Ethical challenges are traditionally described in a negative light, even though moral conflict can express the individual ability to perceive when something is not working and promote change. The true question, therefore, is not to how to silence moral conflict but how to educate it. Although the need for ethical support of health- and social-care professionals in elderly care is clearly perceived, there is no universal method for providing effective interventions. The authors hypothesize that adequate training sessions can help care (...) professionals enhance this skill, once clear goals and specific educational techniques are set. This research tests the hypothesis on twenty care professionals working in acute and residential care settings for the elderly, building on the ethics round method. Mixed methods drawn from literature and the experience of educators were adapted to meet different educational goals. Moral issues can hardly be removed from a context characterized by increasing demand and decreasing resources, but they can be recognized and addressed with common efforts, a critical attitude, and a growth mindset. Enhancing these skills in qualified workers can help them accept the reality of work, release pressure, and identify common team goals. Introducing these skills before graduation can help future workers avoid unreal expectations and reduce frustration and early job quit rates. (shrink)

BackgroundThe psychological burden possibly deriving from not immediately undergoing radical treatment for prostate cancer could be a potential disadvantage of active surveillance, especially in the eve of some relevant clinical exams [i.e., re-biopsy, prostate-specific antigen test, and medical examination]. Even if it is known from the literature that the majority of PCa men in AS do not report heightened anxiety, there is a minority of patients who show clinically significant levels of anxiety after diagnosis. The present study aimed to investigate (...) if demographic, clinical, and psychological variables at the entrance in AS were associated with the risk of developing clinically significant PCa-related anxiety 2 months before the first re-biopsy and to offer psychological support to improve quality of life.Materials and MethodsA total of 236 patients participated in the PCa Research International: AS protocol and in PRIAS-QoL study. Demographic/clinical features, health-related QoL domains, coping with cancer, PCa-related anxiety [Memorial Anxiety Scale for PCa ], personality traits, and decision-making-related factors were assessed at T0. MAX-PC was also administered at T1. PCa-related anxiety at T1 was considered to be of clinical significance if the MAX-PC score was ≥1.5. Multivariable logistic regression coupled to bootstrap was used to detect factors associated with high levels of anxiety.ResultsThe median age was 64.4 years. Fifty-six patients reported MAX-PC total score above the cutoff. Three factors were associated with a high level of PCa anxiety at T1: anxious preoccupation [odds ratio = 4.36], extraversion, and prostate-related symptoms. Physical well-being was associated with a low PCa anxiety subscale ; neuroticism and functional well-being were associated with PSA anxiety. Neuroticism and helplessness/hopelessness were associated with fear of progression.ConclusionOnly a partial portion of the sample experienced significant levels of anxiety after 10 months. Psychological assessment should be routinely conducted to detect risk factors for increased anxiety, offering tailored psychological interventions aimed at promoting interpersonal awareness and emotional well-being. (shrink)

El presente trabajo versa sobre cómo se construye una cierta identidad y, por tanto, un cierto tipo de sujeto, a partir de los sistemas normativos propios de la adivinación en la santería cubana. Este análisis se realiza a partir de las experiencias en el trabajo de campo del autor durante cinco años en una “casa de santo” en Remedios, Villa Clara y del estudio exhaustivo de las llamadas “letras” de Ifá. La adivinación en esta religión no solo resulta un (...) acto predictivo, sino una manera de conformar un tipo de personalidad, a partir de un conjunto de reglas y recomendaciones individualizadas para cada creyente. (shrink)

El presente trabajo versa sobre cómo se construye una cierta identidad y, por tanto un cierto tipo de sujeto, a partir de los sistemas normativos propios de la adivinación en la santería cubana. Este análisis se realiza a partir de las experiencias en el trabajo de campo del autor durante cinco años en una “casa de santo” en Remedios, Villa Clara y del estudio exhaustivo de las llamadas “letras” de Ifá. La adivinación en esta religión no solo resulta un (...) acto predictivo, sino una manera de conformar un tipo de personalidad, a partir de un conjunto de reglas y recomendaciones individualizadas para cada creyente. (shrink)

Medio siglo después de que los ordenadores hayan entrado en nuestras vidas, los datos han empezado a eclosionar hasta tal punto que se puede afirmar que algo nuevo y especial está teniendo lugar. Cuando comienza la era del Big Data, las instituciones y organizaciones empresariales pasan a ser conscientes del alto potencial remanente en los datos que están almacenados en sus archivos. Así, los datos almacenados pasan a ser un activo de la organización y se utilizan para buscar valor en (...) ellos que conduzca hacia una toma de decisiones basada en datos. Sectores como servicios, sanidad, educación o la pro-pia área gubernamental están aplicando estos nuevos métodos de análisis de cara a inferir conocimiento mediante la aplicación del razonamiento deductivo. Pero la transformación de los datos en conocimiento no es una tarea fácil ni directa ya que los conjuntos de datos disponibles se encuentran generalmente desorganizados. Es la era del Big Data que emerge de la eclosión de los datos. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book explores the multifaceted phenomenon of objectivity and its relations to various aspects of the law and practical reasoning. Featuring contributions from an international group of researchers from differing legal contexts, it addresses topics relevant not only from a theoretical point of view but also themes directly connected with legal and judicial practice. Beginning with an introduction from the editors proposing a new account of the meaning of objectivity, the book is then divided into three broad themes illuminated (...) by this account. Chapters first address a range of problems linked to the relationship between objectivity and jurisprudence, before turning in the second part to an analysis of the functions of objectivity in legal interpretation. The final part then deals with the function of objectivity in practical reasoning. Offering a spectrum of scholarly insights within a coherent intellectual framework, this book will be a crucial read for scholars and graduate students of legal philosophy and legal theory. Its discussion of objectivity as it relates to legal practice and practical reasoning will also be of interest to practitioners such as judges, arbitrators and lawyers. (shrink)

This Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical ideas and political theories of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). As a survivor of the Holocaust, Arendt's life informed her work exploring the meaning and construction of power, evil, totalitarianism, and direct democracy. Through insightful readings of Arendt's best-known works, from The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) to The Life of the Mind (1978), Dana Villa traces the importance of Arendt's ideas for today's reader. In so doing, Villa explains how Arendt gained world-wide fame (...) with the publication of Origins, and went on to have a distinguished career as a political theorist and public intellectual. A sometimes controversial figure, Arendt is now recognised as one of the most important political thinkers of the twentieth century and her works have become an acknowledged part of the Western canon of political theory and philosophy"--From the publisher. (shrink)

The overall goal of this paper is to show that computational modelling of argumentation theories is a useful tool to deepen them. Specifically, it provides a basic computational formalization of part of Pragma-dialectics’ model of a critical discussion, which serves as a basis for analyzing this influential theory of argumentation. Such analysis reveals some weaknesses and leaves some questions opened for Pragma-dialectics. Particularly, it shows that the model of a critical discussion is not independent of the model of reasoning/inference chosen, (...) because, while it performs differently with different models of reasoning, it does not work well with some of them. (shrink)

This work analyses the speech-act of arguing as proposed by Linguistic Normative Model of Argumentation (LNMA) with the help of diagrams, examples and basic formalization techniques. The focus is set on one of the most novel issues of LNMA, modal qualification, and the distinction between epistemic and ontological modals. The first conclusion is that employing LNMA in order to analyse and evaluate actual argumentation as it is proposed is too complex to be applied as is. The second conclusion, at a (...) theoretical level, is that the distinction between ontological and epistemic modals is highly problematic in LNMA. (shrink)

Scientific theories are pure theoretical models integrated by a categorical scaffolding. Marx built a pure theoretical model that he called the capitalist mode of production; the historicity of its categories expresses the modes of production from which the capitalist comes and others that followed different paths. It also implies the existence of social formations in which a dominant mode of production and dominated forms of production coexist. The agrarian community is the highest form reached in the community entity and from (...) it comes the peasant economic unit generated in the parcelling of the land during the ancient form and gestation of capitalism, which is why the construction of a peasant mode of production does not proceed. (shrink)

Posthumanism is the key to interpreting the twenty-first century and represents an international research program on the relationship with technology and the biosphere and new forms of citizenship and identity. This book clarifies the common denominators that differentiate posthumanism from other proposals.

In this paper we present BTC, which is a complete logic for branchingtime whose modal operator quantifies over histories and whose temporal operators involve a restricted quantification over histories in a given possible choice. This is a technical novelty, since the operators of the usual logics for branching-time such as CTL express an unrestricted quantification over histories and moments. The value of the apparatus we introduce is connected to those logics of agency that are interpreted on branching-time, as for instance (...) Stit Logics. (shrink)

I argue that men can be oppressed by virtue of being men; however, our definitions of men and masculinity must be redefined and reclaimed from the dominant white perspective. My claims are: (1) current arguments on the oppression of men simpliciter are misguided as they fail to encompass the experiences of all men; (2) any question regarding the oppression of men must reject the current static and universal definition of men; (3) the oppression of men is an instantiation of structural (...) oppression that allows for men to be both privileged and oppressed in different, forms, degrees, and dimensions; (4) the oppression of Latino men qua Latino men is an example of men being oppressed as men. Therefore, (5) we must redefine and reclaim the definition of “men” and “masculinity.” Last, (6) this redefinition cannot be done a priori but must use intersectionality as a regulative method to illuminate the oppression of men that remains obscured in other, one-dimensional approaches to the topic of the oppression of men. (shrink)

The theory of the firm initially developed by Ronald Coase has made explicit the political nature of firms by putting hierarchy at the heart of the economic process. Theories of workplace democracy articulate this intuition in the normative terms of the conditions under which this political power can be legitimate. This paper presents an organizational theory of workplace democracy, and contends that the democratization of firms requires that we take their organizational dimension explicitly into account. It thus construes democracy as (...) an organizational principle and juxtaposes it to market, hierarchy, and norm-compliance as rival principles for the organization of economic activities. Attempts to construe democracy as an organizational principle with unique features in the tradition of transaction-cost economics are discussed before proposing an innovative solution based on an updated version of grid/group cultural theory of politics, adjusted to accommodate the basic requirements of democratic theory. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo reflexionar acerca de las herramientas teóricas y metodológicas que ofrece el análisis crítico del discurso para la comprensión del fenómeno del suicidio. En este sentido se proponen dos discusiones que son centrales para comprender esta relación. En primer lugar, se plantea una crítica sobre las formas de comprender la relación entre suicidio y los medios de comunicación desde la idea de la imitación. Posteriormente se discute la importancia de concebir el suicidio como una práctica (...) atravesada por construcciones sociales, políticas y culturales que no se limita de manera exclusiva la psicopatología. Finalmente se expone cómo el análisis crítico del discurso puede generar modos de comprender el suicidio que relativicen los discursos hegemónicos a que dan lugar ciertas exigencias de carácter epistemológico y tecno-científico. (shrink)

Roberto Esposito is one of the most prolific and important exponents of contemporary Italian political theory.

El presente artículo tiene como telón de fondo los poemas atribuidos a Homero y los de Hesíodo y se interesa, en particular, en los personajes femeninos representados en ellos, así como en la valoración de la feminidad o de aquellas características consideradas propias de las mujeres y que se definen por contraposición a lo masculino. Para ello, este análisis se sirve de la perspectiva de género. Asidos a esta herramienta hermenéutica se profundizará en el complejo paisaje de las construcciones culturales (...) y de las representaciones mentales. Las fuentes de análisis las constituyen cuatro cantos: Ilíada, Odisea, Teogonía y Trabajos y días, todos de particular trascendencia para la cultura helena y que influirán, además, enormemente en el pensamiento occidental. Aunque existen elementos comunes, cada uno de ellos presenta sus particularidades. Por este motivo, aun abordando composiciones que pueden ser atribuidas a un mismo autor y datadas dentro de una misma horquilla temporal no serán sometidas a crítica de forma conjunta. Con ello, se busca determinar, por un lado, si las ideas objeto de análisis cambian y, por otro, y si esto sucede, determinar cómo. (shrink)

Reconfigures classic aesthetic concepts in relation to the novelty introduced by virtual bodies.

This book by Roberto Esposito - a leading Italian political philosopher - is a highly original exploration of the relationship between human bodies and societies. The original function of law, even before it was codified, was to preserve peaceful cohabitation between people who were exposed to the risk of destructive conflict. Just as the human body's immune system protects the organism from deadly incursions by viruses and other threats, law also ensures the survival of the community in a life-threatening (...) situation. It protects and prolongs life. But the function of law as a form of immunization points to a more disturbing consideration. Like the individual body, the collective body can be immunized from the perceived danger only by allowing a little of what threatens it to enter its protective boundaries. This means that in order to escape the clutches of death, life is forced to incorporate within itself the lethal principle. Starting from this reflection on the nature of immunization, Esposito offers a wide-ranging analysis of contemporary biopolitics. Never more than at present has the demand for immunization come to characterize all aspects of our existence. The more we feel at risk of being infiltrated and infected by foreign elements, the more the life of the individual and society closes off within its protective boundaries, forcing us to choose between a self-destructive outcome and a more radical alternative based on a new conception of community. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy: accent. Accent is a fallacy of pragmatics. The fallacy of accent takes place when a premise in an argument seems to rely for its meaning on one possible vocal emphasis, but a conclusion is drawn that relies on an extrapolation from a different vocal emphasis of the same phrase. Such ambiguities are often the result of unacknowledged differences in background beliefs, attitudes, and expectations that people may implicitly bring (...) to the reading of a passage. The fallacy of accent can also be committed, therefore, when a passage is quoted without its original context, and erroneous inferences are drawn based on this (often deliberate) distortion. A classic example of this kind of deliberate form of quote mining is often used by creationists in their attempt to discredit Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. (shrink)

Facebook claims that it is building a “global community.” Whether this sounds utopian, dystopian, or simply self-promotional, there is no denying that social-media platforms have altered social interaction, political life, and outlooks on the world, even for people who do not regularly use them. In this book, Roberto Simanowski takes Facebook as a starting point to investigate our social-media society—and its insidious consequences for our concept of the self. Simanowski contends that while they are often denounced as outlets for (...) narcissism and self-branding, social networks and the practices they cultivate in fact remake the self in their image. Sharing is the outsourcing of one’s experiences, encouraging unreflective self-narration rather than conscious self-determination. Instead of experiencing the present, we are stuck ceaselessly documenting and archiving it. We let our lives become episodic autobiographies whose real author is the algorithm lurking behind the interface. As we go about accumulating more material for the platform to arrange for us, our sense of self becomes diminished—and Facebook shapes a subject who no longer minds. Social-media companies’ relentless pursuit of personal data for advertising purposes presents users with increasingly targeted, customized information, attenuating cultural memory and fracturing collective identity. Presenting a creative, philosophically informed perspective that speaks candidly to a shared reality, Facebook Society asks us to come to terms with the networked world for our own sake and for all those with whom we share it. (shrink)

Problems of distributive justice throughout the lifespan are not new. Yet, the increased aging rate of contemporary societies and an array of new life‐extending technologies (LETs) make these problems more and more urgent and complicated. This chapter analyzes the moral and political impact of the LET. There are three kinds of “intergenerational” justice: justice between non‐coexisting generations, justice between partially co‐existing generations, and justice between coexisting generations. The advantage of considering LETs in the light of justice between age groups is (...) that we can assume a complete‐life view. LETs significantly modify the duration and the features of each stage of life. A consideration of the specific needs and features of each stage of life in a lifespan‐enhanced society is needed to regulate policies and offer fair equality of opportunity to each age group. (shrink)

Comment ne pas désespérer? Comment maximiser notre capacité d'agir et de penser? Comment défaire tous les efforts et les dispositifs qui visent à séparer la multitude de sa puissance?00L'urgence de ces questions traverse l'oeuvre d'Antonio Negri depuis ses commencements dans les années 1960 et 1970, alors qu'un mouvement d'insurrection ouvrière soulevait l'Italie jusqu'à ses plus récents développements avec l'altermondialisation et l'émergence dans l'espace public des questions écologiques. À travers différents ouvrages devenus des classiques de la théorie politique notamment La Classe (...) ouvrière contre l'État, Marx au-delà de Marx, L'Anomalie sauvage, Le Pouvoir constituant, mais aussi, en collaboration avec Michael Hardt, Empire, Multitude, Commonwealth et Assembly--, Antonio Negri a proposé l'une des contributions les plus marquantes à la pensée critique contemporaine. À l'heure de la contre-révolution néolibérale et du renouvellement des modalités de l'exploitation, il s'agit pour lui de prendre acte de la péremption des formes anciennes de la lutte des classes et de contribuer à l'ouverture d'un nouvel horizon révolutionnaire, à hauteur des enjeux du temps présent."--Back cover. (shrink)