Background: The role of personality in cancer incidence and development has been studied for a long time. As colorectal cancer is one of the most prevalent cancer types and linked with lifestyle habits, it is important to better understand its psychological correlates, in order to design a more specific prevention and intervention plan. The aim of this systematic review is to analyze all the studies investigating the role of personality in CRC incidence.Methods: All studies on CRC and personality up to (...) November 2020 were scrutinized according to the Cochrane Collaboration and the PRISMA statements. Selected studies were additionally evaluated for the Risk of Bias according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale.Results: Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were eventually included in this review. Two main constructs have been identified as potential contributors of CRC incidence: emotional regulation and relational style.Conclusion: Strong conclusions regarding the influence of personality traits on the incidence of CRC are not possible, because of the small number and the heterogeneity of the selected studies. Further research is needed to understand the complexity of personality and its role in the incidence of CRC and the interaction with other valuable risk factors. (shrink)

Background: Undergraduate nursing students have been documented to experience ethical distress during their clinical training and felt poorly supported in discussing the ethical issues they encountered. Research aims: This study was aimed at exploring nursing students’ perceived opportunity to discuss ethical issues that emerged during their clinical learning experience and associated factors. Research design: An Italian national cross-sectional study design was performed in 2015–2016. Participants were invited to answer a questionnaire composed of four sections regarding: socio-demographic data, previous clinical learning (...) experiences, current clinical learning experience quality and outcomes, and the opportunity to discuss ethical issues with nurses in the last clinical learning experience. Participants and research context: Participants were 9607 undergraduate nursing students who were attending 95 different three-year Italian baccalaureate nursing programmes, located at 27 universities in 15 Italian regions. Ethical considerations: This study was conducted in accordance with the Human Subject Research Ethics Committee guidelines after the research protocol was approved by an ethics committee. Findings: Overall, 4707 perceived to have discussed ethical issues ‘much’ or ‘very much’; among the remaining, 3683 and 1217 students reported the perception of having discussed, respectively, ‘enough’ or ‘never’ ethical issues emerged in the clinical practice. At the multivariate logistic regression analysis explaining 38.1% of the overall variance, the factors promoting ethical discussion were mainly set at the clinical learning environment levels. In contrast, being male was associated with a perception of less opportunity to discuss ethical issues. Conclusion: Nursing faculties should assess the clinical environment prerequisites of the settings as a context of student experience before deciding on their accreditation. Moreover, the nursing faculty and nurse managers should also enhance competence with regard to discussing ethical issues with students among clinical nurses by identifying factors that hinder this learning opportunity in daily practice. (shrink)

Aging is characterized by the decline and deterioration of functional cells and results in a wide variety of molecular damages and reduced physical and mental capacity. The knowledge on aging process is important because life expectancy is expected to rise until 2050. Aging cannot be considered a homogeneous process and includes different trajectories characterized by states of fitness, frailty, and disability. Frailty is a dynamic condition put between a normal functional state and disability, with reduced capacity to cope with stressors. (...) This geriatric syndrome affects physical, neuropsychological, and social domains and is driven by emotional and spiritual components. Sarcopenia is considered one of the determinants and the biological substrates of physical frailty. Physical and cognitive frailty are separately approached during daily clinical practice. The concept of motoric cognitive syndrome has partially changed this scenario, opening interesting windows toward future approaches. Thus, the purpose of this manuscript is to provide an excursus on current clinical practice, enforced by aneddoctical cases. The analysis of the current state of the art seems to support the urgent need of comprehensive organizational model incorporating physical and cognitive spheres in the same umbrella. (shrink)

According to Smell Objectivism, the smells we perceive in olfactory experience are objective and independent of perceivers, their experiences, and their perceptual systems. Variations in how things smell to different perceivers or in different contexts raise a challenge to this view. In this paper, I offer an objectivist account of non-illusory contextual variation: cases where the same thing smells different in different contexts of perception and there is no good reason to appeal to misperception. My central example is that of (...) dihydromyrcenol, a substance that can smell both woody and citrusy depending on what other odourants one has recently been exposed to. I first argue that the subjects’ apparently conflicting reports about the way dihydromyrcenol smells are best understood as comparative characterisations of a smell. Given this understanding, different reports can be correctly made in response to perceiving the very same smell. I then argue that the phenomenal difference between the experiences subjects have across contexts can be explained compatibly with Smell Objectivism. On the account proposed, subjects perceive the very same smell but different qualities, notes, or aspects of it are salient to them, depending on the context of perception. I then consider how the proposed defence of Smell Objectivism can be adapted to other cases where the same thing is reported as smelling different in different contexts. (shrink)

In spite of a large and diverse body of research on the topic, the relationship between Christianity and modernity is still an open question and a nodal point for our understanding of Western civilization. This paper aims at providing an original contribution to this debate by bringing into play the impact of gender-related views and practices. In particular, it focuses on Catholic Modernism, and analyzes this phenomenon and its repression by the Vatican hierarchy from the understudied perspective of female historiography (...) by way of an exemplary case study: the life and work of Maude Petre. Maude Petre (1863–1942) was a British Roman Catholic, member of a female religious community, a leading figure of Catholic Modernism, and one of its first historians. Because of the long-term patterns of gender imbalance which shaped the Catholic establishment and milieu, Petre's position as an active female modernist intellectual gave her a truly unique perspective on the confrontation between tradition and change within Western Christianity. Her work offers an outstanding opportunity to revise existing definitions of Catholic Modernism, while also opening new avenues to interpret the religious entanglements of the Western intellectual tradition at large. (shrink)

Universities and other research institutions are increasingly providing additional training in research integrity to improve the quality and reliability of research. Various training courses have been developed, with diverse learning goals and content. Despite the importance of training that focuses on moral character and professional virtues, there remains a lack of training that adopts a virtue ethics approach. To address this, we, a European Commission-funded consortium, have designed a train-the-trainer programme for research integrity. The programme is based on (1) virtue (...) ethics, (2) the ethos of science, (3) learning by doing and (4) learner-centred teaching. The blended learning programme combines e-learning modules with participatory group sessions. Trainers are taught how to guide researchers through a series of structured exercises for fostering reflection on scientific virtues, and how to promote understanding and application of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Trainers are provided with adaptable tools and resources that can be used and combined in different ways. The programme implementation began in Spring 2020 and 470 trainers have participated to date. When trainers were asked to grade – between 0 (very bad) and 10 (excellent) – the e-learning modules and the participatory exercises, 60% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 8, IQR = 2) for the e-learning modules, whereas 80% scored a grade 8 or higher (median = 9, IQR = 1) for the participatory exercises. A majority felt that the training helped them as a trainer to learn about ways to organise and teach a research integrity course (82%) and would recommend the interactive exercises to others (92%). Trainers have educated over 3300 researchers in Europe using our virtue-based approach. The VIRT2UE train-the-trainer programme fosters research integrity by providing trainers with exercises and tools which enable them to stimulate the development of good researchers across Europe. (shrink)

Issue number 4 of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" is devoted to the Dutch philosopher François Hemsterhuis and 250th anniversary of the birth of the German romantics Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel. This fourth issue of the journal contains nearly 600 pages of new research articles, translations, review-essays, and book reviews. The main section on Hemsterhuis among the German Romantics was guest edited by Daniel Whistler (Royal Holloway, University of London).

This third 2021 issue of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" contains a main dossier of new research articles guest edited by Leif Weatherby (New York University) and devoted to the topic of early German romanticism and science. In addition to the papers of this main section issue number 3 of SYMPHILOSOPHIE includes translations of primary sources and book reviews. All contents are freely available online.

This book investigates the unresolved issue of democratic legitimacy in contexts of pervasive disagreement and contributes to this debate by defending a relational version of political liberalism that rests on the ideal of co-authorship. According to this proposal, democratic legitimacy depends upon establishing appropriate interactions among citizens who ought to ascribe to one another the status of putative practical and epistemic authorities. To support this relational reading of political liberalism, the book proposes a revised account of the civic virtue of (...) reasonableness along with an investigation of the epistemic-specific dimension of political equality. By engaging with political epistemology and social theory, this book explores ways to address inherent tensions within the liberal paradigm, using the following strategies of addressing these tensions: first, it defends a twofold model of legitimacy that distinguishes the goals, methodologies, and justificatory tasks of both ideal and nonideal phases of the two-level justificatory framework; second, it contends that democratic legitimacy requires an engaged and contextual critical appraisal of the injustices that characterize our daily social lives, illustrating how structural forms of injustice represent a profound betrayal of the liberal ideal of democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

The ethical monitoring of brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) is discussed in connection with the potential impact of BMIs on distinguishing traits of persons, changes of personal identity, and threats to personal autonomy. It is pointed out that philosophical analyses of personhood are conducive to isolating an initial thematic framework for this ethical monitoring problem, but a contextual refinement of this initial framework depends on applied ethics analyses of current BMI models and empirical case-studies. The personal autonomy-monitoring problem is approached by identifying (...) various ways in which the inclusion of a robotic controller in the motor pathway of an output BMI may limit or jeopardize personal autonomy. (shrink)

This article defends a specific account of reasonableness as a virtue of liberal citizenship. I specify an account of reasonableness that I argue is more consistent with the phenomenology of intersubjective exchanges among citizens over political matters in contexts of deep disagreement. My reading requires reasonable citizens to undertake an attitude of epistemic modesty while deliberating public matters with agents who hold views different from theirs. In contrast with my view, I debate Martha Nussbaum’s and Steven Wall’s accounts of reasonableness (...) and specify why I believe that these proposals, although interesting, both require revisions. Distinguishing my account from theirs, I specify the normative relation between reasonableness and a general framework of political legitimacy that identifies citizens as ‘co-authors of democratic decisions’. Here, I argue that the liberal ideal of ascribing to each member of the constituency the status of putative epistemic authority can be properly fulfilled if coupled with a correct specification of the political ideal of mutual respect. I conclude claiming that opacity respect, a notion of respect according to which the recognition respect that is owed to individuals is expressed by the idea that we have to treat them as ‘opaque’, is the most adequate concept of political respect when dealing with interpersonal deliberations at political level in contexts of deep disagreement. (shrink)

In today’s pluralistic society, clinical ethics consultation cannot count on a pre-given set of rules and principles to be applied to a specific situation, because such an approach would deny the existence of different and divergent backgrounds by imposing a dogmatic and transcultural morality. Clinical ethics support (CES) needs to overcome this lack of foundations and conjugate the respect for the difference at stake with the necessity to find shared and workable solutions for ethical issues encountered in clinical practice. We (...) argue that a pragmatist approach to CES, based on the philosophical theories of William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce, can help to achieve the goal of reaching practical solutions for moral problems in the context of today’s clinical environment, characterized by ethical pluralism. In this article, we outline a pragmatist theoretical framework for CES. Furthermore, we will show that moral case deliberation, making use of the dilemma method, can be regarded an example of a pragmatist approach to CES. (shrink)

We argue that the health sciences make causal claims on the basis of evidence both of physical mechanisms, and of probabilistic dependencies. Consequently, an analysis of causality solely in terms of physical mechanisms or solely in terms of probabilistic relationships, does not do justice to the causal claims of these sciences. Yet there seems to be a single relation of cause in these sciences - pluralism about causality will not do either. Instead, we maintain, the health sciences require a theory (...) of causality that unifies its mechanistic and probabilistic aspects. We argue that the epistemic theory of causality provides the required unification. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The article critically discusses Rahel Jaeggi’s recent philosophical contribution to a critical theory of capitalism. The first part reconstructs Jaeggi’s account of Lebensform, life-form, that builds up the main ontological framework for addressing and problematizing capitalism intended not as an economic system but as a social whole. The second part focuses on the three different theoretical strategies that Jaeggi puts forward to detect and deal with capitalism’s immanent flaws. The third and last part problematizes the metaphysical assumptions and implications (...) of Jaeggi’s understanding of life-form and outlines a more dialectical, or “transactional” notion of form of life, which is inspired by Dewey’s non-reductionist naturalist method of inquiry. The overall aim is to strengthen the philosophical critique of the capitalist form of life. (shrink)

Critical Data Studies explore the unique cultural, ethical, and critical challenges posed by Big Data. Rather than treat Big Data as only scientifically empirical and therefore largely neutral phenomena, CDS advocates the view that Big Data should be seen as always-already constituted within wider data assemblages. Assemblages is a concept that helps capture the multitude of ways that already-composed data structures inflect and interact with society, its organization and functioning, and the resulting impact on individuals’ daily lives. CDS questions the (...) many assumptions about Big Data that permeate contemporary literature on information and society by locating instances where Big Data may be naively taken to denote objective and transparent informational entities. In this introduction to the Big Data & Society CDS special theme, we briefly describe CDS work, its orientations, and principles. (shrink)

Proceduralists hold that democracy has a non-instrumental value consisting in the ideal of equality incorporated by fair procedures. Yet, proceduralism does not imply that every outcome of a democratic procedure is fair per se. In the non-ideal setting of constitutional democracies, government and legislative decisions may result from factional conflicts, or depend on majoritarian dictatorships. In these circumstances, Supreme Courts provide a guardianship against contested outcomes by enacting mechanisms of checks and balances, constitutional interpretation and judicial review. Yet, in virtue (...) of this role, Supreme Courts exercise a form of epistocratic power, which rests at odds with the ideal of political equality. We analyse this dilemma and propose a solution, arguing that Supreme Courts do not run unrestrained decisions; rather their decisional power is bound to the protective function of fundamental rights, in which their constitutional mandate ultimately consists. (shrink)

Scientific and philosophical literature on causality has become highly specialised. It is hard to find suitable access points for students, young researchers, or professionals outside this domain. This book provides a guide to the complex literature, explains the scientific problems of causality and the philosophical tools needed to address them.

Democratic legitimacy is often grounded in proceduralist terms, referring to the ideal of political equality that should be mirrored by fair procedures of decision-making. The paper argues (§1) that the normative commitments embedded in a non-minimalist account of procedural legitimacy are well expressed by the ideal of co-authorship. Against this background, the main goal of the paper is to argue that structural forms of epistemic injustice are detrimental to the overall legitimacy of democratic systems. In §2 I analyse Young’s notion (...) of political powerlessness and claim that in structurally unjust social contexts members of powerless groups often are not properly acknowledged as functioning members of the polity, hence being jeopardized in their ability to develop part of their personal identity. In §III, I define gerrymandering as an example of political disempowerment that involves an epistemic harm for oppressed citizens, namely, to be prejudicially excluded from the community of epistemic trust. My thesis is that being epistemically disempowered has a negative impact on the way in which citizens understand themselves as political actors, since they suffer a lack of social recognition that may impede a proper development of their reflexive agency. In §IV, I discuss the proposal of granting epistemic privilege to members of oppressed groups, given their specific experience of social injustices. I introduce two concerns about this proposal, one morally grounded and one pragmatically oriented. Finally, in §V, I briefly sketch some institutional remedies that can be employed in order to politically fight systemic forms of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

Teaching responsible conduct of research (RCR) to PhD students is crucial for fostering responsible research practice. In this paper, we show how the use of Moral Case Deliberation—a case reflection method used in the Amsterdam UMC RCR PhD course—is particularity valuable to address three goals of RCR education: (1) making students aware of, and internalize, RCR principles and values, (2) supporting reflection on good conduct in personal daily practice, and (3) developing students’ dialogical attitude and skills so that they can (...) deliberate on RCR issues when they arise. What makes this method relevant for RCR education is the focus on values and personal motivations, the structured reflection on real experiences and dilemmas and the cultivation of participants’ dialogical skills. During these structured conversations, students reflect on the personal motives that drive them to adhere to the principles of good science, thereby building connections between those principles and their personal values and motives. Moreover, by exploring personal questions and dilemmas related to RCR, they learn how to address these with colleagues and supervisors. The reflection on personal experiences with RCR issues and questions combined with the study of relevant normative frameworks, support students to act responsibly and to pursue RCR in their day-to-day research practice in spite of difficulties and external constraints. (shrink)

BackgroundClinical ethics support aims to support health care professionals in dealing with ethical issues in clinical practice. Although the prevalence of CES is increasing, it does meet challenges and pressing questions regarding implementation and organization. In this paper we present a specific way of organizing CES, which we have called integrative CES, and argue that this approach meets some of the challenges regarding implementation and organization.MethodsThis integrative approach was developed in an iterative process, combining actual experiences in a case study (...) in which we offered CES to a team that provides transgender health care and reflecting on the theoretical underpinnings of our work stemming from pragmatism, hermeneutics and organizational and educational sciences.ResultsIn this paper we describe five key characteristics of an integrative approach to CES; 1. Positioning CES more within care practices, 2. Involving new perspectives, 3. Creating co-ownership of CES, 4. Paying attention to follow up, and 5. Developing innovative CES activities through an emerging design.ConclusionsIn the discussion we compare this approach to the integrated approach to CES developed in the US and the hub and spokes strategy developed in Canada. Furthermore, we reflect on how an integrative approach to CES can help to handle some of the challenges of current CES. (shrink)

Testimony spreads information. It is also commonly agreed that it can transfer knowledge. Whether it can work as an epistemic source of understanding is a matter of dispute. However, testimony certainly plays a pivotal role in the proliferation of understanding in the epistemic community. But how exactly do we learn, and how do we make advancements in understanding on the basis of one another’s words? And what can we do to maximize the probability that the process of acquiring understanding from (...) one another succeeds? These are very important questions in our current epistemological landscape, especially in light of the attention that has been paid to understanding as an epistemic achievement of purely epistemic value. Somewhat surprisingly, the recent literature in social epistemology does not offer much on the topic. The overarching aim of this paper is to provide a tentative model of understanding that goes in-depth enough to safely address the question of how understanding and testimony are related to one another. The hope is to contribute, in some measure, to the effort to understand understanding, and to explain two facts about our epistemic practices: the fact that knowledge and understanding relate differently to testimony, and the fact that some pieces of testimonial information are better than others for the sake of providing one with understanding and of yielding advancements in one’s epistemic standing. (shrink)

In recent years, several authors have argued that the desirability of novel technologies should be assessed early, when they are still emerging. Such an ethical assessment of emerging technologies is by definition focused on an elusive object. Usually promises, expectations, and visions of the technology are taken as a starting point. As Nordmann and Rip have pointed out in a recent article, however, ethicists should not take for granted the plausibility of such expectations and visions. In this paper, we explore (...) how the quality of expectations on emerging technologies might be assessed when engaging in a reflection on the desirability of emerging technologies. We propose that an assessment of expectations’ plausibility should focus on statements on technological feasibility, societal usability, and desirability of the expected technology. Whereas the feasibility statement and, to a lesser extent, the usability statements are frequently quite futuristic, the claims on desirability, by contrast, often display a conservative stance towards the future. Assessing the quality of expectations and visions on behalf of emerging technologies requires, then, a careful and well-directed use of both skepticism and imagination. We conclude with a brief overview of the tools and methods ethicists could use to assess claims made on behalf of emerging technologies and improve the ethical reflection on them. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged in the literature in social epistemology that knowledge has a social dimension: we are epistemically dependent upon one another for most of what we know. Our knowledge can be, and very often is, grounded on the epistemic achievement of somebody else. But what about epistemic aims other than knowledge? What about understanding? Prominent authors argue that understanding is not social in the same way in which knowledge is. Others can put us in the position to understand, (...) but when we understand something, this accomplishment is to be credited mainly if not entirely to us, as it is due to the successful exercise of our own cognitive abilities. In this paper, I show that the social dimension of understanding closely resembles the social dimension of knowledge. I distinguish between three different ways in which a subject can depend upon another subject for (either the acquisition or the possession of) a certain epistemic good. I then argue that all these kinds of epistemic dependence apply to knowledge and understanding alike. If I am right, understanding is not (always) an achievement to be (mainly) credited to the single epistemic agent who understands. (shrink)

The present piece, first presented on 19 November 2016 at the Centre Léon Robin (CNRS-Univ. Paris-Sorbonne-ENS Ulm) as part of the“Présocratiques” Seminar, is an investigation of the relationship between Empedocles and Freud. The analysis is divided into three parts: the first section examines the nature of Freud’s engagement with Empedocles; next, consideration is given to the similarities between their doctrines, based on the extant fragments of the Empedoclean corpus; finally, I offer a series of observations about Empedocles’ poetic style, which (...) shares strong affinities with the spoken word in a manner typical of the oral tradition and is freighted with corporeal and emotional significance. It is here that we see the emergence of one of the key concepts of psychoanalysis: the relationship between logos and alogon, between that which can be rationally analysed and that which can be intuited but which eludes the domain of logos. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to propose the notion of “affective artifact”, building on an analogy with theories of cognitive artifacts and referring to the development of a situated affective science. Affective artifacts are tentatively defined as objects that have the capacity to alter the affective condition of an agent, and that in some cases play an important role in defining that agent’s self. The notion of affective artifacts will be presented by means of examples supported by empirical findings, (...) by discussing a tentative definition and classification, and by considering several related but differing notions. Within the framework of situated affectivity, the notion of affective artifacts will represent a further step in the enterprise of understanding how the environment helps us scaffold our affective processes. I will conclude that affective artifacts play a key role in the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of technology and in the debate about the self. (shrink)

This paper is dedicated to the relationship between ordinary moral thought and ethical theory in Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics. I suggest that different contents of ordinary moral thought play different roles and are lent different philosophical weight in Sidgwick’s arguments. I start by showing how Sidgwick appeals to certain features of ordinary moral thought, deduced from moral language and experience, both in criticising rival metaethical positions and in establishing his own claims. I then turn to the notion of common-sense (...) morality. After clarifying what Sidgwick means by this expression, I argue that common-sense morality has neither probative value in Sidgwick’s argument for the utilitarian principle nor independent validity, and that its authority is ultimately motivated on utilitarian grounds. Pointing out how different contents of ordinary moral thought play different argumentative roles in the foundation and defence of Sidgwick’s utilitarianism enables to ac- count more comprehensively for Sidgwick’s arguments and moral methodology and provides with a more articulated account of the dialectic between his utilitarian theory and ordinary moral thought. (shrink)

The paper sketches out an account of ambiguous and agonistic love by drawing on the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Axel Honneth and Hannah Arendt. To begin with, I reconstruct the ambiguity of love within the conceptual framework of a paradigm of recognition. I argue further that the social relation of love, understood as an intertwine between dependence and independence, entails a power dynamic. Insofar as the dynamic actualises as “power in concert” or “power with”, namely as mutual empowerment, love (...) unfolds as free love. Finally, I show how agonistic love is damaged by turning into violent domination. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, I address a highly controversial question of feminist philosophy, namely, the so-called sex/gender distinction, from a Deweyan perspective. I argue that Dewey's naturalism provides useful insights for dealing with and solving the problems concerning this particular type of dualism. My argumentation unfolds in three steps. First, after having briefly introduced the meanings of the two terms, I outline two different, both unsuccessful strategies for overcoming the sex/gender distinction, namely, what I call the radical social constructionist and (...) the nondialectical naturalist strategies. Second, I draw on Dewey's version of naturalism with the aim of conceiving of human beings as simultaneously naturally and socially constructed. Third, I sketch out the hypothesis that Dewey's way of overcoming the pernicious dichotomy between nature and society may be useful for outlining a critical metaphysics of gender. (shrink)

The benefits of full ectogenesis, that is, the gestation of human fetuses outside the maternal womb, for women ground many contemporary authors’ arguments on the ethical desirability of this practice. In this paper, I present and assess two sets of arguments advanced in favour of ectogenesis: arguments stressing ectogenesis’ equality-promoting potential and arguments stressing its freedom-promoting potential. I argue that although successfully grounding a positive case for ectogenesis, these arguments have limitations in terms of their reach and scope. Concerning their (...) limited reach, I contend that ectogenesis will likely benefit a small subset of women and, arguably, not the group who most need to achieve equality and freedom. Concerning their limited scope, I contend that these defences do not pay sufficient attention to the context in which ectogenesis would be developed and that, as a result, they risk leaving the status quo unchanged. After providing examples of these limitations, I move to my proposal concerning the role of ectogenesis in promoting women’s equality and freedom. This proposal builds on Silvia Federici’s, Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s and Selma James’ readings of the international feminist campaign ‘Wages for Housework’. It maintains that the political perspective and provocation that ectogenesis can advance should be considered and defended. (shrink)

One of the most controversial questions in feminist philosophy, and maybe the most controversial of all, concerns our determination as sexual or gendered human beings: Is it nature or is it our culture, or society, that makes us what we are—women, men, other? And if it is both, to what extent and in which sense is it nature, and to what extent and in which sense is it social life? Whatever the answer may be, one widespread and allegedly useful modality (...) to cast the question consists in naming “sex” the biological aspects and “gender” the cultural or social aspects of this dimension of our living. The distinction, however, has raised a number of issues; the attempts to overcome the distinction, which is... (shrink)

This essay focuses on the possibility of adopting a representational approach for technoscience, in which representation is considered as a situated process of dynamic “intra-action” (Barad 2007 ). Re-elaborating the recent critiques of representationalism (Thrift 2008 ), my analysis begins by analysing Hayles’s situated model of representation from an early essay where she explains her definition of constrained constructivism (Hayles [ 1991 ] 1997). The essay then discusses the notions of figuration and diffraction and the way they are employed by (...) Haraway in many of her writings for her critique of technoscience (Haraway 1991 , 1997 ). Finally, after considering diffraction through Barad’s reading of this practice in the context of her theory of agential realism ( 2007 ), it shows the links that relate constrained constructivism, situated knowledge and agential realism, and the way all of them work at “diffract[ing] the rays of technoscience” (Haraway 1997 : 16) through an alternative representational practice. (shrink)

The Critical Naturalism Manifesto is a common platform put forward as a basis for broad discussions around the problems faced by critical theory today. We are living in a time, e.g. a pandemic time, when present-day challenges exert immense pressure on social critique. This means that models of social critique should not be discussed from the point of view of their normative justification or political effects alone, but also with reference to their ability to tackle contemporary problematic issues (like the (...) dismantlement of the welfare state, the environmental catastrophe, and the sanitary crisis). With this manifesto, we invite varying practices of philosophical, artistic and scientific social critique to take seriously the enormous challenges our societies face with regard to inner and outer nature. We first identity eleven theses of critical naturalism which contemporary critical theory should take into consideration. We then identify the historical crises and catastrophes that critical naturalism seeks to respond to, dispelling the prejudices against naturalism in contemporary critical thought, and considering alternative answers to these questions such as social constructivism, accelerationism, xenofeminism, flat ontologism, and monist world ecology. By sketching the notions of nature and naturalism, we anchor critical naturalism in the history of materialism and critical theory, understood initially as that of the Frankfurt School, but expanded and enriched by other approaches to social critique. Finally, we sketch models and projects of critical naturalism, which are exemplary fragments of varying ways to practice naturalist social critique. (shrink)

Causal analysis in the social sciences takes advantage of a variety of methods and of a multi-fold source of information and evidence. This pluralistic methodology and source of information raises the question of whether we should accordingly have a pluralistic metaphysics and epistemology. This paper focuses on epistemology and argues that a pluralistic methodology and evidence don’t entail a pluralistic epistemology. It will be shown that causal models employ a single rationale of testing, based on the notion of variation. Further, (...) I shall argue that this monistic epistemology is also involved in alternative philosophical theories of causation. (shrink)

In this article, we take the case of racism in contemporary Italy as a starting point for a discussion about moral responsibility for racism in cases where ignorance is involved. We focus on the issue of the normalization of racism and its contribution to different forms of ignorance to assess the extent to which these might potentially mitigate judgments of responsibility for racism, thereby grounding an Exculpatory Stance. After illustrating the phenomenon of the normalization of racism and offering an outline (...) of how the normalization of racism contributes to ignorance, we argue against the Exculpatory Stance by appealing to a socially situated variety of capacitarian approach to the epistemic condition of moral responsibility. This approach provides us with the tools to claim that the moral ignorance favored by the normalization of racism does not mitigate judgments of individual responsibility. Finally, we point out that the interdependence of individual responsibility and the social environment is such that, in addition to backward-looking individual responsibilities for racism, there are also forward-looking, both individual and shared, responsibilities to counter racism in its various manifestations and the increased risk of moral ignorance connected to its normalization. (shrink)

The anti-causal prophecies of last century have been disproved. Causality is neither a ‘relic of a bygone’ nor ‘another fetish of modern science’; it still occupies a large part of the current debate in philosophy and the sciences. This investigation into causal modelling presents the rationale of causality, i.e. the notion that guides causal reasoning in causal modelling. It is argued that causal models are regimented by a rationale of variation, nor of regularity neither invariance, thus breaking down the dominant (...) Human paradigm. The notion of variation is shown to be embedded in the scheme of reasoning behind various causal models: e.g. Rubin’s model, contingency tables, and multilevel analysis. It is also shown to be latent – yet fundamental – in many philosophical accounts. Moreover, it has significant consequences for methodological issues: the warranty of the causal interpretation of causal models, the levels of causation, the characterisation of mechanisms, and the interpretation of probability. This book offers a novel philosophical and methodological approach to causal reasoning in causal modelling and provides the reader with the tools to be up to date about various issues causality rises in social science. (shrink)

Can we transmit understanding via testimony in more or less the same way in which we transmit knowledge? The standard view in social epistemology has a straightforward answer: no, we cannot. Three arguments supporting the standard view have been formulated so far. The first appeals to the claim that gaining understanding requires a greater cognitive effort than acquiring testimonial knowledge does. The second appeals to a certain type of epistemic trust that is supposedly characteristic of knowledge transmission (and maybe of (...) the transmission of epistemic goods in general) and that is allegedly incompatible with understanding. The third aims to show that there is a certain aspect of understanding (what epistemologists these days like to call “grasping”) that cannot be passed on to another person via testimony alone. In this article, I show that all of these arguments can be resisted. Thus, there seem to be no compelling reasons to embrace the standard view. (shrink)

In both scientific and popular circles it is often said that we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. Although the urgency of our present environmental crises is not in doubt, such claims of a present mass extinction are highly controversial scientifically. Our aims are, first, to get to the bottom of this scientific debate by shedding philosophical light on the many conceptual and methodological challenges involved in answering this scientific question, and, second, to offer new philosophical perspectives (...) on what the value of asking this question has been — and whether that value persists today. We show that the conceptual challenges in defining ‘mass extinction’, uncertainties in past and present diversity assessments, and data incommensurabilities undermine a straightforward answer to the question of whether we are in, or entering, a sixth mass extinction today. More broadly we argue that an excessive focus on the mass extinction framing can be misleading for present conservation efforts and may lead us to miss out on the many other valuable insights that Earth’s deep time can offer in guiding our future. (shrink)