Many authors in the field of Environmental Philosophy have claimed to be inspired by Spinoza's monism, which has traditionally been considered a form of pantheism because nature and God coincide. This idea has deep normative implications, as some environmental ethicists claim that wounding nature is the same as wounding God, which implies a resacralization of nature. In particular, we will focus on Arne Næss's Ecosophy (or Deep Ecology) to offer a current relevant example of the pantheist (or panentheist) worldview. However, (...) a new demarcation distinguishes pantheism from panentheism; in the latter, nature and God belong together but do not fully coincide, as in pantheism. Nevertheless, whether Spinoza is a panentheist, pantheist, or neither has yet to be fully determined, as well as whether his doctrine serves as a proper foundation for an ecology that attempts the aforementioned resacralization of nature. This article attempts to clarify these issues. (shrink)

Environmental ethics is often seen as a branch of applied ethics whose task is to offer solutions to emerging ethical dilemmas in the context of ecology. In this paper, we challenge this assumption, showing how the object of environmental ethics raises questions that go beyond that of applied ethics. We explore how the environmental issues bring up the need to inquire into the ontological status of Nature and the place of human beings in it, raising more general and far-reaching questions (...) that do not get entrapped in the mere application. In this regard, it appears that “dwelling”, in its ontological sense, is at the bottom of these questions, creating a bridge between the ontological and the practical realm. Finally, we review classical environmental ethics’ paradigms highlighting the elements that go beyond applied ethics. And so, taking into account the different environmental ethics paradigms, we have two options: reducing the scope of the discipline and exclude the models that exceed it, or reconsidering it as an environmental philosophy tout court. (shrink)

Health professionals are especially exposed to stress, with consequences on professionals’ health and wellbeing. However, palliative care professionals’ wellbeing has been the subject of very little research. The aim of this work is to study the Personal Wellbeing Index in a sample of Spanish palliative care professionals, as well as to study their levels of wellbeing and the relationships of wellbeing with variables such as gender, age, marital status, profession, and professional quality of life. A cross-sectional survey of Spanish palliative (...) care professionals was conducted. The Spanish version of the PWI and the Short version of the Professional Quality of Life Scale were used. Here, 296 palliative care professionals attending patients at the end of life participated in the study. They showed medium to high levels of wellbeing. The PWI showed an adequate internal structure [χ2 = 116.130 ]; Comparative Fit Index = 0.970; standardized root mean square residual = 0.041; root mean square error of approximation = 0.140 ] and excellent estimates of reliability [α = 0.879 and Composite Reliability Index = 0.923]. Wellbeing was higher for married compared to single and showed no relation with age, gender, and profession. Additionally, a structural equation model was estimated, in which a positive relation was found between wellbeing and compassion satisfaction and a negative one with burnout. The PWI is adequate to measure personal wellbeing in Spanish palliative care professionals. (shrink)

El artista menorquín Pascual Calbó Caldés, autor de una enciclopedia científica que ha llegado hasta nosotros con el nombre de Obras didácticas, pintó en el salón de la Casa Vidal una cenefa en la que aparecen representaciones alegóricas de la escultura, pintura, arquitectura, astronomía, música, literatura, matemáticas y agricultura. En este artículo mostramos algunos detalles relativos a las alegorías de las matemáticas y la astronomía que pueden escapar al ojo del observador común. Palabras clave: Pascual Calbó, Matemáticas, Pintura, Menorca, (...) Siglo XVIII. ABSTRACT The artist from Menorca Pascual Calbó Caldés, author of a scientific encyclopedia which has been preserved under the title of Obras didácticas, painted in the living room of the Casa Vidal a frieze in which we can find allegorical representations of sculpture, painting, architecture, music, literature, mathematics and agriculture. In this paper, we present some details regarding the allegories of mathematics and astronomy that may scape the eye of the common observer. Keywords: Pascual Calbó, Mathematics, Painting, Minorca, 18th century. (shrink)

We look at recent accounts of the indefinite extensibility of the concept set and compare them with a certain linguistic model of indefinite extensibility. We suggest that the linguistic model has much to recommend over alternative accounts of indefinite extensibility, and we defend it against three prima facie objections.

This chapter takes a close look at the thought that mereological relations on material objects mirror, and are mirrored by, parallel mereological relations on their exact locations. This hypothesis is made more precise by means of a battery of principles from which more substantive consequences are derived. Mereological harmony turns out to entail, for example, that atomistic space is an inhospitable environment for material gunk or that Whiteheadian space is not a hospitable environment for unextended material atoms.

I would like to discuss the claim that the resources of plural reference and plural quantification are sufficient for the purpose of paraphrasing all ordinary statements apparently concerned with composite material objects into plural statements concerned exclusively with simples.

This paper takes a close look at the thought that mereological relations on material objects mirror, and are mirrored by, parallel mereological relations on their exact locations. This hypothesis is made more precise by means of a battery of principles from which more substantive consequences are derived. Mereological harmony turns out to entail, for example, that atomistic space is an inhospitable environment for material gunk or that Whiteheadian space is not a hospitable environment for unextended material atoms.

When viewed as the most comprehensive theory of collections, set theory leaves no room for classes. But the vocabulary of classes, it is argued, provides us with compact and, sometimes, irreplaceable formulations of largecardinal hypotheses that are prominent in much very important and very interesting work in set theory. Fortunately, George Boolos has persuasively argued that plural quantification over the universe of all sets need not commit us to classes. This paper suggests that we retain the vocabulary of classes, but (...) explain that what appears to be singular reference to classes is, in fact, covert plural reference to sets. (shrink)

The history of the field of business ethics in the U.S. remains understudied and misunderstood. In this article I begin to remedy this oversight about the past, and I suggest how it can be beneficial in the present. Using both published and unpublished primary sources, I argue that the business ethics field emerged in the early twentieth century, against the backdrop of the establishment of business schools in major universities. I bring to light four important developments: business ethics lectures at (...) the University of California and Yale University, Leon Marshall’s curriculum at the College of Commerce of the University of Chicago, and the William A. Vawter Foundation on Business Ethics at Northwestern University. Then, I consider the payoffs of my historical account for business ethics theory, pedagogy, and practice. Specifically, I present four implications of my account under these headings: business ethics as a public problem; the place of ethics in business schools; historicizing business ethics; and historical self-knowledge. (shrink)

In this work, we will try to outline the position of desire and representation in the constitution of the capture apparatus of the imperial machine. For this, we will try to represent the way in which the libido itself is represented both in the primitive socius and in the barbarian socius. To carry out this path, we will start from two base texts: the first will be The Anti-Oedipus, where we trace the genesis of production, registration and consumption; together with (...) the text by Thousand Plateaus entitled The Capturing Apparatus, where we highlight the movement of the State's genesis and how, its conception is indifferent to the notion of the modern subject, as it is based on the flows of desire and on its ideal and concrete representations. In addition to this outline, we will seek to establish the influences of Marx and Engels on the conceptions of Deleuze and Guattari, in spite of the process of reflection about the genesis of the State. For this, we take the bibliographies of Marx and Engels indicated by the French authors – referenced in the two texts cited above – in their description of the genesis of the capture apparatus that is the State. Such works are specifically: A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy, The German Ideology and the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts. (shrink)

Identity is a modally inflexible relation: two objects are necessarily identical or necessarily distinct. However, identity is not alone in this respect. We will look at the relation that one object bears to some objects if and only if it is one of them. In particular, we will consider the credentials of the thesis that no matter what some objects are, an object is necessarily one of them or necessarily not one of them.

Do mereological fusions have their parts necessarily? None of the axioms of non-modal formulations of classical mereology appear to speak directly to this question. And yet a great many philosophers who take the part-whole relation to be governed by classical mereology seem to assume that they do. In addition to this, many philosophers who make allowance for the part-whole relation to obtain merely contingently between a part and a mereological fusion tend to depart from non-modal formulations of classical mereology at (...) least when it comes to the axiom of Unique Fusion, which states that no two different mereological fusions ever fuse exactly the same objects. This is no coincidence. There are reasons of principle why one’s adherence to classical mereology should exert some pull towards the view that mereological fusions have their parts necessarily. There is, however, no direct route from the combination of classical mereology and propositional modal logic to the hypothesis that the part-whole relation obtains necessarily between a part and a mereological fusion. In order to bridge between a modal formulation of classical mereology and the hypothesis that fusions have their parts necessarily, one needs to strengthen the axiom of Unrestricted Fusion in a way that is agreeable to many philosophers on both sides of the debate. (shrink)

Concepts of decision, choice, decision-maker, and decision-making are common practical tools in both social science and natural science, on which scientific knowledge, policy implications, and moral recommendations are based. In this article I address three questions. First, I look into how present-day social scientists and natural scientists use decision/choice concepts. What are they used for? Second, scientists may differ in the application of decision/choice to X, and they may explicitly disagree about the applicability of decision/choice to X. Where exactly do (...) these disagreements lie? Third, I ask how scientists should use decision/choice concepts. What are they correctly and incorrectly used for? I argue that scientists must responsibly attend to a methodological demand: you have to have a principled, non-ad hoc, well-argued-for way of telling where decision/choice applicability ends. Thus, I aim to minimize the risk of conceptual stretching and foster responsible conceptual practices in a large body of scientific work. (shrink)

In recent years, many disciplines have become interested in the scientific study of morality. However, a conceptual framework for this work is still lacking. In The Moral Background, Gabriel Abend develops just such a framework and uses it to investigate the history of business ethics in the United States from the 1850s to the 1930s. According to Abend, morality consists of three levels: moral and immoral behavior, or the behavioral level; moral understandings and norms, or the normative level; and (...) the moral background, which includes what moral concepts exist in a society, what moral methods can be used, what reasons can be given, and what objects can be morally evaluated at all. This background underlies the behavioral and normative levels; it supports, facilitates, and enables them. Through this perspective, Abend historically examines the work of numerous business ethicists and organizations--such as Protestant ministers, business associations, and business schools--and identifies two types of moral background. "Standards of Practice" is characterized by its scientific worldview, moral relativism, and emphasis on individuals' actions and decisions. The "Christian Merchant" type is characterized by its Christian worldview, moral objectivism, and conception of a person's life as a unity. The Moral Background offers both an original account of the history of business ethics and a novel framework for understanding and investigating morality in general. (shrink)

This paper looks at the question of what regions of space are possibly exactly occupied by a material object.

I make a contribution to the sociology of epistemologies by examining the neuroscience literature on love from 2000 to 2016. I find that researchers make consequential assumptions concerning the production or generation of love, its temporality, its individual character, and appropriate control conditions. Next, I consider how to account for these assumptions’ being common in the literature. More generally, I’m interested in the ways in which epistemic communities construe, conceive of, and publicly represent and work with their objects of inquiry—and (...) what’s thereby assumed about them and about the world. I argue that these implicit or explicit assumptions are a distinct type of explanandum, whose distinctiveness sociology hasn’t adequately appreciated and taken advantage of. I think it should and I hope it will. (shrink)

We appreciate Meynen’s examination of ethical implications of using neurotechnologies to decode neural data and make inferences about cognitive processes. Here, we address three issues that we beli...

We analyze the geometric foundations of classical Yang-Mills theory by studying the relationships between internal relativity, locality, global/local invariance, and background independence. We argue that internal relativity and background independence are the two independent defining principles of Yang-Mills theory. We show that local gauge invariance -heuristically implemented by means of the gauge argument- is a direct consequence of internal relativity. Finally, we analyze the conceptual meaning of BRST symmetry in terms of the invariance of the gauge fixed theory under general (...) local gauge transformations. (shrink)

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Apologizing for Socrates places some of the Platonic and Xenophontic writings in the context of contemporary controversies over Socrates, providing a perspective in which many of the philosophic and literary features of the text can be explained. In addition, it sheds light on the apologetic techniques used by Plato and Xenophon.

A concepção espinosista das relações entre o corpo e a mente é frequentemente apresentada como um modelo e uma referência na biologia e na neurobiologia contemporâneas, como testemunham as obras de Jean-Pierre Changeux, de Antonio Damasio ou de Henri Atlan. Apesar de suas profundas diferenças, esses pesquisadores expõem de maneira análoga três teses que fazem de Espinosa um precursor: o monismo psicofísico, a dualidade de expressão da unidade corpo/mente e a ausência de interação e de causalidade recíproca. Esse artigo se (...) interroga sobre as razões pelas quais Espinosa é convocado por esses pesquisadores para dar apoio às suas teorias e para abordar os diferentes usos da sua concepção das relações corpo/mente. Trata-se, portanto, de examinar a maneira pela qual eles apreendem sucessivamente essas três teses e de mensurar a pertinência de suas abordagens. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 88-90.

The paper is concerned with the bad company problem as an instance of a more general difficulty in the philosophy of mathematics. The paper focuses on the prospects of stability as a necessary condition on acceptability. However, the conclusion of the paper is largely negative. As a solution to the bad company problem, stability would undermine the prospects of a neo-Fregean foundation for set theory, and, as a solution to the more general difficulty, it would impose an unreasonable constraint on (...) mathematical practice. (shrink)

We argue that not all cases of before-effect involve causation and ask how to demarcate cases of before-effect in which the events that follow exert causal influence over the before-effect from cases in which they do not.

The magnitude of public concerns about agricultural innovations has often been underestimated, as past examples, such as pesticides, nanotechnology, and cloning, demonstrate. Indeed, studies have proven that the agricultural sector presents an area of tension and often attracts skepticism concerning new technologies. Digital technologies have become increasingly popular in agriculture. Yet there are almost no investigations on the public acceptance of digitalization in agriculture so far. Our online survey provides initial insights to reduce this knowledge gap. The sample represents the (...) German population in terms of gender, age, education and size of place of residence. Results showed that if the potential of digital farming technologies regarding animal welfare and environmental protection was described, respondents reacted positively. Thus, the general attitudes of respondents toward the benefits of DFT were mostly positive. The approval to increasing adoption rates of particular DFT by providing subsidies was also high. Linear regression models showed that the dominant positive influences on respondents’ attitudes toward the benefits of DFT were a generally positive attitude toward farming and a strong trust in farmers in Germany. Confronting respondents with pictures showing DFT resulted in many spontaneous negative associations and general criticism of agricultural production. The latter holds true for DFT in animal husbandry in particular. However, as agriculture as a whole is criticized by many groups in Germany, it is unlikely that benefits from digitalization will significantly increase the public acceptance of agriculture as a whole. (shrink)

Philosophers and ethicists have long neglected moral questions that arise from our interaction with non-human animals. Most assumed that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals, and that it is therefore morally permissible to use non-human animals as a source of food, clothing, and entertainment, and for scientific purposes. In recent decades, however, that assumption has been challenged, and the moral status of non-human animals is now the subject of a lively and controversial academic debate.Advances in sciences, (...) particularly the advent of evolutionary theory, made us realize that human beings and other animals are more similar than different, and force us to rethink our place in nature. We are no longer justified in thinking of ourselves as the crown of creation. We now understand that we are just one species among others, and we must ask ourselves anew – with an open and critical mind and without bias – which values and principles should guide our interaction with non-human animals, and how we should weigh our interests against those of other animals.Recognizing this important trend in moral thinking, the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics invited me to edit a special issue on animal ethics. The interest was so great that one issue became two, of which this is the first. I am grateful to Professor Shamima Parvin Lasker and Ms. Tahera Ahmed for giving me the opportunity to serve as a guest editor, and for their assistance during the editing process. I also thank our contributors for choosing this journal to publish their excellent work, and the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.This, the first special issue on animal ethics contains the following five articles:Robin Attfield and Rebekah Humphreys (“Justice and Non-Human Animals”) challenge the widely held belief that non-human animals are not included within the scope of the principles of justice, and suggest that the interests of non-human animals sometimes take precedence over the interests of human beings. The implications of their argument for our interaction with other animals are profound: E.g., it is a matter of justice and fairness to prevent avoidable and unnecessary animal suffering, rather than a mere matter of compassion.Eric X. Qi (“Special Relations, Special Obligations, and Speciesism”) develops an account of the moral significance of special relations, and uses it to argue for a modest form of speciesism that steers a middle ground between anti-speciesism and crude speciesism. Unlike anti-speciesists, he maintains that species co-membership grounds special moral obligations among the members of the same species. In contrast to crude speciesists, however, he holds that our special obligations to fellow human beings do not warrant that we always attach more weight to their interests than to the comparable interests of non-human animals.Yamikani Ndasaukaand Grivas M. Kayange (“Existence and Needs: A case for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals”) argue that the existentialist view that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals rests on a weak foundation. They consider a number of arguments that have been made in support of this view and conclude that none of them holds up to critical scrutiny. They then suggest that human beings and other animals in fact deserve equal moral consideration, and – drawing from Martin Heidegger and Abraham Maslow – ground that claim in two important commonalities between them.Sreetama Chakraborty (“Animal Ethics: Beyond Neutrality, Universality, and Consistency”) explains how the postmodern approach to animal ethics departs from the traditional approach, particularly its emphasis on the principles of neutrality, universality, and consistency, and draws attention to the pernicious hierarchy of domination that separates human beings from other animals. Building on the insights of postmodernism, she takes first steps towards a new, non-anthropocentric paradigm, in the hope to achieve a sustainable balance between human interests and the interests of non-human animals.Gabriel Vidal Quiñones (“Singerian Vegetarianism and the Limits of Utilitarianism: A path towards a Meaning Ethics”) takes a critical look at Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument for vegetarianism, and argues that the conceptual resources of utilitarianism only allow for an incomplete moral understanding of our relationship with other animals. What is lacking, he suggests, is an ethical vision. He argues that, without an ethical vision, human action threatens to degenerate into mere automatism without meaning. He proposes a “meaning ethics” that he thinks is better equipped to help us decide how we ought to treat other animals.I hope you, dear reader, will enjoy reading through this remarkable collection of articles as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Maybe you will even be inspired to do some thinking of your own about issues of animal ethics and put your thoughts down on paper. If so, I sincerely hope that you will choose the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics to publish your article.Warm regards and best wishes for the new year. (shrink)

In [12], Ernst Zermelo described a succession of models for the axioms of set theory as initial segments of a cumulative hierarchy of levelsUαVα. The recursive definition of theVα's is:Thus, a little reflection on the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory shows thatVω, the first transfinite level of the hierarchy, is a model of all the axioms ofZFwith the exception of the axiom of infinity. And, in general, one finds that ifκis a strongly inaccessible ordinal, thenVκis a model of all of (...) the axioms ofZF. Doubtless, when cast as a first-order theory,ZFdoes not characterize the structures 〈Vκ,∈∩〉 forκa strongly inaccessible ordinal, by the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem. Still, one of the main achievements of [12] consisted in establishing that a characterization of these models can be attained when one ventures into second-order logic. For let second-orderZFbe, as usual, the theory that results fromZFwhen the axiom schema of replacement is replaced by its second-order universal closure. Then, it is a remarkable result due to Zermelo that second-orderZFcan only be satisfied in models of the form 〈Vκ,∈∩〉 forκa strongly inaccessible ordinal. (shrink)

Named entity recognition (NER) is a very relevant task for text information retrieval in natural language processing (NLP) problems. Most recent state-of-the-art NER methods require humans to annotate and provide useful data for model training. However, using human power to identify, circumscribe and label entities manually can be very expensive in terms of time, money, and effort. This paper investigates the use of prompt-based language models (OpenAI’s GPT-3) and weak supervision in the legal domain. We apply both strategies as alternative (...) approaches to the traditional human-based annotation method, relying on computer power instead human effort for labeling, and subsequently compare model performance between computer and human-generated data. We also introduce combinations of all three mentioned methods (prompt-based, weak supervision, and human annotation), aiming to find ways to maintain high model efficiency and low annotation costs. We showed that, despite human labeling still maintaining better overall performance results, the alternative strategies and their combinations presented themselves as valid options, displaying positive results and similar model scores at lower costs. Final results demonstrate preservation of human-trained models scores averaging 74.0% for GPT-3, 95.6% for weak supervision, 90.7% for GPT + weak supervision combination, and 83.9% for GPT + 30% human-labeling combination. (shrink)

Despite tremendous advances in neuroscience, the topic “brain, sex and gender” remains a matter of misleading interpretations, that go well beyond the bounds of science. In the 19th century, the difference in brain sizes was a major argument to explain the hierarchy between men and women, and was supposed to reflect innate differences in mental capacity. Nowadays, our understanding of the human brain has progressed dramatically with the demonstration of cerebral plasticity. The new brain imaging techniques have revealed the role (...) of the environment in continually re-shaping our brain all along our lifetimes as it goes through new experiences and acquires new knowledge. However, the idea that biology is a major determining factor for cognition and behavioral gender differentiation, is still very much alive. The media are far from being the only guilty party. Some scientific circles actively promote the idea of an innate origin of a gender difference in mental capacities. Experimental data from brain imaging, cognitive tests or genetics are often distorted to serve deterministic ideas. Such abuse of “scientific discourses” have to be counteracted by effective communication of clear and unbiased information to the citizens. This paper presents a critical analysis of selected examples which emphasize sex differences in three fields e.g. skills in language and mathematics, testosterone and financial risk-taking behavior, moral cognition. To shed light on the data and the methods used in some papers, we can now—with today’s knowledge on cerebral plasticity—challenge even more strongly, many false interpretations. Our goal here is double: we want to provide evidence against archaic beliefs about the biological determinism of sex differences but also promote a positive image of scientific research. (shrink)

We propose a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between observables and operators in mechanics. To do so, we introduce a postulate that establishes a correspondence between the objective properties permitting to identify physical states and the symmetry transformations that modify their gauge dependant properties. We show that the uncertainty principle results from a faithful—or equivariant—realization of this correspondence. It is a consequence of the proposed postulate that the quantum notion of objective physical states is not incomplete, but rather that (...) the classical notion is overdetermined. (shrink)

Whilst agreeing with Robert Pippin that Hegel undertakes his philosophical enterprise in light of Kant's insights into the failings of pre-critical metaphysics, this paper outlines the shortcomings of Pippin's Hegel interpretation by contrasting what I call 'apperceptive idealism' on the one hand with 'transcendental ontology' on the other. By privileging subject over substance, Pippin commits Hegel to an ontologically modest form of Kantianism that, in missing how reality as a whole is the main topic of Hegel’s philosophy, leaves no room (...) for a crucial Hegelian task, namely accounting for the presence of self-conscious thinking in nature. Appreciating the nature of Hegel's true ambitions whilst remaining aware of how his Logic maps a 'realm of shadows', opens up the possibility of understanding his philosophy as forging a middle path: Hegel is neither the subjective idealist of Pippin's interpretation nor the advocate of a revival of first-order metaphysical theorising depicted by so many of Pippin's critics. (shrink)

O presente artigo aborda o problema do fracasso da cristianização da Escandinávia nos séculos iniciais da missão, especialmente entre a segunda metade do século IX e início do século X, a partir da narrativa apresentada por Adam de Bremen. O trabalho parte de uma abordagem ligada à Vorstellungsgeschichte, uma proposta originada no contexto historiográfico alemão no intuito de incorporar as contribuições da reflexão antropológica nas análises históricas referentes ao troisième niveau. Nesse sentido, a narrativa de Adam é analisada primeiramente enquanto (...) testemunho da visão de mundo de seu autor, sendo o conteúdo narrado entendido como plataforma para a expressão das ideias do cônego bremense. Destacam-se as estratégias utilizadas pelo historiógrafo medieval para lidar com acontecimentos delicados na história da diocese e seus catedráticos enaltecidos na obra de Adam. A forma como ele trabalha os fracassos e retrocessos, assim como opõe a esses os sucessos da empresa missionária refletem principalmente os problemas enfrentados por Hamburgo-Bremen no século XI. A visão retrospectiva apresenta-se como potencial-legitimadora das ações contemporâneas à composição da obra. (shrink)

A volume with 14 chapters on various aspects of the relationship between responsibility and healthcare, plus a substantial introduction that offers a comprehensive overview of the relevant debates and how they relate to one another. Questions of responsibility arise at all levels of health care. Most prominent has been the issue of patient responsibility. Some health conditions that risk death or serious harm are partly the result of lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, lack of exercise, or extreme sports. Are patients (...) with such conditions responsible for them? If so, might healthcare providers, be they state-run systems or private entities, be justified in treating such patients differently? And if they are, which forms of differential treatment are justified? Responsibility isn’t just relevant for patients. Even when individuals affect their health through voluntary behaviour, other influences are also at work before, during, and after the patient’s interaction with the health care system. What are the responsibilities of individual clinicians and other medical professionals, when thinking about individual and public health? What about institutions such as governments or national health care services, or society as a whole? This collection brings together work by world-renowned experts in population ethics, distributive justice, philosophy of action, cognitive science, and medical ethics in order to push the debate forward by elucidating our understanding of these questions, their possible answers, and how they are related. (shrink)

Rabern and Rabern (2008) have noted the need to modify `the hardest logic puzzle ever’ as presented in Boolos 1996 in order to avoid trivialization. Their paper ends with a two-question solution to the original puzzle, which does not carry over to the amended puzzle. The purpose of this note is to offer a two-question solution to the latter puzzle, which is, after all, the one with a claim to being the hardest logic puzzle ever.

A reiteration of the main details of the case may be helpful. Euphiletus killed Eratosthenes and was prosecuted for premeditated homicide by Eratosthenes' relatives. The present speech, our sole source of information concerning the case, was written for the defendant, partially or totally, by a professional speechwriter, presumably Lysias. In this speech Euphiletus admits killing Eratosthenes. He pleads, however, that, since he killed Eratosthenes after catching him in the act of adultery with his own wife, this was a case of (...) justified homicide. At the same time, he denies a charge of the prosecution that he had killed Eratosthenes for reasons unrelated to the adultery. The speech was delivered before a court of fifty-one judges especially set up to judge such cases, as is attested elsewhere:T1Arist. Ath. Pol. 57.3: ‘If…a person admits that he has killed someone but claims that he had a right to do so, as, for instance, when he has surprised an adulterer in the act,… then the trial takes place in the Delphinion’. (shrink)

No decorrer do debate sobre o realismo científico, alguns antirrealistas, tal como Leo Tolstói e Larry Laudan, criaram um desafio cético para os realistas, questionando, com base na história da ciência, a crença realista de continuidade entre as teorias do passado, atuais e futuras. Stathis Psillos ofereceu uma réplica que ficou conhecida como realismo seletivo ou divide et impera, alegando que, através de um minucioso exame, podemos encontrar elementos teóricos de continuidade entre teorias passadas e atuais, assegurando, por analogia, que (...) as teorias futuras também possuirão elementos de continuidade com as atuais. A estratégia de Psillos, se bem empregada, pode evidenciar que a leitura realista de história da ciência também possui suas virtudes e deve ser considerada. Todavia, no presente artigo, argumentamos que mesmo que o realismo seletivo de Psillos se mostre aplicável, ele deve ser considerado como uma crítica a concepções descontinuístas em história da ciência e não necessariamente ao antirrealismo científico em geral, posto que o empirismo construtivo de Bas van Fraassen, por exemplo, admite a continuidade teórica na ciência. (shrink)