Gamma radioactivity produced by human technology is the most dangerous industrial product to life. Two recent global catastrophic events in which nuclear plants were involved, separated only by 25 years, have confirmed that, independently of the usage of nuclear weapons, achieving the 100% of security in the nuclear energy management was and still is a complete unrealistic idea. Although the guarantee of offering information of food and drink products quality concerning the date of expiry or the ingredients content is nowadays (...) stipulated in laws around many countries, this is not the case of the radiation safety. An important investment to offer information concerning gamma radiation safety conditions in food and drink products offered by markets, which also could help to localize quickly, possible radioactive slight incidents, is here discussed. The implementation of a previous consumer-behaviour experiment in markets is also suggested. (shrink)

The Razor says: do not multiply entities without necessity! The Laser says: do not multiply fundamental entities without necessity! Behind the Laser lies a deep insight. This is a distinction between the costs and the commitments of a theory. According to the Razor, every commitment is a cost. Not so according to the Laser. According to the Laser, derivative entities are an ontological free lunch: that is, they are a commitment without a cost. Jonathan Schaffer (2015) has argued that the (...) Laser should replace the Razor. In Sections 2-4 we shall discuss and argue against Schaffer’s arguments for replacing the Razor with the Laser. Schaffer considers several objections to his views, and in Sections 5-7 we shall argue that Schaffer does not deal successfully with two of them. In Section 8 we shall present a probabilistic argument for the Laser. However, the argument has a limitation and does not support the replacement of the Razor with the Laser. Indeed, it supports only the claim that, given certain assumptions, the multiplication of explanatorily relevant derivative entities does not matter; but, as we argue in the same section, there is an argument that multiplying explanatorily superfluous derivative entities does makes a theory less rationally acceptable. Our conclusion is that the Laser cannot replace the Razor and that derivative entities are not an ontological free lunch. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo consiste en abordar algunos argumentos de la filosofía de J. Rancière relacionados con la necesidad de repensar el comunismo. La hipótesis de trabajo insiste en señalar que Rancière no defiende ningún proyecto comunista. Esto al menos por tres razones: no hay igualdad de las inteligencias, el comunista funge como profesor explicador en aras de concientizar a los embrutecidos, el comunismo pertenece a una temporalidad histórica teleológica, lo que a su vez supone un aplazamiento de la (...) emancipación. Finalmente, cerramos este diálogo con las posibilidades presentes de esta otra forma de concebir la igualdad y la emancipación. (shrink)

The present article is framed within the biosemiotic glossary project as a way to address common terminology within biosemiotic research. The glossary integrates the view of the members of the biosemiotic community through a standard survey and a literature review. The concept of ‘semiotic threshold’ was first introduced by Umberto Eco, defining it as a boundary between semiotic and non-semiotic areas. We review here the concept of ‘semiotic threshold’, first describing its denotation within semiotics via an examination on the history (...) of the concept, its synonyms, antonyms, etymology, usage in other languages and context in which it is used. Then we present a general overview of the survey among researchers, analyzing the difference in responses for the concept of ‘lower semiotic threshold’ and related concepts. From the answers we also review the difference between the general usage of ‘semiotic threshold’ versus its specific use within biosemiotics, and attempt to make a general synthesis of the concept taking into account what we have learned from the survey and the literature review. (shrink)

Since the 1960s, scientists, engineers, and healthcare professionals have developed brain–computer interface (BCI) technologies, connecting the user’s brain activity to communication or motor devices. This new technology has also captured the imagination of publics, industry, and ethicists. Academic ethics has highlighted the ethical challenges of BCIs, although these conclusions often rely on speculative or conceptual methods rather than empirical evidence or public engagement. From a social science or empirical ethics perspective, this tendency could be considered problematic and even technocratic because (...) of its disconnect from publics. In response, our trinational survey (Germany, Canada, and Spain) reports public attitudes toward BCIs (N = 1,403) on ethical issues that were carefully derived from academic ethics literature. The results show moderately high levels of concern toward agent-related issues (e.g., changing the user’s self) and consequence-related issues (e.g., new forms of hacking). Both facets of concern were higher among respondents who reported as female or as religious, while education, age, own and peer disability, and country of residence were associated with either agent-related or consequence-related concerns. These findings provide a first look at BCI attitudes across three national contexts, suggesting that the language and content of academic BCI ethics may resonate with some publics and their values. (shrink)

The aim of our research is to analyze how different religions influence business ethics. We develop an index of practices in the field of business ethics, made up of 19 items containing practices related to workers, consumers, products, human rights, management of ethical conflicts, and crime prevention. Also, we consider a wide range of religion affiliations. To undertake this research, we use a panel data sample composed of 11,956 firm‐year observations from 18 countries. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we posit some (...) hypotheses based on the religions considered. The results obtained show that a higher percentage of religious adherents in the country where a company does business usually involve the implementation of more ethical practices in the corporate field. These findings are obtained for Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu religions. In contrast, this does not stand for Buddhist and folk religions. Also, countries where there is no predominant religion do not show a confluence between religion and ethical corporate practices. (shrink)

In this paper two deductive systems associated with relevance logic are studied from an algebraic point of view. One is defined by the familiar, Hilbert-style, formalization of R; the other one is a weak version of it, called WR, which appears as the semantic entailment of the Meyer-Routley-Fine semantics, and which has already been suggested by Wójcicki for other reasons. This weaker consequence is first defined indirectly, using R, but we prove that the first one turns out to be an (...) axiomatic extension of WR. Moreover we provide WR with a natural Gentzen calculus. It is proved that both deductive systems have the same associated class of algebras but different classes of models on these algebras. The notion of model used here is an abstract logic, that is, a closure operator on an abstract algebra; the abstract logics obtained in the case of WR are also the models, in a natural sense, of the given Gentzen calculus. (shrink)

Background: Several countries have recently changed their model of consent for organ donation from opt-in to opt-out. We undertook a systematic review to determine public knowledge and attitudes towards these models in Europe. Methods: Six databases were explored between 1 January 2008 and 15 December 2017. We selected empirical studies addressing either knowledge or attitudes towards the systems of consent for deceased organ donation by lay people in Europe, including students. Study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment were conducted by (...) two or more reviewers independently. Findings: Awareness of the consent model was lower in opt-out countries than in opt-in countries. A majority of the public agrees with opt-in, regardless of the law in their own country. There are ambivalent attitudes regarding the opt-out system. The public tend to prefer opt-in and mandatory choice over opt-out when several options are offered. Interpretation: The assumption that people in opt-out countries are aware of the legal requirements to be excluded from the pool of potential donors is not supported by the results of this review. This is a concern, since ignorance hinders people's autonomy regarding organ donation decision-making. Higher awareness of consent model in opt-in countries may reflect greater efforts to inform the public through campaigns to motivate donation. Legal moves towards opt-out are at odds with people's expressed preferences. Main limitations of this review are the lack of data from some countries, study population heterogeneity, and methodological shortcomings. (shrink)

In this paper, we review three influential theories of imagination in order to understand how the dynamics of imagination acts could be modeled using formal languages. While reviewing them, we notice that they are not detailed enough to account for all the mechanisms involved in creating and developing imaginary worlds. We claim those theories could be further refined into what we call the Common Frame for Imagination Acts, which defines a framework that can be used to study the dynamics of (...) imagination using formal languages, and we support our claim by showing how the framework allows to model certain imagination acts step by step. Then, we introduce the Rhombus of Imagination, which is a visual tool that can be used in conjunction with our framework to study the procedural structure of different kinds of imagination acts and identify their dynamic properties. (shrink)

Regulatory science, which generates knowledge relevant for regulatory decision?making, is different from standard academic science in that it is oriented mainly towards the attainment of non?epistemic (practical) aims. The role of uncertainty and the limits to the relevance of academic science are being recognized more and more explicitly in regulatory decision?making. This has led to the introduction of regulation?specific scientific methodologies in order to generate decision?relevant data. However, recent practical experience with such non?standard methodologies indicates that they, too, may be (...) subject to important limitations. We argue that the attainment of non?epistemic values and aims (like the protection of human health and the environment) requires not only control of the quality of the data and the methodologies, but also the selection of the level of regulation deemed adequate in each specific case (including a decision about which of the two, under?regulation or over?regulation, would be more acceptable). (shrink)

The article develops the different meanings of the Simondonian idea of the transindividual, reconstructs the different interpretations that have been made about it, and considers its potentiality to think contemporary phenomena. For this, first, it points out the uses of the term transindividual before Simondon’s conceptualization of it. Second, it analyzes the definitions of the concept that appear in his doctoral theses of 1958 and distinguishes his different senses. Third, it reconstructs the contemporary debate about the transindividual and defines three (...) moments. Finally, it concludes by reflecting on the philosophical and epistemological potentiality of the idea of the transindividual to think about complex processes marked by the association of technological, psychosocial, and ethical-political dimensions. (shrink)

Casi todo lo que nos rodea implica riesgos de algún tipo, aunque no obstante es la cultura del riesgo la que ha coadyuvado al progreso y el desarrollo de la sociedad. El principio de precaución que no es ajeno a esta realidad, responde a la incertidumbre del riesgo, sin limitarse a expresar una actitud subjetiva del miedo. Es, un medio eficaz para la protección, en todo momento y de manera oportuna, de los recursos naturales, para así alcanzar el fin de (...) las normas ambientales. Este libro colectivo constituye a través de una juiciosa recopilación de experiencias de derecho comparado, y de un diálogo en torno a las tensiones que se dan, un llamado de atención para repensar el principio de precaución. El tratamiento de estas cuestiones por parte de los autores, tuvo por norte el equilibrio entre el desarrollo de la sociedad y la salvaguarda de los derechos que podrían afectarse por una situación de riesgo inminente; siempre de cara a la rigurosidad exigida por la ciencia. Esta obra permite al lector contar con valiosas herramientas para realizar una evaluación amplia del alcance actual del principio de precaución, tema que debe tener continuidad en pro de un mejor entendimiento de la gestión del riesgo y de las complejas circunstancias de la invocación y aplicación del principio que debe estar presente en la formulación de las políticas ambientales, dado que las autoridades y los particulares ante la falta de certeza científica absoluta, para impedir la degradación ambiental, deberán darle aplicación cuando exista peligro de daño grave e irreversible como lo establece la legislación colombiana (artículo 1 Ley 99 de 1993). (shrink)

While there is significant consensus that undergraduate medical education should include bioethics training, there is widespread debate about how to teach bioethics to medical students. Educators disagree about course methods and approaches, the topics that should be covered, and the effectiveness and metrics for UME ethics training. One issue that has received scant attention is the timing of bioethics education during medical training. The existing literature suggests that most medical ethics education occurs in the pre-clinical years. Follow-up studies indicate that (...) medical students in their clinical rotations have little recall or ability to apply ethics concepts that were learned in their pre-clinical training. Trainees also report a desire for medical ethics to be taught in the context of practical application, which would suggest that the timing of pre-clinical ethics education is flawed. However, moving bioethics training to the clinical years should not be assumed to be the solution to the problems of recall and theory application. We argue that the effectiveness of timing bioethics education will depend on when medical students witness or experience particular categories of ethical dilemmas during their training. Our overarching hypothesis is that ethics education will be most effective when the bioethics training on a particular topic correlates to experiential exposure to that ethical issue. The purpose of our current study was to describe medical students exposure to particular categories of ethical conflicts, dilemmas, or issues. Our results may help bioethics educators better strategize about the most effective timing of medical ethics training in UME. (shrink)

This paper analyses the place of sortition in the political philosophy of Jacques Rancière. The idea of sortition is linked to a philosophical reflection on arithmetic equality and geometric equality. Thus, starting from an important work of Cornelius Castoriadis in this sense, we will analyze below the relationship of Rancière’s political philosophy with equality. Finally we will analyze the sortition and the place it occupies in his work. Bernard Manin’s work on ancient democracies and systems of representative government will help (...) us contextualize Rancière’s proposals on the use of random selection in politics. (shrink)

El presente artículo confronta la abstracción resolutiva con la abstracción inmaterializante tradicional, mostrando, por medio de cuatro vías, que la abstracción resolutiva es una conquista del pensamiento de Tomás de Aquino que conlleva un replanteamiento de la epistemología aquiniana.

In order to create a post-neoliberal society we need to change the way we look at the world. This article begins by considering the lesson learned in the case of “Mont Pèlerin,” where ideas that th...

A critical review of the crucial Freudian change in the general explanation of hysterics and neurosis that took place in 1897 would not let us assess in a definite way the epistemic import of Psychoanalysis. However some difficulties that appear in Freud’s works, related for instance to the no-contradiction principle, demand that we make an epistemic and a moral decision. But only if we wanted to maintain the critical attitude that modern science and philosophy have brought to us, a decision (...) that would allow us to see Freudianism as a faith and as “a testimony of a man in our age”. (shrink)

We define a multi-modal version of Computation Tree Logic (ctl) by extending the language with path quantifiers E δ and A δ where δ denotes one of finitely many dimensions, interpreted over Kripke structures with one total relation for each dimension. As expected, the logic is axiomatised by taking a copy of a ctl axiomatisation for each dimension. Completeness is proved by employing the completeness result for ctl to obtain a model along each dimension in turn. We also show that (...) the logic is decidable and that its satisfiability problem is no harder than the corresponding problem for ctl. We then demonstrate how Normative Systems can be conceived as a natural interpretation of such a multi-dimensional ctl logic. (shrink)

We hypothesize that under the predicted scenario of climate change epigenetically mediated environmental sex determination could become an epigenetic trap. Epigenetically regulated environmental sex determination is a mechanism by which species can modulate their breeding strategies to accommodate environmental change. Growing evidence suggests that epigenetic mechanisms may play a key role in phenotypic plasticity and in the rapid adaptation of species to environmental change, through the capacity of organisms to maintain a non‐genetic plastic memory of the environmental and ecological conditions (...) experienced by their parents. However, inherited epigenetic variation could also be maladaptive, becoming an epigenetic trap. This is because environmental sex determination can alter sex ratios by increasing the survival of one of the sexes at the expense of negative fitness consequences for the other, which could lead not only to the collapse of natural populations, but also have an impact in farmed animal and plant species. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the continuity of harms and traumas experienced by women before, during and after war and other mass violence. We focus on women because of the particular challenges they face in accessing justice due to patriarchal structures and ongoing discrimination in the political, economic and social, as well as legal spheres, and because of the gendered nature of the crimes and harms they experience. We use the four key pillars of transitional justice identified by the United (...) Nations as a framework to analyse how these harms are addressed in the context of criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations and institutional reform. We conclude that a gender-transformative approach to transitional justice that focuses on transforming psychosocial, socioeconomic and political power relations in society is needed in order to attain human rights for women and build a sustainable peace. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo reflexionamos en torno a una serie de textos en los que Michel Foucault se pregunta por estatuto de la crítica. La cuestión nos parece volverse reflexivamente sobre el propio Foucualt y por ello intentaremos evaluar de qué manera, con sus propios recursos conceptuales, se puede determinar el estatuto de su propio discurso. Para ello recorreremos dos caminos: (i) su rechazo de la noción de ideología que lo pone en tensión con algunas de las tradiciones mayores del (...) pensamiento crítico. La cuestión es aquí: ¿cómo es posible la crítica sin la ideología y sin la verdad?; (ii) la recuperación foucaultiana de la actitud crítica (en los textos sobre Kant y la pregunta Was ist Aufklärung?). A partir de allí Foucault recupera la problemática de la modernidad en términos de una “ontología histórica del presente”. Ambos caminos se cruzan, ya que las observaciones sobre una “política de la verdad” (lo otro de la crítica de la ideología comprometida con una verdad aséptica) se refuerzan con las de la cuestión del gobierno en términos de una “inservidumbre voluntaria”. En ambos casos, la práctica de la crítica, que subjetiviza desujetando, plantea la cuestión de la libertad. -/- We analyze Michel Foucault’s question for the status of critique and its reflexive return over Foucault himself: How Foucault’s discourse, qua critique, should be understood? We will drive two paths: (i) the refusal of the notion of ideology, where the question is: How to think of critique without ideology and truth?; (ii) the Foucauldian recovery of the “critical attitude” (in the texts on Kant’s answer to the question Was ist Aufklärung?) and of the problem of modernity, along the lines of a “historical ontology of the present”. There is a crossroad of (i) and (ii), since the remarks on a “politics of truth” (as opposite to an “ideology critique” committed with an aseptic truth) reinforces mutually with the problem of the government, faced along the lines of an art of the “voluntary inservitude”. In both cases, practice of criticism that subjectifies desubjugating, poses the question of liberty. (shrink)

Este artículo trata de una inscripción constructiva omeya andalusí del año 387 / 4 enero 997-2 enero 998, hoy perdida, pero transmitida a través de un resumen castellano incluido en una lápida de 1259 "reparada" en 1575. Se intenta la restitución del texto árabe original y se estudian los hechos y los personajes documentados.

In this article I propose a new explanation of the relationship between Russell and ther first Wittgenstein. There are five main novelties in my interpretation; the use of all relevant unpublished manuscripts of Russell; the discovery of the first apparition of the “multiple theory of judgment” in a purely logical and unpublished context; the role of the Bradleian objection against relations in the evolution of the nation of form in both Russell and Wittgenstein; a general point of view to obtain (...) a common explanation of all the criticisms of Wittgenstein against Russell and of the abandonment to Theory of Knowledge; and the first account of the contribution of Whitehead to the progressive Russellian evolution from atomism to holism. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to show the development of some of the model-theoretic ideas which are clearly present in the main members of the Peano school (Peano himself, Burali-Forti, Pieri and Padoa) asa result of their conception of nominal definitions. Also, their semantic definition of logical consequence (Pieri, Padoa) is viewed as one of the outcomes of that conception. Some examples of their use of theexpression “nominal definition” are presented first. Second, the main advantages of this kind of definition, as (...) they saw them, are briefly explained, mainly in a philosophical context. Finally, already in the kernel of the paper, some of the details of the model-theoretic view itself are shown, first in Peano, then in Pieri and Padoa, including in both cases some study of their semantic definitions of logicalconsequence. (shrink)

Aunque inicialmente la propuesta de A. Schütz resulta esclarecedora y sugerente, sin embargo, al proponer hablar de ámbitos finitos de sentido en lugar de realidades múltiples, se puede encubrir una posibilidad de mala interpretación del proyecto trascendental de la fenomenología. Ello estaría en función de la gran importancia que detenta en Schütz no sólo la actitud natural, sino el mundo de la “realidad práctica”. Me propongo plantear esta problemática a la luz del proyecto husserliano de fenomenología trascendental presentado en Ideen (...) I.Although initially the proposal of A. Schütz is enlightening and suggestive, nevertheless, on having proposed to speak about finite provinces of meaning instead of multiple realities, it is possible to conceal a possibility of bad interpretation of the transcendental project of Phenomenology. It would be depending on the great importance that holds in Schütz not only the natural attitude, but the world of the “practical reality”. I intend to raise this issue in the light of Husserls transcendental phenomenology project presented in Ideen I. (shrink)

El artículo describe aspectos significativos de la conformación histórica del método clínico y hace referencia a personalidades que influyeron desde la medicina hipocrática hasta el siglo XX, detallándose los valores éticos y morales que lo caracterizaban y sus desafíos ante la sociedad. Se significa la necesidad de una reforma de pensamiento de los profesionales de la Medicina, que permita abrir nuevas perspectivas y contribuya a la reflexión siendo revertido en una conducta humanista y atención médica con calidad, con la respectiva (...) satisfacción de la población tal como se pide en los lineamientos del Partido. The article describes significant aspects of the historical formation of the clinical method and refers to personalities that influenced since The Hippocratic Medicine until the 20th Century, making emphasis on the ethical and moral values that characterized it and its challenges before the society. The need for a reform of the medical professionals thinking is meant, which allows to open new perspectives and contributes to the reflection being reversed in a humanist behaviour and a qualified medical care, with the respective satisfaction of the population as requested in the guidelines of the party. (shrink)