According to Aesthetic Empiricism, only the features of artworks accessible by sensory perception can be aesthetically relevant. In other words, aesthetic properties supervene on perceptual properties. Although commonly accepted in early analytic aesthetics, Aesthetic Empiricism has been the target of a number of thought experiments popularized by Gombrich, Walton, and Levinson, purporting to show that perceptually indiscernible artworks may differ aesthetically. In particular, this literature exploits three kinds of differences among perceptually indiscernible artworks that may account for aesthetic differences: relative (...) to categories of art, historical provenance, or means of production. Like in all philosophical thought experiments, the reliability of the elicited intuitions remains an empirical question that we address here with the methods of experimental philosophy. Throughout three studies, we show that most people do not believe that non-perceptual properties can modulate our evaluation of an artwork’s beauty. However, intuitions were much more divided when considering expressive aesthetic properties (such as intensity), and even clearly reversed when considering artistic properties (such as originality or technical achievement). Overall, our studies show that the central intuitions elicited by the classical indiscernibility arguments strongly depend on the class of manipulated properties (expressive aesthetic properties vs formal aesthetic properties; aesthetic properties vs artistic properties) and are thus more suited to refute artistic empiricism than aesthetic empiricism, narrowly construed. (shrink)

In the last twenty years, a large number of studies have investigated judgments of the identity of various objects (e.g., persons, material objects, institutions) over time. One influential strand of research has found that identity judgments are shaped by normative considerations. People tend to believe that moral improvement is more compatible with the continuity of identity of a person than moral deterioration, suggesting that persons are taken to be essentially morally good. This asymmetry is often referred to as the “Phineas (...) Gage effect”. However, normativity extends beyond morality. In particular, it is unknown whether changes in aesthetic value have a similar impact on identity judgments. We investigate whether works of art would be analogously seen as essentially aesthetically valuable. We ran four studies (N=1264) to explore whether aesthetic considerations have a similar influence on judgments of the identity of artworks. We presented the participants with stories describing either a painting or a musical work which undergoes changes and becomes either more or less aesthetically valuable. Overall, we found only mixed evidence for the Phineas Gage effect in relation to the aesthetic value of artworks. Other factors, such as moral value, seem to have a bigger impact on judgments of persistence. (shrink)

A recently emerging view in music cognition holds that music is not only social and participatory in its production, but also in its perception, i.e. that music is in fact perceived as the sonic trace of social rela- tions between a group of real or virtual agents. While this view appears compatible with a number of intriguing music cognitive phenomena, such as the links between beat entrainment and prosocial behaviour or between strong musical emotions and empathy, direct evidence is lacking (...) that listeners are at all able to use the acoustic features of a musical interaction to infer the affiliatory or controlling nature of an underlying social intention. We created a novel experimental situation in which we asked expert music improvisers to communicate 5 types of non-musical social intentions, such as being domineering, dis- dainful or conciliatory, to one another solely using musical interaction. Using a combination of decoding studies, computational and psychoacoustical analyses, we show that both musically-trained and non musically-trained listeners can recognize relational intentions encoded in music, and that this social cognitive ability relies, to a sizeable extent, on the information processing of acoustic cues of temporal and harmonic coordination that are not present in any one of the musicians’ channels, but emerge from the dynamics of their interaction. By manipulating these cues in two-channel audio recordings and testing their impact on the social judgements of non-musician observers, we finally establish a causal relationship between the affiliation dimension of social behaviour and musical harmonic coordination on the one hand, and between the control dimension and musical temporal coordination on the other hand. These results provide novel mechanistic insights not only into the social cognition of musical interactions, but also into that of non-verbal interactions as a whole. (shrink)

Joint actions typically involve a sense of togetherness that has a distinctive phenomenological component. While it has been hypothesized that group size, hierarchical structure, division of labour, and expertise impact agents’ phenomenology during joint actions, the studies conducted so far have mostly involved dyads performing simple actions. We explore in this study the complex case of collectively improvised musical performances, focusing particularly on the way group size and interactional patterns modulate the phenomenology of joint action. We recorded two expert improvisation (...) ensembles of contrasting sizes (16 vs 4 musicians) and collected data about their musical behaviour, as well as reports about five aspects of their phenomenology (sense of agency, agentive identity, integration, dependence, reflexivity) and about their musical intentions. Our overall data enabled us to assess how those five phenomenological dimensions related to one another during jointly improvised performances. They also show how such phenomenology varied with the way improvisers dynamically related to one another throughout the performance. Finally, we observe that group size strongly altered the phenomenology of improvisers who otherwise shared many characteristics (high expertise, similar aesthetic preferences, etc.). Our study thus sheds light on the interactional and structural parameters that shape and modulate our felt experience when acting together, and thereby highlights the importance of pluralism for studying the phenomenology of joint action. (shrink)

Human interactions are often improvised rather than scripted, which suggests that efficient coordination can emerge even when collective plans are largely underspecified. One possibility is that such forms of coordination primarily rely on mutual influences between interactive partners, and on perception–action couplings such as entrainment or mimicry. Yet some forms of improvised joint actions appear difficult to explain solely by appealing to these emergent mechanisms. Here, we focus on collective free improvisation, a form of highly unplanned creative practice where both (...) agents' subjective reports and the complexity of their interactions suggest that shared intentions may sometimes emerge to support coordination during the course of the improvisation, even in the absence of verbal communication. In four experiments, we show that shared intentions spontaneously emerge during collective musical improvisations, and that they foster coordination on multiple levels, over and beyond the mere influence of shared information. We also show that musicians deploy communicative strategies to manifest and propagate their intentions within the group, and that this predicts better coordination. Overall, our results suggest that improvised and scripted joint actions are more continuous with one another than it first seems, and that they differ merely in the extent to which they rely on emergent or planned coordination mechanisms. (shrink)

This paper introduces freely improvised joint actions, a class of joint actions characterized by highly unspecific goals and the unavailability of shared plans. For example, walking together just for the sake of walking together with no specific destination or path in mind provides an ordinary example of FIJAs, along with examples in the arts, e.g., collective free improvisation in music, improv theater, or contact improvisation in dance. We argue that classic philosophical accounts of joint action such as Bratman’s rule them (...) out because the latter require a capacity for planning that is idle in the case of FIJAs. This argument is structurally similar to arguments for minimalist accounts of joint action, and this invites a parallel minimalist account, which we provide in terms of a specific kind of shared intentions that do not require plan states. We further argue that the resulting minimalist account is different in kind from the sort of minimalism suggested by developmental considerations and conclude in favor of a pluralistic minimalism, according to which there are several ways for an account of joint action to be minimal. (shrink)

Psychologists have emphasized children's acquisition of information through firsthand observation. However, many beliefs are acquired from others' testimony. In two experiments, most 4yearolds displayed sceptical trust in testimony. Having heard informants' accurate or inaccurate testimony, they anticipated that informants would continue to display such differential accuracy and they trusted the hitherto reliable informant. Yet they ignored the testimony of the reliable informant if it conflicted with what they themselves had seen. By contrast, threeyearolds were less selective in trusting a reliable (...) informant. Thus, young children check testimony against their own experience and increasingly recognise that some informants are more trustworthy than others. (shrink)

Slavery and slave trade gave birth to racism and society has been struggling towards its prevention and possible elimination with little success. Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his letter from the Birmingham jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Until this undeniable fact is understood and emphasized our contemporary society is heading towards a state of an uncontrollable wildfire of anarchy. It (...) is obvious that all fingers are not equal but that does not negate the fact that all men irrespective of colour or race are created equal—configured with brain, flesh, water, and blood. Racial discrimination is a moral and systemic sin that must be confronted and vehemently condemned. The main thrust of this paper is to expose various forms of racial discrimination ravaging the contemporary society with a view to postulating ideas geared towards its prevention and possible elimination. Relying on observational and historical methods, relevant data required will be elicited. The paper identified among other things that racism is resurging in the 21st century to a threatening dimension that if a coordinated action is not urgently taken, it will result into an uncontrollable wildfire of anarchy. The researcher therefore recommends the need to reemphasize respect and tolerance for all humanity. (shrink)

This paper aims at bridging a gap between the history of American animal behavior studies and the history of sociobiology. In the post-war period, ecology, comparative psychology and ethology were all investigating animal societies, using different approaches ranging from fieldwork to laboratory studies. We argue that this disunity in “practices of place” explains the attempts of dialogue between those three fields and early calls for unity through “sociobiology” by J. Paul Scott. In turn, tensions between the naturalist tradition and the (...) rising reductionist approach in biology provide an original background for a history of Edward Wilson’s own version of sociobiology, much beyond the William Hamilton’s papers usually considered as its key antecedent. Naturalists were in a defensive position in the geography of the fields studying animal behavior, and in reaction were a driving force behind the various projects of synthesis called “sociobiology”. (shrink)

In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review important distinctions such as the dimensionless and dimensional physical constants, and the classification of constants proposed by Lévy-Leblond. Then we explore how two great analogies, computational and biological, can give new insights into our problem. This paper includes a preliminary study to examine the two analogies. Importantly, (...) analogies are both useful and fundamental cognitive tools, but can also be misused or misinterpreted. The idea that our universe might be modelled as a computational entity is analysed, and we discuss the distinction between physical laws and initial conditions using algorithmic information theory. Smolin introduced the theory of "cosmological natural selection" with a biological analogy in mind. We examine an extension of. (shrink)

This article demonstrates that immoralism does not sum up the Nietzschean position. Nietzsche made use of ethical categories - notably the categories of “duty”, “virtue”, “justice” or “compassion” - in order to propose a new philosophy of the body. In this attempt to plunge morality back into the heart of organism, Nietzsche reforms morality on physiological grounds. This gesture aims at reconstructing the laws of action.

In November 1996, Catherine Clément and Julia Kristeva began a correspondence exploring the subject of the sacred. In this collection of those letters Catherine Clément approaches the topic from an anthropologist's point of view while Julia Kristeva responds from a psychoanalytic perspective. Their correspondence leads them to a controversial and fundamental question: is there anything sacred that can at the same time be considered strictly feminine? The two voices of the book work in tandem, fleshing out ideas and (...) blending together into a melody of experience. The result is a dialogue that delves into the mysteries of belief -- the relationship between faith and sexuality, the body and the senses -- which, Clément and Kristeva argue, women feel with special intensity. Although their discourse is not necessarily about theology, the authors consider the role of women and femininity in the religions of the world, from Christianity and Judaism to Confucianism and African animism. They are the first to admit that what they have undertaken is "as impossible to accomplish as it is fascinating." Nevertheless, their wide-ranging and exhilarating dialogue succeeds in raising questions that are perhaps more important to ask than to answer. (shrink)

In this work, Colleen Clements presents her case for the need to subject the field of bioethics to a critical external analysis apart from the current postmodern assumptions. Clements argues that, since the 1970s, bioethics has refuted human values in favour of political consensus building. This failure to recognize basic human values in the ethical critique of modern medicine has lead to a dehumanization of the medical system by the field. Clements proceeds to advocate a naturalistic theory of bioethics that (...) reinstates primary human values. (shrink)

Despite the fact that informal labour is a widespread phenomenon, the business ethics literature tends to describe it as a problem that needs to be overcome, rather than contemplating its merits. Informal labour is linked to poor working conditions, low-income and insufficient protection. However, it is also a survival strategy and upholds essential services, such as waste collection and recycling. Through the lens of postmodern ethics, we analyse 45 interviews with formal and informal waste management workers in Kinshasa. The study (...) explores the functioning and limits of recycling services in a metropolis, focusing on the experience of African workers and entrepreneurs. A complex picture of ethical challenges and individual business and survival strategies emerges from the analysis. Our findings demonstrate that labour decisions of voiceless people cannot be reduced to being rational or desperate choices, but that they reflect a careful elaboration of currently available options and strategies for the future. The study contributes to our understanding of entrepreneurship in a post-conflict context, the role of informal labour in the functioning of formal businesses in Africa and the contribution of postmodern theory to the study of businesses in non-Western societies. (shrink)

Philosophers agree that an important part of our knowledge is acquired via testimony. One of the main objectives of social epistemology is therefore to specify the conditions under which a hearer is justified in accepting a proposition stated by a source. Non-reductionists, who think that testimony could be considered as an a priori source of knowledge, as well as reductionists, who think that another type of justification has to be added to testimony, share a common conception about children development. Non-reductionists (...) believe that infants and children are fundamentally gullible and their gullibility could be seen as an example for justifying testimony, while reductionists believe that this gullibility is merely an exception that should be taken into account. The objective of this paper is to review contemporary literature in developmental psychology providing empirical grounds likely to clarify this philosophical debate. What emerges from current research is a more elaborated vision of children’s attitude toward testimony. Even at a very young age, children do not blindly swallow information coming from testimony; doubtful or contradictory information is automatically screened by their cognitive system. Even if they are unable to give positive reasons for the acceptance of a given testimony, young children are not gullible. Such empirical findings tend to call into question the radical opposition between reductionism and non-reductionism. (shrink)

I discuss some of the speculations proposed by Stewart ( 2010a ). These include the following propositions: the cooperation at larger and larger scales, the existence of larger scale processes, the enhancement of the tuning as the universe cycle repeats, the transmission between universes and the motivations to produce a new universe.

Kirby and Paris have exhibited combinatorial algorithms whose computations always terminate, but for which termination is not provable in elementary arithmetic. However, termination of these computations can be proved by adding an axiom first introduced by Goodstein in 1944. Our purpose is to investigate this axiom of Goodstein, and some of its variants, and to show that these are potentially adequate to prove termination of computations of a wide class of algorithms. We prove that many variations of Goodstein's axiom are (...) equivalent, over elementary arithmetic, and contrast these results with those recently obtained for Kruskal's theorem. (shrink)

Jan Greben criticized fine-tuning by taking seriously the idea that “nature is quantum mechanical”. I argue that this quantum view is limited, and that fine-tuning is real, in the sense that our current physical models require fine-tuning. Second, I examine and clarify many difficult and fundamental issues raised by Rüdiger Vaas’ comments on Cosmological Artificial Selection.

In the final chapter of his book, The View from Nowhere , the American philosopher, Thomas Nagel, writes as follows about death: We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way we regard the prospect of death, yet most of the things that can be said about death are equally true of the former. Lucretius thought this showed that it was a mistake to regard death as an evil. But I believe it is an example (...) of a more general future-past asymmetry... [Derek] Parfit has explored the asymmetry in connection with other values such as... pain. The fact that a pain is in prospect rather than in the past has a very great effect on our attitude toward it, and this effect cannot be regarded as irrational... [the former asymmetry] can't be accounted for in terms of some other difference between past and future nonexistence, any more than the asymmetry in the case of pain can be accounted for in terms of some other differences between past and future pains, which makes the latter worse than the former. Nagel is maintaining in this quote that it is rational for a person to view pains which he is apt to experience in the future in a manner different from the way in which he views pains which he has experienced in the past. Nagel is saying that it is rational for a person to think of his future pains as more undesirable than his past ones. And Nagel claims that there is a similar asymmetry between a rational person's attitude towards a past in which he did not exist and a time in the future when he will not exist. In Nagel's view, just as a rational person will think of pains which he will experience as more undesirable than pains which he had in the past, he will think of his not existing in the future as much more undesirable than his not having existed in the past. (shrink)

Using Demographic and Health Survey datasets from Ghana and Nigeria, this study examined whether the protective effects of breast-feeding are greatest where the poorest sanitation conditions prevail. It was found that mixed-fed infants aged between 0 and 11 months tend to have a higher risk of diarrhoea than fully breast-fed children, while the risk of diarrhoea among weaned infants is twice that of mixed-fed infants. The probit regression models employed in the analysis were used to predict the probability of diarrhoea (...) associated with each breast-feeding pattern for both ‘poor’ and ‘good’ sanitation areas. It was found that the risk of diarrhoea among mixed-fed infants in the poor sanitation areas tends to be high while the same risk among fully breast-fed infants tends to be minimal. In essence, the health risks of mixed feeding are real, particularly for infants aged less than 7 months, and are even worse for those weaned before 6 months of age. (shrink)

In this paper, we point out that explainability is useful but not sufficient to ensure the legitimacy of algorithmic decision systems. We argue that the key requirements for high-stakes decision systems should be justifiability and contestability. We highlight the conceptual differences between explanations and justifications, provide dual definitions of justifications and contestations, and suggest different ways to operationalize justifiability and contestability.

Newcomers and more experienced feminist theorists will welcome this even-handed survey of the care/justice debate within feminist ethics. Grace Clement clarifies the key terms, examines the arguments and assumptions of all sides to the debate, and explores the broader implications for both practical and applied ethics. Readers will appreciate her generous treatment of the feminine, feminist, and justice-based perspectives that have dominated the debate.Clement also goes well beyond description and criticism, advancing the discussion through the incorporation of a broad range (...) of insights into a new integration of the values of care and justice. Care, Autonomy, and Justice marks a major step forward in our understanding of feminist ethics. It is both direct and helpful enough to work as an introduction for students and insightful and original enough to make it necessary reading for scholars. (shrink)

Concerns over students engaging in various forms of academic misconduct persist, especially with the post-COVID19 rise in online learning and assessment. Research has demonstrated a clear role of the personality trait psychopathy in cheating, yet little is known about why this relationship exists. Building on the research by Curtis et al. (Personality and Individual Differences, 185, 111277, 2022a), this study tested an extended Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) model, including psychopathy as a precursor to attitudes and subjective norms, and measures (...) of anticipated moral emotions (shame and guilt), to predict cheating intentions and cheating behaviours. A cross-sectional survey was administered online to university students from around the globe (n = 257). Results from a serial mediation analysis revealed that psychopathy predicted academic misconduct behaviours indirectly through attitudes, subjective norms, anticipated guilt (but not anticipated shame), and intentions. These findings indicate that cheating may be reduced by modifying attitudes to cheating, subjective norms regarding cheating, and anticipated feelings of guilt related to engaging in academic misconduct. In addition, the results revealed high rates of several forms of cheating, particularly in unsupervised online tests, which have been used more widely since the COVID-19 pandemic. This finding raises concerns regarding the poor security of such assessments. (shrink)

The problem of evil may be characterized as the problem of how precisely to specify a property, P , about which it is possible for a morally sensitive man to believe that a person who possesses it would be morally justified on that account in not preventing instances of intense innocent suffering and it is neither impossible nor unlikely that if there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, he possesses it. Atheists have typically claimed that P cannot be precisely specified. (...) Moreover, they have maintained that in view of our inability to give a precise specification of P , it is irrational to believe that there is an omnipotent and omniscient being who is perfectly good and, hence, irrational to believe that God exists. In the remainder of this paper, I want to discuss the question whether there is any good reason for believing that this latter thesis is true. 1 If there is no such reason, then no matter how much he may busy himself with an attempt at formulating a precise specification of P , the theist can be justifiably contented with the thought that it doesn't much matter whether he succeeds. (shrink)

L’auteur analyse la politique intérieure et extérieure de la République islamique d’Iran en phase avec une situation économique et sociale très dégradée et un contexte géopolitique fortement bousculé ces derniers temps. L’élection du nouveau président Joe Biden aux États-Unis, la surenchère de l’Iran sur le programme d’enrichissement de l’uranium, les élections iraniennes prochaines avec une tendance néoconservatrice annoncée, le rapprochement israélo-gulfien obligent à rebattre les cartes. Comment ces phénomènes vont-ils se croiser et dans quel sens? Apaisement ou au contraire durcissement (...) des positions? Sur quels alliés l’Iran peut-il compter? Dans quelle mesure la population iranienne exerce-t-elle une influence sur les orientations gouvernementales du pays à l’extérieur de ses frontières? (shrink)

The field of computational law has increasingly moved into the focus of the scientific community, with recent research analysing its issues and risks. In this article, we seek to draw a structured and comprehensive list of societal issues that the deployment of automatically processable regulation could entail. We do this by systematically exploring attributes of the law that are being challenged through its encoding and by taking stock of what issues current projects in this field raise. This article adds to (...) the current literature not only by providing a needed framework to structure arising issues of computational law but also by bridging the gap between theoretical literature and practical implementation. Key findings of this article are: (1) The primary benefit (efficiency vs. accessibility) sought after when encoding law matters with respect to the issues such an endeavor triggers; (2) Specific characteristics of a project—project type, degree of mediation by computers, and potential for divergence of interests—each impact the overall number of societal issues arising from the implementation of automatically processable regulation. (shrink)

A sample of 703 Spanish psychologists completed an online survey containing 114 behaviors related to professional practice in different areas. The aim of the study was to learn which professional behaviors create ethical dilemmas most often for psychologists and how they respond to these issues. Findings suggest that psychologists who have actually faced a particular dilemma are less strict on judging the inappropriateness of a possible ethical transgression than those psychologists who have not experienced it. Also, four clusters can be (...) identified according to the attitude of respondents toward the dilemmas, namely ?rejection,? ?aprioristic,? ?utilitarian,? and ?no conflict.? (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze, les vampires, Emil Cioran, Samuel Beckett, le dandysme, Friedrich Nietzsche, Raymond Roussel, Casanova, Arthur Schopenhauer, Jean-Luc Godard, Goscinny & Uderzo, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Le réel, le double, l’illusion, le tragique, la joie, la musique, la philosophie, la politique, le péché, l’enseignement. Faits divers sont les miscellanées de Clément Rosset : le répertoire désordonné et jubilatoire de ses passions et de ses dégoûts, de ses intérêts et de ses bâillements, de ses tocades et de ses coups (...) de sang – ainsi que de la prodigieuse liberté de ton et de pensée avec laquelle il les exprime et les pense. Un des philosophes, un des écrivains les plus singuliers de notre temps revisite les coulisses de son œuvre. Et vous êtes invités. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1106, Page 536-553, July 2022.

La disparition conjointe, à quelques mois d’écart, de Jean-Pierre Vernant (1914-2007) et de Pierre Vidal-Naquet (1930-2006) a donné lieu à toute une série de colloques, rencontres, conférences et publications consacrés à l’apport des recherches de ces deux grands hellénistes aux études classiques et aux échos qu’elles ont reçus par-delà les frontières nationales et disciplinaires. Les Américains ont donné le nom d’« école de Paris » à la nébuleuse de chercheurs qui s’est constituée autour des...