Ce texte a déjà paru sur le site Fugitive Philosophy. Fleeing the Disciplines fear of a wet planet (rhythm I) Drexciya (descending AfroMer) We should linger here for a long while on rhythm : it is nothing other than the time of time, the vibration of time itself in the stroke of a present that presents it by separating it from itself, freeing it from its simple stanza to make it into scansion (rise, raising of the foot that beats) and (...) cadence (fall, passage into the pause). Thus, rhythm (...) - Philosophie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

The euthanasia literature typically discusses the difference between “active” and “passive” means of ending a patient’s life. Physician-assisted suicide differs from both active and passive forms of euthanasia insofar as the physician does not administer the means of suicide to the patient. Instead, she merely prescribes and dispenses them to the patient and lets the patient “do the rest” – if and when the patient chooses. One supposed advantage of this process is that it maximizes the patient’s autonomy with respect (...) to both her decision to die and the dying process itself. Still, despite this supposed advantage, Oregon is the only state to have legalized physician-assisted suicide. After summarizing the most important Supreme Court opinions on euthanasia (namely, Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dep’t of Health; Vacco v. Quill; Washington v. Glucksberg; and Gonzales v. Oregon), this paper argues that while there are no strong ethical reasons against legalizing physician-assisted suicide, there are some very strong policy reasons for keeping it criminal in the other forty-nine states. (shrink)

Realist dialetheism is the view that there are contradictions in reality. One argument against this idea says that it is impossible because it has to make room for the possibility of a trivial reality, which is metaphysically impossible. Another argument against it says that the metaphysical structure of reality is such that it is impossible to have contradictions in it. I argue here that both arguments fail to establish the impossibility of realist dialetheism because they are based on a misconception (...) about the notions of negation and contradiction, which leads them, in the first case, to wrongly hold that dialetheism has to be compatible with trivialism, and, in the second case, to assume that the validity of the Aristotelian principle of non-contradiction prevents the existence of dialetheias. (shrink)

Long, Kevin Review of: Report of Rosendo Salvado to propaganda fide in 1883, translated and edited by Stefano Girola, introduction by John Molony, Northcote, VIC: Abbey Press, 2015, pp. 307, $34.95.

The article is a continuation of a paper published in “Etyka”, vol. 21, Concepts of Man in the Náhuatlan Culture and contains an overview of the fundamental types of education provided by the Aztecs, with special emphasis on moral ideals. The investigation of Indian education not only furthers historical knowledge but also plays a role in the search of the origins of the specific religious, moral and behavioural expression of contemporary Mexico, due to the fact that some elements of the (...) education preceding the Spanish conquest became an integral part of the culture of that country. The analysis to which this article bears a testimony permits the author to say that before the conquest, the Aztecs had an integral educational system, an ideal to be put into practice, adequate institutions, competent teachers, didactic material elaborated by specialists. Skill formation practised at all levels of education, was complemented by moral instruction and intellectual, religious and aesthetic guidance. The norms inculcated through training had been worked out through the ages in the náhuatl tribes and served to protect the principal values of the family and social life. They had the function of elementary moral rules and emerged from the conditions of the perennial culture of Mexican Indians. Aside from setting models of behaviour and values, the norms that the author finds in all forms of education display some differentiation which is a reflection of the multi-layered, complex structure of that culture. It embraced two different lifestyles and two ideals. Beneath the dominant religious and military habits of the Aztecs survived the old morality of the Toltecs, preserved most conspicuously in the traditional norms of family life. It has also been expressed in the poetry of the 16th and early 17th centuries. (shrink)

The article discusses a concrete case of historiosophic theodicy, viz. the conception of August Cieszkowski, in order to present the structure of such conceptions and discuss theoretic and practical problems involved in them. The starting point of Cieszkowski’s deliberations on evil is a historical fact. To substantiate for his historiosophic optimism Cleszkowski must find not only the sense of the times in which he was living but must also explain the past, with all its moral evil: social catastrophes, misery, suffering, (...) and toil of the millions of people. Concentration on historical facts does not eliminate from the scope of his deliberations the problem of God’s acceptance of evil. This problem is simply shifted to another plane of reflections. (shrink)

Gonzales tells Mark Crimmins (1992) that Crimmins knows him under two guises, and that under his other guise Crimmins thinks him an idiot. Knowing his cleverness, but not knowing which guise he has in mind, Crimmins trusts Gonzales but does not know which of his beliefs to revise. He therefore asserts to Gonzales. (FBI) I falsely believe that you are an idiot.

El sólo título Ética de la economía, con que bautiza la Dra. Gonzáles Butrón a su libro, resulta sugerente. El prólogo se manifiesta también sugerente. Cerutti, quien lo escribe, explica que la economía implica valores y que estos valores determinan criterios que colocan a los seres humanos en determinadas posiciones, donde las neutralidades son meras apariencias. Cerutti argumenta que las posiciones que implican pisar las cabezas, los cuerpos, las necesidades y las dignidades de los otros y ..

The present study aims to point out a possible inconsistency between David Hume’s account of the personal identity problem and the methodology of the philosophical project he sketches in A Treatise of Human Nature, and also to assess Nelson Pike’s defense of the Hume’s position, which is considered by many to have dissolved the problem. It will be argued that this solution turns out to be insufficient since it does not solve the explanatory gap left by the inconsistency. In order (...) to make this visible, a reformulation of the objection based on the work of Donald Ainslie will be presented, as it is a proposal that also serves as a plausible explanation for Hume’s discredit of his own account in the Appendix. (shrink)

Singles are an understudied yet growing segment of the adult population. The current study aims to expand the lens of relationship science by examining the well-being of unpartnered, single adults using latent profile analysis. We recruited singles closely matched to the United States census for an exploratory cross-sectional survey using five variables that strongly predict well-being. All five variables significantly predicted life satisfaction for the full sample. Latent profile analyses detected 10 groups of singles. Half of the profiles were happy (...) and half of the profiles were unhappy. Each profile had its own unique patterns relating to personal relationships, self-esteem, and personality traits. The happiest profile had the best relationships, self-esteem, and personality, while the unhappiest profile had the worst relationships, self-esteem, and personality. The profiles in between these two extremes had more nuanced patterns. For example, one relatively happy profile in the middle had high friendship satisfaction but low family satisfaction, while an adjacent profile showed the opposite pattern. Overall, singles who had positive relationships—both with themselves and others—were happiest. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar el itinerario legislativo del sistema educativo español en orden a las discapacidades psíquicas y físicas. Desde la Ley Moyano a la Ley General de Educación la segregación escolar fue una realidad en la escuela española. El currículum y la enseñanza diferenciada han marchado estrechamente unidas a la trayectoria de la educación especial en España, segregando a los alumnos y alumnas de las aulas ordinarias. La educación con la inercia que le caracteriza, ha ido (...) reproduciendo y legitimando situaciones establecidas, y con ello, desigualdades bajo un marco normativo que garantizaba la igualdad de oportunidades. En la actualidad la Ley de Ordenación General del Sistema Educativo pretende hacer realidad “la escuela para todos” que incluya a todos sus miembros independientemente de sus peculiaridades personales. La escuela inclusiva debe dar respuesta a la diversidad de realidades del alumnado, como lugar abierto y flexible para aquellos que tradicionalmente han sido descalificados por sus limitaciones físicas y/o psíquicas. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem por objetivo investigar a concepção de fer-ramenta cognitiva no contexto da teoria da cognição incorporada e si-tuada . Para isso, partimos das noções de ferramenta e de tecnologia cognitivas propostas, respectivamente, por Dennett e Dascal , através das quais situam a linguagem no contexto evolu-cionário, ressaltando o seu caráter pragmático. Argumentamos que a concepção de ferramenta cognitiva, que para esses autores está inserida num contexto teórico que privilegia o conhecimento proposicional, pode ser ampliada de modo a abarcar (...) o conhecimento não proposicional. Em seguida, com o propósito de ressaltar a relevância do conhecimento não proposicional, apresentamos algumas teses relativas à natureza dos pro-cessos cognitivos que são postuladas pela CIS e pela Epistemologia Ecológica . Tais teses ressaltam que a compreen-são do comportamento inteligente necessita considerar fatores presentes na complexa dinâmica da interação organismo/meio ambiente. Argu-mentamos, ainda que, graças às teses da CIS e da EE conseguiremos entender alguns fenômenos relacionados à aquisição do conhecimento, es-pecialmente em situações nas quais parece se instaurar uma dicotomia entre significado e ação. (shrink)

Para Frege, o erro de base do psicologismo é a sua concepção de sujeito, que se concentra no princípio de que meus únicos objetos são conteúdos imanentes da consciência. Entretanto, essa tese não é meramente falsa, mas também refutável. A refutação da mesma aparece, não obstante, tardiamente em Der Gedanke. É esse o sentido último da crítica do idealismo oferecida neste texto. Ela é um passo necessário e imprescindível para assegurar a possibilidade de que captemos pensamentos, possibilidade com a qual (...) se ocupa boa parte do artigo de 1918. (shrink)

We introduce a restricted second-order logic $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ for finite structures where second-order quantification ranges over relations of size at most poly-logarithmic in the size of the structure. We demonstrate the relevance of this logic and complexity class by several problems in database theory. We then prove a Fagin’s style theorem showing that the Boolean queries which can be expressed in the existential fragment of $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ correspond exactly to the class of decision problems that can be computed by a non-deterministic Turing (...) machine with random access to the input in time $O^k)$ for some $k \ge 0$, i.e. to the class of problems computable in non-deterministic poly-logarithmic time. It should be noted that unlike Fagin’s theorem which proves that the existential fragment of second-order logic captures NP over arbitrary finite structures, our result only holds over ordered finite structures, since $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ is too weak as to define a total order of the domain. Nevertheless, $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ provides natural levels of expressibility within poly-logarithmic space in a way which is closely related to how second-order logic provides natural levels of expressibility within polynomial space. Indeed, we show an exact correspondence between the quantifier prefix classes of $\textrm{SO}^{\textit{plog}}$ and the levels of the non-deterministic poly-logarithmic time hierarchy, analogous to the correspondence between the quantifier prefix classes of second-order logic and the polynomial-time hierarchy. Our work closely relates to the constant depth quasipolynomial size AND/OR circuits and corresponding restricted second-order logic defined by David A. Mix Barrington in 1992. We explore this relationship in detail. (shrink)

Para Frege, o erro de base do psicologismo é a sua concepção de sujeito, que se concentra no princípio de que meus únicos objetos são conteúdos imanentes da consciência. Entretanto, essa tese não é meramente falsa, mas também refutável. A refutação da mesma aparece, não obstante, tardiamente em Der Gedanke. É esse o sentido último da crítica do idealismo oferecida neste texto. Ela é um passo necessário e imprescindível para assegurar a possibilidade de que captemos pensamentos, possibilidade com a qual (...) se ocupa boa parte do artigo de 1918. (shrink)

Probabilistic Relational Models (PRMs) are a framework for compactly representing uncertainties (actually probabilities). They result from the combination of Bayesian Networks (BNs), Object-Oriented languages, and relational models. They are specifically designed for their efficient construction, maintenance and exploitation for very large scale problems, where BNs are known to perform poorly. Actually, in large-scale problems, it is often the case that BNs result from the combination of patterns (small BN fragments) repeated many times. PRMs exploit this feature by defining these patterns (...) only once (the so-called PRM’s classes) and using them through multiple instances, as prescribed by the Object-Oriented paradigm. This design induces low construction and maintenance costs. In addition, by exploiting the classes’ structures, PRM’s state-of-the-art inference algorithm “Structured Variable Elimination” (SVE) significantly outperforms BN’s classical inference algorithms (e.g., Variable Elimination, VE; Local Conditioning, LC). SVE is actually an extension of VE that simply exploits classes to avoid redundant computations. In this article, we show that SVE can be enhanced using LC. Although LC is often thought as being outperformed by VE-like algorithms in BNs, we do think that it should play an important role for PRMs because its features are very well suited for best exploiting PRM classes. In this article, relying on Faÿ and Jaffray’s works, we show how LC can be used in conjunction with VE and deduce an extension of SVE that outperforms it for large-scale problems. Numerical experiments highlight the practical efficiency of our algorithm. (shrink)