This paper addresses the definition and the operational use of intuitions in philosophical methods in the form of a research study encompassing several regions of the globe, involving 282 philosophers from a wide array of academic backgrounds and areas of specialisation. The authors tested whether philosophers agree on the conceptual definition and the operational use of intuitions, and investigated whether specific demographic variables and philosophical specialisation influence how philosophers define and use intuitions. The results obtained point to a number of (...) significant findings, including that philosophers distinguish between intuitions used to formulate (discovery) and to test (justification) philosophical theory. The survey results suggest that strategies implemented to characterise philosophical intuition are not well motivated since, even though philosophers do not agree on a single account of intuition, they fail to capture a preferred usage of intuitions as aspects of discovery. The quantitative summary of survey findings informs the debate on this topic, and advances more defined routes for subsequent approaches to the study of intuitions. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify the relative contribution of individual and contextual predictors to students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism. A group of 324 students from a tertiary institution in New Zealand completed an online survey. The findings indicate that gender, justice sensitivity, and understanding of university policies regarding academic dishonesty were the key predictors of the students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism, both as agents of dishonest conduct and as witnesses (...) of misconduct among their peers. The implications of these findings for the development of policies and initiatives in tertiary institutions are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper we identify and characterize an analysis of two problematic aspects affecting the representational level of cognitive architectures (CAs), namely: the limited size and the homogeneous typology of the encoded and processed knowledge. We argue that such aspects may constitute not only a technological problem that, in our opinion, should be addressed in order to build arti cial agents able to exhibit intelligent behaviours in general scenarios, but also an epistemological one, since they limit the plausibility of the (...) comparison of the CAs' knowledge representation and processing mechanisms with those executed by humans in their everyday activities. In the fi nal part of the paper further directions of research will be explored, trying to address current limitations and future challenges. (shrink)

We propose a nonmonotonic Description Logic of typicality able to account for the phenomenon of the combination of prototypical concepts. The proposed logic relies on the logic of typicality ALC + TR, whose semantics is based on the notion of rational closure, as well as on the distributed semantics of probabilistic Description Logics, and is equipped with a cognitive heuristic used by humans for concept composition. We first extend the logic of typicality ALC + TR by typicality inclusions of the (...) form p :: T(C) v D, whose intuitive meaning is that “we believe with degree p about the fact that typical Cs are Ds”. As in the distributed semantics, we define different scenarios containing only some typicality inclusions, each one having a suitable probability. We then exploit such scenarios in order to ascribe typical properties to a concept C obtained as the combination of two prototypical concepts. We also show that reasoning in the proposed Description Logic is EXPTIME-complete as for the underlying standard Description Logic ALC. (shrink)

We defend, from a contractarian perspective, that the fair price of an insurance policy is the amount that the contracting parties agree when they are both equally uncertain about the insured event. Drawing on the approach developed by R. Sugden in _The Community of Advantage_, we answer two standard objections raised against contractarianism in the actuarial sciences: (1) people are not wise enough to assess their actuarial risks; (2) they are not rational enough to decide which insurance policy suits them (...) better. We show under which circumstances people can make fair actuarial agreements, without presupposing any objective risk or rationality benchmarks. (shrink)

Summary Robert Boyle did not subordinate chemistry to mechanical philosophy. He was in fact reluctant to explain chemical phenomena by having recourse to the mechanical properties of particles. For him chemistry provided a primary way of penetrating into nature. In his chemical works he employed corpuscles endowed with chemical properties as his explanans. Boyle's chemistry was corpuscular, rather than mechanical. As Boyle's views of seminal principles show, his corpuscular philosophy cannot be described as a purely mechanical theory of matter. Boyle's (...) classification of corpuscles allowed him to connect his corpuscular views of matter with chemistry. Boyle did not rule out the possibility of a classification of chemical substances based on their properties: his aim was to reform the received classification. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is twofold. First, it provides a quick look at the foundations of modern relational mechanics by tracing its development from Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti's original ideas until present-day's pure shape dynamics. Secondly, it discusses the most appropriate metaphysics for pure shape dynamics, showing that relationalism is more of a nuanced thesis rather than an elusive one. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the prospects of pure shape dynamics in light of quantum physics.

The paper discusses the possible implications of the relational framework of Pure Shape Dynamics for the metaphysics of time. The starting point of the analysis is an interpretation of shapes in ontic structural realist terms, which gives rise to the notion of self-subsisting structure. The relational version of a Newtonian-particle toy model is introduced and discussed as a concrete example.

Introduction -- Logics of extraction -- Materialism & critical materialism -- Methodological parrhesia: truth-telling -- Methodological materiality: towards productive social change.

Although virtues have gained a firm presence in the theory and practice of corporate management, humility is not ranked as one the chief virtues in the business world. In spite of this, it is an important virtue, contributing to the manager’s moral and professional quality and the development of the company’s human team. This paper explains the basic traits of humility in general and how they manifest in the manager’s life and profession, and shows, within the ethics of virtues, that (...) it is not just a personal desideratum but a fundamental quality of a good manager and good management. (shrink)

The Great Chain of Being has been recognized for fifty years as the masterpiece of the History of Ideas movement in America. Lovejoy's work stimulated deeper research into our heritage, which has demonstrated that the idea of the chain of being has not lost its vitality. However, Lovejoy would probably be surprised that hierarchy is now defended in philosophy of science, in ontology and metaphysics, in ethics and aesthetics, and in philosophical anthropology. This volume presents concepts of hierarchy and the (...) great chain of being from Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, medieval and Renaissance thinkers, Hindu philosophy, and authors of the twentieth century. This volume represents the ideas of twenty scholars, among whom are Dominic O'Meara, Ronald Hathaway, Ewert Cousins, John Sommerfeldt, Lewis Ford, David Blumenthal, and Marion and Paul Kuntz. The editors have compiled a bibliography of four hundred and fifty items and an index of names, places, and concepts which allow the reader immediate access to the variety as well as the unity of ideas. (shrink)

Jean Bodin, renowned for his powerful intellect and breadth of knowledge, was truly a renaissance man. His works on political and legal thought set him apart as one of the most brilliant minds of the period. Although he is perhaps less known for his writing on religious questions of his day, his _Colloquium_ remains a unique contribution to religious dialogue. It circulated in its Latin manuscript form, but it was not published until the nineteenth century. Marion Leathers Kuntz offers (...) the first English translation of this masterpiece. Structured as a conversation among a Catholic, a Jew, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, a Muslim, a skeptic, and a philosophical naturalist, the _Colloquium _encourages religious tolerance and poses challenging questions for anyone interested in the nature of religious and philosophical thought. Kuntz’s introduction, translation, and annotations situate the volume both as a historical work and as a timeless chronicle of the tensions among religion, philosophy, science, faith, doubt, and empirical evidence. (shrink)

In 1939, just before graduating from high school in the small town of Ridgeway in northeast Iowa, Everett Kuntz spent his entire savings of $12.50 on a 35mm Argus AF camera. He made a camera case from a worn-out boot, scraps from a tin can, and a clasp from his mother’s purse. For the next several years, especially during the summers when he worked on his parents’ dairy farm, he clicked the shutter of his trusty Argus all around the (...) quiet town. Everett bought movie reel film in bulk from a mail-order house, rolled his own film, and developed it in a closet at home, but he never had the money to print his photographs. More than two thousand negatives stayed in a box while he married, raised a family, and worked as an electrical engineer in the Twin Cities. When he became ill with cancer in the fall of 2002—sixty years after he had developed the last of his bulk film—Everett opened his time capsule and printed the images from his youth. He died in 2003, having brought his childhood town back to life just as he was leaving it. A sense of peace radiates from these images. Whether skinny-dipping in the Turkey River, wheelbarrow-racing, threshing oats, milking cows, visiting with relatives after church, or hanging out at the drugstore or the movies, Ridgeway’s hardworking citizens are modest and trusting and luminous in their graceful harmony and their unguarded affection for each other. Visiting the town in 2006 as he was writing the text to accompany these photographs, Jim Heynen crafted vignettes that perfectly complement these rediscovered images by blending fact and fiction to give context and voice to Ridgeway’s citizens. (shrink)

The paper shows how the Bohmian approach to quantum physics can be applied to develop a clear and coherent ontology of non-perturbative quantum gravity. We suggest retaining discrete objects as the primitive ontology also when it comes to a quantum theory of space-time and therefore focus on loop quantum gravity. We conceive atoms of space, represented in terms of nodes linked by edges in a graph, as the primitive ontology of the theory and show how a non-local law in which (...) a universal and stationary wave-function figures can provide an order of configurations of such atoms of space such that the classical space-time of general relativity is approximated. Although there is as yet no fully worked out physical theory of quantum gravity, we regard the Bohmian approach as setting up a standard that proposals for a serious ontology in this field should meet and as opening up a route for fruitful physical and mathematical investigations. (shrink)

In this article we aim to distinguish between the transhuman and posthuman condition, according to their anthropological, ontological, and ethical natures. We will show that the current historical moment can be considered the beginning of a transhuman civilisation, given that the characteristics of the transhuman are already present in today’s human being. We will show that a series of decisive limitations for belonging to the human condition are in the process of being transcended due to acquisition of attributes of divinity (...) that human beings do not currently possess: omnipotence, omnipresence , ex nihilo creation – starting from the divine creative ideation – and immortality. Humans are increasingly taking on the attributes of divinity in the process of human enhancements. We will discuss the ways in which technology allows the human to overcome these limitations, elevating humans past their current condition, in a process in which they gain technological transcendence. Excepting immortality, all other limitations, once exceeded, generate a transhuman condition. Immortality generates a posthuman condition, since it can only be obtained by modifying the human ontological status from that of a biological being to that of a resident being in informatics networks. In order to clarify this process, we will discuss the concepts of everlastingness and artificial life prolongation. (shrink)

Machine consciousness is not only a technological challenge, but a new way to approach scientific and theoretical issues which have not yet received a satisfactory solution from AI and robotics. We outline the foundations and the objectives of machine consciousness from the standpoint of building a conscious robot.

By assuming a deterministic evolution of quantum systems and taking realism into account, we carefully build a hidden variable theory for Quantum Mechanics based on the notion of ontological states proposed by ’t Hooft. We view these ontological states as the ones embedded with realism and compare them to the quantum states that represent superpositions, viewing the latter as mere information of the system they describe. Such a deterministic model puts forward conditions for the applicability of Bell’s inequality: the usual (...) inequality cannot be applied to the usual experiments. We build a Bell-like inequality that can be applied to the EPR scenario and show that this inequality is always satisfied by QM. In this way we show that QM can indeed have a local interpretation, and thus meet with the causal structure imposed by the Theory of Special Relativity in a satisfying way. (shrink)

James Stacy Taylor advances a thorough argument for the legalization of markets in current (live) human kidneys. The market is seemly the most abhorrent type of market, a market where the least well-off sell part of their body to the most well off. Though rigorously defended overall, his arguments concerning exploitation are thin. I examine a number of prominent bioethicists’ account of exploitation: most importantly, Ruth Sample’s exploitation as degradation. I do so in the context of Taylor’s argument, with the (...) aim of buttressing Taylor’s position that a regulated kidney market is morally allowable. I argue that Sample fails to provide normative grounds consistent with her claim that exploitation is wrong. I then reformulate her account for consistency and plausibility. Still, this seemingly more plausible view does not show that Taylor’s regulated kidney market is prohibitively exploitative of impoverished persons. I tack into place one more piece of support for Taylor’s conclusion. (shrink)

We introduce a generalization of MV algebras motivated by the investigations into the structure of quantum logical gates. After laying down the foundations of the structure theory for such quasi-MV algebras, we show that every quasi-MV algebra is embeddable into the direct product of an MV algebra and a “flat” quasi-MV algebra, and prove a completeness result w.r.t. a standard quasi-MV algebra over the complex numbers.

This paper analyzes the specific shift in the meaning of “civilization” that took place in texts and documents of early American philosophical naturalism. Particularly, it will focus on the specific role that naturalization plays in the edification of a newly secularized, science-oriented, and democratic society, as well as of a naturalized conception of culture and civilization. Indeed, as the work of many philosophers and intellectuals of the Forties highlights, naturalism represents not only the banner of a new idea of civilization, (...) but at the same time becomes the symbol of a powerful postwar ideology. (shrink)

The concept of order has been subjected to clarification both by Linguistic Analysts and by Phenomenologists. Since the question of the parallelism of the work of these schools, or their overlap and possible collaboration, is now seriously raised, it seems appropriate to examine the methods and results with reference to this common, or similar, problem.

Une recherche sur l’insertion adulte après un placement a été menée auprès de cent vingt-trois personnes dans le cadre d’un village d’enfants SOS. Sont présentés ici les résultats concernant les relations fraternelles pendant le placement et aujourd’hui. Si les liens avec la fratrie biologique restent privilégiés, la cohabitation a modifié les représentations du lien fraternel et a permis d’acquérir de nouvelles ressources relationnelles. L’écart d’âge entre fratries, les troubles du comportement et les fortes disparités éducatives initiales jouent un rôle déterminant (...) sur les relations. Ces résultats soulignent l’importance d’une évaluation préliminaire fine et pluridisciplinaire, explorant les caractéristiques individuelles de chaque enfant mais également la dynamique relationnelle de la fratrie. (shrink)

El autor aborda la tendencia del crecimiento del capital por encima de la expansión económica, que ha generado una excesiva desigualdad, mostrando que esto además ha coincidido con el retroceso en el estado de bienestar, incidiendo en las políticas nacionales y por ello generando una transformación del estatus de ciudadano hacia un productor de bienes y consumidor. Los argumentos se dirigen a mostrar cómo esta situación contradice los principios de protección de las mínimas condiciones sociales y económicas esgrimidos por la (...) declaración universal de los derechos humanos y el modo como el capital internacional incide en las decisiones políticas transformando el concepto tradicional de soberanía y de ciudadanía.Se evidencia pues una necesidad de decisiones que, en términos políticos impongan cargas económicas al capital, sobre todo al internacional. In this paper, I will show how the tendency to a bigger growth of capital than the one of the overall economy has generated an excessive inequity. I will also show how this is linked to a regression in the welfare state and the transformation of the citizen into a producer of goods and a consumer. I will try to show that this situation contradicts the principles of protection of the social and economic minimal conditions stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how international capitals influence political decisions and how it helps to transform the traditional concepts of sovereignty and citizenship. It is then evident that it is necessary to make political decisions to impose taxes to capital in particular to the international one. (shrink)

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