum observables.

Offers the first focused study of the shifei debates of the Warring States period in ancient China and challenges the imposition of Western conceptual categories onto these debates. In recent decades, a growing concern in studies in Chinese intellectual history is that Chinese classics have been forced into systems of classification prevalent in Western philosophy and thus imperceptibly transformed into examples that echo Western philosophy. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel offer a methodology to counter this approach, and illustrate their (...) method by carrying out a transcultural inquiry into the complexities involved in understanding shi and fei and their cognate phrases in the Warring States texts, the Zhuangzi in particular. The authors discuss important features of Zhuangzi’s stance with regard to language-meaning, knowledge-doubt, questioning, equalizing, and his well-known deconstruction of the discourse in ancient China on shifei. Ma and van Brakel suggest that shi and fei apply to both descriptive and prescriptive languages and do not presuppose any fact/value dichotomy, and thus cannot be translated as either true/false or right/wrong. Instead, shi and feican be grasped in terms of a pre-philosophical notion of fitting. Ma and van Brakel also highlight Zhuangzi’s idea of “walking-two-roads” as the most significant component of his stance. In addition, they argue that all of Zhuangzi’s positive recommendations are presented in a language whose meaning is not fixed and that every stance he is committed to remains subject to fundamental questioning as a way of life. (shrink)

This book describes Carmeli's cosmological general and special relativity theory, along with Einstein's general and special relativity. These theories are discussed in the context of Moshe Carmeli's original research, in which velocity is introduced as an additional independent dimension. Four- and five-dimensional spaces are considered, and the five-dimensional braneworld theory is presented. The Tully-Fisher law is obtained directly from the theory, and thus it is found that there is no necessity to assume the existence of dark matter in the halo (...) of galaxies, nor in galaxy clusters.The book gives the derivation of the Lorentz transformation, which is used in both Einstein's special relativity and Carmeli's cosmological special relativity theory. The text also provides the mathematical theory of curved space?time geometry, which is necessary to describe both Einstein's general relativity and Carmeli's cosmological general relativity. A comparison between the dynamical and kinematic aspects of the expansion of the universe is made. Comparison is also made between the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker theory and the Carmeli theory. And neither is it necessary to assume the existence of dark matter to correctly describe the expansion of the cosmos. (shrink)

This paper reviews recent applications of the Einstein- Rosen type space-times to some problems of modern cosmology. An extensive overview of inhomogeneous universes filled with gravitational waves, classical fields, and relativistic fluids is given. The dynamics of primordial inhomogeneities, such as gravitational and matter waves and shocks, their interactions, and the global evolution of the models considered, is presented in detail.

We describe a particular class of pairs of quantum observables which are extremal in the convex set of all pairs of compatible quantum observables. The pairs in this class are constructed as uniformly noisy versions of two mutually unbiased bases with possibly different noise intensities affecting each basis. We show that not all pairs of MUB can be used in this construction, and we provide a criterion for determining those MUB that actually do yield extremal compatible observables. We apply our (...) criterion to all pairs of Fourier conjugate MUB, and we prove that in this case extremality is achieved if and only if the quantum system Hilbert space is odd-dimensional. Remarkably, this fact is no longer true for general non-Fourier conjugate MUB, as we show in an example. Therefore, the presence or the absence of extremality is a concrete geometric manifestation of MUB inequivalence, that already materializes by comparing sets of no more than two bases at a time. (shrink)

The article asserts that verses 124–130 in the second sūrah of the Qurʾān (al-Baqara/“the Cow”) alludes to the biblical precept (Genesis 17) but presents the practice as a custom that has no special virtues, and certainly not those the Jews ascribed to it. It then claims that circumcision is identified as one of Abraham’s trials, which are mentioned in the Qurʾān and thus part of early Islam, and that this idea did not arise in the Middle Ages.

We present a mathematically precise derivation of some generalized orthogonality relations for the discrete series representations of SU(1,1). These orthogonality relations are applied to derive tomographical reconstruction formulas. Their physical interpretation is also discussed.

A theory of relativity, along with its appropriate group of Lorentz-type transformations, is presented. The theory is developed on a metric withR×S 3 topology as compared to ordinary relativity defined on the familiar Minkowskian metric. The proposed theory is neither the ordinary special theory of relativity (since it deals with noninertial coordinate systems) nor the general theory of relativity (since it is not a dynamical theory of gravitation). The theory predicts, among other things, that finite-mass particles in nature have maximum (...) rotational velocities, a prediction highly supported by recent experiments on 14 nuclei, such as 159 Yb that survives fission with angular velocities of up to 0.9 of the predicted value but does not reach it. (shrink)

The dynamics of rapidly rotating bodies is formulated in a rotationally invariant form in all frames rotating with constant angular velocities relative to each other. This includes the energy, angular momentum, rotational frequency, and moment of inertia. The transformation between these quantities, when expressed in different frames, is then given explicitly and expressed in terms of both the angular momentum and the rotational frequency variables. Comparison with the approximate formula for the Routhian is made, and some consequences of physical interest (...) are drawn. (shrink)