Cognitive biases play an important role in creating and perpetuating problems that lead to foodborne illness outbreaks. By using insights from behavioral ethics, we argue that sometimes people engage in unethical behavior that increases the likelihood of foodborne illness outbreaks without necessarily intending to or being consciously aware of it. We demonstrate these insights in an analysis of the 2011 Listeriosis outbreak in the U.S. from the consumption of contaminated cantaloupes. We then provide policy implications that can improve our understanding (...) of other kinds of disease outbreaks and epidemics. (shrink)

According to some evolutionary theorists human prosocial dispositions emerged in a context of inter-group competition and violence that made our psychology parochially prosocial, ie. cooperative towards in-groups and competitive towards strangers. This evolutionary hypothesis is sometimes employed in bioethical debates to argue that human nature and contemporary environments, and especially large-scale societies, are mismatched. In this article we caution against the use of mismatch theories in moral philosophy in general and discuss empirical evidence that puts into question mismatch theories based (...) on parochial prosociality. Evolutionary mismatch theories play at best a rhetorical role in these moral debates and may misrepresent the status of relevant evolutionary research. We finally recommend that moral philosophers interested in the evolutionary literature also engage with dispositions such as xenophilia and social tolerance to counterbalance the focus on psychological mismatches adopted so far. (shrink)

Il s’agira d’aborder dans cette contribution l’œuvre de Carl Andre en tant qu’arrangement de pièces combinatoires, selon des ensembles minimaux qui se parcourent, dont l’expérience et littéralement la compréhension ne peuvent se faire qu’à partir du déplacement physique du visiteur. Un déplacement qui prend son impulsion à partir du sol, départ de la sculpture mais aussi plan selon lequel la plus existentielle des dimensions se donne, condition fondatrice de l’habiter humain. Si l’installation a souvent été considérée comme une extension des (...) pratiques de l’assemblage et du collage, c’est-à-dire en fonctionnant selon des principes d’association, de contamination et de télescopage, le travail de Carl Andre pose de manière très radicale et rigoureuse les conditions mêmes qui rendent possible toute installation : la mise en tension sans cesse renouvelée d’une proximité et d’un lointain qui fonde l’horizon d’un spectateur toujours dessaisi de ce qui ad-vient, l’avènement de la corporéité en tant que mouvement, des prises sensori-motrices sans cesse reconduites et indexées sur la perception des objets qui occupent l’espace et le redistribuent, enfin la nature éminemment trajective de cette catégorie d’œuvre que l’on tente de définir par le terme d’installation. Les environnements sculpturaux proposés par l’artiste américain donnent lieu, ils instituent l’espace et l’ouvrent, ils sont autant de places à investir. In this contribution, we will deal with the works by Carl Andre as an arrangement of combinatory parts, according to minimal sets you can go by whose experience and literally the understanding can only be made from the visitor’s physical moves. A movement that origins from the ground, the start of the sculpture but also a map according to which the most existential of dimensions emerges, the founding condition of human beings. If the installation has often been considered an extension of assembly and collage habits, that is to say functioning according to association, contamination and going back and forth principles, the works by Carl Andre set the very conditions which make any kind of installation possible in an extremely radical and strict way: the forever renewed focus of a proximity and a distance which founds the horizon for a spectator who keeps being deprived of what will come, the surge of corporeality as a movement, of forever renewed sensorimotor grips indexed to the perception of objects which fill space and redistribute it, and at last the trajective nature of this kind of works one tends to define by the word of installation. The sculptural environment offered by the American artist gives place, they institute space and widen it, they are as many places to invest. (shrink)

A partir de un estudio longitudinal sobre cultura política en chilenos, discutimos la paradojal evidencia encontrada en la literatura que plantea que, por un lado, las actitudes políticas más pro-democráticas y anti-autoritarias se observarían en sectores sociales acomodados y, por otro lado, las actitudes más pro-conservadoras y anti-igualitaristas se observarían en grupos sociales dominantes. Nuestros datos muestran que el patrón de actitudes políticas (autoritarismo, apoyo a la democracia, conservadurismo y nacionalismo) es similar entre personas de derecha de estrato alto, izquierda (...) de estrato bajo, y centro de estrato medio. En cambio, quienes manifiestan una orientación política incongruente con su condición socioeconómica presentan actitudes políticas diferenciadas del patrón predominante. Concluimos que la paradoja puede resolverse explicando el patrón de actitudes políticas de un grupo en función del (des)ajuste de la orientación política a sus condiciones socioeconómicas. (shrink)

A recent turn in the cognitive sciences has deepened the attention on embodied and situated dynamics for explaining different cognitive processes such as perception, emotion, and social cognition. This has fostered an extensive interest in the social and ‘intersubjective’ nature of moral behavior, especially from the perspective of enactivism. In this paper, I argue that embodied and situated perspectives, enactivism in particular, nonetheless require further improvements with regards to their analysis of the social nature of human morality. In brief, enactivist (...) proposals still do not define what features of the social-relational context, or which kind of processes within social interactions, make an evaluation or action morally relevant or distinctive from other types of social normativity. As an alternative to this proclivity, and seeking to complement the enactive perspective, I present a definition of the process of moral sense-making and offer an empirically-based ethical distinction between different domains of social knowledge in moral development. For doing so, I take insights from the constructivist tradition in moral psychology. My objective is not to radically oppose embodied and enactive alternatives but to expand the horizon of their conceptual and empirical contributions to morality research. (shrink)

This article aims at contributing to the contemporary reception of Heidegger’s thought in eco-philosophical perspective. Its point of departure is Heidegger’s claim, in his Bremen lectures and The Question Concerning Technology, that today the earth is submitted to permanent requisition and planned ordering, and that, having thus lost sight of its auto-poiesis, we are no longer capable of listening, tuning in, and singing back to what he calls in his course on Heraclitus the “song of the earth.” Accordingly, first we (...) examine how the inherently reciprocal dynamics of “earth” and “world,” as thematised by Heidegger in The Origin of the Work of Art, have become opaque. Second, we analyse whether it is possible to find those same dynamics at play behind Heidegger’s “Fourfold,” which we propose to reread in binary key in dialogue with contemporary anthropology, from Bateson and Lévi-Strauss to Wagner and Viveiros de Castro, and in light of Guattari’s notion of “trans-entitarian generativity.” Third, we stress the need to reposition Heidegger’s thought alongside contemporary concerns on “worlding” and we explore its plausible intersections with today’s object-oriented ethnography. Lastly, we discuss the possibility of rereading Heidegger’s Fourfold afresh against the backdrop of Heidegger’s non-foundational thinking, as a conceptual metaphor for the joint dynamics of Abgrund and Grund. (shrink)

This article studies perceptual differences of three social robots by elementary school children of ages 6–13 years at research fairs. The autonomous humanoid robot Pepper, an advanced social robot primarily designed as a personal assistant with movement and mobility, is compared to the teleoperated AV1 robot—designed to help elementary school children who cannot attend school to have a telepresence through the robot—and the flowerpot robot Tessa, used in the eWare system as an avatar for a home sensor system and dedicated (...) to people with dementia living alone. These three robots were shown at the Norwegian national research fair, held in every major Norwegian city annually, where children were able to interact with the robots. Our analysis is based on quantitative survey data of the school children concerning the robots and qualitative discussions with them. By comparing three different types of social robots, we found that presence can be differently understood and conceptualized with different robots, especially relating to their function and “aliveness.” Additionally, we found a strong difference when relating robots to personal relations to one’s own grandparents versus older adults in general. We found children’s perceptions of robots to be relatively positive, curious and exploratory and that they were quite reflective on their own grandparent having a robot. (shrink)

We review studies of an evolution operator ℒ for a discrete Langevin equation with a strongly hyperbolic classical dynamics and a Gaussian noise. The leading eigenvalue of ℒ yields a physically measurable property of the dynamical system, the escape rate from the repeller. The spectrum of the evolution operator ℒ in the weak noise limit can be computed in several ways. A method using a local matrix representation of the operator allows to push the corrections to the escape rate up (...) to order eight in the noise expansion parameter. These corrections then appear to form a divergent series. Actually, via a cumulant expansion, they relate to analogous divergent series for other quantities, the traces of the evolution operators ℒn. Using an integral representation of the evolution operator ℒ, we then investigate the high order corrections to the latter traces. Their asymptotic behavior is found to be controlled by sub-dominant saddle points previously neglected in the perturbative expansion, and to be ultimately described by a kind of trace formula. (shrink)

This essay pursues Gilbert Durand’s plea for a new anthropological spirit that would overcome the bureaucracy-or-madness dichotomy which has since Nietzsche left its imprint upon contemporary thought, forcing it to choose between an “Apollonian” ontology established upon some kind of first principle and a “Dionysian” ontology consisting in the erasure of any founding norm. It does so by reclaiming Dionysus and Apollo’s original twin-ness and dual affirmation in dialogue with contemporary anthropological theory, especially Roy Wagner’s thesis on the interplay of (...) “elicitation” and “containment” in sociocultural life. What would happen then, I ask, if we were to reimagine today’s philosophical game – which after Heidegger Deleuze, and Derrida turns variously and increasingly around subtraction – otherwise: as a chiastic board on which Apollo would cut Dionysus’s continuum, which Dionysus would in turn restore despite Apollo’s cuts, and on which the obliteration of any of the two gods would entail the inevitable dismemberment of the other? Accordingly, I offer a full reassessment of Dionysus’s and Apollo’s complementary roles in ancient-Greek culture in discussion not only with Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy but also with Ihab Hassan’s postmodern critique of Orpheus. All of it less with the purpose of putting forward a new metaphysics than with the intent of restating the translucent-ness that keeps together reality and thought against any claim that they are either transparent or opaque to one another. (shrink)

In my article "berkeley's master argument" I attempt to show that an argument berkeley uses in the 'dialogues' and 'principles' to support his contention that whatever is perceivable is perceived can be seen as an illuminating attempt to relate conceptualizing, Imaging and perceiving. In consequence it cannot be dismissed as resting on an elementary fallacy, But reflects on the conditions for the self ascription of experience.

In his Perception and Reason, Bill Brewer argues that one can only have empirical beliefs if one’s perceptual experiences serve as reasons for such beliefs. His argument for this idea relies on a premise according to which in order for the relations with perceptual experience to determine the contents of empirical beliefs, these relations must be reason-giving. He offers an argument for this premise, the so-called Switching Argument. In this paper, I show that the Switching Argument does not work, in (...) which case we have no reason to accept the premise the argument is supposed to establish, and hence no reason to accept Brewer’s argument in favour of the idea that one can only have empirical beliefs if one’s perceptual experiences serve as reasons for such beliefs. (shrink)

The book forms a balanced structure in which the three conceptual pillars of Spinoza's natural law theory (individuality, natural laws, and power) are first analyzed from the viewpoint of his ontology and then from the viewpoint of his ...

The recent publication of André Bazin's Écrits complets, an enormous two-volume edition of 3000 pages which increases ten-fold Bazin's available corpus, provides opportunities for renewed reflection on, and possibly for substantial revisions of, this key figure in film theory. On the basis of several essays, I propose a drastic rereading of Bazin's most explicitly philosophical notion of “ontology.” This all too familiar notion, long settled into a rather dust-laden couple nonetheless retains its fascination. Rather than attempting to provide a systematic (...) reworking of this couple along well established lines, particularly those defined by realism and indexicality, this article proposes to shift the notion of ontology in Bazin from its determination as actual existence toward a more radical concept of ontology based on the notion of mimesis, particularly as articulated, in a Heideggerian mode, by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. This more properly ontological concept, also paradoxically and radically improper, is shown to be at work already in Bazin's texts, and it allows us to see that far from simplistically naturalizing photographic technology, Bazin does the contrary: he technicizes nature. If Bazin says that the photograph is a flower or a snowflake, he also implies that, like photographs, these are likewise a kind of technical artifact, an auto-mimetic reproduction of nature. Bazin likewise refers to film as a kind of skin falling away from the body of History, an accumulating pellicule in which nature and history disturbingly merge. This shifted perspective on Bazin's thinking is extended further in reference to Georges Didi-Huberman on the highly mimetic creatures known as phasmids, insects that mimic their environement. I extend this into the dynamic notion of eternal return, an implicit dimension of Bazin's thinking, clarified here in reference to Giorgio Agamben and the “immemorial image” which, like Bazin's “Death Every Afternoon,” presents an eminently repeatable deathly image, an animated corpse-world that can be likened to hell. (shrink)

It's been 41 years since the publication of Ernst Mayr's Cause and Effect in Biology wherein Mayr most clearly develops his version of the influential distinction between ultimate and proximate causes in biology. In critically assessing Mayr's essay I uncover false statements and red-herrings about biological explanation. Nevertheless, I argue to uphold an analogue of the ultimate/proximate distinction as it refers to two different kinds of explanations, one dynamical the other statistical.

Plagiarism is a serious, yet widespread type of research misconduct, and is often neglected in developing countries. Despite its far-reaching implications, plagiarism is poorly acknowledged and discussed in the academic setting, and insufficient evidence exists in Latin America and developing countries to inform the development of preventive strategies. In this context, we present a longitudinal case study of seven instances of plagiarism and cheating arising in four consecutive classes of an Epidemiology Masters program in Lima, Peru, and describes the implementation (...) and outcomes of a multifaceted, “zero-tolerance” policy aimed at introducing research integrity. Two cases involved cheating in graded assignments, and five cases correspond to plagiarism in the thesis protocol. Cases revealed poor awareness of high tolerance to plagiarism, poor academic performance, and widespread writing deficiencies, compensated with patchwriting and copy-pasting. Depending on the events’ severity, penalties included course failure and separation from the program. Students at fault did not engage in further plagiarism. Between 2011 and 2013, the Masters program sequentially introduced a preventive policy consisting of: intensified research integrity and scientific writing education, a stepwise, cumulative writing process; honor codes; active search for plagiarism in all academic products; and a “zero-tolerance” policy in response to documented cases. No cases were detected in 2014. In conclusion, plagiarism seems to be widespread in resource-limited settings and a greater response with educational and zero-tolerance components is needed to prevent it. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the impact that Lamarckian evolutionary theory had in the scientific community during the period between the advent of Zoological Philosophy and the publication Origin of Species. During these 50 years Lamarck’s model was a well known theory and it was discussed by the scientific community as a hypothesis to explain the changing nature of the fossil record throughout the history of Earth. Lamarck’s transmutation theory established the foundation of an evolutionary model introducing a new way to research (...) in nature. Darwin’s selectionist theory was proposed in 1859 to explain the origin of species within this epistemological process. In this context, Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology and Auguste Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive appear as two major works for the dissemination of Lamarck’s evolutionary ideology after the death of the French naturalist in 1829. (shrink)

As a natural example of a 1-random real, Chaitin proposed the halting probability Ω of a universal prefix-free machine. We can relativize this example by considering a universal prefix-free oracle machine U. Let [Formula: see text] be the halting probability of UA; this gives a natural uniform way of producing an A-random real for every A ∈ 2ω. It is this operator which is our primary object of study. We can draw an analogy between the jump operator from computability theory (...) and this Omega operator. But unlike the jump, which is invariant under the choice of an effective enumeration of the partial computable functions, [Formula: see text] can be vastly different for different choices of U. Even for a fixed U, there are oracles A =* B such that [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are 1-random relative to each other. We prove this and many other interesting properties of Omega operators. We investigate these operators from the perspective of analysis, computability theory, and of course, algorithmic randomness. (shrink)

In a famous text Descartes has written this: Whenever the thought of God's supreme power occurs to me, I cannot help feeling that he might easily, if he so wished, make me go wrong even in what I think I see most clearly with my mind's eye. On the other hand, whenever I turn to the matters themselves which I think I perceive very clearly, I am so convinced by them that I burst out: ‘let who will deceive me, he (...) can never bring it about that I should be nothing at the time of thinking that I am something, nor that it be true that I never existed if it is true that I exist now; nor even that two and three together make more or less than five, or any such thing in which I see manifest contradiction’. (shrink)

In Appendix B of Russell's The Principles of Mathematics occurs a paradox, the paradox of propositions, which a simple theory of types is unable to resolve. This fact is frequently taken to be one of the principal reasons for calling ramification onto the Russellian stage. The paper presents a detaiFled exposition of the paradox and its discussion in the correspondence between Frege and Russell. It is argued that Russell finally adopted a very simple solution to the paradox. This solution had (...) nothing to do with ramified types but marked an important shift in his theory of propositions. (shrink)

To solve the probability problem of the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, D. Wallace has presented a formal proof of the Born rule via decision theory, as proposed by D. Deutsch. The idea is to get subjective probabilities from rational decisions related to quantum measurements, showing the non-probabilistic parts of the quantum formalism, plus some rational constraints, ensure the squared modulus of quantum amplitudes play the role of such probabilities. We provide a new presentation of Wallace’s proof, reorganized to (...) simplify some arguments, and analyze it from a formal perspective. Similarities with classical decision theory are made explicit, to clarify its structure and main ideas. A simpler notation is used, and details are filled in, making it easier to follow and verify. Some problems have been identified, and we suggest possible corrections. (shrink)

Since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources, environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions. This situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities. Within this context, environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues. Moreover, environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a (...) firm's competitiveness. However, the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms' results has been inconclusive and contradictory. In this study, we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm's marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results. Data were obtained through a survey sent to Spanish manufacturing firms. The results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms' operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results. Moreover, environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation. Thus, this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm's competitiveness while reducing environmental impact. (shrink)

Why I thought it useful to offer an explanation of Hegel’s doctrine on the Incarnation was so that the reader may be empowered to identify Hegel’s influence in modern accounts of this mystery. Even if, in my view, Hegel’s interpretation of revealed religion differs greatly from Catholic Doctrine, it is not surprising to find the presence of some of his concepts in modern theology. In truth, what matters is not the theologian’s self-identification as Hegelian or as non-Hegelian, but whether or (...) not the theologian adopts Hegel’s concepts. This paper offers an explanation of the internal dynamism of Hegelian concepts and their relation to Christian doctrine in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. This research may help to show in what way it is possible to explain Christian religious doctrine with a philosophy other than the Thomistic one and how, at least in Hegel’s case, religious doctrine is changed and reduced to an erroneous philosophical content. Also, an attempt is made to show the internal “coherence” of this Hegelian re-reading of Christianity so that theologians may become more cautious about accepting an explanation of Christian doctrine simply because the Christian language is preserved in that explanation. (shrink)

Moore’s Paradox is a test case for any formal theory of belief. In Knowledge and Belief, Hintikka developed a multimodal logic for statements that express sentences containing the epistemic notions of knowledge and belief. His account purports to offer an explanation of the paradox. In this paper I argue that Hintikka’s interpretation of one of the doxastic operators is philosophically problematic and leads to an unnecessarily strong logical system. I offer a weaker alternative that captures in a more accurate way (...) our logical intuitions about the notion of belief without sacrificing the possibility of providing an explanation for problematic cases such as Moore’s Paradox. (shrink)

Since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources, environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions. This situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities. Within this context, environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues. Moreover, environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a (...) firm's competitiveness. However, the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms' results has been inconclusive and contradictory. In this study, we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm's marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results. Data were obtained through a survey sent to Spanish manufacturing firms. The results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms' operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results. Moreover, environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation. Thus, this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm's competitiveness while reducing environmental impact. (shrink)