This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

To investigate the effects of two different modes of physical activity on body composition, physical fitness, cardiometabolic risk, and psychological responses in female adolescents participating in a multi-disciplinary program. The 12-week randomized intervention included 25-adolescents with overweight divided into two groups: sports practice-SPG and functional training-FTG. The SPG intervention was divided into three sports: basketball, handball, and futsal. SPG participants performed one sport 3-times/week, over the course of 1 month. The FTG performed concurrent exercises 3-times/week. This study was registered in (...) Clinical Trials Registry Platform under number: RBR-45ywtg and registered in Local Ethics Committee number: 2,505.200/2018. The intensity of physical exercises-PE was matched between groups by the rating of perceived exertion. The primary outcome was body composition, and secondary outcomes were physical fitness, cardiometabolic risk, and psychological responses. There was a significant time-effect for body mass, body mass index, and low-density lipoprotein, all being reduced. There were increases over time for musculoskeletal mass, aerobic fitness, and high-density lipoprotein. There was a group time interaction with body fat percentage being lower post-intervention in the SPG. No significant differences were observed for the other variables. Both physical activity models were effective in improving a subset of obesity-related health parameters. The findings should be extended by further investigation using more sophisticated measures of energy expenditure.Clinical Trial Registration:https://ensaiosclinicos.gov.br/, identifier: RBR-45ywtg. (shrink)

In this essay, we discuss the relationship between education, human education and ethics in the context of orthodox neoliberalism, as well as some challenges presented to educational policy in Brazil. It is characterized as an exploratory study of a theoretical nature and is part of a set of three research projects at the doctoral level, carried out at a university in southern Brazil from 2017 to 2020. By contextualizing the current moment of neoliberalism in the country and presenting some foundations (...) of a human and ethical formation, we point to the current challenges present for the consolidation of an educational policy whose horizon is full human formation. The studies show that educational policy from the perspective of human formation today needs to guarantee conditions that articulate, within the school, access to scientific knowledge, creativity and self-organization of the subjects of the pedagogical process in its entirety. Keywords: Education. Human formation. Ethics. Neoliberalism. Education policy. (shrink)

Palabras de agradecimiento al promotor del Congreso Internacional y a los participantes en él. Asimismo, a la persona que ha trabajado en la labor de transcripción de mis escritos y a otros colaboradores míos. También a quienes han tomado en cuenta mis ideas para elaborar sus tesis doctorales, y a otros colegas cuyos planteamientos filosóficos distan de los míos. Como la filosofía es una actividad interminable, queda abierta la sucesiva investigación en mis propuestas.

The COVID-19 pandemic played as a booster to the cultural, social, and economic transformations triggered by the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, increasing the diffusion and employment of technological devices and requiring to reconsider the traditional approach to work and organization. Dealing with an emblematic organizational case, the article highlights the main key capabilities requested to face the current scenario, suggesting transformed attitudes needed to cope with the unfolding complex, uncertain, changing digital and blended world. The findings, gathered through an extensive survey (...) involving 500 people who started working at a distance during the 2020 lockdown period, underline the main actionable skills to be achieved for enhancing agile work, hybrid professional roles and new work, and organizational and managerial cultures. (shrink)

Fear to contamination is an easy-to-provoke, intense, hard-to-control, and extraordinarily persistent fear. A worsening of preexisting psychiatric disorders was observed during the COVID-19 outbreak, and several studies suggest that those with obsessive–compulsive disorder may be more affected than any other group of people. In the face of worsening OCD symptoms, there is a need for mental health professionals to provide the support needed not only to treat patients who still report symptoms, but also to improve relapse prevention. In this line, (...) it is recommended to improve alternative strategies such as online consultations and digital psychiatry. The aim of this study is to develop augmented reality stimuli that are clinically relevant for patients with cleaning OCD and assess their efficiency to obtain emotionally significant responses. Four AR stimuli were developed: a plastic bag full of garbage, a piece of bread with mold, a dirty sports shoe, and a piece of rotten meat. All stimuli were shown to a clinical group and a control group. Relevant results were the design of the AR stimuli. These stimuli were validated with the statistical difference in perceived anxiety in the meat stimuli between the clinical and control groups. Nevertheless, when looking at effect sizes, all stimuli present effect sizes from small to large, with both shoe and bread between small and medium effect sizes. These results are a valuable support for the clinical use of these AR stimuli in the treatment of cleaning OCD. (shrink)

A presente entrevista serve como complemento ao artigo submetido com mesmo nome nesta edição. Ela trata de uma exposição da influencia tecnologica na vida das pessoas, e como essas ferramentas estão ligadas as novas sindromes.

O presente artigo toma como base o conceito da Sociedade do Cansaço de Byung Chul Han para tratar das novas síndromes do século XXI. A abordagem buscará problematizar as novas tecnologias e relaciona-las com o diagnóstico de Zigmunt Bauman sobre nossos tempos, de modo a analisar as variáveis técnicas introduzidas pelas novas tecnologias a partir da popularização da internet. O objetivo deste trabalho é demonstrar que os avanços conquistados pela indústria tecnológica e suas técnicas aplicadas ao uso de seus produtos, (...) produziu uma sociedade mais conectada, porém, mais individualizada, onde as relações se tornaram frágeis e novas síndromes passaram a acometer este novo mundo. Deste modo entenderemos os mecanismos de controle e os efeitos desta cultura massificada, onde as fronteiras se estreitaram, as diferenças se achataram e os vínculos e autonomia se perderam. (shrink)

Este artigo visa apresentar uma taxonomia original dos argumentos mais difundidos contra o Princípio de Identidade dos Indiscerníveis ao longo da história da Filosofia, mas focando em versões defendidas no século XX e XXI; bem como uma taxonomia das respostas mais efetivas para esses argumentos usados no início do século XXI com uma breve avaliação sobre quais são as mais efetivas para cada argumento de ataque. O leitor também encontrará uma bibliografia atualizada sobre os debates envolvendo esses argumentos e contra-argumentos (...) nas seções correspondentes. Palavras-chave: identidade; indiscernibilidade; Princípio de Identidade dos Indiscerníveis; concebilidade. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma tradução de um guia sobre como escrever um artigo filosófico, publicado pela Harvard College Writing Center como parte da série Writing Center Brief Guide Series do Writing Program da Harvard University. O texto discorre sobre o que se deve fazer num artigo propriamente filosófico, apresentando critérios sobre como se deve elaborar teses e argumentos filosóficos, e as possíveis objeções contra esses.

El uso de un conocimiento invariante para alcanzar propósitos intervencionistas o de política es comúnmente aceptado por los enfoques manipulabilistas. Sin embargo, dicho uso plantea dos problemáticas filosóficas que serán examinadas en el presente trabajo. El primer problema es ontológico, y refiere a la dificultad de encontrar genuinos factores causales estables en ciencias sociales. En este sentido, se mostrará que los fenómenos sociales no responden a una lógica de factores estables como los mecanismos o las «capacidades», sino que se adecúan (...) más a una lógica de «árboles de posibilidades” o «resultados de final abierto». El otro problema es de índole epistemológico y refiere a que, incluso si se encuentran contribuciones sociales estables, nada garantiza que dicha estabilidad prevalezca en el futuro. Diferentes tesis que avalan esta problemática serán examinadas, tales como la denominada «crítica de Lucas» o la «teoría del cisne negro». (shrink)

Organization figures centrally in the understanding of biological systems advanced by both new mechanists and proponents of the autonomy framework. The new mechanists focus on how components of mechanisms are organized to produce a phenomenon and emphasize productive continuity between these components. The autonomy framework focuses on how the components of a biological system are organized in such a way that they contribute to the maintenance of the organisms that produce them. In this paper we analyze and compare these two (...) accounts of organization and argue that understanding biological organisms as cohesively integrated systems benefits from insights from both. To bring together the two accounts, we focus on the notions of control and regulation as bridge concepts. We start from a characterization of biological mechanisms in terms of constraints and focus on a specific type of mechanism, control mechanisms, that operate on other mechanisms on the basis of measurements of variables in the system and its environment. Control mechanisms are characterized by their own set of constraints that enable them to sense conditions, convey signals, and effect changes on constraints in the controlled mechanism. They thereby allow living organisms to adapt to internal and external variations and to coordinate their parts in such a manner as to maintain viability. Because living organisms contain a vast number of control mechanisms, a central challenge is to understand how they are themselves organized. With the support of examples from both unicellular and multicellular systems we argue that control mechanisms are organized heterarchically, and we discuss how this type of control architecture can, without invoking top-down and centralized forms of organizations, succeed in coordinating internal activities of organisms. (shrink)

Starting in the second edition of the Essay, Locke becomes interested in the phenomenon of akrasia, or weakness of will. As he conceives it, akrasia occurs when we will something contrary to what we acknowledge to be our greater good. This commitment represents an important shift from the first edition of the Essay, where Locke argues that the will is always determined by a judgement of our greater good. But traces of the first-edition view are present even in the second (...) edition, so much so that it is unclear whether Locke is entitled to an explanation of akrasia at all. In this essay, we propose a new interpretation of Locke’s account of akrasia, one that mediates between his seemingly conflicting commitments. We believe that this interpretation represents an improvement over past interpretations, which make Locke’s conception of akrasia too weak to do the work he intends for it. Moreover, getting Locke’s account of akrasia right allows us to gain clarity on his view of the will, a subtle and ultimately quite plausible part of his moral psychology. (shrink)

Living organisms act as integrated wholes to maintain themselves. Individual actions can each be explained by characterizing the mechanisms that perform the activity. But these alone do not explain how various activities are coordinated and performed versatilely. We argue that this depends on a specific type of mechanism, a control mechanism. We develop an account of control by examining several extensively studied control mechanisms operative in the bacterium E. coli. On our analysis, what distinguishes a control mechanism from other mechanisms (...) is that it relies on measuring one or more variables, which results in setting constraints in the control mechanism that determine its action on flexible constraints in other mechanisms. In the most basic arrangement, the measurement process directly determines the action of the control mechanism, but in more complex arrangements signals mediate between measurements and effectors. This opens the possibility of multiple responses to the same measurement and responses based on multiple measurements. It also allows crosstalk, resulting in networks of control mechanisms. Such networks integrate the behaviors of the organism but also present a challenge in tailoring responses to particular measurements. We discuss how integrated activity can still result in differential, versatile, responses. (shrink)

Section 1115 of the Social Security Act is misconstrued as a mechanism to foster state flexibility, when in fact it is a narrow pilot program authority. HHS has exceeded the scope of this authority to approve harmful projects. Courts will not grant the agency broad deference when reviewing this abuse of authority.

Biological regulation is what allows an organism to handle the effects of a perturbation, modulating its own constitutive dynamics in response to particular changes in internal and external conditions. With the central focus of analysis on the case of minimal living systems, we argue that regulation consists in a specific form of second-order control, exerted over the core regime of production and maintenance of the components that actually put together the organism. The main argument is that regulation requires a distinctive (...) architecture of functional relationships, and specifically the action of a dedicated subsystem whose activity is dynamically decoupled from that of the constitutive regime. We distinguish between two major ways in which control mechanisms contribute to the maintenance of a biological organisation in response to internal and external perturbations: dynamic stability and regulation. Based on this distinction an explicit definition and a set of organisational requirements for regulation are provided, and thoroughly illustrated through the examples of bacterial chemotaxis and the lac-operon. The analysis enables us to mark out the differences between regulation and closely related concepts such as feedback, robustness and homeostasis. (shrink)

Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most (e.g., Synthetic Biology, Origins of Life, Alife, and Astrobiology). Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

El objetivo de este ensayo es resaltar los movimientos singulares basados ​​en la investigación de la vida cotidiana y presentar otras formas de “sentir, percibir, imaginar, pensar” en/de/con (el) mundo. Optamos por conversaciones con los autores para resaltar que los movimientos de formación se dan en las redes que componen las diferentes vidas cotidianas, no en el sujeto, ni en el objeto, sino en las relaciones en el devenir.

Resumo Este artigo procura apresentar e discutir tentativas recentes em filosofia social de analisar e interpretar o capitalismo, a partir de uma perspectiva praxeológica. O practice turn em teoria social procurou superar o dualismo entre agência e estrutura, ou entre ação e sistema, por meio da noção de prática social. Seria possível então interpretar o capitalismo como um tipo especifico de prática social? Para tentar encaminhar essa questão, explicita-se brevemente, em um primeiro momento, em que consiste o practice turn em (...) teoria social. Num segundo momento, analisa-se e se discute a proposta de Rahel Jaeggi de conceber a economia como uma rede de práticas sociais. Em seguida, expõe-se e se avalia a tentativa de Christian Lotz em ver, no dinheiro, a chave para compreender aquilo que ele chama de esquema capitalista. Por fim, conclui-se, chamando a atenção para os potenciais e desafios ligados ao empreendimento de interpretar o capitalismo em função de uma teoria da prática, sugerindo que um aprofundamento na análise da imaginação especificamente capitalista, vinculando-a com a típica plasticidade e diversidade do capitalismo, possa ajudar a avançar nesse campo.This paper aims to present and discuss recent attempts in social philosophy to analyze and interpret capitalism from a praxeological perspective. The practice turn in social theory sought to overcome the dualism between agency and structure, or between action and system, through the notion of social practice. Is it then possible to interpret capitalism as a specific type of social practice? To try to address this question, I briefly introduce, in a first moment, the practice turn in social theory. In a second moment, I analyze and discuss Rahel Jaeggi’s proposal to conceive the economy as a network of social practices. I then explain and evaluate Christian Lotz’s attempt to see money as the key to understanding what he names as “the capitalist schema”. Finally, I conclude by drawing attention to the potentials and challenges of interpreting capitalism as a social practice, suggesting that a deeper analysis of specifically capitalist imagination, linking it with the typical plasticity and diversity of capitalism, may help to move forward in this field. (shrink)

Endocrinologists apply the idea of feedback loops to explain how hormones regulate certain bodily functions such as glucose metabolism. In particular, feedback loops focus on the maintenance of the plasma concentrations of glucose within a narrow range. Here, we put forward a different, organicist perspective on the endocrine regulation of glycaemia, by relying on the pivotal concept of closure of constraints. From this perspective, biological systems are understood as organized ones, which means that they are constituted of a set of (...) mutually dependent functional structures acting as constraints, whose maintenance depends on their reciprocal interactions. Closure refers specifically to the mutual dependence among functional constraints in an organism. We show that, when compared to feedback loops, organizational closure can generate much richer descriptions of the processes and constraints at play in the metabolism and regulation of glycaemia, by making explicit the different hierarchical orders involved. We expect that the proposed theoretical framework will open the way to the construction of original mathematical models, which would provide a better understanding of endocrine regulation from an organicist perspective. (shrink)

This paper criticises the ideological dimension of the AI narrative. It does so by questioning the implicit assumptions behind its vision, which promises a world that automatically adapts to our desires before we even know them. These assumptions hinge on a misconception of the value of desire as residing exclusively with its fulfilment, warranting human manipulation for increased predictability. This social trajectory towards algorithmic governance, rather than delivering on the promised fulfilment, undermines our capacity to sustain the same desire that (...) it uses to justify its enterprise. (shrink)

Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even ecosystems. In this chapter we discuss these conceptual (...) issues, and we argue that adopting an organizational approach may help solve or clarify them. -/- While development is usually identified with the achievement of an adult form with the capability to reproduce and therefore maintain a lineage, adopting the organizational approach may provide a different strategy, which focuses also on the maintenance of the current organization of the organism. By doing so an organizational approach favors a switch in perspective which consists in analyzing how organisms maintain their viability at each moment of development rather than considering them as going through intermediate stages of a process directed toward a specific goal state. This developmental dimension of biological organization has yet to be given a general and detailed analysis within the organizational theoretical perspective, apart from some preliminary attempts. How a biological organization is maintained through a series of radical organizational changes and what these changes are issues that still require clarification. In this chapter we offer the beginnings of such an analysis of developmental transitions, understood as changes in functionality brought forth by regulatory mechanisms in the context of the continued maintenance of organizational viability at every step. (shrink)

The new mechanists and the autonomy approach both aim to account for how biological phenomena are explained. One identifies appeals to how components of a mechanism are organized so that their activities produce a phenomenon. The other directs attention towards the whole organism and focuses on how it achieves self-maintenance. This paper discusses challenges each confronts and how each could benefit from collaboration with the other: the new mechanistic framework can gain by taking into account what happens outside individual mechanisms, (...) while the autonomy approach can ground itself in biological research into how the actual components constituting an autonomous system interact and contribute in different ways to realize and maintain the system. To press the case that these two traditions should be constructively integrated we describe how three recent developments in the autonomy tradition together provide a bridge between the two traditions: (1) a framework of work and constraints, (2) a conception of function grounded in the organization of an autonomous system, and (3) a focus on control. (shrink)

Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most. Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

The last few years have seen an explosion of medieval images in digital form, chiefly as a result of photo-library and manuscript digitisation projects. An entire corpus of images, even selected solely by scene or iconography, becomes an unwieldy object of study by traditional art-historical means. This is even more the case for medieval images, where authorship and dating are often cloudy and unclear, and the image itself is in many cases the first resource for scholarly inquiry.We take the digital (...) image – in particular, the digital image of the body – as our object of study in a wide-ranging computationally-augmented reading of an image-corpus; ours is made up of thousands of depictions of the ‘Annunciation’ and ‘Baptism’, selected not only for their primacy in Christian art but for their dialogical interaction. Our corpus of 6,564 ‘Annunciations’ and 883 ‘Baptisms’, whilst not necessarily representative in density, includes a wide range of stylistic, theological and historical tendencies.We computationally extract not only body images but poses, gestures and interactions. Such a range of gestures allows for a morphological treatment of bodily motifs, whose multi-dimensional, quantitative nature allows us to complicate and problematise iconographic taxonomies, populating the spaces between categories. Finally, our gestural manifolds provide a morphological pointer to dissecting the microtemporalities of the scenes, and their relative dynamics and inconsistencies. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explain the relationship between Life-world (Lebenswelt) and the concepts of Originality (Originalität) and Primordiality (Primordialität) founded in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy developed in the 20’s. In order to achieve this goal, we need to begin with a transcendental phenomenological analysis to then gain access to Ontology of the World in general. Therefore, we must explain how Transcendental Philosophy relates to Transcendental Aesthetics and how it phenomenologically labels all that is outside of theory and reflection (...) (i.e., the Natural World) as a precondition to all theoretical classifications. This way the Life-world could explain the relationship between the Originality and Primordiality as proto-datum that is the base of all human acts genetically describable. (shrink)

In this paper a critique to philosophical approaches that presuppose invariant knowledge for policy purposes is carried out. It is shown that socioeconomic processes do not fit to the logic of stable causal factors, but they are more suited to the logic of "open-ended results". On the basis of this ontological variation it is argued that ex-ante interventions are not appropriate in the socioeconomic realm. On the contrary, they must be understood in a “dynamic” sense. Finally, derivational robustness analysis is (...) proposed as a useful tool for overcoming the problem of “overconstraint”, a typical problem of economic models. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es realizar una crítica al concepto hegemónico-dominante de ciencia a través de un análisis de la construcción discursiva del paradigma de la simplificación heredado de la Modernidad. Se problematizan las exclusiones político-epistemológicas de la tradición del pensamien..

In this pathbreaking study, Micaela di Leonardo reveals the face of power within the mask of cultural difference. From the 1893 World's Fair to Body Shop advertisements, di Leonardo focuses on the intimate and shifting relations between popular portrayals of exotic Others and the practice of anthropology. In so doing, she casts new light on gender, race, and the public sphere in America's past and present. "An impressive work of scholarship that is mordantly witty, passionately argued, and takes (...) no prisoners."--Lesley Gill, News Politics "[Micaela] di Leonardo eloquently argues for the importance of empirical, interdisciplinary social science in addressing the tragedy that is urban America at the end of the century."--Jonathan Spencer, Times Literary Supplement "In her quirky new contribution to the American culture brawl, feminist anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo explains how anthropologists, 'technicians of the sacred,' have distorted American popular debate and social life."--Rachel Mattson, Voice Literary Supplement "At the end of di Leonardo's analyses one is struck by her rare combination of rigor and passion. Simply, [she] is a marvelous iconoclast."--Matthew T. McGuire, Boston Book Review. (shrink)