I develop a strategy for representing epistemic states and epistemic changes that seeks to be sensitive to the difference between voluntary and involuntary aspects of our epistemic life, as well as to the role of pragmatic factors in epistemology. The model relies on a particular understanding of the distinction between full belief and acceptance , which makes room for the idea that our reasoning on both practical and theoretical matters typically proceeds in a contextual way. Within this framework, I discuss (...) how agents can rationally shift their credal probability functions so as to consciously modify some of their contextual acceptances; the present account also allows us to represent how the very set of contexts evolves. Voluntary credal shifts, in turn, might provoke changes in the agent’s beliefs, but I show that this is actually a side effect of performing multiple adjustments in the total lot of the agent’s acceptance sets. In this way we obtain a model that preserves many pre-theoretical intuitions about what counts as adequate rationality constraints on our actual practices—and hence about what counts as an adequate, normative epistemological perspective. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the epistemic treatment of Indigenous peoples by the Inter-American Court and Commission on Human Rights, two institutions that have sought to affirm the rights of Indigeno...

Some propositions are structurally unknowable for certain agents. Let me call them ‘Moorean propositions’. The structural unknowability of Moorean propositions is normally taken to pave the way towards proving a familiar paradox from epistemic logic—the so-called ‘Knowability Paradox’, or ‘Fitch’s Paradox’—which purports to show that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are in fact known. The present paper explores how to translate Moorean statements into a probabilistic language. A successful translation should enable us to derive a version of (...) Fitch’s Paradox in a probabilistic setting. I offer a suitable schematic form for probabilistic Moorean propositions, as well as a concomitant proof of a probabilistic Knowability Paradox. Moreover, I argue that traditional candidates to play the role of probabilistic Moorean propositions will not do. In particular, we can show that violations of the so-called ‘Reflection Principle’ in probability need not yield structurally unknowable propositions. Among other things, this should lead us to question whether violating the Reflection Principle actually amounts to a clear case of epistemic irrationality, as it is often assumed. This result challenges the importance of the principle as a tool to assess both synchronic and diachronic rationality—a topic which is largely independent of Fitch’s Paradox—from a somewhat unexpected source. (shrink)

Is self-consciousness a condition of possibility for knowledge? Does Kant s theory of self-consciousness commit us to transcendental idealism? How convincing is Kant s theory of self-consciousness? How should we understand transcendental idealism? What is Hegel s alternative? How do Kant and Hegel conceive of the beautiful? How do their conceptions of beauty relate to their metaphysics? In this volume, some of the world s most renowned Kant and Hegel scholars seek to provide answers.".

Epistemic transparency tells us that, if an agent S knows a given proposition p , then S knows that she knows that p . This idea is usually encoded in the so-called KK principle of epistemic logic. The paper develops an argument in favor of a moderate version of KK , which I dub quasi-transparency , as a normative rather than a descriptive principle. In the second Section I put forward the suggestion that epistemic transparency is not a demand of (...) ideal rationality, but of ideal epistemic responsibility, and hence that ideally responsible agents verify transparency principles of some sort; I also contend that their satisfaction should not be tied to an internalist epistemology. The central argument in favor of transparency is then addressed in Sections 3 to 8, through the development of a formal system. I show that, in a well-behaved formal setting, a moderate version of transparency is imposed upon us as a result of a number of independent decisions on the structure of higher-order probabilities, as long as we request that our probability and knowledge attributions cohere with each other. Thus I give a rationale to build a model for a hierarchy of languages with different levels of knowledge and probability operators; we obtain an analogous to KK for successive knowledge operators without actually demanding transitivity. The formal argument reinforces the philosophical intuition that epistemic transparency is an important desideratum we should not be too ready to dismiss. (shrink)

This article discusses the importance of metaemotions (emotions about emotions), showing their undeniable existence and how they are a critical and essential part of emotion life. The article begins by placing reflexivity of emotions within the general reflexivity of human beings. Then, the article presents the literature on metaemotion, showing some of the problems that surround them, which ultimately will lead to ask if the concept of metaemotion is really necessary. The second part of the article argues for the usefulness (...) of the concept, pointing out its role in establishing distinctions among emotional states as well as further clarifying the nature of emotion, and concludes on pointing out some of the directions for future research on metaemotions. (shrink)

The current study compared the effectiveness of two methods in biology teaching that are based on the science-as-inquiry approach: visits to authentic university laboratories and analyzing adapted primary literature. The methods’ effectiveness was measured in terms of high-school students’ increased understanding following a 6-week intervention that emphasized five major aspects of the nature of science : the tentativeness of scientific understanding, the cooperative nature of the scientific process, methodological diversity, the sociocultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge, and the aims of scientific (...) inquiry. A quasi-experimental, pre-post control design was applied, utilizing quantitative evaluation methods. Findings indicate that teaching NOS in biology high-school classes using science-as-inquiry methods is an effective approach for enhancing NOS understanding. Both of the proposed methods appear to be promising; however, the AUL method was found to be more effective for enabling advanced-level high-school biology students’ understanding of these NOS aspects. In conclusion, both AUL and APL are potentially effective methods that can be adapted for teaching various biology subjects in different cultural contexts. (shrink)

Lipkind et al. compare the development of vocal units and sound sequences in sound production in human infants and songbirds. Early in development, infant as well as songbird vocalizations vary along continuous acoustic parameters, with discrete vocal categories and structured vocalizations only emerging later on. This emergence process shows remarkable similarities between infants and zebra finches. Contrary to earlier views, Lipkind et al. suggest that the early development of songbird song (subsong) is more comparable to the phonation stage in infants (...) than to babbling. (shrink)

The article explores how a new dimension of emotion – depth – is crucially important for a better understanding of emotion and its connection to rationality. It begins by identifying that depth is trapped in a circularity in which deep emotions are important because they refer to deep and important aspects of people’s lives. Following Danto’s discussion of deep interpretation (1981), it suggests that it is the contrast between deep and superficial that grants emotional perspective and the ability to identify (...) levels of emotional depth. After arguing that the emotional perspective is grasped by the narrative structure of emotion, it raises several objections that provide the ground to establish a difference between deep and profound. Then the paper concludes that the meaning of emotional depth is only fully understood in the ongoing contrast with the superficial described before, and states how further research on depth of emotion may provide the key to understanding the ambivalent status of emotions regarding their link to rationality. (shrink)

The fair-play theory of punishment claims that the state is justified in imposing additional burdens on law-breakers, to remove the unfair advantage the latter have enjoyed by disobeying the law. From this perspective, punishment reestablishes a fair distribution of benefits and burdens among all citizens. In this paper, I object to this view by focusing on the case of civil disobedience. I argue that the mere illegality of this conduct is insufficient to establish the agent’s unfair advantage over his lawabiding (...) fellows, hence the imposition of additional burdens upon him through legal punishment. I articulate a broader account of citizens’ fair-play duties, able to capture disobedience as well as obedience to the law. While claiming that some law-breakers may not be treated as free-riders, I also gesture at the fact that some law-obeying citizens may not be ‘playing fair’: in some cases, a failure to engage in civil disobedience represents a failure to do one’s own part within the cooperative scheme of society. (shrink)

This article examines the socio-political context surrounding theMalayan Insurgency and how it shaped the outcome of counterinsurgency operations in the Malayan peninsular. It will put forwardthe idea that the success of British COIN in Malaya was primarily due tothe structure of Malayan society that was inhospitable towards a communistinsurrection by analysing the significance of race relations, religion, cultureand the impact of diaspora towards the changing social landscape of Malaya.

Jason Brennan has argued that democracy is intrinsically unjust, for it grants voting power to politically incompetent individuals, thus exposing people to an undue risk of harm. He claims democracy should be replaced by epistocracy, i.e., the rule of the knowers. In this paper, I show that his argument fails. First, Brennan mistakes voters’ competence for voters’ trustworthiness. Second, despite Brennan's claim to the contrary, an epistocracy may not reduce people’s exposure to an undue risk of harm. Third, Brennan overlooks (...) the fact that citizens are not equally affected by ‘bad voting.’ Fourth, far from being a defence of libertarian ideals, Brennan's argument supports paternalism. (shrink)

According to the usual way of understanding how true knowledge attribution works, it is not right to attribute knowledge of p to S unless p is true and S is justified in believing p. This assumption seems to hold even if we shun away from the idea that we can give an analysis of knowledge in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. I want to raise some suspicions on the correctness of this traditional picture. I suggest that justification is not (...) always perceived as a necessary condition for true knowledge attribution, according to our pre-theoretical usage of standard epistemic terms. This is not to say that justification is never seen as an important requirement; sometimes it certainly is. Still, the full-fledged, traditional position on epistemic justification needs to be seriously qualified. Ultimately, I will contend that this result lends support to a rival epistemological standpoint — what we might dub a Moderate Peircean stance on epistemic matters. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to focus on the question whether Hegel's philosophy shares its main characteristics with pragmatism. I will answer this question affirmatively. In the first part, I sketch the understanding of pragmatism that allows me to call Hegel a pragmatist. In the second part, I turn to the specific project of Hegel's Phenomenology and try to substantiate the claim that Hegel is a pragmatist in this sense. I end with a discussion about the limits of my thesis (...) in the third part of my paper. (shrink)

L'action et la pensee de Dina Dreyfus (1911-1999), ne furent pas moins clandestines qu'importantes. Restee dans l'ombre de son premier mari, Claude Levi-Strauss, dont on ignore trop souvent qu'elle fut la co-organisatrice de la mission Claude et Dina Levi-Strauss sur les Indiens du Mato-Grosso, Dina Dreyfus fut pourtant une ethnologue de terrain, qui sut participer activement a la fondation et au rayonnement de la discipline. Pendant la guerre, ses actes de resistance dans les reseaux montpellierains, furent menes (...) dans la clandestinite alors qu'elle enseignait sous la fausse identite de Denise Roche. Enfin, elle concut son travail d'enseignant puis d'inspecteur general de philosophie comme une mission au service des eleves et des enseignants. Elle fut la premiere a comprendre l'utilite des differents medias dans l'enseignement. (shrink)

The chapter shows how the recognition of reflexivity of emotions is crucial for understanding the role of emotions in reasoning because it highlights the regulatory role of emotion in emotional experience. The chapter begins by showing that to attain a conception of rationality that incorporates feelings, emotions, and sentiments as parts of the reasoning processes requires capturing the emotional landscape in all its complexity, and that integrating the role of meta-emotions is a contribution in that direction. Then introducing the notion (...) of meta-emotions and showing how emotional reflexivity modifies the nature of our emotional world, it is shown how emotions also have a regulatory mechanism that can either be maladaptive or at the center of emotional health. In addition, because meta-emotions provide a test for the more general assumptions of theories of emotions, the chapter ends by showing how adopting a Situated Approach to Emotions is well-suited for explaining the refinement and complexity of emotion regulation. The final reflection of the chapter explains why adopting such theoretical frame of work makes it possible to use the term situation in a technical manner, which then reveals that emotions sometimes are described as causes while other times as reasons in connection to their regulative mechanisms. (shrink)

What is the difference between civil and uncivil disobedience? How can illegal protest be compatible with a democratic regime based on the rule of law? Is Edward Snowden a civil disobedient? This book follows the philosophical debate around these and other issues, showing how the notion of civil disobedience has evolved from a form of passive resistance against injustice, to an active way to engage with the political life of the community. The author presents the major contributions in political and (...) legal philosophy, ranging from John Rawls' seminal account in 1971, to the recent views advanced by Kimberley Brownlee, David Lefkowitz and William Smith. In the last chapter, the author proposes a novel account of civil disobedience, able to meet some of the unresolved challenges. The author argues that, to make sense of civil disobedience, we should expand our conception of political obligation, so to include acts that, despite being illegal, may reveal the agent's civility. (shrink)

Human rights discourses are increasingly being coupled to discourses on citizenship and citizenship education. In this paper, I consider the premise that human rights might provide a theoretical underpinning for citizenship. I categorise citizenship into five main categories—moral, legal, identity-based, participatory and cosmopolitan. Bringing together theoretical and documentary evidence, I argue that human rights cannot logically be a theoretical underpinning for citizenship, regardless of how citizenship may be conceptualised. This is because human rights discourses are located within a universalist frame (...) of reference, in contrast to that of citizenship, which is located within a more particularist frame. Human rights are conceptually distinct from citizenship, and the conflating of human rights with citizenship not only is conceptually incoherent, but may actually obstruct the empowerment and active participation of individual citizens in the context of a political community. (shrink)

The paper suggests a way of modeling belief changes within the tradition of formal belief revision theories. The present model extends the scope of traditional proposals, such as AGM, so as to take care of “structural belief changes” – a type of radical shifts that is best illustrated with, but not limited to, instances of scientific discovery; we obtain AGM expansions and contractions as limiting cases. The representation strategy relies on a non-standard use of a semantic machinery. More precisely, the (...) model seeks to correlate knowledge states with interpretations of a given formal language L, in such a way that the epistemic state of an agent at a given time gives rise to a picture of how things could be, if there weren’t anything else to know. Interpretations of L proceed along supervaluational ideas; hence, the model as a whole can be seen as a particular application of supervaluational semantics to epistemic matters. (shrink)

Many believe that a citizen who engages in civil disobedience is not exempt from the sanctions that apply to standard law-breaking conduct. Since he is responsible for a deliberate breach of the law, he is also liable to punishment. Focusing on a conception of responsibility as answerability, I argue that a civil disobedient is responsible (i.e. answerable) to his fellows for the charges of wrongdoing, yet he is not liable to punishment merely for breaching the law. To support this claim, (...) I defend an account of political obligation framed in terms of respect for (rather than mere obedience to) the law, and argue that the mere illegality of civil disobedience does not suffice to establish wrongdoing. I then discuss and reject three objections to my argument. (shrink)

In a recent paper Samir Okasha has suggested an application of Arrow’s impossibility theorem to theory choice. When epistemic virtues are interpreted as ‘voters’ in charge of ranking competing theories, and there are more than two theories at stake, the final ordering is bound to coincide with the one proposed by one of the voters, provided a number of seemingly reasonable conditions are in place. In a similar spirit, Jacob Stegenga has shown that Arrow’s theorem applies to the amalgamation of (...) evidence; the ‘voters’ here are the different sources of evidence. As with Okasha’s proposal, it is not clear how to avoid Arrow’s pessimistic conclusion.In this paper we develop a novel argument that purports to show that, in typical examples, Arrow’s result does not obtain when dealing with evidence amalgamation. The reason is that we cannot escape the well-known Duhem problem: the evidence actually confirms complex conjunctions that include various auxiliary hypotheses. We argue that confirmational holism induces us to restrict the domain of a reasonable amalgamation function, thus violating one of Arrow’s conditions. The upshot is that we are now able to see the Duhem problem under a different, positive light – namely, as a phenomenon that makes the aggregation of the evidence possible in the first place, when there are at least three options on the table. (shrink)

Dina Bacalexi, « De pulsibus ad tirones. Galien et les médecins débutants : le pouls comme moyen de diagnostic et de pronostic ». In : Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé, n° 2, juin 2001, pp. 131-152. Le traité de Galien Sur le pouls à l'usage des débutants a été composé lors du premier séjour du médecin à Rome et retravaillé, comme d'autres traités, lors du second séjour, vers la fin du siècle. Notre objectif, dans cette présentation, sera d'analyser un (...) - Médecine – Nouvel article. (shrink)

From the sumptuous lakeshore to the inner city, these images capture the light, color, and mood of our public spaces throughout the changing seasons. Frederick Law Olmsted's and Jens Jensen's vision of a 'garden in a city' is reflected within the pages of this book. The images at once subtly incorporate and contrast the natural landscape within the urban landscape. The Prairie-style architecture that is found in many of Chicago's parks is both a reflection of the natural prairie and a (...) reminder of the concrete urban landscape within which the parks are located. These full-color photographs of Chicago's well-known and lesser-visited parks make a perfect gift for those who enjoy outdoor spaces or gardens, or for those who fondly remember the parks of their Chicago youth. The totality of these images is an eloquent visual portrait of the origins of our bold and proud city from the vast wilderness of the mid-western prairie. Frank Dina has brought about an impressive re-discovery and re-affirmation of these islands of peace, beauty, and tranquillity amidst the bustle and dynamism that is Chicago. (shrink)

As is well known, any preorder R on a set U induces an Alexandrov topology on U. In some interesting cases related to data mining an Alexandrov topology can be transformed into different types of logico-algebraic models. In some cases, (pre)topological operators provided by Pointless Topology may define a topological space on U even if R is not a preorder. If this is the case, then we call R a crypto-preorder. The paper studies the conditions under which a relation R (...) is a crypto-preorder and how to transform a crypto-preorder into a proper preorder. (shrink)

I discuss the epistemic status of algorithmic predictions in the legal realm. My main claim is that algorithmic predictions do not give us knowledge, not even probabilistic knowledge. The situation, however, is relevantly different from the one in which we find ourselves at the time of assessing statistical evidence in general, and it is rather related to the fact that algorithmic fairness in legal contexts is essentially undetermined. In the light of this, we have to settle for justified beliefs and (...) justified credences. I end by drawing some morals for the Knowledge Norm of action. (shrink)

The conjecture that international system structure determines war propensity has met with mixed results in past theory in political science. This question is reexamined within the context of a dynamic model of inter-nation hostile behavior. System structure is defined in terms of the degrees of grievance, fear, etc., among nations and also in terms of the qualitative patterns of hostile behavior that are possible. Propensity for war is measured in terms of the likelihood of progress to war within a given (...) class of hostile behaviors. Then the dynamic model is used to analyze in detail and interpret the relationship between system structure and war propensity. (shrink)

The study employs a sequential explanatory mixed-method design and aims to understand contract cheating behavior by conducting a survey of 1,081 undergraduate students in Indonesia and following up with five respondents to explore those results in more depth. In the first quantitative phase, we collected a variety of information from questionnaires about students’ practice with contract cheating. However, the interviews provided considerable depth of the students’ experiences, motivations, and attitudes toward contract cheating. Of the 1,081 participants, 73 students (6.75%) reported (...) engaging in contract cheating. The survey responses revealed preliminary insight into students’ experiences with contract cheating and the prevalence of this phenomenon in Indonesia. In the semi-structured interviews with a subsample of survey participants (n = 5), we applied the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to elicit attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral controls toward contract cheating. Our study revealed that students will have a higher chance of pursuing contract cheating when: (a) they believe that contract cheating provides various benefits (positive attitude toward contract cheating), (b) many of their friends are doing the same thing and expect them to do the same (subjective norms), and (c) they can control their contract cheating behavior to avoid being caught (perceived behavioral control). (shrink)

This paper testifies the crucial importance of Philosophy for Children for Emotional Growth. It begins by establishing the open ended character of emotional processes, showing how feminist philosophers have criticized the fixed conception of negative valence of certain emotions, and how, ultimately, the normative structure of emotions is open to modification. Then, it shows how talking about emotional processes and emotional situations can foster emotional growth once we understand that the acquisition of language and emotional vocabulary is one way to (...) best capture the openended character of emotions. Finally, attention is turned to Philosophy for Children. Taking as an illustration the emotion of hope and its importance to inquiry, the paper concludes by examining in what way P4C both benefits and reinforces the previous insights about emotion theory. (shrink)

The recent global increase in environmental regulation does not necessarily signal improvement in firms’ ecological imprints. Like many markets, the Arab world is struggling to implement environmental compliance measures among local firms. For Arab countries, the reliance solely on formal policies to improve local firms’ ecological footprints may be risky given the evident institutional challenges to enforce environmental regulations, specially post the Arab Spring. Drawing from the literature highlighting the merits of combining formal and informal controls to ensure successful implementation (...) of a strategy, we argue that the emphasis for regulation must be accompanied by an emphasis for developing environmental ethics of individuals, who are the expected implementers of any environmental policy. In that light, we propose that the Eco-Islam phenomenon can serve as an influential and effective foundation for building organizational cultures with stronger environmental ethics among local small and medium enterprises. We explain the underlying maxims of Eco-Islam then conduct qualitative research among experts preaching or practicing the concept to gain better insights into the potential of leveraging it in Muslim-majority Arab countries. Finally, we conclude with insightful implications for local SMEs in the region. (shrink)

En este trabajo se ofrece un comentario al artículo de Miguel Ángel Fernández sobre el veritismo y el valor del entendimiento publicado en Diánoia 65. En primer lugar, se observa que el veritismo descansa en una definición de valor epistémico que amenaza con trivializar toda la discusión. Luego se procede a examinar los argumentos de Fernández con cierto detalle. In this paper I comment on M.Á. Fernández's paper on veritism and the value of understanding. I begin by observing that veritism (...) relies on a definition of epistemic value that threatens to trivialize the discussion. Then I proceed to examine Fernandez's arguments with some detail. (shrink)