Structural problems are examined with pairing two chambers, one selected by election and the other by sortition, into a traditional bicameral system. It is argued that an all-purpose legislative chamber modeled on existing elected chambers is a mismatch for sortition and that purported benefits of maintaining partisan elections alongside sortition are illusory. Alleged benefits of a hybrid bicameral system are shown to be outweighed by a variety of harmful effects. Furthermore, even if those harms are not substantiated, the continued existence (...) of an elected chamber will likely result in the delimitation of the sortition chamber. Combining many different sorts of minipublics with different characteristics and functions is preferable, and a possible multibody sortition legislative system is presented. Finally, an alternative way forward for sortition is proposed by peeling away individual topic areas from elected bodies and transferring them to sortition bodies. (shrink)

Part 1 of this article, which appeared in the first installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Antipolitics,” presented reasons why elections are an inappropriate method for selecting representatives in a democracy. Part 2, published in the symposium's second installment, offers arguments for why sortition — the selection of shorter-duration representatives by lottery from the general population — is the best procedure for democracy. Random selection can assure broad diversity and descriptive representation, and it allows those people selected to overcome the (...) rational ignorance that plagues elections. Concerns about the competence of ordinary people who are randomly selected are addressed. The issues of corruption and policy accountability are examined to show that elections cannot provide the genuine accountability ensured by random selection. Some specific design considerations for an optimal sortition-based democracy are also presented. (shrink)

In the last two decades, there has been a blossoming literature aiming to counter the neglect of plant capacities. In their recent paper, Miguel Segundo-Ortin and Paco Calvo begin by providing an overview of the literature to then question the mistaken assumptions that led to plants being immediately rejected as candidates for sentience. However, it appears that many responses to their arguments are based on the implicit conviction that because animals have far more sophisticated cognition and agency than plants, and (...) that plants should not have the same moral status as animals, plants should not have any moral status. Put in simpler terms: it is not as bad to eat plants than to eat, say, pigs. While there are still uncertainties around comparative moral and policy implications between animals and plants, given a gradualist account of quasi-sentience and partial moral status, both of which we claim are a matter of degree, we may not have to abolish our convictions by declaring that plants have no sentience or moral status at all. Indeed, we can hold two things at the same time: that animals and plants have moral status, but animals have prima facie more moral status than plants. (shrink)

This is a collective study, in nine new essays, of the close connection between theology and cosmology in Stoic philosophy.

Most authors who work with moral status automatically dismiss the possibility that plants are the kinds of entities that have moral status. This dismissal coheres with our intuitions about common-sense morality: if plants do not have moral status then we do not have any direct moral obligations to plant life. An implication of such a view is that any suggestion otherwise commits one to be in favour of an absurd conclusion. However, given the recent literature and empirical evidence on plant (...) minds, there are reasons to accept a different perspective that finds the absurd conclusion plausible. (shrink)

This book develops a philosophical analysis of economic reality and economic science from an Aristotelian point of view. It is the result of many years of thinking and philosophical study about these topics. It differs from other philosophy of economics books as it also deals with economic reality (not only the science) and approaches its subject from an Aristotelian perspective. It differs from other Aristotelian studies about economics as it covers the whole of philosophy of the economy. This book argues (...) why Aristotle's thinking guarantees an appropriate interdisciplinary synthesis. (shrink)

In this chapter, Ricardo Silvestre and Alan Herbert offer a reconstruction of the Gītā’s concept of God with a focus on the relationship between God and the world. They try to explain the claim that the Gītā is panentheistic. This is done with the help of some key notions of contemporary metaphysics (such as ontological dependence and fundamentality) along with the Indic notion of prakṛti, considered as a metaphysical primitive denoting the intimate relationship that exists between matter and conscious (...) living beings on the one hand, and God on the other. (shrink)

How veridical is perception? Rather than representing objects as they actually exist in the world, might perception instead represent objects only in terms of the utility they offer to an observer? Previous work employed evolutionary modeling to show that under certain assumptions, natural selection favors such “strict‐interface” perceptual systems. This view has fueled considerable debate, but we think that discussions so far have failed to consider the implications of two critical aspects of perception. First, while existing models have explored single (...) utility functions, perception will often serve multiple largely independent goals. (Sometimes when looking at a stick you want to know how appropriate it would be as kindling for a campfire, and other times you want to know how appropriate it would be as a weapon for self‐defense.) Second, perception often operates in an inflexible, automatic manner—proving “impenetrable” to shifting higher‐level goals. (When your goal shifts from “burning” to “fighting,” your visual experience does not dramatically transform.) These two points have important implications for the veridicality of perception. In particular, as the need for flexible goals increases, inflexible perceptual systems must become more veridical. We support this position by providing evidence from evolutionary simulations that as the number of independent utility functions increases, the distinction between “interface” and “veridical” perceptual systems dissolves. Although natural selection evaluates perceptual systems only on their fitness, the most fit perceptual systems may nevertheless represent the world as it is. (shrink)

The use of new paradigms of false belief tasks allowed to reduce the age of children who pass the test from the previous 4 years in the standard version to only 15 months or even a striking 6 months in the nonverbal modification. These results are often taken as evidence that infants already possess an—at least implicit—theory of mind. We criticize this inferential leap on the grounds that inferring a ToM from the predictive success on a false belief task requires (...) to assume as premise that a belief reasoning is a necessary condition for correct action prediction. It is argued that the FBT does not satisfactorily constrain the predictive means, leaving room for the use of belief-independent inferences. These heuristics, when applied to the FBT, can achieve the same predictive success of a belief-based inference because information provided by the test stimulus allows the recognition of particular situations that can be subsumed by their ‘laws’. Instead of solving this issue by designing a single experimentum crucis that would render unfeasible the use of non-representational inferences, we suggest the application of a set of tests in which, although individually they can support inferences dissociated from a ToM, only an inference that makes use of false beliefs is able to correctly predict all the outcomes. (shrink)

In this essay, I focus on Lugones’s relatively lesser explored notion of playfulness. I weigh in on the debate about whether playfulness is necessary for what Lugones calls “world-traveling,” which enables one to recognize another person as a full subject. I argue that although the attribute of playfulness may not be necessary for world-traveling, it is necessary for collaborative world-making––creating a new, shared world that is opened through the activity of play.

Is it possible to combine different logics into a coherent system with the goal of applying it to specific problems so that it sheds some light on foundational aspects of those logics? These are two of the most basic issues of combining logics. Paranormal modal logic is a combination of paraconsistent logic and modal logic. In this paper, I propose two further combinatory developments, focusing on each one of these two issues. On the foundational side, I combine paranormal modal logic (...) with normal modal logic, resulting into a paraconsistent and paracomplete multimodal logic dealing with the notions of plausibility and certainty. On the application side, I combine this logic with Reiter’s default logic, resulting into an inductive and consequently nonmonotonic paraconsistent and paracomplete logic able to represent some key inductive principles. (shrink)

¿Ciencias sociales o ciencias de la sociedad? -- La adquisición e intercambio de conocimiento -- La formación y evolución del lenguaje -- La formación de valores, moral y costumbre -- Bases metodológicas para el estudio histórico de los fenómenos sociales -- Cooperación social y gobierno.

Any plausibly just market exchange must balance two conflicting moral considerations: non-worseness (Wertheimer, 1999) and euvoluntariness (true voluntariness; Munger, 2011). We propose an analytical theory of just market exchange that partly resolves this conflict.

Anchors and ghosts -- Making sense -- The anxiety of evidence -- The wheat and the chaff -- Sedation or seduction?.

In attempting to describe the relationship between reason and faith, Newman repeatedly wrestled with questions concerning the human way of knowing. This article explores Newman’s reflections on the process of “conception” in his theological papers that were unpublished during his lifetime, yet in retrospect can be seen as preparatory steps in his eventual writing of the Grammar of Assent.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 1, Page 111-127, January 2022.

Este trabajo describe la vida y escritos de L. Polo hasta 1996. A los 25 años descubrió su método de pensamiento: el abandono del limite mental. Vivió en Madrid, Roma, Granada y Pamplona. Amante de la verdad y de la libertad personal. Entre sus obras más profundas se encuentran las que componen su Curso de teoría del conocimiento y su Antropología trascendental.

We uncover fundamental dimensions of the process through which organizations embed the practice of fraternity through embarking on an organizational journey in the direction of the common good. Building on the latest encyclical of Pope Francis, _Fratelli Tutti_, about fraternal and social friendship, we offer insight into the understanding of what it means to become a fraternal organization and reflect on the key ethical and paradoxical challenges for organizations aiming at collectively contributing to the common good. We add to previous (...) work by characterizing this journey as a process involving unique ethical challenges that emerge from the paradoxes associated with this process and how this might change the nature of the relationships between organizations and others within the organizational landscape. (shrink)

Mathematics is a critical part of much scientific research. Physics in particular weaves math extensively into its instruction beginning in high school. Despite much research on the learning of both physics and math, the problem of how to effectively include math in physics in a way that reaches most students remains unsolved. In this paper, we suggest that a fundamental issue has received insufficient exploration: the fact that in science, we don’t just use math, we make meaning with it in (...) a different way than mathematicians do. In this reflective essay, we explore math as a language and consider the language of math in physics through the lens of cognitive linguistics. We begin by offering a number of examples that show how the use of math in physics differs from the use of math as typically found in math classes. We then explore basic concepts in cognitive semantics to show how humans make meaning with language in general. The critical elements are the roles of embodied cognition and interpretation in context. Then, we show how a theoretical framework commonly used in physics education research, resources, is coherent with and extends the ideas of cognitive semantics by connecting embodiment to phenomenological primitives and contextual interpretation to the dynamics of meaning-making with conceptual resources, epistemological resources, and affect. We present these ideas with illustrative case studies of students working on physics problems with math and demonstrate the dynamical nature of student reasoning with math in physics. We conclude with some thoughts about the implications for instruction. (shrink)

This collection of new essays by an international group of scholars closely examine the works of Aristotle's Organon. The Organon is the general title given to the collection of Aristotle's logical works: Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics and Sophistical Refutations. This extremely influential collection gave Aristotle the reputation of being the founder of logic, and has helped shaped the development of logic for over two millennia. The chapters in this volume cover topics pertaining to each of the (...) six works traditionally included in the Organon as well as its manuscript tradition. In addition, a comprehensive introduction by the editors discusses Aristotle and logic, the composition and order of the Organon, and the authenticity, title, and chronology of the treatises that make up these works New Essays on Aristotle's Organon offers a valuable insight into this collection for students and scholars working on Aristotle, the works of the Organon, or the philosophy of logic more broadly. (shrink)

El concepto de acción -- Teoría y lógica de las normas -- Los predicados jurídicos y su base empírica -- La identificación del fenómeno jurídico -- Lagunas y criterios de decisión -- La revolución informático-jurídica -- Secuencias y niveles en el sistema normativo -- Ciencia jurídica e irracionalismo.

From Homeric heroes, Lucifer and Faust to the phenomenology of individual and social emotions, this book unfolds historical dimensions, literary recreations and philosophical analyses of the most ambivalent emotion of pride, from worst of sins to noblest feeling.

In physics education, equations are commonly seen as calculation tools to solve problems or as concise descriptions of experimental regularities. In physical science, however, equations often play a much more important role associated with the formulation of theories to provide explanations for physical phenomena. In order to overcome this inconsistency, one crucial step is to improve physics teacher education. In this work, we describe the structure of a course that was given to physics teacher students at the end of their (...) master’s degree in two European universities. The course had two main goals: To investigate the complex interplay between physics and mathematics from a historical and philosophical perspective and To expand students’ repertoire of explanations regarding possible ways to derive certain school-relevant equations. A qualitative analysis on a case study basis was conducted to investigate the learning outcomes of the course. Here, we focus on the comparative analysis of two students who had considerably different views of the math-physics interplay in the beginning of the course. Our general results point to important changes on some of the students’ views on the role of mathematics in physics, an increase in the participants’ awareness of the difficulties faced by learners to understand physics equations and a broadening in the students’ repertoire to answer “Why?” questions formulated to equations. Based on this analysis, further implications for physics teacher education are derived. (shrink)