Estudio bibliográfico de: / A Bibliographical Study of: G. Vico, Varia. Il "De Mente Heroica" e Gli scritti latini minori ; Vittorio Hösle, Introduzione a Vico. La scienza del mondo intersoggettivo ; e información complementaria / and complementary information.

The causative construction poses a challenge to all mainstream approaches to Spanish mood. Mejías-Bikandi, Errapel. 2014. A cognitive account of mood in complements of causative predicates in Spanish. Hispania 97(4), 651–665, elaborating on his previous approach (Mejías-Bikandi, Errapel. 1998. Presupposition and old information in the use of the subjunctive mood in Spanish. Hispania 81(4), 941–948), which associates the indicative to information that is pragmatically asserted (i.e., presented as both true and new), claims that the use of the subjunctive in the (...) complements of volitive and causative verbs results from the fact that these complements are not independently grounded and so cannot be asserted. His proposal, though, raises some serious objections. In this paper, an alternative account is presented, whereby the use of the subjunctive in this context is understood as reflecting the antagonist’s viewpoint and epistemic assessment on the goal process within a force dynamics pattern. (shrink)

This paper studies how the concept WATER is metonymically and metaphorically extended to six super-domains: NATURE, LIFE SUSTAINER, MOVEMENT, POWER, PURITY, and WOMAN. We demonstrate that these six target domains are related to each other in intricate ways and within each are a number of sub-domains. This complicated semantic network of WATER is formed via speakers’ embodied experience with their physical as well as cultural environment. We believe that our detailed discussion of the WATER network will contribute to the current (...) research on the relationship between metaphor and metonymy. (shrink)

In Norms in the Wild, distinguished philosopher Cristina Bicchieri argues that when it comes to human behavior, social scientists place too much stress on rational deliberation. In fact, she says, many choices occur without much deliberation at all. Two people passing in a corridor automatically negotiate their shared space; cars at an intersection obey traffic signals; we choose clothing based on our instincts for what is considered appropriate. Bicchieri's theory of social norms accounts for these automatic components of coordination, (...) where individuals react automatically to cues that focus their attention on what the norm is in that situation. Social norms thus act as rules for making choices in a social world where people expect others -- often unconsciously -- to follow the same rule. Some norms enable seamless social co-operation, while others are less beneficial to human flourishing.Bicchieri is famous for her interdisciplinary work on game theory and most recently her work on social norms, and Norms in the Wild represents her latest challenge to many of the fundamental assumptions of the social sciences. Bicchieri's work has broad implications not only for understanding human behavior, but for changing it for better outcomes. People have a strongly conditioned preference for following social norms, but that also means that manipulating their expectations can cause major behavioral changes. Bicchieri has been working recently with UNICEF and other NGO's to explore the applicability of her views to issues of human rights around the world. Is it possible to change social expectations around forced marriage, genital mutilations, and public health practices like vaccinations and sanitation? If so, how? What tools might we use? This short book explores how social norms work, and how changing them - changing preferences, beliefs, and especially social expectations - can potentially improve lives all around the world. It will appeal to an unusually broad range of readers including philosophers, psychologists and others in behavioral sciences, and anyone involved in public policy or at NGOs. (shrink)

In The Grammar of Society, first published in 2006, Cristina Bicchieri examines social norms, such as fairness, cooperation, and reciprocity, in an effort to understand their nature and dynamics, the expectations that they generate, and how they evolve and change. Drawing on several intellectual traditions and methods, including those of social psychology, experimental economics and evolutionary game theory, Bicchieri provides an integrated account of how social norms emerge, why and when we follow them, and the situations where we are (...) most likely to focus on relevant norms. Examining the existence and survival of inefficient norms, she demonstrates how norms evolve in ways that depend upon the psychological dispositions of the individual and how such dispositions may impair social efficiency. By contrast, she also shows how certain psychological propensities may naturally lead individuals to evolve fairness norms that closely resemble those we follow in most modern societies. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon Problem presents a serious challenge to externalist theories of epistemic justification. In recent years, externalists have developed a number of strategies for responding to the problem. A popular line of response involves distinguishing between a belief’s being epistemically justified and a subject’s being epistemically blameless for holding it. The apparently problematic intuitions the New Evil Demon Problem elicits, proponents of this response claim, track the fact that the deceived subject is epistemically blameless for believing as she (...) does, not that she is justified for so believing. This general strategy—which I call the “unjustified-but-blameless maneuver”—is motivated, in part, by the assumption that the distinction between epistemic justification and blamelessness is merely an extension of the familiar distinction between moral justification and blamelessness. In this paper, I consider three ways of drawing the distinction between justification and blamelessness familiar from the moral domain: the first in terms of a connection with reactive attitudes, the second in terms of the distinction between wrongness and wronging, and the third in terms of reasons-responsiveness. All three ways of drawing the distinction, I argue, make it difficult to see how an analogous distinction in the epistemic domain could help externalists explain away the intuitions which underwrite the New Evil Demon Problem. Motivating the unjustified-but-blameless maneuver, I conclude, is a much less straightforward task than its proponents tend to assume. (shrink)

We report the results of an experiment designed to determine the effects of psychological proximity—proxied by awareness of pain and friendship—on moral reasoning. Our study tests the hypotheses that a moral agent’s emphasis on justice decreases with proximity, while his/her emphasis on care increases. Our study further examines how personality, gender, and managerial status affect the importance of care and justice in moral reasoning. We find support for the main hypotheses. We also find that care should be split into two (...) components, one related to protection and the other to the preservation of relationships. Although gender does not affect moral reasoning directly, we find that it does so indirectly via personality, controlling for age, professional status, and professional background. We do not find a significant effect of managerial status on ethics of justice, but do find that holding a managerial position has a negative impact on ethics of care. Regarding personality, we detect significant positive effects of conscientiousness on ethics of justice and of neuroticism on ethics of care. (shrink)

Human being is essentially a homo theologicus. Its thinking is a theologal way of being. The origin of theological thinking is the onto-existential condition of man as being in the world toward the Transcendence through death in the quest for Meaning. Transcendence is the perfect union of the ontological (Being) and the epistemological (Meaning) in an analogical relationship with the identity between “kalon” and “agathon” as present in Plato. There is an essential correspondence between Being and Meaning that has ontological (...) preeminence over the correspondence between Being and time. The present paper examines Heidegger’s main onto-existential categories in the horizon opened by E. Stein and V. Frankl. A critical approach to Heidegger’s anthropological ontology is carried out aiming to develop a theandric ontology of Dasein. A provisional general definition of the homo theologicus is acquired, in which human being is thought of as thankful thinking in the perpetual celebration of Meaning. (shrink)

Man is a "homo theologicus." The dominion of the cyberculture is determining the oblivion of the Sacred in a new fashion, creating fictional transcendences that replace traditional reality with cyberconstructions. We aim to show how man is essentially a theologal being and how the Byzantine notion of ϑέωσις (deification) as expressed in sacred arts can be a way of preserving human essence from its alienation in the fictional transcendences of cyberbeing. We approach cyberculture as a process of ontological desubstantiation via (...) artificial "intelligence" and virtual reproductions. We explain the dual phenomenon of the implanting of a decentered, networked techno-hedonism and the spread of the "avatar syndrome" as a cyber-disease that inhibits in man his responsibility to be real. By contrast, we underscore the importance of the fact that in cyberbeing the "enchantment before beings" as anticipation of radical freedom is especially safeguarded. While the modern aesthetic is mostly deprived of mystic origin and transcendental telos and proves useless against cyberbeing's desubstantiating power, Byzantine aesthetic as an ontological healing way can contribute to the de-oblivion of human essence. This implies that sacred Byzantine arts as aesthetic therapy open the horizon in which man experiences his essence as perpetual bliss in the meaning of Being. (shrink)

Sleep and dream visions as revelations, narrative devices, signs of illness, and aesthetic-artistic formulae alongside their interpretations, are common experiences shared by all cultures throughout the ages. They exhibit an astonishing variety of contexts and meanings. Rather than abstract time, with its mathematical indistinctness, a dialectical concreteness of signs and symbols in culture determines the specificity and character of dream experience and its complex hermeneutic.

Background and ObjectiveThere is vast published literature proposing repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation technology on the motor cortex for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Systematic reviews focus on a specific problem and do not provide a comprehensive overview of a research area. This study aimed to summarize and analyze the evidence of rTMS on the M1 for NP treatment through a new synthesis method called evidence mapping.MethodsSearches were conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Epistemonikos, and The Cochrane Library to identify the studies that (...) summarized the effectiveness of rTMS for NP. The study type was restricted to SRs with or without meta-analysis. All literature published before January 23, 2021, was included. Two reviewers independently screened the literature, assessed the methodological quality, and extracted the data. The methodological quality of the included SRs was assessed by using the A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews. Data were extracted following a defined population, intervention, comparison, and outcome framework from primary studies that included SRs. The same PICO was categorized into PICOs according to interventions [frequency, number of sessions ] and compared. The evidence map was presented in tables and a bubble plot.ResultsA total of 38 SRs met the eligibility criteria. After duplicate primary studies were removed, these reviews included 70 primary studies that met the scope of evidence mapping. According to the AMSTAR-2 assessment, the quality of the included SRs was critically low. Of these studies, 34 SRs scored “critically low” in terms of methodological quality, 2 SR scored “low,” 1 SR scored “moderate,” and 1 SR scored “high.”ConclusionEvidence mapping is a useful methodology to provide a comprehensive and reliable overview of studies on rTMS for NP. Evidence mapping also shows that further investigations are necessary to highlight the optimal stimulation protocols and standardize all parameters to fill the evidence gaps of rTMS. Given that the methodological quality of most included SRs was “critically low,” further investigations are advised to improve the methodological quality and the reporting process of SRs. (shrink)

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to (...) blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics. (shrink)

The Internet has been identified in human enhancement scholarship as a powerful cognitive enhancement technology. It offers instant access to almost any type of information, along with the ability to share that information with others. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the enhancement potential of the Internet. We argue that unconditional access to information does not lead to cognitive enhancement. The Internet is not a simple, uniform technology, either in its composition, or in its use. We will (...) look into why the Internet as an informational resource currently fails to enhance cognition. We analyze some of the phenomena that emerge from vast, continual fluxes of information–information overload, misinformation and persuasive design—and show how they could negatively impact users’ cognition. Methods for mitigating these negative impacts are then advanced: individual empowerment, better collaborative systems for sorting and categorizing information, and the use of artificial intelligence assistants that could guide users through the informational space of today’s Internet. (shrink)

This paper argues that hypocritical blame renders blame inappropriate. Someone should not express her blame if she is guilty of the same thing for which she is blaming others, in the absence of an admission of fault. In failing to blame herself for the same violations of norms she condemns in another, the hypocrite evinces important moral faults, which undermine her right to blame. The hypocrite refuses or culpably fails to admit her own mistakes, while at the same time demands (...) that others admit theirs. The paper argues that this lack of reciprocity—expecting others to take morality seriously by apologizing for their faults, without one doing the same in return—is what makes hypocritical blame unfair. (shrink)

Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the collective irrationality of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, such as partisanship and ideology, exposure to misinformation and conspiracy theories or the effectiveness of public messaging. This paper presents a complementary explanation to epistemic accounts of collective irrationality, focusing on the moral reasons underlying people’s decisions regarding vaccination. We argue that the moralization of COVID-19 risk mitigation measures contributed to the polarization of groups along moral values, which ultimately led to the emergence of collective irrational (...) behaviors. Collective irrationality arises from groups explicitly or implicitly endorsing values that ultimately harm both themselves and those around. The role of social media platforms in amplifying this polarization and contributing to the emergence of collective irrationality is also examined. Finally, potential strategies for addressing the moral sources of collective irrationality are discussed. (shrink)

Providing people with information is considered an important first step in encouraging them to behave sustainably as it influences their consumption beliefs, attitudes and intentions. However, too much information can also complicate these processes and negatively affect behaviour. This is exacerbated when people have accepted the need to live a more sustainable lifestyle and attempt to enact its principles. Drawing on interview data with people committed to sustainability, we identify the contentious role of knowledge in further disrupting sustainable consumption ideals. (...) Here, knowledge is more than just information; it is familiarity and expertise or how information is acted upon. We find that more knowledge represents a source of dilemma, tension and paralysis. Our data reveal a dark side to people’s knowledge, leading to a ‘self-inflicted sustainable consumption paradox’ in their attempts to lead a sustainable consumption lifestyle. Implications for policy interventions are discussed. (shrink)

L.A. Paul calls “deep” the kind of essentialism according to which the essential properties of objects are determined independently of the context. Deep essentialism opposes “shallow essentialism”, of which David Lewis is said to be a prominent advocate. Paul argues that standard forms of deep essentialism face a range of issues (mainly based on an interpretation of Quinean skepticism) that shallow essentialism does not. However, Paul claims, shallow essentialism eliminates the very heart of what motivates essentialism, so it is better (...) to be deep than shallow. Accordingly, she proposes a very sharp novel account of essentialism, which, while attempting to preserve some of the advantages of shallow essentialism over the classical forms of deep essentialism, can be deemed to be deep. In this paper, I compare Paul’s proposal for a kind of deep essentialism with Lewis’s account, as it is presented by Paul. My aim is to show that the differences between the two approaches are not as significant as Paul takes them to be, and that Paul’s account can be taken to be deeper than Lewis’s only at the cost of sacrificing the very idea at the bottom of deep essentialism. This might be taken to suggest that, if Paul is correct in asserting that shallow essentialism is better equipped to address some skeptical challenges, but it is generally preferable to be deep than shallow, then Lewis’s account should be re-evaluated, since, as shallow as it can be, it might be deeper than it looks. (shrink)

We present five studies investigating the effects of approach and avoidance behaviours when individuals do not enact them but, instead, learn that others have performed them. In Experiment 1, when participants read that a fictitious character (model) had approached a previously unknown product, they ascribed to this model a liking for the object. In contrast, they ascribed to the model a disliking for the avoided product. In Experiment 2, this result emerged, with a smaller effect size, even when it was (...) clear that the behaviours followed specific instructions from a third party. The model had been a mere executor instead of behaving autonomously. Finally, in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, we showed, with direct and indirect measures of attitudes, that reading that the model had approached vs avoided products was sufficient to create preferences in the participant for the approached one, regardless of whether it was explained that the model was a mere executor. This research highlights the largely unexplored effects of vicarious approach/avoidance behaviours. Theoretical and practical implications and possible developments of this line of research are discussed. (shrink)

The US healthcare industry emits an estimated 479 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year; nearly 8% of the country’s total emissions. When assessed by sector, hospital care, clinical services, medical structures, and pharmaceuticals are the top emitters. For 15 years, research has been dedicated to the medical structures and equipment that contribute to carbon emissions. More recently, hospital care and clinical services have been examined. However, the carbon of pharmaceuticals is understudied. This article will focus on the carbon emissions (...) of pharmaceuticals since they are consistently calculated to be among the top contributors to healthcare carbon and assess the factors that contribute to pharmaceutical carbon emissions. Specifically, overprescription, pharmaceutical waste, antibiotic resistance, routine prescriptions, non-adherence, drug dependency, lifestyle prescriptions, and drugs given due to a lack of preventive healthcare will be identified. Prescribing practices have environmental ramifications. Carbon reduction, when focused on pharmaceuticals, can lead to cleaner, more sustainable healthcare. (shrink)

Lewis (1968) claims that his language of Counterpart Theory (CT) interprets modal discourse and he adverts to a translation scheme from the language of Quantifed Modal Logic (QML) to CT. However, everybody now agrees that his original translation scheme does not always work, since it does not always preserve the ‘intuitive’ meaning of the translated QML-formulas. Lewis discusses this problem with regard to the Necessitist Thesis, and I will extend his discourse to the analysis of the Converse Barcan Formula. Everyone (...) also agrees that there are CT-formulas that can express the QMLcontent that gets lost through the translation. The problem is how we arrive to them. In this paper, I propose new translation rules from QML to CT, based on a suggestion by Kaplan. However, I will claim that we cannot have ‘the’ translation scheme from QML to CT. The reason being that de re modal language is ambiguous. Accordingly, there are diferent sorts of QML, depending on how we resolve such ambiguity. Therefore, depending on what sort of QML we intend to translate into CT, we need to use the corresponding translation scheme. This suggests that all the translation problems might just disappear if we do what Lewis did not: begin with a fully worked out QML that tells us how to understand de re modal discourse. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many social problems and put the already vulnerable, such as racial minorities, low-income communities, and older individuals, at an even greater risk than before. In this paper we focus on older adults’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and show that the risk-mitigation measures presumed to protect them, alongside the generalization of an ageist public discourse, exacerbated the pre-existing marginalization of older adults, disproportionately affecting their well-being. This paper shows that states have duties to adopt and (...) put into practice redress measures to compensate for the negative consequences of COVID-19 public health policies on older adults’ overall well-being. These duties flow from the minimal ethical requirement of respect for persons. We show that respect is a morally basic attitude that presupposes taking the others’ interests into account, with the aim of advancing their well-being. This duty is not limited to kinship, relatives, and friends but it extends to states and the rest of the civil society. In the conclusion, we draw lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and sketch some redress measures that could compensate for the decrease in older adults’ well-being as a result of the adoption of measures to contain the spread of the virus. (shrink)

The illicit diffusion of intimate photographs or videos intended for private use is a troubling phenomenon known as the diffusion of Non-Consensual Intimate Images (NCII). Recently, it has been feared that the spread of deepfake technology, which allows users to fabricate fake intimate images or videos that are indistinguishable from genuine ones, may dramatically extend the scope of NCII. In the present essay, we counter this pessimistic view, arguing for qualified optimism instead. We hypothesize that the growing diffusion of deepfakes (...) will end up disrupting the status that makes our visual experience of photographic images and videos epistemically and affectively special; and that once divested of this status, NCII will lose much of their allure in the eye of the perpetrators, probably resulting in diminished diffusion. We conclude by offering some caveats and drawing some implications to better understand, and ultimately better counter, this phenomenon. (shrink)

The thesis of mental fragmentation has recently attracted increased attention as a way of explaining facts about mind and language. This volume provides an accessible introduction and essays on foundations and applications of fragmentation.

Evolutionary psychology (EP) theorizes that contemporary women and men differ psychologically, particularly in mating and sexuality. It is further argued that EP research on gender-specific psychological differences is compatible with feminist perspectives. This paper analyzes if integrating EP scholarship on gender differences into feminist scholarship is possible by investigating EP’s core scientific commitments. I will argue that EP’s theories, hypotheses, and empirical findings that pertain to the study of gender do not align with its core values based on Longino’s feminist (...) theoretical virtues as outlined in the 1996 article “Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Values in Science: Rethinking the Dichotomy.” I employ feminist theoretical virtues as tools for revealing how certain theories, models, and hypotheses rely upon, promote contentious norms, and suppress gender. I will defend the thesis that EP theories, hypotheses, and empirical findings are often empirically inadequate, androcentric, and ontologically too homogeneous. Further, EP employs single-factor control models, has no straightforward practical application, and might even be politically dangerous. These characteristics challenge a successful integration of EP into feminism. (shrink)

Through the analysis of an 18-month ethnography at an exotic dance club located in the Northeastern United States, I uncover how Latina exotic dancers manage their participation in exotic dance by deploying constructions of Latinidad as embodied cues. I focus on Playpen’s weekly event, “Latina Night,” to demonstrate how racialized, sexualized, and gendered constructs relative to Latinidad are produced and regulated in this exotic dance setting. Study participants draw on embodied markers to negotiate how their bodies are read. Those markers (...) include nationality-based appeals, time elapsed since migration, and the ability to express constructions of Latinidad through dance performance. I draw on intersectionality as a conceptual tool, filtered through a sensibility to Latina/o/x lives and experiences, to analyze the nuances of racialization as experienced by Latinas. This approach destabilizes the U.S. black–white racial binary and opens intersectionality to a more nuanced understanding of the production of Latinidad. By approaching racialization as an embodied phenomenon, I elucidate how bodily markers, beyond skin color, become imbued with racialized meaning and condition racialized erotic capital. No less important is how participants draw on racialized, gendered, and sexualized tropes to benefit racialized erotic capital. (shrink)

Many accounts of ethnic phenomena imply that processes such as stereotyping, essentialism, ethnocentrism, and intergroup hostility stem from a unitary adaptation for reasoning about groups. This is partly justified by the phenomena’s co-occurrence in correlational studies. Here we argue that these behaviors are better modeled as functionally independent adaptations that arose in response to different selection pressures throughout human evolution. As such, different mechanisms may be triggered by different group boundaries within a single society. We illustrate this functionalist framework using (...) ethnographic work from the Quechua-Aymara language boundary in the Peruvian Altiplano. We show that different group boundaries motivate different ethnic phenomena. For example, people have strong stereotypes about socioeconomic categories, which are not cooperative units, whereas they hold fewer stereotypes about communities, which are the primary focus of cooperative activity. We also show that, despite the cross-cultural importance of ethnolinguistic boundaries, the Quechua-Aymara linguistic distinction does not strongly motivate any of these intergroup processes. (shrink)

The carbon emissions of global health care activities make up 4–5% of total world emissions, placing it on par with the food sector. Carbon emissions are particularly relevant for health care because of climate change health hazards. Doctors and health care professionals must connect their health care delivery with carbon emissions and minimize resource use when possible as a part of their obligation to do no harm. Given that reducing carbon is a global ethical priority, the informed consent process in (...) health care delivery must change. I argue that the expanded role of bioethicists in this climate crisis is to promote and support “green informed consent:” the sharing of climate information with patients, offering options for lower-carbon health care, and accepting the patient’s right to decline treatments which are deemed too carbon intensive for their values. (shrink)

Fibring is recognized as one of the main mechanisms in combining logics, with great signicance in the theory and applications of mathematical logic. However, an open challenge to bring is posed by the collapsing problem: even when no symbols are shared, certain combinations of logics simply collapse to one of them, indicating that bring imposes unwanted interconnections between the given logics. Modulated bring allows a ner control of the combination, solving the collapsing problem both at the semantic and deductive levels. (...) Main properties like soundness and completeness are shown to be preserved, comparison with bring is discussed, and some important classes of examples are analyzed with respect to the collapsing problem. (shrink)

David Lewis is usually thought to reject what Quine called “Aristotelian essentialism”. The starting point of this paper is to define and explain Aristotelian essentialism and locate it in the context of the criticism that Quine made of quantified modal logic. Indeed, according to Quine, Aristotelian essentialism would be one of the consequences of accepting quantified modal logic. After having explained Lewis’s stance in the Quinean debate against quantified modal logic, this paper will deal with the question as to whether (...) Lewis accepts or rejects Aristotelian essentialism. I think there are different plausible interpretations of the essentialist thesis, and I will distinguish between three such interpretations. This distinction between different interpretations of essentialism is both interesting per se and helpful in understanding the senses in which Lewis is or is not an antiessentialist. I will say, in fact, that while it is true that Lewis rejects Aristotelian essentialism under the first two understandings of the essentialist thesis, he endorses such a thesis according to a third understanding. I will then take this to show that there is a sense in which Aristotelian essentialism survives in Lewis’s metaphysical theory. (shrink)

The Lewisean counterpart theorist– despite not defending a genuinely essentialist view of what is possible, de re, of individuals – generally has a way to make essentialist claims come out as true, in those contexts in which they are endorsed by a committed essentialist. In this paper, I am going to show that the normal system that the Lewisean adopts when she wants to make the essentialist a truth-teller does not work with Kit Fine: his essentialist beliefs, which support his (...) counterexamples to the modal account of essentialism, cannot come out as true, in any contexts whatsoever, under the Lewisean view. After arguing that this represents a genuine problem for Lewis’s theory, I will propose a solution. I will indeed show that the Lewisean has a principled way to account for Fine’s essentialist beliefs, consistently with her own counterpart-theorist reading of them. (shrink)

Using samples from three diverse populations, we test evolutionary hypotheses regarding how people reason about the inheritance of various traits. First, we provide a framework for differentiat-ing the outputs of mechanisms that evolved for reasoning about variation within and between biological taxa and culturally evolved ethnic categories from a broader set of beliefs and categories that are the outputs of structured learning mechanisms. Second, we describe the results of a modified “switched-at-birth” vignette study that we administered among children and adults (...) in Puno, Yasawa, and adults in the United States. This protocol permits us to study perceptions of prenatal and social transmission pathways for various traits and to differentiate the latter into vertical versus horizontal cultural influence. These lines of evidence suggest that people use all three mechanisms to reason about the distribution of traits in the population. Participants at all three sites develop expectations that morphological traits are under prenatal influence, and that belief traits are more culturally influenced. On the other hand, each population holds culturally specific beliefs about the degree of social influence on non-morphological traits and about the degree of vertical transmission—with only participants in the United States expecting parents to have much social influence over their children. We reinterpret people's differentiation of trait transmission pathways in light of humans' evolutionary history as a cultural species. (shrink)

Research has demonstrated that policing is a stressful occupation and has a negative impact on police officers’ mental and physical health, performance, and interactions with citizens. Mental health at the workplace has become a concern due to the costs of depression, anxiety, burnout, and even suicide, which is high among police officers.To ameliorate occupational health, it is crucial therefore to identify stress and burnout levels on a regular basis. However, the instruments frequently used to measure stress have not valorized the (...) specificity of policing tasks. This study aims: i) conducting a literature review, to identify questionnaires used to assess occupational stress and burnout among police officers; ii) to analyze the psychometric characteristics of a Portuguese version of Operational Police Stress Questionnaire (PSQ-Op); and, using the PSQ-op and other questionnaires, iii) to identify operational stress, burnout, and distress levels among Portuguese police officers. The literature review identified 108 studies, which use a multiplicity of questionnaires to measure burnout or occupational stress among police officers, but few studies use specific police stress questionnaires. Sample sizes were mostly below 500 participants and studies were mainly developed in the last decade in the USA and Brazil, but also in another 24 countries, showing the extent of the interest in this topic. This study applied to 2057 police officers from National Portuguese Police, a force policing urban centers, the PSQ-Op, as well the Spanish Burnout Inventory and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale.The results show that the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of PSQ-Op are adequate. Factorial analysis revealed two dimensions defined as social and work issues, which were associated with measures of distress and burnout.Fit indices suggested a second-order solution called operational police stress. Overall, and considering the scale range of each questionnaire, the results showed moderate values of operational stress, distress, and burnout. However, considering their cut-off points, 85% of the sample presented high operational stress levels, 11% critical values for burnout, and 28% high distress levels, with 55% of the sample at risk of psychological disorder. These results reinforce the need to prevent stress and to invest in police officers’ occupational health. (shrink)

Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference.

How should citizens respond to dirty-hands acts? This issue has been neglected in the theoretical literature, which has focused on the dilemma facing the politician and not on the appropriate responses of citizens. Nevertheless, dirty-hands scenarios pose a serious dilemma for the democratic citizens as well: we cannot simply condone the dirtyhanded act but should instead express our moral condemnation and disapproval. One way of doing this is through blame and punishment. However, this proposal is unsatisfactory, as dirty-hands agents commit (...) wrongdoing through no fault of their own. I argue that we ought to make conceptual space for an idea of no-fault responsibility – and a corresponding notion of no-fault forgiveness – according to which we can hold agents to obligations without blaming them. (shrink)