De Neys argues against assigning exclusive capacities to automatic versus controlled processes. The dual implicit process model provides a theoretical rationale for the exclusivity of automatic threat processing, and corresponding data provide empirical evidence of such exclusivity. De Neys's dismissal of exclusivity is premature and based on a limited sampling of psychological research.

A monosexual configuration of sexuality assumes that sexual desire is directed at either men or women. Bisexuality resists a choice between oppositional categories and is often theorised as having a transgressive potential to destabilise binary logic, not only in relation to sexuality but also to gender. There is, however, a lack of empirical work exploring how this potential might be realised in the accounts of bisexual individuals. Drawing on interviews with South African bisexual women, we use a narrative-discursive lens to (...) examine the discursive resources employed by participants to trouble or resist hetero-gendered norms. Our findings demonstrate how resistance to the gender binary hinges on citational politics that are fundamentally gendered and linked to sexuality. Instead of entirely destabilising hetero-gendered norms, participants draw on gendered scripts that simultaneously expand norms to accommodate their sexual difference and, through processes of othering, function to reiterate hetero-gendered norms. While complete subversion of gender binaries is not possible in participants’ discursive contexts, what does occur is a ‘slow bending’ of norms. Theorising bisexuality as transgressing oppositional categories closes off opportunities to interrogate the pervasive influence of gender binaries in contexts that remain marked by pervasive heteronormativity and heterosexism. Significantly, it also obscures more modest improvisations of gender scripts that hold potential for destabilising gender binaries. (shrink)

Interviews with David Benatar and Thaddeus Metz about some core aspects of their views about meaning in life, including debate between them. Accessible to a generally educated audience. Edited by Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff.

The rapid development of CRISPR-based gene editing has been accompanied by a polarized governance debate about the status of CRISPR-edited crops as genetically modified organisms. This article argues that the polarization around the governance of gene editing partly reflects a failure of public engagement with the current state of research in genomics and postgenomics. CRISPR-based gene-editing technology has become embedded in a narrow narrative about the ease and precision of the technique that presents the gene as a stable object under (...) technological control. By tracing the considerably destabilized scientific understanding of the gene in genomics and postgenomics, this article highlights that this publicly mediated ontology strategically avoids positioning the “ease of CRISPR-based editing” in the wider context of the “complexity of the gene.” While this strategic narrowness of CRISPR narratives aims to create public support for gene-editing technologies, we argue that it stands in the way of socially desirable anticipatory governance and open public dialogue about societal promises and the unintended consequences of gene editing. In addressing the polarization surrounding CRISPR-based editing technology, the article emphasizes the need for engagement with the complex state of postgenomic science that avoids strategic simplifications of the scientific literature in promoting or opposing the commercial use of the gene-editing technology. (shrink)

We distinguish between different problems of “aboutness”: the “hard” problem of explaining the everyday phenomenon of intentionality and three less challenging “easy” sets of problems concerning the posits of folk psychology, the notions of representation invoked in the mind‐brain sciences, and the intensionality (with an “s”) of mental language. The problem of intentionality is especially hard in that, as is the case with the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness, there is no clear path to a solution using current methods. We (...) argue that naturalistic theories of mental representation do not address the hard problem—either they are only intended to address the easy problems, or the claims they make help address the problem of intentionality only under undefended and prima facie implausible assumptions to the effect that the hard problem reduces to some combination of the easy problems. We offer a positive account of what would be required to properly face up to the problem of intentionality. (shrink)

This paper proposes a five-part empirical typology of interconnections of race and class. We describe the mechanisms whereby (1) race is a form of class relation; (2) race relations and class relations reciprocally affect each other; (3) race acts as a sorting mechanism into class locations; (4) race acts as a mediating linkage to class locations; and (5) race interacts with class in determining other outcomes. Rather than insisting on one or another mechanism as the overarching framework for conceptualising the (...) interconnections between race and class, we propose a theoretical integration of all five within a functionalist model. The model reconciles the empirical effects of race variables with a class-functionalist explanation of race. Our typology of interconnections is useful for situating concrete empirical phenomena, and our theoretical integration of those interconnections offers a coherent explanatory system that captures the recursive causality of race and class. (shrink)

We introduce the subject of modal model theory, where one studies a mathematical structure within a class of similar structures under an extension concept that gives rise to mathematically natural notions of possibility and necessity. A statement φ is possible in a structure (written φ) if φ is true in some extension of that structure, and φ is necessary (written φ) if it is true in all extensions of the structure. A principal case for us will be the class Mod(T) (...) of all models of a given theory T—all graphs, all groups, all fields, or what have you—considered under the substructure relation. In this article, we aim to develop the resulting modal model theory. The class of all graphs is a particularly insightful case illustrating the remarkable power of the modal vocabulary, for the modal language of graph theory can express connectedness, k-colorability, finiteness, countability, size continuum, size ℵ1, ℵ2, ℵω, ℶω, first ℶ-fixed point, first ℶ-hyper-fixed point, and much more. A graph obeys the maximality principle φ(a)→φ(a) with parameters if and only if it satisfies the theory of the countable random graph, and it satisfies the maximality principle for sentences if and only if it is universal for finite graphs. (shrink)

The extent and mechanisms through which religion intertwines with decision-making processes in family firms remain inadequately understood. Family firm owners, driven by their commitment to ethical business practices and the safeguarding of their socioemotional wealth, actively seek cues to inform their decision-making processes. This research demonstrates that, among these guiding cues, top-level executives’ perceived religiosity emerges as a relevant factor. Building upon the socioemotional wealth perspective and conducting a longitudinal analysis based on listed family firms between 2009 and 2018, our (...) findings reveal a positive association between family voting rights and the presence of board members perceived to be religious. Furthermore, this relationship is less pronounced if family firms operate in industries with high research and development intensity. Our study confirms that boards with high shares of religiously perceived directors are positively associated with the appointment of chief executive officers perceived to be religious during succession events. We thereby present a unique perspective that acknowledges perceived religiosity as a micro-level constituent shaping board membership and successor selection. This investigation captures the intricate interplay between religion and family firms under a socioemotional wealth umbrella, offering important insights to the family business ethics discourse. Our research also offers practical implications for board and leadership diversity management in family firms. (shrink)

Ray and Cooper (2024) argue for the need to incorporate the fight for environmental justice into the bioethics agenda. While they convincingly argue that the principle of justice involves environme...

O presente artigo busca compreender o conceito de corpo em Henry David Thoreau. Para isso, o texto se divide em três momentos: o primeiro, que tem por objetivo expor como se entende, inicialmente, o corpo como um dualismo preso entre as experiências do civilizatório e o selvagem; o segundo, que parte de uma compreensão desde a experiência dos rios para expor uma corporalidade líquida como ponto conhecimento e de relação com o mundo; e, finalmente, o terceiro expõe a filosofia (...) thoreauviana do caminho como uma maneira de compreender o corpo desde o terreno e, por sua vez, como devir. Tudo isso a partir de uma interpretação filosófica que permite compreender a corporalidade em Thoreau como uma possibilidade experiencial capaz de produzir pensamento a partir de uma mística com a natureza; ou seja, no autor há uma filosofia que compreende o estar-no-mundo como uma experiência intimamente ligada com a natureza. (shrink)

Oftentimes, we have been informed that democracy is the best form of government possible. In African politics, this view has mostly been adopted and pursued as true. Surprisingly, democracy has mostly failed as a system in most parts of the continent—with most democratic governments undermining the mandates of the citizens who are supposed to have placed them in power, and also escalating the already spiralling decline of the continent through bad leadership and corruption. In this article, and with Nigeria as (...) the primary case study, I offer explanations regarding why democracy fails in most African countries. Specifically, I argue that mass miseducation and false self‐interestedness are the main culprits that limit the success of democracy in Africa. I further propose that democracy in Africa can only be salvaged when there is proper moral ideology guiding the informal education of citizens, when citizens are offered proper quality formal education that would grant them the necessary skills and aid them to make informed decisions, and when citizens take a turn from false self‐interestedness to true self‐interestedness (which is fealty to collective interests). (shrink)

I argue that the adjective δαιμόνιος (‘daemonic’) and the substantivized adjective τὸ δαιμόνιον (‘the daemonic’) that occur in Aristotle’s dream treatises basically mean ‘divine-like,’ denoting an illusory appearance of divine intervention, typically in the form of an alleged god-sent prophetic dream. Yet the appearances to which the terms refer are, in fact, neither divine nor supernatural at all, but involve merely coincidental correlations between the dream and the fulfilling event. It is shown that Aristotle’s use of ‘daemonic’ is traditional and (...) reflects the endoxon that prophetic dreams are closely related to the divine. The paper also examines a set of earlier readings of the daemonic in De divinatione in relation to the proposed interpretation. (shrink)

Arguments concerning divine conservation and concurrence often assume that actions of certain descriptions would be superfluous if God were to perform them, and it is then concluded that God does not perform such actions. In particular, it often seems that atomic actions cannot be the result of cooperative activity between God and creatures since there is no apparent way to divide the labor between the two. However, the actions that are atomic in one model of divine action may not be (...) atomic on another. On fine-grained models there may be unexpected prospects for nonredundant divine action. (shrink)

Dentro del espíritu del pensamiento de Walter Benjamin, quien vio en las pequeñas cosas grandes síntomas de la modernidad industrial, este texto se aproxima al reguetón para comprender algunas contradicciones características del presente. Una estética de la saturación, una poética de la apropiación y la alteración de la voz por el uso del Auto-Tune son rasgos definitivos para comprender los motivos por los cuales este género musical moviliza multitudes, tanto como es objeto de rechazos enfurecidos en el contexto de las (...) actuales sociedades digitales. (shrink)

According to the math tea argument, there must be real numbers that we cannot describe or define, because there are uncountably many real numbers, but only countably many definitions. And yet, the existence of pointwise-definable models of set theory, in which every individual is definable without parameters, challenges this conclusion. In this article, I introduce a flexible new method for constructing pointwise-definable models of arithmetic and set theory, showing furthermore that every countable model of Zermelo-Fraenkel ZF set theory and of (...) Peano arithmetic PA has a pointwise-definable end extension. In the arithmetic case, I use the universal algorithm and its Σ n generalizations to build a progressively elementary tower making any desired individual a n definable at each stage n, while preserving these definitions through to the limit model, which can thus be arranged to be pointwise definable. A similar method works in set theory, and one can moreover achieve V = L in the extension or indeed any other suitable theory holding in an inner model of the original model, thereby fulfilling the resurrection phenomenon. For example, every countable model of ZF with an inner model with a measurable cardinal has an end extension to a pointwise-definable model of ZFC + V = L[μ]. (shrink)

Although the seasons have been a perennial theme in literature and art, their significance for philosophy and environmental theory has remained largely unexplored. This pioneering book demonstrates the ways in which inquiry into the seasons reveals new and illuminating perspectives for philosophy, environmental thought, anthropology, cultural studies, aesthetics, poetics, and literary criticism. The Seasons opens up new avenues for research in these fields and provides a valuable resource for teachers and students of the environmental humanities. The innovative essays herein address (...) a wide range of seasonal cultures and geographies, from the traditional Western model of the four seasons––spring, summer, fall, and winter––to the Indigenous seasons of Australia and the Arctic. Exemplifying the crucial importance of interdisciplinary research, The Seasons makes a compelling case for the relevance of the seasons to our daily lives, scientific understanding, diverse cultural practices, and politics. (shrink)

The Dimensions of Spirituality Inventory (DSI) is a 50-item quantitative assessment of spirituality. Whereas “spirituality” has seemed to some to be too vague for research purposes, the DSI follows earlier qualitative research in showing that usage of the word points to an intelligible conceptual structure. Instead of defining spirituality and then operationalizing it, as most extant instruments do, the DSI defines and operationalizes 21 relatively uncontroversial elemental components of spirituality, so the overall interpretation of spirituality can only emerge after factor (...) analysis. Just as an alphabet flexibly expresses words and sentences, so the 21 DSI dimensions permit the discovery of latent constructs corresponding to cultural packages of spirituality at the present time. The DSI avoids culturally parochial formulations of items, thanks to intense multidisciplinary engagement among social scientists, scholars of religion, and psychologists of religion, and thus is suitable for cross-cultural application. This paper reports on a study based on a participant pool recruited for ExploringMyReligion.org, in part from Prolific (N = 820, after culling unreliable responses). The DSI is interpreted and validated in relation to several other relevant measures, and the factor analysis is strongly resonant with prior qualitative studies. The psychometric properties of the DSI make it usable as an overall spirituality scale as well as a sensitive inventory of types and configurations of spirituality. (shrink)

This dissertation argues that corporate moral responsibility can be an element of functioning corporations and is a choice that society can make. Although many in the lay community would say that of course corporations should attend to moral questions, the philosophy of how this can be rightly said is controversial. Section one (first three chapters) gives an account of the nature of functioning business corporations involving the readily observable facts about a corporation doing business, and a tripartite model of the (...) corporation is presented. The tripartite model consists in 1) the legal entity that owns assets and liabilities, 2) a group of persons contracted to the legal entity and 3) a set of roles and relationships between the corporate associates and the legal entity. Additionally, an account of the main extant theories of the nature of corporations and their inability to account for the readily observable facts of corporations is argued. The conclusion is that the corporation, as a tripartite model, is best served by a theory that designates it as a real entity apart from but dependent on its employees. Chapter three answers the question, ‘What type of real entity is a corporation?’, using John Searle’s theory of social ontology to show that corporations are institutional facts, a social entity. The second part of the thesis argues that corporations have moral dispositions analogous to those held by natural persons and maintains that it is these that allow corporate entities to be capable of moral concern. A constitutive rule is introduced, ‘moral company rule’, that may be used as a guide for society to assess the extent of corporate moral responsibility. An account of the powers and responsibilities corporations would have if the moral company rule was followed is presented. Additionally, the dilemma for society, to insist on corporate moral responsibility or preserve the status quo, is explored. The last chapter recapitulates the argument for corporate moral responsibility to illustrate the two aims of this thesis: first to give a clear understanding of the functioning business corporation as a real entity with a series of moral dispositions, and second to show that society has a choice to insist that these moral dispositions are used in business. (shrink)

Various philosophers discuss perlocutionary silencing, but none defend an account of perlocutionary silencing. This gap may exist because perlocutionary success depends on extralinguistic effects, whereas silencing interrupts speech, leaving theorists to rely on extemporary accounts when they discuss perlocutionary silencing. Consequently, scholars assume perlocutionary silencing occurs but neglect to explain how perlocutionary silencing harms speakers as speakers. In relation to that shortcoming, I defend a novel account of perlocutionary silencing. I argue that speakers experience perlocutionary silencing when they are illegitimately (...) deprived of perlocutionary influence on a conversation in which they are active participants, where perlocutionary influence on the conversation relates to speech-related perlocutionary goals meant to influence the conversation or conversational direction. Thus, this account grounds perlocutionary silencing in linguistic phenomena and characterizes perlocutionary silencing in a way that explains why those who experience perlocutionary silencing are harmed as speakers. Moreover, this account explains how perlocutionary silencing harms speakers as conversational participants in a way that cannot be captured by illocutionary or locutionary silencing, for a speaker may be perlocutionarily silenced despite illocutionary success. Consequently, the account explains why “All Lives Matter” silences Black Lives Matter and “Not All Men” silences women sharing experiences of sexual harassment. (shrink)

Gilbertson, Savulescu, Oakley and Wilkinson propose extending the availability of terminal sedation (TS) to patients with intractable pain and/or suffering who are expected to live more than 2 weeks (hence the designation of extended TS (ETS)) and to patients whose values are known but who do not have decision-making capacity.1 Their plan is worthy of serious consideration: it is, after all, based on the fundamental and well-recognised medical ethical values of patient autonomy and beneficence. But, even when restricted to jurisdictions (...) that allow assisted dying, the ETS proposal raises three important issues. When the authors speak of ‘assisted dying’ and of ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAS)’, they refer specifically to the laws in Australia and similar ones in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain and Canada that permit clinicians either to provide patients with lethal medications for self-administration (formerly called physician-assisted suicide) or to administer lethal medications themselves (voluntary euthanasia). First, the authors distinguish—as do many patients and the public—between sedation to unconsciousness and death. Indeed, as the authors point out, the difference seems obvious: unconsciousness can be reversed, death cannot. Yet in the case of TS, this may be …. (shrink)

This article discusses the fortune of Geoffrey de Ste. Croix’s famous article ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’, and reassesses its basic thesis that the Athenian Empire was popular among the lower classes of the allied cities in the light of recent developments in the field. After surveying the article’s immediate and more recent reception, and discussing its relation with The Origins of the Peloponnesian War and The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, it isolates four key new trends (...) in Greek history that, while going against some of Ste. Croix’s basic convictions, end up reinforcing his overall case. These are: a renewed attention to the mass and elite dichotomy, with recent work interpreting Greek oligarchy as a fundamentally reactive and anti-demotic regime; the recognition of the continued relevance of Persian meddling in the later fifth-century; a sea-change in Attic epigraphy which has led to the post-dating of several ‘imperial’ decrees; the new recognition of the dynamism of the Greek economy, and of the economic function of the Athenian Empire itself. Finally, the article addresses the paradigm of class struggle and stresses how democracy and economic dynamism, to which the Athenian Empire contributed, fostered the growth of slave markets and worsened the exploitation of ‘marginal’ regions as slave suppliers. (shrink)

Este trabajo intenta enfrentar una serie de dificultades sobre el lenguaje: una problemática secundaria en la filosofía poliana, pero que conecta con algunos temas principales. La problemática puede verse en dos sentidos: por un lado, el lenguaje representa, según Polo, un problema para la filosofía puesto que en su forma expresiva se trata de una producción posterior al pensar, con lo que se ve forzado a tratar sobre aquello que lo fundamenta. Sobra decir que la referencia del lenguaje al pensamiento (...) es imperfecta e incompleta (lo que pone en juego su uso metodológico-técnico). Por otro lado, el lenguaje mismo es un objeto de la propia filosofía, que debe dar cuenta de los modos de articular el sentido. Para enfocar ambos puntos, en este trabajo seguiré los siguientes pasos: primero señalaré la dificultad de acercamiento al lenguaje de la filosofía de Polo, es decir, a sus modos expresivos y tecnicismos propios; en segundo lugar intentaré situar esta dificultad en los términos del propio Polo, a saber, según el modo en que el lenguaje es un derivado poiético y por ende derivativamente intencional. Por último volveré sobre la capacidad expresiva que tiene el lenguaje respecto de algunas posibilidades metaobjetivas desde ciertos planteamientos estéticos. (shrink)

Despite the salient experience of encoding threatening events, these memories are prone to distortions and often non-veridical from encoding to recall. Further, threat has been shown to preferentially disrupt the binding of event details and enhance goal-relevant information. While extensive work has characterised distinctive features of emotional memory, research has not fully explored the influence threat has on temporal memory, a process putatively supported by the binding of event details into a temporal context. Two primary competing hypotheses have been proposed; (...) that threat can impair or enhance temporal memory. We analysed two datasets to assess temporal memory for an in-person haunted house experience. In study 1, we examined the temporal structure of memory by characterising memory contiguity in free recall as a function of individual levels of heart rate as a proxy of threat. In study 2, we replicated marginal findings of threat-related increases in memory contiguity found in study 1. We extended these findings by showing threat-related increases in recency discriminations, an explicit test of temporal memory. Together, these findings demonstrate that threat enhances temporal memory regarding free recall structure and during explicit memory judgments. (shrink)

Our goal is to analyze the distinction between factual statements and opinions from a philosophical—specifically an epistemological—perspective. Section 1 reviews the most common criteria for drawing the distinction, which while inadequate, as explained in Section 2, still plays an important cultural and political role. In Section 3, we argue that the difference between factual statements and opinions does not involve a single criterion. Instead, the conceptual structure of the terms ‘fact’ and ‘opinion’ is analogous to that of natural kinds—terms with (...) multiple dimensions. We expect that improved theory will lead to improvements in pedagogy, decision-making, and public discourse. But these consequences are not our chief focus. (shrink)

Experimental balance is usually understood as the control for the value of the conditions, other than the one under study, which are liable to affect the result of a test. We discuss three different approaches to balance. ‘Millean balance’ requires identifying and equalizing ex ante the value of these conditions in order to conduct solid causal inferences. ‘Fisherian balance’ measures ex post the influence of uncontrolled conditions through the analysis of variance. In ‘efficiency balance’ the value of the antecedent conditions (...) is decided ex ante according to the efficiency they yield in the estimation of the treatment outcome. Against some old arguments by Worrall, we show that in both Fisherian and efficiency balance there are good reasons to randomize the allocation of treatments, in particular when there is no agreement among experimenters as to the antecedent conditions to be controlled for. (shrink)

Hobbes makes a new interpretation about politics backgrounded in full materialistic conception. His materialistic ontology denies the separate essences from the traditional metaphysics and denies the Aristotelian idea of politics as essential nature of humanity. Unlike this view, Hobbes shows that the politics is created by human beings from the power fight and power is a way of satisfying the human desires by synthetized objects and relations. In this way, politics aims to satisfy concrete human needs and the power itself, (...) before being political, is an expression from human activity. Besides, politics exists only while it can keep effective protection for citizens, because its existence depends on its material effectivity. (shrink)

Research has suggested an increase in loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, but much of this work has been cross-sectional, making causal inferences difficult. In the present research, we employed a longitudinal design to identify loneliness trajectories within a period of twelve months during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium (N = 2106). We were particularly interested in the potential protective role of self-compassion in these temporal dynamics. Using a group-based trajectory modelling approach, we identified trajectory groups of individuals following low (11.0%), (...) moderate-low (22.4%), moderate (25.7%), moderate-high (31.3%), and high (9.6%) levels of loneliness. Findings indicated that younger people, women, and individuals with poor quality relationships, high levels of health anxiety, and stress related to COVID-19, all had a higher probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Importantly, we also found that people high in two of the three facets of self-compassion (self-kindness and common humanity) had a lower probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Ultimately, we demonstrated that trajectory groups reflecting higher levels of loneliness were associated with lower life satisfaction and greater depressive symptoms. We discuss the possibility that increasing self-compassion may be used to promote better mental health in similarly challenging situations. (shrink)

Essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, from Breaking Convention 2017.

In Olivi´s division of the sciences, which can be found in his treatise De perlegendis philosophorum libris, c. 9, there seems to be a twofold place for metaphysics: one as part of the theoretical sciences and another as part of the practical, alongside medicine and ethics. This view is based on a misreading of the manuscripts. For the second appearance of metaphysics one should read “mechanica” instead. Thus, this paper shows that the thesis of an unconventional approach to metaphysics in (...) Olivi cannot be sustained by De perlegendis philosophorum libris. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to demonstrate that in Die Bedeutung der Tragödien Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) takes distance from the Aristotelian interpretation of Tragedy. In this fragment, the poet suggests this literary genre should be understood on the bases of the notion of paradox and on how this concept relates to the tragic hero. In order to prove this, I first clarify what the German poet means when he proposes paradox as the easiest way to understand Tragedy. Second, I highlight (...) the correlations between the assertions of this text and Hölderlin’s former stances about Tragedy in the Grund zum Empedokles, the Anmerkungen zum Oedipus and the Anmerkungen zur Antigonä. Finally, I argue that the approach regarding paradox is evidence of the distance Hölderlin took from the Aristotelian definition of Tragedy as mimesis of an action. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore stakeholders’ perspectives on the ethical considerations for returning individual pharmacogenomics research results to people living with HIV. A qualitative approach to investigation involved five focus group discussions with 30 Community representatives, 12 key informant interviews with researchers, and 12 in-depth interviews with research ethics committee members. In total, 54 stakeholders who were involved in pharmacogenomics research and HIV treatment and care contributed to the data collection between September 2021 and February 2022. The study explored five (...) prominent themes: (i) defining the nature of research results to return to participants; (ii) preparing research participants to receive their results; (iii) obtaining informed consent for the return of results; (iv) opinions on health personnel to return the results to participants; and (v) opinions on how research results should be communicated to participants. Respondents identified various strategies for the return of individual results with minimal ethical risks including the setting up of a diverse and independent committee to undertake a risk-benefit assessment based on local context; ongoing discussions about the possible kinds of results and their implications throughout the study; and employing genetic counsellors to communicate results to participants. The strategies identified in this study should be further studied and independently verified. (shrink)

A sustainable supply chain management strategy reduces risks and meets environmental, economic and social objectives by integrating environmental and financial practices. In an ever-changing environment, supply chains have become vulnerable at many levels. In a global supply chain, carefully tracing a product is of great importance to avoid future problems. This paper describes a self-updating smart contract, which includes data validation, for tracing global supply chains using blockchains. Our proposal uses a machine learning model to detect anomalies on traceable data, (...) which helps supply chain operators detect anomalous behavior at any point in the chain in real time. Hyperledger Caliper has been used to evaluate our proposal, and obtained a combined average throughput of 184 transactions per second and an average latency of 0.41 seconds, ensuring that our proposal does not negatively impact supply chain processes while improving supply chain management through data anomaly detection. (shrink)

Marx developed a sophisticated theory of labour under capitalism’s expanding reproduction but wrote little specifically on immaterial labour. This paper reflects on how to build from Marx’s writings a more comprehensive theory of immaterial labour. Integral to this theorisation is bringing in young Marx’s writings on alienation and human nature, and praxis read as the ‘point of knowledge is to change the world’. Integrating the young and mature work into a single perspective that highlights the actively causal dimension of human (...) creativity and knowledge for the making of history critically adds to and thereby transforms the naturalism and structural determinism of orthodox readings of Marx’s Marxism. We relate this theorisation specifically to the project of liberating academic labour from the shackles of its neoliberal containment by making ‘knowledge socialism’. (shrink)

Journals and publishers are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to screen submissions for potential misconduct, including plagiarism and data or image manipulation. While using AI can enhance the integrity of published manuscripts, it can also increase the risk of false/unsubstantiated allegations. Ambiguities related to journals’ and publishers’ responsibilities concerning fairness and transparency also raise ethical concerns. In this Topic Piece, we offer the following guidance: (1) All cases of suspected misconduct identified by AI tools should be carefully reviewed by humans (...) to verify accuracy and ensure accountability; (2) Journals/publishers that use AI tools to detect misconduct should use only well-tested and reliable tools, remain vigilant concerning forms of misconduct that cannot be detected by these tools, and stay abreast of advancements in technology; (3) Journals/publishers should inform authors about irregularities identified by AI tools and give them a chance to respond before forwarding allegations to their institutions in accordance with Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines; (4) Journals/publishers that use AI tools to detect misconduct should screen all relevant submissions and not just random/purposefully selected submissions; and (5) Journals should inform authors about their definition of misconduct, their use of AI tools to detect misconduct, and their policies and procedures for responding to suspected cases of misconduct. (shrink)

David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” (WII), a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail internalism simpliciter. Indeed, WII is compatible (...) with modest externalism, and so is consistent with what Armstrong calls “Type II justification,” the rejection of which leads to the arbitrary epistemic distinctions to which he rightly objects. (shrink)

David Alexander has argued that “weak inferential internalism” (WII), a position which amounts to a qualified endorsement of Richard Fumerton’s controversial “principle of inferential justification,” is subject to a fatal dilemma: Either it collapses into externalism or it must make an arbitrary epistemic distinction between persons who believe the same proposition for the same reasons. In this paper, I argue that the dilemma is a false one, for weak inferential internalism does not entail internalism simpliciter. Indeed, WII is compatible (...) with modest externalism, and so is consistent with what Armstrong calls “Type II justification,” the rejection of which leads to the arbitrary epistemic distinctions to which he rightly objects. (shrink)