This paper presents the contributions of the French Dominican priest Louis-Joseph Lebret to the emergence of development ethics. Starting from his life and experiences, it outlines his concept of d...

This collection of essays examines the ways in which disputes and controversies about the application of scientific knowledge are resolved. Four concrete examples of public controversy are considered in detail: the efficacy of Laetrile, the classification of homosexuality as a disease, the setting of safety standards in the workplace, and the utility of nuclear energy as a source of power. The essays in this volume show that debates about these cases are not confined to matters of empirical fact. Rather, as (...) is seen with most scientific and technical controversies, they focus on and are structured by complex ethical, economic, and political interests. Drs. Engelhardt and Caplan have brought together a distinguished group of scholars from the sciences and humanities, who sketch a theory of scientific controversy and attempt to provide recommendations about the ways in which both scientists and the public ought to seek more informed resolutions of highly contentious issues in science and technology. Scientific Controversies is offered as a contribution to the better understanding of the roles of both science and nonscientific interests in disputes and controversies pertaining to science and technology. (shrink)

In addition to their function in transport of water, ions, small metabolites, and growth factors in normal plant tissue, the plasmodesmata presumably serve as routes for cell‐to‐cell movement of plant viruses in infected tissue. Virus cell‐to‐cell spread through plasmodesmata is an active process mediated by specialized virus encoded movement proteins; however, the mechanism by which these proteins operate is not clear. We incorporate recent information on the biochemical properties of plant virus movement proteins and their interaction with plasmodesmata in a (...) model for transport of nucleic acids through plasmodesmatal channels. We propose that only single stranded (ss) nucleic acids can be transported efficiently through plasmodesmata, and that movement proteins function as molecular chaperones for ss nucleic acids to form unfolded movement protein‐ss nucleic acid complexes. These complexes are targeted to plasmodesmata. Plasmodesmatal permeability is then increased following interaction with movement protein and the entire movement complex or its nucleic acid component is translocated across the plasmodesmatal channel. (shrink)

Wissenskultur im Alten Orient: Weltanschauung, Wissenschaften, Techniken, Technologien. Edited by Hans Neumann. Colloquien der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, vol. 4. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2012. Pp. xi + 433, illus. €42.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Sargonic Cuneiform Tablets in the Real Academia de la Historia: The Carl L. Lippmann Collection. By Manuel Molina. Catálogo del Gabinete de Antigüedades. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia and Ministerio de Cultura de la República de Iraq, 2014. Pp. 317, 337 plts.

The Belnap–Dunn logic is a well-known and well-studied four-valued logic, but until recently little has been known about its extensions, i.e. stronger logics in the same language, called super-Belnap logics here. We give an overview of several results on these logics which have been proved in recent works by Přenosil and Rivieccio. We present Hilbert-style axiomatizations, describe reduced matrix models, and give a description of the lattice of super-Belnap logics and its connections with graph theory. We adopt the point of (...) view ofAlgebraic Logic, exploring applications of the general theory of algebraization of logics to the super-Belnap family. In this respect we establish a number of new results, including a description of the algebraic counterparts, Leibniz filters, and strong versions of super-Belnap logics, as well as the classification of these logics within the Leibniz and Frege hierarchies. (shrink)

This essay offers a fresh interpretation of Bhartr̥hari’s concept of “insight”, and of its identification as the object of a sentence in the second kāṇḍa of the Vākyapadīya. Earlier scholars dealing with this topic disagreed on three main points: whether an epistemologically rigorous concept of insight can be found in Bhartr̥hari’s work, or if the notion remains irrevocably vague and equivocal; whether the concept of pratibhā primarily belongs to linguistics, or to action theory; whether Bhartr̥hari’s identification of insight as the (...) object of a sentence should be taken literally or figuratively. Starting from a close analysis of all passages in Bhartr̥hari’s work mentioning pratibhā, I identify, first of all, a univocal understanding of insight, valid throughout the Vākyapadīya, as immediate cognition informed by verbal transmission, in other words as a form of practical knowledge, non-representational yet essentially productive and dynamic. Showing, on this basis, how Bhartr̥hari’s understanding of language at the level of sentences is pragmatic rather than referential, I demonstrate, against the view prevalent in the late grammatical tradition, that a literal interpretation of his provocative statement on pratibhā as vākyārtha remains perfectly plausible. This thesis is further corroborated by the consideration of post-Bhartr̥hari philosophical sources elaborating on his ideas, which allow us better to understand in what sense pratibhā can legitimately be thought of as cognition “without an object”. (shrink)

Can we meet intolerance with tolerance? Illiberalism with liberalism? Political ruthlessness with a certain temperament? This is the ‘liberal predicament’ that Joshua Cherniss, in his thought-provo...

There are relatively few empirical studies on the impacts of corporate social responsibility policies and programs. This article addresses the research gap by analyzing the incidence of, and the conditions that affect, decoupling among CSR policies, implementation of CSR programs, and CSR impacts for various environmental and social issues. Complete decoupling is a condition of full divergence among policies, programs, and impacts amounting to purely ceremonial CSR. Using ratings from a sustainability rating agency on a sample of about 1,000 large (...) companies in 24 countries, the authors find empirical evidence not supporting a conclusion of complete decoupling. The empirical evidence suggests four levels of nondivergence in the sample. First, for most CSR issues examined, CSR policies of high quality do have relatively strong effects on CSR implementation. Second, CSR programs of high quality do have relatively strong effects on CSR impacts. Third, for most CSR issues, even low-quality CSR policies enforce the incidence and quality of programs in comparison with having no policy at all. Fourth, weak programs have more impact on the realization of CSR goals than having no program at all. The authors also find that the quality of CSR reporting and locating the responsibility for CSR at the board level reduce decoupling by strengthening the quality of CSR programs. (shrink)

This paper presents a unified framework that explains and extends the already successful applications of the Leibniz operator, the Suszko operator, and the Tarski operator in recent developments in abstract algebraic logic. To this end, we refine Czelakowski’s notion of an S-compatibility operator, and introduce the notion of coherent family of S-compatibility operators, for a sentential logic S. The notion of coherence is a restricted property of commutativity with inverse images by surjective homomorphisms, which is satisfied by both the Leibniz (...) and the Suszko operators. We generalize several constructions and results already existing for the mentioned operators; in particular, the well-known classes of algebras associated with a logic through each of them, and the notions of full generalized model of a logic and a special kind of S-filters. We obtain a General Correspondence Theorem, extending the well-known one from the theory of protoalgebraic logics to arbitrary logics and to more general operators, and strengthening its formulation. We apply the general results to the Leibniz and the Suszko operators, and obtain several characterizations of the main classes of logics in the Leibniz hierarchy by the form of their full generalized models, by old and new properties of the Leibniz operator, and by the behaviour of the Suszko operator. Some of these characterizations complete or extend known ones, for some classes in the hierarchy, thus offering an integrated approach to the Leibniz hierarchy that uncovers some new, nice symmetries. (shrink)

This article questions the place of the child in the metaphysics and imaginary of Western colonization, racialization, and decolonization. In the last chapter of The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, children appear not only as victims but also as a problem for which Fanon struggles to account as a theorist of decolonization as much as a psychiatric practitioner. Through a reading of one of the cases, this article interrogates the ways in which colonization attempts to infantilize colonized populations (...) while erasing childhood, and the ways in which decolonization meets colonization by regarding childhood in the end as a misfortune. The work of decolonization, to proceed, thus would demand us to rethink childhood, and in doing so break free of Western metaphysics. (shrink)

El presente libro se inicia con una breve reflexión sobre la actitud de los intelectuales en América Latina ante la coyuntura actual, señalando las aportaciones y confusiones de su dicurso teórico y tratando de rescatar las formas de expresión del pensamiento crítico; psra esto se considera la vigencia de la dialéctica como lenguaje. Además, se pretende incursionar sobre las relaciones entre individuos y colectivo, y sobre cuestiones metodológicas para el estudio de sujetos sociales; se incorporan el problema de análisis de (...) variables desde la perspectiva de las mediaciones, y una reflexión sobre la lógica del discurso económico para mostrar cómo implica el olvido del sujeto. Constituyen estos trabajos un esfuerzo de aplicación de la postura racional de nuevas posibilidades de reflexión teórica que contribuyan a enriquecer el discurso, aunque conscientes de su carácter todavía exploratorio. (shrink)

Nursing research using concept analysis plays a critical role for knowledge development, particularly when concerning to broad and foundational concepts for nursing practice, such as dignity. This study aimed to synthesize research concerning concept analysis of dignity in nursing care. Based on a literature review, electronic databases were searched using the terms “dignity,” “human dignity,” “concept analysis,” and nurs*. Papers in Portuguese or English were included. The research synthesis was conducted independently by two reviewers. A total of 35 citations were (...) identified and seven papers were included. Six studies were elected using Walker and Avant concept analysis methodology while one applied the Beth Rodgers evolutionary model. The concept of dignity has been studied by nurses, and its attributes, antecedents, consequences, and similar concepts were synthesized into a definition. Dignity emerged as a fundamental concept in nursing ethics and the main attributes synthesized were personhood, sociability, respect, and autonomy. The antecedents identified were: facilitators—patient focus care, recognition, education, and ethical competence; threats—vulnerability and organizational environment. The consequences were positive coping, empowerment, and dignity preservation. The synthesis of these seven studies using concept analysis provided a clear definition of dignity. These findings challenge future research and education, particularly for the study of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing education programs to enhance skills for preserving patient dignity in clinical practice. (shrink)

This paper explores a notion of “the strong version” of a sentential logic S, initially defined in terms of the notion of a Leibniz filter, and shown to coincide with the logic determined by the matrices of S whose filter is the least S-filter in the algebra of the matrix. The paper makes a general study of this notion, which appears to unify under an abstract framework the relationships between many pairs of logics in the literature. The paradigmatic examples are (...) the local and the global consequences associated with a normal modal logic, and the logics preserving degrees of truth and preserving truth associated with certain substructural and many-valued logics. For protoalgebraic logics the results in the paper coincide with those obtained by two of the authors in 2001, so the main novelty of the approach is its suitability for all kinds of logics. The paper also studies three kinds of definability of the Leibniz filters, and their consequences for the determination of the strong version. In a second part of the paper several case studies are developed, comprising positive modal logic, Dunn–Belnap’s four-valued logic, the large family of substructural logics, and some relevance logics. (shrink)

The paper aims at outlining some essential Neoplatonic traits in order to accomplish an ecological Metaphysics, by developing a dynamic and intensive notion of «Selfness» within three main fields of knowledge: Biology, Psychology, Cosmology. Starting from post-cybernetics systems’ theories, by deepening Bateson’s Ecology of Mind, in the end the research will restore the ancient One-Many aporia, showing its irrefutable value.

This paper examines hart's model (1967) of the retributive theory. section i criticizes the model for not answering all the main questions to which a theory of punishment should be addressed, as hart alleges it does. section ii criticizes the model for its omission of the concept of desert. section iii criticizes attempts by card (1973) and by von hirsch (1976) to provide new ways of proportioning punitive severity to criminal injury. section iv discusses the idea of retribution in justifying (...) aim and criticizes the theory of fingarette (1977). the conclusion is that the new retributivists have not solved the problems inherent to older versions of the theory. (shrink)

This article addresses the topic of artistic mímēsis, and attempts to illuminate the contemporary discussion between two seemingly irreconcilable positions. The first, framed in a traditional interpretation of Aristotelian texts, considers the work of art as an imitation of nature, finding in it its only rule. The second, supported by a different interpretation, states that, according to Aristotle himself, artistic creativity is fictional, that is, independent of natural reality, and therefore debtor only of the artist’s subjectivity. However, when considering the (...) analogy between téchnē and phýsis, within Aristotle’s teleological worldview, it is possible to notice a kind of “common work” that harmonizes them. In this context, and advancing on the consideration of the mimetic poiésis, the philosopher’s texts allow an interpretation that, without detaching itself from the original naturalness of art and taking it as a guide, opens the horizon to the artist’s creativity. (shrink)

"A book from the Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics." Includes bibliographical references (p. [141]-195) and index.

The paper focuses on the review of current literature on formal philosophy. Special attention is paid to the review of the book «Introduction to Formal Philosophy» [Hansson, Hendricks, 2018]. The book is a consistent introduction to the problems of formal philosophy, a research tradition that relies on the precise mathematical tools in order to study traditional philosophical problems. The methods of formal philosophy are successfully applied not only to the problems of ontology, epistemology and philosophy of language but also relevant (...) for the problems of ethics, axiology and social philosophy. The book demonstrates that it is not correct to identify formal philosophy with another area of study – philosophical logic, since formal philosophy uses not only logical methods of analysis, but also uses the tools of game theory, decision theory, probability theory, Bayesian statistics, and other theories. Although the book has a propaedeutic character, it also contains some open problems. These problems include the aggregation of the opinions of the group under the condition of a conflicting base of premises in the theory of public choice, there are still open problems in the interpretation of Arrow’s impossibility theorem and others. Certainly, formalization in itself is not a general solution to the particular philosophical problem, but only a tool that allows to formulate a problem in a more rigorous and precise way, which sometimes allows to reveal some unexpected consequences, some implicit contradictions and new solutions. Despite the importance of the concept of coherence in ethics, decision theory, philosophy of law, Bayesian epistemology, philosophy of science, the existing formalizations of the concept of coherence are highly specialized for epistemology, researchers recognize the lack of the relevant explanatory models. Overall, the book is an excellent introduction in to the field of formal philosophy, which provides a general overview of different aspects of formal philosophy and the opportunity to study particular research topics by means of an extensive bibliography accompanying each of the chapters. (shrink)