Important marine mammal areas (IMMAs)—‘discrete habitat areas, important for one or more marine mammal species, that have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation’ (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force 2018, p. 3)—were introduced in 2014 by the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force to support marine mammal and wider ocean conservation. IMMAs provide decision-makers with a user-friendly, actionable tool to inform them of the whereabouts of habitat important for marine (...) mammal survival. However, in view of their non-prescriptive, evidence-based and biocentric nature, the conservation effectiveness of IMMAs is strictly dependent on politicians’ willingness to make use of them. It has been the customary task of advocacy non-governmental organisations to lobby decision-makers to stimulate respect for environmental law, but the scientific community is increasingly joining this effort. Scientists can effectively strengthen a healthy relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging the credibility of conservation science. Thus, those undertaking the identification of IMMAs can be among those responsible for strongly advocating the implementation of IMMAs and other conservation initiatives. (shrink)

Important marine mammal areas (IMMAs)—‘discrete habitat areas, important for one or more marine mammal species, that have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation’ (IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force 2018, p. 3)—were introduced in 2014 by the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force to support marine mammal and wider ocean conservation. IMMAs provide decision-makers with a user-friendly, actionable tool to inform them of the whereabouts of habitat important for marine (...) mammal survival. However, in view of their non-prescriptive, evidence-based and biocentric nature, the conservation effectiveness of IMMAs is strictly dependent on politicians’ willingness to make use of them. It has been the customary task of advocacy non-governmental organisations to lobby decision-makers to stimulate respect for environmental law, but the scientific community is increasingly joining this effort. Scientists can effectively strengthen a healthy relationship between scientific objectivity and political advocacy without damaging the credibility of conservation science. Thus, those undertaking the identification of IMMAs can be among those responsible for strongly advocating the implementation of IMMAs and other conservation initiatives. (shrink)

Rendell and Whitehead argue persuasively that individual foraging specializations, if socially learned, are examples of cetacean culture. However, they discount ecological variation experienced by individuals within a population as a factor in such behavior. I suggest that ecological variation may play an important role in individual foraging specializations and describe several ecological parameters that may help us understand the high frequency of this interesting behavior in the marine habitat.

The use of anecdotes is not a viable research strategy to study animal culture. Social learning processes can often be documented with careful quantitative analyses of observational data. Unfortunately, suggestions that killer whales engage in teaching are entirely based on subjective interpretations of qualitative observations. Thus, of teaching in killer whales cannot be used to argue for the occurrence of culture in marine mammals.

Macphail’s comparative approach to intelligence focused on associative processes, an orientation inconsistent with more multifaceted lay and scientific understandings of the term. His ultimate emphasis on associative processes indicated few differences in intelligence among vertebrates. We explore options more attuned to common definitions by considering intelligence in terms of richness of representations of the world, the interconnectivity of those representations, the ability to flexibly change those connections, knowledge, and individual differences. We focus on marine mammals, represented by the (...) amphibious pinnipeds and the aquatic cetaceans and sirenians, as animals that transitioned from a terrestrial existence to an aquatic one, experiencing major changes in ecological pressures. They adapted with morphological transformations related to streamlining the body, physiological changes in respiration and thermoregulation, and sensory/perceptual changes, including echolocation capabilities and diminished olfaction in many cetaceans, both in-air and underwater visual focus, and enhanced senses of touch in pinnipeds and sirenians. Having a terrestrial foundation on which aquatic capacities were overlaid likely affected their cognitive abilities. Vocal and behavioral observational learning capabilities in the wild and in laboratory experiments suggest versatility in group coordination. Empirical reports on aspects of intelligent behavior like problem-solving, spatial learning, and concept learning by various species of cetaceans and pinnipeds, suggest rich cognitive abilities. The high energy demands of the brain suggest brain-intelligence relationships might be fruitful areas for the study when specific hypotheses are considered, e.g., brain mapping indicates hypertrophy of specific sensory areas in marine mammals. Modern neuroimaging techniques provide ways to study neural connectivity, and the patterns of connections between sensory, motor, and other cortical regions provide a biological framework for exploring how animals represent and flexibly use information in navigating and learning about their environment. At this stage of marine mammal research, it would still be prudent to follow Macphail’s caution that it is premature to make strong comparative statements without more empirical evidence, but an approach that includes learning more about how animals flexibly link information across multiple representations could be a productive way of comparing species by allowing them to use their specific strengths within comparative tasks. (shrink)

Conducting marine mammal research can raise several important ethical issues. For example, the continuation of whaling for commercial purposes despite the international moratorium provides opportunities for scientists to obtain data and tissue samples. In 2021 we analysed 35 peer-reviewed papers reporting research based on collaborations with Icelandic whalers. Results highlighted little consideration or understanding of the legal and ethical issues associated with the deliberate killing of whales amongst those researchers, funding bodies, universities and journals involved. Ethical statements were rarely (...) provided. Those that were written were incomplete. Whilst research using whaling data may seem acceptable to some, it often becomes hard to justify when subject to scrutiny by the media and the public. Thus, there is a particular danger of reputational harm for early career researchers who may become unwittingly involved in such activities. Here we also consider the broader variety of ethical issues raised by non-lethal research (both historical and recent) on marine mammals including tagging and biopsy. We discuss instances where study animals were harmed or even killed and where the public mistook tags for harpoons. Without clear guidelines, reviewers and journal editors are put in an impossible position when considering whether to reject papers on ethical grounds. We propose that for such studies, universities, funders, journals, and permit issuers must require ethical assessments and that journals more effectively implement their existing policies on publishing ethical statements. The professional marine mammal societies need to work together to produce modern ethical guidance. Such guidance should require transparency in the provenance of data and samples while including advice on law, welfare issues, involvement of local scientists, and offshoring. Furthermore, it should require appraisal of and justification for the absolute necessity of invasive procedures. As is already the case in biomedical disciplines, ethical statements should be required in marine mammal science. (shrink)

Transmissible cancers are elusive and understudied parasitic life forms caused by malignant clonal cells (nine lineages are known so far). They emerge by completing sequential steps that include breaking cell cooperation, evade anti‐cancer defences and shedding cells to infect new hosts. Transmissible cancers impair host fitness, and their importance as selective force is likely largely underestimated. It is, therefore, crucial to determine how common they might be in the wild. Here, we draw a parallel between the steps required for a (...) transmissible cancer to emerge and the steps required for an intelligent civilisation to emerge in the Milky Way using a modified Drake equation. Using numerical analyses, we estimate the potential number of extant marine and bivalve species in which transmissible cancers might exist. Our results suggest that transmissible cancers are more common than expected, and that new lineages can be found by screening a large number of species. (shrink)

Pourquoi a-t-on raison de se révolter contre l'homme-machine et le monde mécanique qu'entraînent les mutations technologiques incontrôlées? Et si, contre les robots, la fragilité faisait l'humanité? Un traité philosophique, un manuel de combat. Dans cet essai de philosophie contemporaine, Pascal Marin rassemble un large faisceau d'arguments contre ceux qui entendent faire de l'homme une machine. De chapitre en chapitre, il dénonce le fantasme du transhumanisme californien, qui s'exporte aujourd'hui à travers des médias en mal de sujets. Mais selon Marin, cette (...) crise du sens de l'humain est peut-être une chance pour la pensée : elle contraint à mieux prendre la mesure de la vie qui demeure énigmatique à la science. Cette enquête d'anthropologie radicale progresse donc par des chemins insolites jusqu'à atteindre à l'ironie d'un constat paradoxal : ce pouvoir technicien fascinant, qui semble sans limite, aurait pour cause le rapport intime que l'homme entretient depuis toujours avec le raté, la panne, le bug, bref tout ce qui peut mettre justement une machine en défaut. Un cri d'alerte, où l'intelligence et le style convainquent à chaque page. (shrink)

La France est une nation légère - ce lieu commun antique est abondamment repris tout au long du XVIIIe siècle, témoignant de profonds bouleversements axiologiques, scientifiques et éthiques, dont ce volume collectif cherche à mesurer l'importance et les enjeux, en racontant l'histoire d'un autre siècle des Lumières: celle d'un siècle de la Légèreté. Ce volume collectif offre une perspective interdisciplinaire, croisant les champs d'études concernés par la question de la légèreté. Les 15 articles réunis analysent tant la peinture que la (...) morale, tant les sciences que l'histoire politique, tant la littérature que les technologies ou l'économie. Ensemble, ces articles révèlent la complexité de la légèreté au dix-huitième siècle, en proposant non seulement des analyses nouvelles originales de sources bien connues (Hogarth, Fontenelle ou Voltaire) mais aussi des découvertes de textes et des objets moins souvent étudiés (La Morlière, le Père Castel, Octave Uzanne, les cabriolets ou les parfums). L'un des atouts principaux de cette recherche est son approche critique et historiographique de la légèreté qui remet en question la façon dont s'écrit l'Histoire. Derrière les idées reçues, ce livre découvre les enjeux nationaux, diplomatiques, voire parfois aussi existentiels qui ont participé à la construction des représentations du dix-huitième siècle français. (shrink)

Dans un texte bref et essentiel prononcé et publié en 1992, Paul Ricœur interrogeait l’expérience de la souffrance au cœur de l’existence humaine. Il en dépliait les horizons dans le rapport à soi et à l’autre, depuis la douleur corporelle jusqu’à la souffrance morale. Ce volume se propose de donner aujourd’hui à relire ce texte clé tant pour sa compréhension que pour une réflexion sur l’anthropologie philosophique et l’éthique du soin. Les contributions qui le suivent, chacune à leur manière, rebondissent (...) sur les éléments d’analyse aujourd’hui particulièrement stimulants qui sont les siens, tout en les mettant en perspective avec certains enjeux très concrets du soin dans nos vies. (shrink)

Le christianisme a mené une guerre contre le paganisme et ses manières végétales de faire des mondes, qui ont été reléguées dans l'indifférence ou la simple ornementation. Refoulées, elles n'ont cessé pourtant de rejaillir : en philosophie, mais aussi dans l'architecture ou la littérature. La description de la cathédrale gothique, de l'arabesque musulmane ou du roman proustien, par exemple, ouvrent un nouveau champ pour l'esthétique, comprise comme l'ensemble des expériences faites sur un monde commun pour créer des mondes nouveaux. Un (...) principe de floraison dégagé au ras des herbes et de la poussée des plantes remplace alors le principe de raison sacrificielle juché au surplomb du monde, qui nous rend incapables d'entendre les forces imperceptibles de la croissance végétale. Comme un premier pas sur le chemin d'une nouvelle philosophie de la Nature... (shrink)

Sommes-nous tous malades? La médecine, ses approches de l'humain, son vocabulaire ont pénétré dans notre univers quotidien. Une telle médicalisation de notre existence n'est pas sans effet. Les problèmes du corps et de l'âme se voient systématiquement redéfinis en pathologies et les différentes phases de la vie accompagnées de l'aide technique médicale. Celle-ci esquisse la figure d'un homme amélioré par les biotechnologies, débarrassé des aléas des passions, maîtrisant ses colères et ses pulsions: un homme sans fièvre. Ainsi paradoxalement, à mesure (...) que la médecine identifie toujours plus de maladies, les hommes rèvent de parfaite guérison et en font à la fois une exigence personnelle et un idéal social. Guérir la société de ses blessures, nous défaire de notre vulnérabilité; telle est la manière dont est interprétée trop rapidement l'idée d'une société du soin proposée par de nouvelles philosophies. Pourtant, soigner n'est pas un geste anodin, guérir ne se fait pas sans souffrance et généraliser le modèle médical, c'est aussi prendre le risque de banaliser sa violence spécifique. (shrink)

Is the leibnizian'doctrine of science laying on a doctrine of knowledge? This book demonstrates that there is not such a dependence in Leibniz'searlier writings in which the theory of science is established, independently of any doctrine of understanting.

Con el presente libro se da razón del resultado investigativo y colaborativo que se realizó entre dos universidades chilenas, la Universidad Finis Terrae y la Universidad Alberto Hurtado, con cuatro universidades colombianas: la Universidad de La Salle (sede Bogotá), la Universidad Católica de Oriente, la Universidad Mariana de Pasto y la Universidad Católica de Pereira, en torno a la reflexión pedagógica y disciplinar que atañe a la educación religiosa escolar en ambos países. Esas disertaciones posibilitaron avanzar en la investigación y (...) hoy se reúnen en este texto, Intuiciones para el cultivo de la inteligencia espiritual en la Educación Religiosa Escolar desde la perspectiva de la libertad religiosa y de cultos. (shrink)

El humanismo cristiano constituye un permanente debate desde que el cristianismo entra en diálogo con la cultura y la filosofía en los primeros siglos, cuando recién formadas las primeras comunidades adherentes a la predicación de los apóstoles y, por tanto, anuentes al Evangelio de Jesucristo, surgen en ellas las primeras inquietudes de corte no solo religioso y teológico sino también filosófico, ético y antropológico, que tocan la esencia misma de esa religión a la cual muchos acaban de ingresar por la (...) vía de la conversión. (shrink)

This book proposes a philosophical exploration of the educational role that media plays in university study practices, with a focus on the practices of lecturing and academic writing. Are the media employed in university study practices mere accessories, or rather constitutive of these practices? While this seems to be a purely theoretical question, its practical implications are wide and concern whether such a thing as a ‘digital university’ is possible. The 'digital university' has been, for a long time, a theoretical (...) construct. However, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, moving the university into the digital realm has become a necessity. The difficulties in transitioning to an online university during the 2020 pandemic showed the increased urgency of the questions explored in this book. -/- The book describes lecturing and academic writing through the lens of a phenomenology of gestures and arrives at a description of the experience of university thinking as expanding the subject’s range of experiences about the world and about one’s modes of thinking about the world. The media configuration characteristic for university study practices is a movement of rendering inoperative one medium through another medium so that thinking can emerge, a movement called ‘mediatic displacement’. The question of the digital university becomes then a question whether mediatic displacement is possible on a digital screen. Although this is conceivable, digital technologies are still relatively new, and we are not used to playing with them in a profanatory way as the book discusses through the example of videoconferencing and MOOCs. The promise of the digital university seems to remain utopian until we figure out how to enact the techniques of mediatic displacement currently flourishing at the physical university. (shrink)

La doctrina sugerida por el filósofo de Samos, al menos en lo que respecta al placer como fin de la vida dichosa, informa de ciertos rasgos teóricos los cuales convergen en una finalidad: la defensa de la vida feliz que, en sentido omnímodo, recoge variados aspectos de la existencia (material y anímica), siendo preeminente el propósito de un filosofar que busca de la salud del cuerpo y la imperturbabilidad del alma. Para ello, un conocimiento de la realidad de lo provechoso (...) y perjudicial, un bien que se limita a la experiencia del no sufrir en el cuerpo ni en el alma, tiene en la autosuficiencia del ser humano su criterio de adquisición; autosuficiencia que se logra en el reproche a la viciada participación en ciertas actividades de la πόλις y de sus instituciones, el desarraigo de aquellas riquezas y honores excesivos, además de las falsas creencias en los dioses. Todo esto integra lo que puede llamarse los tópicos éticos esenciales de una filosofía epicúrea. (shrink)

Il nous faut reconsidérer les métaphysiques successives comme l'articulation des moments de l'être, de l'apparaître, et de l'évaluation de leur rapport. Une métaphysique sacrificielle tend à enfermer ce rapport entre l'être et l'apparaître dans une grande pince divine de prévisibilité : l'être est destiné à l'homme prométhéen, et seul lui serait capable de faire apparaître un monde. Mais si l'on prend au sérieux l'hypothèse communiste que toutes les forces de vie sont des foyers d'apparaitre à égalité, alors cette pince devient (...) une véritable police de maintien d'un ordre hiérarchique, incapable de penser les éclosions du nouveau.0Les autres vies non humaines s'insurgent contre cette police et nos schèmes sacrificiels, pour nous restituer notre puissance d'agir : pour une extension, communiste et végétale, du domaine de l'agir en commun. (shrink)

La métaphysique a tenté de faire monde en recourant au sacrifice : toutes les formes de vie sont prises dans l'opposition entre un ciel noble (Dieu, la substance, la subjectivité) et une terre abjectée, lieu des déchets avec ses animaux et ses plantes. Cet ouvrage critique cette domination des métaphysiques sacrificielles, depuis le plan hétérogène d'affirmation d'une nouvelle philosophie de la Nature : son axiome égalitaire est que toutes les formes de vie participent à l'éclosion du nouveau dans l'être. Il (...) s'agit alors de se mettre à leur écoute, pour chercher un modèle qui permette de cueillir le réel dans sa diversité. Non seulement les plantes sont bonnes à penser, mais elles sont des ressources inouïes pour lancer de nouveaux mondes, riches en relations et entités. (shrink)

We conducted a thorough investigation of the impact of representativeness on reasoning and metacognitive processes by employing the Linda problem. In congruent versions, the more representative res...

Overzicht van de fundamentele vraagstukken van de politieke filosofie, een overzicht van het betreffende gedachtegoed van grote denkers en van actuele vraagstukken op dit terrein.

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 182-184.

In this article, we suggest that the study of social interactions and the development of a “sense of agency” in joint action can help determine the content of relevant explanations to be implemented in artificial systems to make them “explainable.” The introduction of automated systems, and more broadly of Artificial Intelligence, into many domains has profoundly changed the nature of human activity, as well as the subjective experience that agents have of their own actions and their consequences – an experience (...) that is commonly referred to as sense of agency. We propose to examine the empirical evidence supporting this impact of automation on individuals’ sense of agency, and hence on measures as diverse as operator performance, system explicability and acceptability. Because of some of its key characteristics, AI occupies a special status in the artificial systems landscape. We suggest that this status prompts us to reconsider human–AI interactions in the light of human–human relations. We approach the study of joint actions in human social interactions to deduce what key features are necessary for the development of a reliable sense of agency in a social context and suggest that such framework can help define what constitutes a good explanation. Finally, we propose possible directions to improve human–AI interactions and, in particular, to restore the sense of agency of human operators, improve their confidence in the decisions made by artificial agents, and increase the acceptability of such agents. (shrink)

The practice of taking hand-written notes in lectures has been rediscovered recently because of several studies on its learning efficacy in the mainstream media. Students are enjoined to ditch their laptops and return to pen and paper. Such arguments presuppose that notes are taken in order to be revisited after the lecture. Learning is seen to happen only after the event. We argue instead that student’s note-taking is an educational practice worthy in itself as a way to relate to the (...) live event of the lecture. We adopt a phenomenological approach inspired by Vilém Flusser’s phenomenology of gestures, which assumes that a gesture like note-taking is always an event of thinking with media in which a certain freedom is expressed. But Flusser’s description of note-taking focusses on the individual note-taker. What about students’ note-taking in a lecture hall as a collective gesture? Nietzsche considered note-taking ‘mechanical,’ as if students were automatons who mindlessly transcribed a verbal flow, while Benjamin considered it an inaesthetic gesture: at best, boring; at worst, ‘painful to watch.’ In contrast, we argue that the educational potentiality of note-taking—or better, note-making—can be grasped only if we account for its mediaticity (as writing that displaces the voice), together with but distinct from its political potentiality as a collective mediality (as a ‘means without end’). Note-taking enables us to see how collective thinking emerges in the lecture, a kind of thinking that belongs neither to the lecturer nor the student, but emerges in the relation of attention established between the lecturer, students and their object of thought. (shrink)

The current literature shows great interest in the issue of gender diversity on boards of directors. Some studies have hypothesized a direct relationship between diversity and the value of the firm, but not many examine the intermediate mechanisms that may exert an influence on such relationships. We employ two stages of GMM estimation methodology to exhibit evidences of the relationship between gender diversity and compensation of top managers in the Spanish context. Results show that gender diversity positively affects the effectiveness (...) of boards—in terms of composition, structure, size and functioning—influencing a proper design of top managers compensation linked to company performance. Evidences suggest that legislative actions aimed at increasing the presence of women on boards of directors are justified not only for ethical reasons, but also for reasons of economic efficiency. (shrink)

La relación existente entre el Estado y los ciudadanos remonta épocas antiguas, donde se le exigía la contribución para el pago de los gastos de la monarquía, con el desarrollo del hombre moderno nace la Relación Jurídica Tributaria, donde esta representa la personificación tanto de la potestad de imposición como del deber de contribución, mejor conocidos y aceptados como Sujeto Activo y Sujeto Pasivo, a través de las distintas acepciones, en tal sentido se analiza esta relación a la luz del (...) ordenamiento jurídico venezolano, enmarcada en una investigación de tipo documental, mediante la observación directa y aplicándola hermenéutica jurídica y teniendo como bases fundamentales la Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela (Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, 1999), Código Orgánico Tributario (Asamblea Nacional, 2001), jurisprudencia patria y de la doctrina tanto nacional como extranjera, se determinó en esta investigación la génesis de la Relación Jurídica Tributaria a través de los actores intervinientes, Sujeto activo, Sujeto Pasivo en sus distintas posiciones, contribuyente solidario, contribuyente Responsable, de igual forma la Relación Jurídica Tributaria desencuentra fundamentada en el hecho imponible, siendo esta la raíz de la tributación a cualquier nivel, bien sean impuestos, tasas o contribuciones. Igualmente la base imponible, significa representación monetaria del hecho imponible la cual será objeto de un tratamiento fiscal para una determinación de un tributo a pagar. (shrink)

Dada la necesidad de formalizar un espacio de reflexión y discusión sobre los problemas y autores correspondientes al período de la antigüedad grecorromana, desde la Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira ingeniaron y materializaron el desarrollo de un foro académico. Con miras a la difusión y acrecentamiento de los estudios sobre el pensamiento grecolatino, se piensa para la región cafetera colombiana un avance importante en cuanto a la propuesta de proyectos y de actividades de talante dialógico a ejemplo de los países latinoamericanos (...) y europeos en que esos estudios poseen mayor alcance. De aquí que, para efectos del fortalecimiento de lo clásico en la academia colombiana, se convoca bianualmente al nominado Foro Internacional de Filosofía Antigua en la ciudad de Pereira. (shrink)