La responsabilité du fait d’autrui a fait l’objet de mutations successives tout au long du xx e siècle, soit que les régimes légaux aient été adaptés et façonnés afin de garantir une réparation automatique de leurs dommages aux victimes, soit que le juge ait fait usage de son pouvoir créateur pour inventer de nouveaux régimes de responsabilité pour répondre aux évolutions sociales et aux nouveaux enjeux indemnitaires. Si la tendance est globalement à l’objectivation de la responsabilité du fait d’autrui, des (...) incohérences sont apparues qui s’expliquent par le mode de création du droit jurisprudentiel, par petites touches, au gré des besoins exprimés dans les prétoires. À l’heure de réécrire le code civil, les promoteurs de la réforme promettent de nouvelles métamorphoses. Ils ne se sont pas bornés à importer la jurisprudence mais se sont assignés la mission plus ambitieuse de restituer à la responsabilité du fait d’autrui sa cohérence perdue, tout en garantissant un équilibre entre la responsabilité encourue par le civilement responsable et l’importance de l’autorité exercée sur autrui. Pour servir cet objectif, les projet et proposition de réforme précisent la nature de la responsabilité du fait d’autrui et se prononcent en faveur d’un régime dual de responsabilité du fait d’autrui. Cette étude envisage les conséquences théoriques et pratiques de la réforme à venir et propose des pistes de réflexion pour remédier aux inconvénients qu’elle pourrait induire. (shrink)

Le contentieux des antennes-relais, aujourd’hui tari du fait du fait de la décision du Tribunal des conflits du 14 mai 2012 qui a réparti les compétences entre les juges judiciaires et administratifs, pourrait connaître un rebond avec l’arrivée de la 5G qui cristallise craintes et inquiétudes. La réforme de la responsabilité civile, aujourd’hui portée par une proposition de loi sénatoriale enregistrée le 29 juillet dernier, comporte certaines innovations offrant aux juges la possibilité, pour l’avenir, de redynamiser le principe de précaution (...) et de faire aboutir les demandes des plaideurs. (shrink)

Malgré la prégnance de la référence à l’État développeur dans les politiques économiques sud-africaines, personne ne considère à ce jour sérieusement le pays comme tel. Pire, la corruption qui gangrène les hautes sphères de l’Etat semble au contraire suggérer l’émergence d’un État prédateur. Cet article analyse l’Afrique du Sud post-apartheid au prisme du paradigme de l’État développeur. Les contraintes qui mettent en échec les politiques industrielles sud-africaines sont analysées à partir du cas d’un programme d’acquisition stratégique lié à d’importants investissements (...) en infrastructure. Les impératifs néolibéraux, la restructuration de l’économie et la faible mobilisation gouvernementale en faveur de l’industrialisation obèrent l’émergence d’un État développeur en Afrique du Sud. Il semble, en réalité, qu’il n’y ait eu aucune tentative sérieuse de mettre en œuvre un tel État, et ce en dépit de la rhétorique du gouvernement. (shrink)

Après avoir identifié quelques-uns des multiples biais intellectuels qui obèrent trop souvent l’analyse de la réalité économique africaine, cette introduction précise la perspective de ce numéro. Il tente de définir l’esprit d’une économie politique lucide appliquée aux pays d’Afrique, avant de présenter brièvement les articles du dossier.

Existing literature on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions disclosure has paid little attention to private firms, despite the fact that this type of firm is responsible for significant GHG emissions. This study empirically analyzes the GHG disclosure of German private firms. The results suggest that more pronounced information asymmetries due to a more dispersed ownership structure and/or multiple bank relationships are associated with more extensive GHG disclosure. This aligns with arguments from agency and stakeholder theory. While this result is not new (...) for public firms, it is for private firms. Given the specific characteristics of this type of firms (no separation of ownership and control, private communication channels, close bank–borrower relationships), it is not a straightforward assumption that observations from public firms can be transferred to private firms one-to-one. Moreover, higher levels of actual GHG emissions are also associated with more GHG disclosure, indicating that legitimacy theory arguments hold for private firms as well. (shrink)

This paper aims to explain how semiotics and constructivism can collaborate in an educational epistemology by developing a joint approach to prescientific conceptions. Empirical data and findings of constructivist research are interpreted in the light of Peirce’s semiotics. Peirce’s semiotics is an anti-psychologistic logic and relational logic. Constructivism was traditionally developed within psychology and sociology and, therefore, some incompatibilities can be expected between these two schools. While acknowledging the differences, we explain that constructivism and semiotics share the assumption of realism (...) that knowledge can only be developed upon knowledge and, therefore, an epistemological collaboration is possible. The semiotic analysis performed confirms the constructivist results and provides a further insight into the teacher-student relation. Like the constructivist approach, Peirce’s doctrine of agapism infers that the personal dimension of teaching must not be ignored. Thus, we argue for the importance of genuine sympathy in teaching attitudes. More broadly, the article also contributes to the development of postmodern humanities. At the end of the modern age, the humanities are passing through a critical period of transformation. There is a growing interest in semiotics and semiotic philosophy in many areas of the humanities. Such a case, on which we draw, is the development of a theoretical semiotic approach to education, namely edusemiotics. (shrink)

Resenha: Acidentes ambientais e planos de contingência.

O teórico Michael Löwy afirmou que o campo científico é social e politicamente condicionado, não sendo viável estabelecer um distanciamento entre ciência e ideologia. No atual momento, é possível visualizar a clareza dessa afirmação, na medida em que o campo científico se demonstra obstruído diante do cenário político vivenciado. O pensamento crítico e problematizador é tido como um perigo eminente perante a conjuntura conservadora e antidemocrática que se acentua. Com isso, a produção de pensamento crítico e o posicionamento de resistência, (...) diante da formação conservadora, assume a denominação de doutrinação, e o debate gerador de reflexão tende a ser calado, sobretudo se não confirmar a lógica dominante. Ao compreendermos a necessidade de reafirmar o teor questionador da produção de conhecimento, como elemento central na formação social, entende-se sua relevância na construção de um caminho democrático do pensamento social. Neste trabalho, buscamos levantar reflexões a partir de uma revisão bibliográfica, procurando entender produção de conhecimento em um período de anti-intelectualismo. Em contraposição ao conceito positivista de neutralidade do conhecimento, pretende-se investigar a relação dialética entre representação política e formação intelectual. Nossa concepção de pesquisa científica situa-se em um campo que não é neutro, mas permeado de diferentes concepções de mundo, de ser humano e de conhecimento, bem como engendrada por relações que ocorrem entre sujeitos, que propendem a produzir conhecimentos científicos a partir do seu lugar social, um lugar suficientemente privilegiado. Este trabalho se propõe examinar essas questões, ao referenciar a formação social como aspecto determinante na produção de conhecimento. Aponta-se à figura do intelectual orgânico como elemento essencial para pensar essa questão, ao salientar a contraposição ao retrocesso científico imposto no último período e a valorização do pensamento crítico, mais do que nunca como pensamento que resiste no campo da pesquisa e diante do sistema produtivista que o concebe. (shrink)

Relying on personal experience of political European venture during the last four years, this paper aims at illustrating the role of ethics in public policy-making.Crucial importance of ethics is stressed upon at three different stages of the decision-making process: shaping a vision, devising strategy and choosing options in everyday life.

The principle of energy conservation is widely taken to be a se- rious difficulty for interactionist dualism (whether property or sub- stance). Interactionists often have therefore tried to make it satisfy energy conservation. This paper examines several such attempts, especially including E. J. Lowe’s varying constants proposal, show- ing how they all miss their goal due to lack of engagement with the physico-mathematical roots of energy conservation physics: the first Noether theorem (that symmetries imply conservation laws), its converse (that conservation (...) laws imply symmetries), and the locality of continuum/field physics. Thus the “conditionality re- sponse”, which sees conservation as (bi)conditional upon symme- tries and simply accepts energy non-conservation as an aspect of interactionist dualism, is seen to be, perhaps surprisingly, the one most in accord with contemporary physics (apart from quantum mechanics) by not conflicting with mathematical theorems basic to physics. A decent objection to interactionism should be a posteri- ori, based on empirically studying the brain. (shrink)

McCarthy, Homan, and Rozier’s call for a renewal of open and honest dialogue between secular and theologically grounded bioethics is admirable. Yet, their essay argues for more than mere dia...

Semiotics and education -- Charles S. Peirce's list of categories and taxonomy of signs -- Semiotics as pragmatic logic -- Education in Peirce's divisions of science -- Suprasubjective being and suprasubjective learning -- From icon to argument -- Diagrammatic reasoning and learning -- Agapic learning -- The Peircean theory of learning and phenomenology -- Possible objections.

Interest in proportionalism as an important trend in Catholic moral theology seems to have faded in the recent decade. This has led some to view it as a movement that was somehow defeated. I suggest that proportionalism's influence can still be seen in contemporary Catholic ethics, most noticeably in the current interest in virtue ethics, casuistry, and feminist ethics. I argue that proportionalism encouraged a reappraisal of the methodology for evaluating moral action in a direction that was more hospitable to (...) concerns about the particularity and context of the agent. (shrink)

Background:Little is known about case managers’ ethical issues and professional values.Objectives:This article presents an overview of ethical issues in case managers’ current practice. Findings are examined in the light of nursing ethics, social work ethics and principle-based biomedical ethics.Research design:A systematic literature review was performed to identify and analyse empirical studies concerning ethical issues in case management programmes. It was completed by systematic content analysis of case managers’ national codes of ethics.Findings:Only nine empirical studies were identified, eight of them from (...) North America. The main dilemmas were how to balance system goals against the client’s interest and client protection against autonomy. Professional codes of ethics shared important similarities, but offered different responses to these two dilemmas.Discussion:We discuss the respective roles of professional and organizational ethics. Further lines of research are suggested. (shrink)

At workplaces where nanomaterials are produced or used, risk assessment and risk management are extremely difficult tasks since there is still limited evidence about the risks of nanomaterials. Measurement methods for nanoparticles are contested and safety standards have not yet been developed properly. To support compliance with the legal obligation of the employer to care for safe workplaces a large number of ‘soft’ regulatory tools have been proposed (e.g. codes of conduct, benchmarks, standards). However, it is not clear whether and (...) under which conditions soft regulation is complied with. This article discusses the potential advantages and drawbacks of soft regulation. It explores compliance issues when exposure measurement devices and other technology-related factors are involved. The exploration of three examples of soft regulation on occupational health and safety (a ministerial recommendation on preliminary exposure benchmarks, a nano-specific guidance of a chemical company and a public–private OHS guideline) shows that the capacity of the regulated parties to comply depends on the availability of appropriate technological devices and methods, technical expertise and other resources. When technological prerequisites are met, compliance is likely to increase. (shrink)

O presente artigo trata da relação entre experiência estética e formação humana a partir da abordagem de John Dewey e tem como objetivo demonstrar as contribuições da experiência estética para a formação humana, a partir da perspectiva monista deste autor. Para dar conta desse propósito, tomamos como referência principal a sua obra Arte como Experiência e, como complementares, Democracia e Educação, Experiência e educação e Vida e Educação. O artigo aborda, inicialmente, a relação entre a experiência estética e o papel (...) da imaginação para, em um segundo passo, tematizar a contribuição da experiência estética à educação compreendida como formação em uma perspectiva monista. Palavras-chave : Experiência estética. Formação humana. Arte. Educação. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende apresentar as “representações obscuras” como parte da via disponível para se conceber um cultivo de si e da civilização, de acordo com a perspectiva de uma antropologia pragmática tal como concebida por Kant. As representações obscuras marcam a existência de um campo de representações intelectuais, estéticas e morais ocultas à consciência. Estas representações possuem, de um lado, a finalidade de fornecer um _cultivo de si_, espécie de conhecimento da natureza humana, por meio de sua funcionalidade empírica na (...) produção de determinados fenômenos, e, de outro, proporcionar as condições adequadas para a construção da civilização, por meio da “arte de ocultar” as verdadeiras intenções nos comportamentos em sociedade. Nos dois casos, o estudo dessas representações contribui para a compreensão do interior do ser humano, fornecendo uma via adequada para seu uso pragmático-prudente no mundo, o que justifica o prevalecimento privilegiado do tema nos escritos de antropologia. (shrink)

This commentary addresses the concept of learning stemming from Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg’s theory of the emergence of consciousness. Jablonka and Ginsburg find strong support in biosemiotics for their argument that learning offers an evolutionary transition marker for the emergence of consciousness. Indeed, biosemiotics embraces a view on evolution that integrates both phylogeny and ontogeny. It does not polarize learning and evolving. At the same time, Jablonka and Ginsburg’s argument gives both biosemiotics and learning theory a shake, forcing scholarship (...) in these fields to tackle difficult questions on agency, selfhood, consciousness and anthropological difference. I explore some of the main questions that arise from this theoretical development, particularly in reference to Andrew Stables’ semiotic learning theory, which has been easily nested in a biosemiotic framework. (shrink)

The church mission and objectives are more and more difficult to accomplish because of the secularization of the today’s society. Church’s use of marketing is a sensitive issue that has both supporters and critics. This article subscribes to the positive point of view that suggests that religious organizations can apply marketing in order to fulfill their mission and to obtain better results. It also claims that the use of marketing by the church and clergy does not contradict the religious core (...) values and that church marketing should develop a theoretical framework of its own and a specific set of methods, techniques and instruments. The present paper reveals the complexity of religious marketing. It presents a holistic view of the church marketing and proposes a specific conceptual framework for it. The article demonstrates that religious organizations’ marketing should be regarded as a form of social marketing and it briefly describes the church marketing process. (shrink)

O presente artigo objetivou apresentar uma revisão sistemática da produção científica brasileira sobre a inclusão de crianças autistas no ensino regular, publicada entre os anos de 2010 e 2020. As buscas foram realizadas nas bases de dados SciELO, BIREME, Redalyc, EBSCO e Scopus, tendo como descritor “a inclusão de crianças autistas”. Após a verificação dos estudos, e contemplando-se os critérios de inclusão e exclusão da presente pesquisa, foram selecionados oito artigos. Nos principais resultados, pôde-se perceber que a maioria das pesquisas (...) empíricas utilizaram-se de métodos quantitativos e buscaram investigar se a relação das escolas regulares com a inclusão de crianças autistas nesse meio ocorre de forma positiva ou negativa. Outro dado importante foi a falta de preparação dos ensinos regulares frente à inclusão dessas crianças, no sentido de que muitos professores não se sentem aptos para trabalhar com estas. Por fim, discutiram-se os achados mais relevantes e propuseram-se novos temas para futuras pesquisas acerca deste tema. (shrink)

A leitura pode ser analisada sob vários ângulos: social, pedagógico, cultural, cognitivo, dentre outros. Contudo, abordar os aspectos mencionados, em conjunto ou sequencialmente, demanda uma verticalização prodigiosa da pesquisa; por isso este artigo busca apenas apresentar e discutir alguns aspectos cognitivos relevantes para a prática leitora, dando ênfase à memória e, por isso mesmo, ao conhecimento prévio. Acreditamos que, conhecendo melhor os tipos de memória e não ignorando o vínculo necessário entre memória e conhecimento prévio, se torne mais viável para (...) o professor mobilizar meios eficazes para propor atividades de leitura compreensiva e, também, mais importante ainda, para mostrar e explicar aos alunos como fazer uma leitura desse tipo. A concepção subjacente à presente escolha decorre do entendimento de que a leitura é um processo sociocognitivo complexo não redutível a seu resultado imediato, obtido em testes padronizados e avaliado em termos positivos ou negativos, de modo negáabsoluto. Na verdade, não nos interessa exclusivamente conferir ao leitor a condição de leitor proficiente ou não, desconhecendo as práticas leitoras com as quais o sujeito testado tem ou teve contato até o momento. O que nos instiga e motiva, de fato, é o ensino-aprendizagem da compreensão do texto escrito. Assim, abordaremos ao longo deste artigo questões atinentes ao processamento cognitivo de textos, com a finalidade de elucidar a sua importância decisiva para o ensino-aprendizagem da habilidade de compreensão leitora, no contexto escolar. (shrink)

The authors of the three essays featured in this focus challenge assumptions that are central to the official Catholic teachings on sexual ethics. Elizabeth Antus and Megan McCabe do so by taking on topics that have not received much attention from the magisterium. Cristina Traina urges us to think differently about the way we usually frame the moral issue of abortion. Although they address different moral problems, I argue in this introduction that they highlight common themes—social sin, interruption, and solidarity—share (...) methodological commitments to using empirical data and to valuing human experiences, and push us to imagine a sexual ethic grounded in a just vision of human sexual flourishing. (shrink)

This book offers a conceptual history of compromise that demonstrates the connection between different understandings of compromise and corresponding differences in understandings of political representation.

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the changes that the implementation of artificial wombs would bring to society, the family, and the concept of motherhood and fatherhood through the lens of two recent books: Helen Sedgwick’s The Growing Season and Rebecca Ann Smith’s Baby X. Each of the two novels, set in a near future, follows the work of a scientist who develops artificial womb technology. Significantly, both women experience concerns about the technology and its long-term effects (...) that make both of them leave their laboratories and rethink the technology they invented, while considering its many ethical implications. Both novels can be seen as feminist revisionary rewritings of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, rejecting the vision of rows of mass-produced, anonymous babies in artificial wombs, stressing instead the closeness of the parents to their offspring. They nevertheless critically evaluate not only the many potential benefits for women of ectogenetic technology but also the possible disadvantages and pitfalls. (shrink)

In order to understand how Deleuze's method of dramatization is ‘not privileging mankind in any way’, this article turns to the figure of the marionette as it is discreetly, but consistently, developed thorough Deleuze's books. Inspired by Kleist's On the Marionette Theatre, this marionette figure claims for a rhizomatic approach to the subject, defined by the lines it draws into space and exercising its freedom in the present of Aion through spatio-temporal dynamisms similar to those of Leibniz's monads. The strange (...) freedom developed by marionettes also leads to an examination of Nietzsche's ‘eternal return’, which is at the core of Deleuze's elaboration of the method of dramatization. Combining Nietzsche's eternal return with the characteristics of Deleuzian marionettes then requires us to revisit the famous concept of ‘becoming’: becomings are selective, both methodologically and ontologically. (shrink)

Two types of truth table task are used to examine people's mental representation of conditionals. In two within-participants experiments, participants either receive the same task-type twice (Experiment 1) or are presented successively with both a possibilities task and a truth task (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 examines how people interpret the three-option possibilities task and whether they have a clear understanding of it. The present study aims to examine, for both task-types, how participants' cognitive ability relates to the classification of the (...) truth table cases as irrelevant, and their consistency in doing so. Looking at the answer patterns, participants' cognitive ability influences their classification of the truth table cases: A positive correlation exists between cognitive ability and the number of false-antecedent cases classified as ?irrelevant?, both in the possibilities task and the truth task. This favours a suppositional representation of conditionals. (shrink)

This study develops a biosemiotic framework for a descriptive phenomenology. We incorporate the set utterance-genre-lifeworld in biosemiotic theory by paralleling it with the Peircean-Uexküllean notions of sign, habit, and Umwelt (respectively). This framework for empirical semiotic studies aims to complement the concepts of affordance and scaffold, as applied in studies on learning.The paper also contributes to bridging Bakhtinian-Hallidayian-Habermasian views on utterance, genre, and lifeworld with biosemiotics. We exploit the possibility that biosemiotics offers to bring together hermeneutic and phenomenological analysis. We (...) relate these views to integrated levels in a systemic framework for communication. Signs are seen as inter-dependent construction elements in utterances. Repeated use of utterances in shifting contexts generates shared recognizable kinds of communication, or genres. ‘Life-genre’ is used in a zoo-communication context, to avoid anthropocentrism. Life-genre serves animals’ life-functions. Genres make up a systemic network of communicational resources, along with the related concepts of event, affordance, and scaffold. Utterance, genre, and lifeworld have five aspects, constituting an integrative approach to communication: form, content, act, time, and space. Semiosis and positioning are processes that connect aspects and levels. Levels, aspects, and processes make up the framework as a system.While biosemiotics supports a phenomenological notion of life-genre, in turn, this notion also contributes to the development of the former, bridging a gap between organisms’ sign experience on a micro-level and organisms’ phenomenal lifeworld/Umwelt. Comparisons of lifeworld and Umwelt reveal that, although not identical, these are sufficiently similar to be perceived as an overall macro-level for signs and communication. Starting from a construal of utterance and genre as dynamic, dialogical, and reciprocal, genre is positioned as meso-level, mediating between signs in utterances and the lifeworld/Umwelt level. We propose genres, understood as semiotic scaffoldings built through affordances, as an analytical concept to capture meso-level phenomena. Scaffolding is determined by both ongoing events and (pre-)available genres. Events are manifestations of these scaffolding processes.Identifying animal and educational communication as two particularly relevant fields for future applications, we compare key socio-semiotic concepts to the notions of sign, habit, and Umwelt. The notions affordance and scaffolding are particularly important to think of learning as continuous with adaptation.An overall aim is to broaden as well as finetune semiotic phenomenology as a platform for empirical analyses of communication. We conclude by exemplifying and summarizing how the framework facilitates this. (shrink)

Le présent article se propose d'examiner les défis que devra relever la Francophonie panaméricaine pour assurer son intégration dans la ZLÉA. La rencontre entre les deux Amériques, l'une francophone et centrée sur le Québec, l'autre créole et centrée sur la Caraïbe, n'est pas le moindre de ces défis puisqu'elle implique que la Francophonie panaméricaine fasse fi de la contradiction apparente qu'il existe à revendiquer l'exception culturelle pour se « protéger » tout en acceptant le métissage, la créolisation, de ses manifestations (...) linguistiques et culturelles. La Francophonie panaméricaine est-elle à la hauteur de cette épreuve? Il serait prétentieux de prétendre apporter une réponse ferme et définitive à ces vastes questions, mais la réflexion qui suit propose quelques pistes d'analyse, disons, prospective...This article explores the challenges faced by Panamerican Francophony in order to ensure its integration within the FTAA. The meeting of two Americas, one Francophone and centred on the Province of Québec, the other Creole and centered on the Caribbean, is not the least of the challenges. It also essential that Panamerican Francophony transcends the apparent contradiction which exists between, on the one hand, the need for its cultural distinctiveness to be recognised in order to be better protected and, on the other, the acceptation of the process of creolisation and métissage of language and culture. Is the Panamerican Francophony capable of rising to the challenge? It would be pretentious to say one can provide an unequivocal answer to these broad-ranging questions, but the following discussion suggests a few lines of thought and, perhaps, possible outcomes.. (shrink)

Individuals exposed to dieting-related environmental cues have been repeatedly shown to be better able to resist tempting food. This especially applies to restrained eaters who hold a chronic dieting goal. Thus far, mainly short-term effects of environmental dieting cues have been examined and the individuals were typically unaware of being influenced. Yet, it is unclear whether individuals can deliberately apply environmental dieting cues for themselves to facilitate the pursuit of the longer-term goal of losing weight. The present longitudinal study applied (...) a 2 × 2 between-subjects design for 6 months. Our results provide preliminary indications that cue, awareness, and restrained eating interact. The results suggest that high restrained eaters could deliberately apply environmental dieting cues for themselves to facilitate losing weight. However, further studies are needed to explore the effects of environmental dieting cues over a longer period of time. (shrink)

L’article montre tout d’abord, à travers l’étude de deux corpus de contes et de la gestion de faits récents de transsexualisme, en quoi la musique est constitutive de l’identité féminine dans l’ethnie maure de Mauritanie. La problématique est élargie au champ du religieux de l’aire arabo-musulmane, qui voit dans ce lien une menace pour l’ordre social et symbolique qu’il défend, avant d’être explicitée par le recours à des concepts issus de la psychanalyse. Puis il est question, à travers la description (...) d’un orchestre de musique confrérique uniquement composé de femmes, de l’ébranlement de ce schéma dans le Maroc contemporain, sous l’effet des idées féministes et de la généralisation de pratiques d’égalité entre les sexes. (shrink)

This paper explores a semiotic notion of body as starting point for bridging biosemiotic with social semiotic theory. The cornerstone of the argument is that the social semiotic criticism of the classic view of meaning as double articulation can support the criticism of language-centrism that lies at the foundation of biosemiotics. Besides the pragmatic epistemological advantages implicit in a theoretical synthesis, I argue that this brings a semiotic contribution to philosophy of mind broadly. Also, it contributes to overcoming the polemic (...) in linguistics between, loosely put, cognitive universalism and cultural relativism. This possibility is revealed by the recent convergence of various semiotic theories towards a criticism of the classic notion of meaning as double articulation. In biosemiotics, the interest to explicate meaning as multiply articulated stems from the construal of Umwelt as relying on the variety of sense perception channels and semiotic systems that a species has at its disposal. Recently, social semiotics developed an unexplored interest for embodiment by starting from the other end, namely the consideration of the modal heterogeneity of meaning. To bridge these notions, I employ the cognitive semantic notion of embodiment and Mittelberg’s cognitive semiotic notion of exbodiment. In light of these, I explore the possible intricacies between the biosemiotic notion of primary modeling system and concepts referring to preconceptual structures for knowledge organization stemming from cognitive linguistics. Further, Mittelberg’s concept of exbodiment allows for a construal of meaning articulation as mediation between the exbodying and embodying directions of mind. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders semiotic modelling in light of recent scholarship on Charles Peirce, particularly regarding his concept of proposition. Conceived in the vein of Peirce’s phenomenological categories as well as of his taxonomy of signs, semiotic modelling has mostly been thought of as ascending from simple, basic sign types to complex ones. This constitutes the backbone of most currently accepted semiotic modelling theories and entails the further acceptance of an unexamined a priori coherence between complexity of cognition and complexity of (...) signification. Following recent readings of Peirce’s post-1900 semiotic, we engage in a discussion as to what are the limits of this approach. From Stjernfelt’s conception of the dicisign in nature, we derive a perspective that affords understanding the practice of modelling as a reciprocal interplay between decomposition of complexity and recombination into further complexity. This discussion is facilitated by the recent extrapolation of the constructivist concept of scaffolding in biosemiotics research. Cognition, we argue, begins with a fundamental irritation of trying to make sense of a structure that is more complex than what can directly be derived from experience and, in so doing, urges meaning-seeking processes. The yet unknown object is decomposed into more tangible objects and is subsequently reassembled from these more manageable conceptions of the object. In support of our argument, we discuss the notions of semiotic competences and resources in light of such a naturalized account of meaning-making. (shrink)

Developed in the past two decades, the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats‐associated protein 9 (CRISPR‐Cas9) technique offers greater accessibility and efficiency in editing genes. Its immediate success has transformed medical research and treatment in productive ways, but has also left questions about ethical consequences in its wake. These are questions familiar to bioethical inquiry. How do we balance short‐term and long‐term benefits and risks? How do we promote just and equitable access to new medical interventions? How do we protect (...) respect for individual autonomy? These questions require a balance between protecting individuals' liberties and the good of the communities in which they live. In this essay, I am interested in how the principle of respect for autonomy can be interpreted in light of CRISPR‐Cas9. I argue that a relational autonomy framework forges a middle ground between the need to respect individual freedom to pursue genetic treatments and the need to acknowledge the networks of dependence that define our moral worlds. I identify three thematic areas that relational autonomy brings into greater focus: the importance of trust, the acknowledgment of vulnerability/dependence, and the promotion of justice. Autonomy understood relationally allows us to see individual freedom as tethered to communal well‐being. (shrink)

Buscar-se-á analisar o Programa Pró-Haiti, ação afirmativa instituída pelo Governo Brasileiro para facilitar o ingresso de haitianos em algumas universidades públicas brasileiras, após o terremoto que afetou o Haiti em 2010. A discussão se dá em torno do atendimento ou não do princípio da igualdade e da justiça distributiva. A conclusão baseia-se na necessidade de o programa atender às políticas públicas, com o propósito de concretização da cidadania. O tema se justifica pela atualidade e por alcançar o interesse de profissionais (...) das áreas do Direito e de Relações Internacionais. Utilizar-se-á, como metodologia, a análise documental e bibliográfica. (shrink)