The book delves into mathematical mindsets, a current approach to understanding mathematical identities, as well as success and failure in mathematics.

Empathy is an integral aspect of human existence. Without at least a basic ability to access others’ affective life, social interactions would be well-nigh impossible. Yet, recent studies seem to show that the means we have acquired to access others’ emotional life no longer function well in what has become our everyday business – technologically mediated interactions in digital spaces. If this is correct, there are two important questions: (1) What makes empathy for frequent internet users so difficult? and (2) (...) What can we do to alleviate the negative consequences? Correspondingly, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, we identify structural differences between offline and technologically mediated interactions that can explain why digital empathy is harder to achieve. Second, drawing on the literature on ‘situated affectivity,’ we consider the idea of modifying digital spaces in ways specifically designed to ‘scaffold’ empathy where our evolved mechanisms fail. Section 2 argues that empathy is requires interpreting the behavior of embodied subjects. Section 3 identifies three factors that are crucial for this interpretative endeavor: the empathizer’s affective repertoire, their perceptual input, and their background knowledge. Section 4 argues that technologically mediated interactions differ from face-to-face interactions with regard to these factors in ways which render our evolved empathy mechanisms less effective in the digital world. Section 5 introduces the idea that situational factors can serve as ‘empathic scaffolds,’ i.e., as ‘tools’ that can ‘shape’ people’s empathic reactions. Section 6 wraps up the main line of reasoning, responds to objections and invites further scholarship. (shrink)

The original definition of a technical term, the paper argues, should not be altered without a good reason. This notion is applied to the conception of illocutionary acts suggested by Alston, which markedly differs from the conception originally introduced by John L. Austin. Alston appears to agree with the argument; at least, he does attempt to justify his re-definition. The paper argues, however, that the reasons he gives fail.

Gricean communication is communication between utterers and their audiences, where the utterer means something and the audience understands what is meant. The weak transmission idea is that, whenever such communication takes place, there is something which is transmitted from utterer to audience; the strong transmission idea adds that what is transmitted is nothing else than what is communicated. We try to salvage these ideas from a seemingly forceful attack by Wayne Davis. Davis attaches too much significance to the surface structure (...) of sentences of the type ‘S communicates the belief (desire …) that p to A’ by assuming that the communicated entity is denoted by the grammatical object following ‘communicates’. On our proposal, what is communicated in all Gricean cases is a thought. And since S communicates the thought that p to A only if S means that p and A understands what S means, the thought that p will be transmitted from S to A. (shrink)

A scholarly confusion of tongues, or, is promising an illocutionary act? Technical terms, I argued elsewhere, should not be re-defined without a profound reason; for such a re-definition furthers misunderstanding and is therefore undesirable. If my argument is on the right track, then we have reason to acknowledge the original definition of ‘illocutionary acts’ established by John L. Austin; any subsequent re-definition, unless it is specially justified somehow, must count as a terminological mistake. I use this argument, in order to (...) proceed against what appears to me a highly problematic terminological situation, namely, the present existence of a double-digit number of different definitions of the term "illocutionary act." Against my argument, I met the objection that the co-existence of several different intensional definitions of ‘illocutionary acts’ eventually is not very problematic, given the alleged fact that the extension of the term is indisputable. In this paper, I argue that the objection fails, because its central premise is false: William P. Alston, Bach & Harnish and John R. Searle have very different opinions as to whether, for instance, promising is an illocutionary act, even though promises are commonly supposed to be extremely obvious cases. Additionally, I consider the objection that the term "illocutionary act" is indispensable as a means of referring to those various things it is used for; I discard this objection by demonstrating that, and how, at least the accounts under consideration in this paper could easily do without the term. (shrink)

The idea motivating their account, Cappelen and Lepore (C&L) say in Insensitive Semantics (2005), is that semantic content is context invariant, and that all colleagues who take, or even consider, different accounts are just on the wrong track. It is the purpose of their book to disprove all alternative accounts by way of an argument ‘by elimination’. The conclusion they arrive at is that their own account must be accepted by everyone as the only game in town at the end (...) of the day . The present paper is intended to examine this conclusion; its more significant findings are these. Firstly, C&L’s account is not, as they suggest, strictly minimalist, but in fact just a moderate version of contextualism. Secondly, prematurely associating semantical incompleteness and context sensitivity, they overlook some possible alternatives to their own view, among them at least one that is attractive. Thirdly, their argument ‘by elimination’ has an inductive structure, but is inexhaustive, and therefore inconclusive. Fourthly, for several different reasons, their attempts to reject arguments in favour of semantical incompleteness do not work. Finally, their contention that arguments in favour of semantical incompleteness employ metaphysical premisses for semantical conclusions rests on a faulty interpretation of these arguments. In the light of these findings, it is concluded that the central argument of Insensitive Semantics fails. (shrink)

The use of private security companies by national governments is met with widespread skepticism. Less understood is the role these companies can play in international humanitarian interventions in the service of international organizations. I argue here that despite valid concerns about the use of such private entities, we should nonetheless see them as legitimate participants in efforts to secure human rights protection around the globe. In order to assess their legitimacy, we need to ensure, among other things, that they can (...) adhere to ethical standards when serving in humanitarian missions, that they can be held accountable when they fail to uphold the standard of justice enshrined in international law, and that their for-profit status does not have implications detrimental to humanitarian concerns. (shrink)

Data are lacking with regard to participants' perspectives on return of genetic research results to relatives, including after the participant's death. This paper reports descriptive results from 3,630 survey respondents: 464 participants in a pancreatic cancer biobank, 1,439 family registry participants, and 1,727 healthy individuals. Our findings indicate that most participants would feel obligated to share their results with blood relatives while alive and would want results to be shared with relatives after their death.

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the presence of Pascal’s thought in the work of the Spanish writer José Jiménez Lozano (1930-2020). In fact, it could be considered that this writer is almost a kind of Pascal come alive, especially in terms of understanding and experiencing Christianity, since, for both Pascal and Jiménez Lozano, the orientation of the human soul towards God is not only a part of the essence of man but also is his most (...) definitory anthropological constituent. (shrink)

The perception of sensory effects generated by one’s own actions is typically attenuated compared to the same effects generated externally. However, it is unclear whether this specifically relates to self-generation. Recent studies showed that sensory attenuation mainly relies on action preparation, not actual action execution. Hence, an attenuation of sensory effects generated by another person might occur if these actions can be anticipated and thus be prepared for.Here, we compared the perceived loudness of sounds generated by one’s own actions and (...) actions of another person that either could or could not be anticipated. We found an attenuation of the perceived loudness for self- as compared to other-generated sounds. This difference was independent of whether the sound-eliciting actions of the other person could be anticipated or not. Thus, sensory attenuation seems to be specifically tied to self-generation instead of being a secondary effect of agent-independent preparation for an upcoming action. (shrink)

This book takes on current perspectives on transnationalism and children's relationships to media, childhood, and markets in converging global worlds. It introduces the idea of multi-sited imaginaries to explain how children's media and literacy performances shape and are shaped by shared visions of communities that we collectively imagine, including play, media, gender, family, school, or cultural worlds. It draws upon elements of ethnographies of globalization to examine the convergences of such imaginaries across multiple sites: early childhood and elementary classrooms and (...) communities in Puerto Rico and the Midwest United States. The analysis situates children's literacy and play practices in the intersections of local/global, rural/urban, Spanish/English/multilingual, and Latino multinational media/US multinational media, revealing how children use drama and pretense to relocate, take up, contest, and consume global media and consumer identities. (shrink)

Natural selection is an important force that shapes the evolution of all living things by determining which individuals contribute the most descendents to future generations. The biological unit upon which selection acts has been the subject of serious debate, with reasonable arguments made on behalf of populations, individuals, individual phenotypic characters and, finally, individual genes themselves. In this essay, I argue that the usual unit of selection is the gene. There are powerful logical arguments in favor of this conclusion, as (...) well as many real-world examples. I also explore the possibility that epigenetic differences between individuals may be heritable between generations. Although few such examples exist, epigenetic differences provide an exciting source of potentially heritable variation that may allow rapid evolutionary change to occur, perhaps in response to environmental influences. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Natural Selection Operates within Genomes without Regard for Phenotypic Effect Selective Forces, Heritable Variation, and the Definition of Function Natural Selection Can, and Does, Act on the Products of Individual Genes Natural Selection Can Act Directly on Genes Themselves What Are the Limitations on the Unit of Selection Being “the Gene”? The “Complexity” Argument: Do Complex Phenotypes Require Complex Explanations? Do “Epigenes/Epialleles” Provide a “Non‐genetic” Source of Heritable Variation Upon Which Natural Selection May Act? (...) Summary Points: The Usual Unit of Selection Is the Gene Postscript: Counterpoint Note References. (shrink)

Hunting ducks with a firearm has become increasingly contested in industrialized and urbanized contemporary societies. In southern New Zealand, an area that maintains strong connections to rural life ways, duck shooting is still a very popular activity. However, even duck shooters living in this region are increasingly finding that they must justify an activity their grandparents practiced without compunction. This paper considers ethical discourses associated with the killing of ducks, particularly the ways in which people who shoot ducks construct the (...) act of killing as an activity that can be ethically justified. As this paper will show, duck hunters assert that they have a more realistic and appropriate view of nature and animal life cycles than the average antihunter who might criticize them. New Zealand duck hunters also embed their hunting activities within a discourse of wetland conservation, arguing that they do far more to preserve and develop wetlands than do non-hunters. This paper concludes that duck hunters' understandings of nature are intrinsic to the ethical discourses that underpin duck hunting activities in New Zealand. (shrink)

The demonstrations of monks in Tibet and Myanmar in recent times as well as the age-old conflict between a predominantly Buddhist population and a Hindu minority in Sri Lanka raise the question of how the issues of human rights and Buddhism are related. The question applies both to the violation of basic rights in Buddhist countries and to the defence of those rights which are well-grounded in Buddhist teachings. The volume provides academic essays that reflect this up to now rather (...) neglected issue from the point of view of the three main Buddhist traditions, Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana. It provides multi-faceted and surprising insights into a rather unlikely relationship. (shrink)

What paths are taken by post-posi tiv ist so - cial the ory?. Be yond the three ba sic types of contemporarty the o ries stud ied in this pa per, the pre sup po si tions of which com bine struc ture and agent, the study of so ci ety in which ac knowl - edge ment of the prop er ties of dis tinct..

Dienes & Perner argue that the explicit representation of an individual to which a property is attributed requires explicit representation of the attributed property. The reasons for this conclusion are similar to the reasons why another of their conclusions may be considered suspect: A property may be explicit without an explicit representation of an individual or the predication of the property to an individual. We question the latter conclusion and draw connections to neurophysiological and cognitive evidence.

ABSTRACT Doxxing is a form of online abuse where doxxers deliberately seek and publish their targets’ personal information without consent, often with malicious intent such as ruining their reputation. Despite its prevalence, doxxing has received little scholarly attention compared to other forms of online aggression, and almost no study has approached doxxing from a language and discourse perspective. This exploratory study analyzes 464 online forum posts and comments related to doxxing during the on-going pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, addressing the (...) overarching question: In what ways is doxxing a discursive action? More specifically, how is doxxing realized intertextually? What are the discourse strategies that forum participants employ to legitimize doxxing? Informed by Critical Discourse Analysis, the analysis begins by illustrating doxxing as an intertextual and recontextualized social practice, focusing on a forum thread that discloses a police officer’s personal information. The core part of the paper discusses four key legitimation strategies of doxxing identified in the data, rationalization, definition, construction of negative-Other, and victimizing ‘Us’. The paper concludes by considering the role of doxxing in the Hong Kong social movement, and outlining some directions for future research. (shrink)

_Reseña de: Immanuel Kant. “La cuestión de las razas”, seguido de Georg Forster, “Algo que añadir sobre las razas humanas”. Editado por Natalia A. Lerussi y Manuel Sánchez-Rodríguez. __Abada Editores, Madrid, 2021, ISBN: 978-84-17301-76-7._.

Gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, are being heralded as powerful new tools for delivering agricultural products and foods with a variety of beneficial traits quickly, easily, and cheaply. Proponents are concerned, however, about whether the public will accept the new technology and that excessive regulatory oversight could limit the technology’s potential. In this paper, we draw on the sociotechnical imaginaries literature to examine how proponents are imagining the potential benefits and risks of gene editing technologies within agriculture. We derive (...) our data from a content analysis of public comments submitted to the Food and Drug Administration’s 2017 docket titled “Genome Editing in New Plant Varieties Used for Food.” Our sample frame consists of 26 comments representing 30 agriculture and biotech companies, organizations, and trade associations. Our findings reveal three key sociotechnical imaginaries, including that gene editing technologies in agriculture: are not GMO but instead equivalent to traditional plant breeding; have the potential to usher in a new Green Revolution; and could facilitate the democratization of agricultural biotechnologies. We argue that forming and projecting these collective interpretations of the potential of gene editing technologies for crops and foods plays an important role in efforts by proponents to influence regulatory oversight, modes of governance, and build public acceptance. This research contributes to calls by science and technology studies scholars to investigate emergent concerns and imaginaries for novel technoscientific advances to help inform upstream models of public engagement and governance decisions. (shrink)

This article explores the loss of social justice reported by individuals living in the environs of industrial wind turbines (IWTs). References indicate that some individuals residing in proximity to IWT facilities experience adverse health effects. These adverse health effects are severe enough that some families have abandoned their homes. Individuals report they welcomed IWTs into their community and the negative consequences were unexpected. Expressions of grief are exacerbated by the emotional and physical toll of individuals’ symptoms, loss of enjoyment of (...) homes and property, disturbed living conditions, financial loss, and the lack of society’s recognition of their situation. The author has investigated the reported loss of social justice through a review of literature, personal interviews with, and communications from, those reporting adverse health effects. The author’s intention is to create awareness that loss of social justice is being associated with IWT development. This loss of justice arises from a number of factors, including the lack of fair process, the loss of rights, and associated disempowerment. These societal themes require further investigation. Research by health professionals and social scientists is urgently needed to address the health and social impacts of IWTs operating near family homes. (shrink)