About forty meanings attributed to the term consciousness can be identified and categorized based on functions and experiences. The prospects for reaching any single, agreed-upon, theory-independent definition of consciousness appear remote. Here, the goal is to search for a theory-dependent optimal and general definition accommodating most views. This quest is mostly based on the premise that evolution must have optimized our mental system in terms of experience and function. Based on a dual-aspect dual-mode proto-experience/subjective experience optimal framework, an optimal definition (...) of consciousness describes it as a mental aspect of a system or a process with two sub-aspects: conscious experience and conscious function. A more general definition describes consciousness as a mental aspect of a system or a process, which is a conscious experience, a conscious function, or both, depending on contexts and particular biases . Both experiences and functions can be conscious and/or non-conscious. Our definitions are a posteriori insofar as they are based on observation and categorization. (shrink)

What is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (BARD) for a Bayesian? Is thinking of BARD in terms of probabilities a nonstarter? I propose an account of BARD compatible with Subjective Bayesianism that rejects the view that BARD is met by a threshold probability. BARD is a judgment, not merely about the credal state the factfinder endorses as her own (i.e. not merely as one’s own credence in guilt), but as about alternative possible credences, specifically those the factfinder does not endorse, (...) but finds reasonable. To this end, I employ a Bayesian framework, expounded by Lange (1999), that permits revision of past prior probability assignments. Such a framework presupposes a point of view free from one’s prior from which a prior is judged. A trier-of-fact asks whether doubt persists among any reasonable starting point one might take; if it does, acquittal is warranted. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to a fascinating passage in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), in which he argues that non-human animals have rational souls. It is found in his Mulaḫḫaṣ fī l-manṭiq wa-l-ḥikma (Epitome on Philosophy and Logic). Following a discussion of the afterlife, Faḫr al-Dīn suggests that animals should, like humans, be capable of grasping universals, and that they are aware of their own identity over time. Furthermore, animal behavior shows that they are capable of rational planning and problem-solving. (...) We contextualize these arguments with reference to Faḫr al-Dīn’s other philosophical works, and also compare the considerations he raises to ideas found in modern-day animal ethics, drawing here especially on the work of Mark Rowlands. The paper concludes with a translation of the passage. (shrink)

In “A Theory of Content, 11: The Theory,” Jerry Fodor presents two reasons why his asymmetric causal dependency theory does not lead to the conclusion that syntactic items “X” mean proximal sensory stimulations, rather than distal environmental objects. Here we challenge Fodor’s reasoning.

Central to much medical ethical analysis is the concept of the role of the physician. While this concept plays an important role in medical ethics, its function is largely tacit. The present paper attempts to bring the concept of a social role to prominence by focusing on an historically recent and rather richly contextured role, namely, that of consultation liaison psychiatry. Since my intention is primarily theoretical, I largely ignore the empirical studies which purport to develop the detailed functioning of (...) the role. My limited intent is to draw attention to the theoretical complexity of the consultation liaison role as an example of the general relevance of role concepts to medical ethics. For this reason, consultation liaison psychiatry will function as an illustration of fundamental concepts of medical ethics rather than as a subject of analysis in its own right. Similarly, the concept of the social role will be developed only as is necessary to explore the general relationship between the consultation liaison role and ethical analysis. Keywords: medical ethics, consultation liaison psychiatry, social role, autonomy, institution CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

EI objetivo de este artículo es analizar ciertas críticas a la aplicación de la nocion de informacíon en biología, teniendo en cuenta tanto la historia del concepto como las diferentes posiciones actuales. Creemos que la motivacíon principal de las críticas es negar que los genes sean un factor causal excepcional en el desarrollo, y favorecer la imagen de la vida como un sistema organizado que requiere diferentes recursos. Aunque compartimos el rechazo deI reduccionismo genetico, argumentamos que éste no es atribuible (...) a la analogía informacional y que, por tanto, no es necesario abandonarla completamente.The goal of this article is to analize certain criticisms to the notion of information in biology, taking into account both the history of the concept and some recent positions. We think that the main motivation behind the criticisms is to deny that genes are an exceptional cause in development, and to favor an image of life as an organized system that requires diffirent resources. While we share the rejection of genetic reductionism, we argue that it is not entirely due to the informational analogy and that, therefore, it is not necessary to abandon this analogy. (shrink)

Introduction -- Stoic ethics and rhetoric -- Eighteenth-century common sense and sensus communis -- Taste and sensus communis -- Propriety, sympathy, and style fusing individual and social -- Victorian language theories and the decline of sensus communis.

Dini bir kavram olan tevekkül, aynı zamanda son yıllarda psikoloji araştırmalarına da konu olmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı din bilimleri araştırmalarında kullanmak amacıyla Pakistan Müslümanları üzerinde geliştirilen Tevekkül Ölçeği’ni Türk kültürüne uyarlamaktır. Bu amaçla toplamda 595 kişiden oluşan iki farklı çalışma grubundan elde edilen veriler üzerinde geçerlik ve güvenirlik analizleri yürütülmüştür. İlk çalışma grubundan elde edilen verilere uygulanan Açımlayıcı Faktör Analizi sonuçlarına göre maddelerin orijinal ölçekte olduğu gibi 4 faktörde toplandığı, faktörlerin toplam varyansın %60,21’ini açıkladığı görülmüştür. Elde edilen faktörlere ikinci çalışma (...) grubundan elde edilen veriler kullanılarak Doğrulayıcı Faktör Analizi uygulanmış ve elde edilen model kabul edilebilir uyum düzeyinde bulunmuştur. Ölçüt bağıntılı geçerlik bulguları da ölçeğin uyum sağladığını göstermiş, tevekkül ile bilişsel kontrol ve esneklik arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı pozitif yönlü ilişkiler bulunmuştur. Ölçeğin iç tutarlılık güvenirlik katsayısı ilk örneklemde,899; ikinci örneklemde,923’tür. Ölçeğin düzeltilmiş madde toplam korelasyon katsayılarının birinci çalışma grubunda,39 ile,72; ikinci çalışma grubunda,43 ile,72 arasında sıralandığı görülmüştür. 23 madde ve dört alt boyuttan oluşan ölçeğin geçerlik ve güvenirlik kriterlerini karşıladığı görülmektedir. Uyarlanan Tevekkül Ölçeği Türk kültüründe yürütülecek araştırmalarda kullanılmak için geçerli ve güvenilir bir ölçme aracıdır. (shrink)

Narrow views of systemic sustainability risks can result in ecological concerns being neglected, as well as giving rise to unequal distribution and exploitation of natural resources, creating injustice. Given recent advancements in integrating justice with the safe space environmentally, as defined by the planetary boundaries, now is a critical moment for business ethics researchers to deepen the conversation on managing systemic sustainability risks to create a safe and just operating space. We argue that the social-ecological systems approach, that views humans (...) as embedded in and dependent on the natural environment, provides a foundation for business ethics scholars to deepen the conversation. We build on two key dimensions from the social-ecological systems approach, social-ecological connectivity and cross-scale dynamics to develop a framework that illustrates four ways for business ethics scholars to research systemic sustainability risks. We demonstrate the relevance of these dimensions for understanding systemic sustainability risks, discuss their ethical implications, and outline opportunities for future research. (shrink)

This research analyses Moo in the colloquial Iraqi Language discourse marker. Marker co-occurrences are noteworthy features. This focuses on the study of the emotive and textual functions of Moo’s co-occurrences. It has been found that there are seven functions co-occurring with Moo’s that always appear in conjunction with different grammatical structures syntax on the different speech situations. The co-occurrences were used in emotional functions to show denial, causes, inhibition, rebuke, circumstantial, exemplary and questioning. Within one utterance, these markers can occur (...) together, triggering senses that are more complex. Many statements with Moo appear frequently in the form of questions. It seems that the speakers feel more curious about Moo’s questions and ask for more responses. Speakers use coexistence in the context of textual functions to raise the issue, stress, demand answers and negotiate. It was also used when the speakers had just learned to put something to the interlocutors’ attention. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has affected most countries of the world. The detection of Covid-19 positive cases is an important step to fight the pandemic and save human lives. The polymerase chain reaction test is the most used method to detect Covid-19 positive cases. Various molecular methods and serological methods have also been explored to detect Covid-19 positive cases. Machine learning algorithms have been applied to various kinds of datasets to predict Covid-19 positive cases. The machine learning algorithms were (...) applied on a Covid-19 dataset based on commonly taken laboratory tests to predict Covid-19 positive cases. These types of datasets are easy to collect. The paper investigates the application of decision tree ensembles which are accurate and robust to the selection of parameters. As there is an imbalance between the number of positive cases and the number of negative cases, decision tree ensembles developed for imbalanced datasets are applied. F-measure, precision, recall, area under the precision-recall curve, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve are used to compare different decision tree ensembles. Different performance measures suggest that decision tree ensembles developed for imbalanced datasets perform better. Results also suggest that including age as a variable can improve the performance of various ensembles of decision trees. (shrink)

Human beings on the earth are facing some severe existential and environmental challenges that require philosophical arguments and explanations. There are many debates, controversies and arguments about the applications of moral principles in understanding multiple bioethical and environmental phenomena. Contemporary debates on bioethics emphasize the significance of the autonomy of both human beings and the rest of the natural world. Critical observations on the debates and discussions indicate that many philosophical approaches fail to explain these sorts of human and non-human (...) issues. Applying the feminist concept of autonomy known as “relational autonomy” as a lens, this paper explores how we can establish autonomy as a whole in bioethics. Relational autonomy is fairly an umbrella term, assigning a scope of related viewpoints and does not express a separate collective idea of autonomy. In medical ethics, this concept is very popular in decision-making factors and solving autonomy debates among medical professionals. This article argues that by specifically adopting the concept of relational autonomy as an essential feature, we can solve some controversy in bioethics too. Notable among these issues are: the ethical challenges of biotechnology, a complication related to food security and consumer rights. Simultaneously, this research also helps to understand human-nature relationships in environmental bioethics from the relational autonomy perspective. In addition, this paper gives us a lesson to consider both human beings and the rest of the elements of nature as intrinsically valuable. Conclusively, this research aims to add a new dimension to bioethics with environmental sustainability. (shrink)

Modernists T. S. Eliot's and W. B. Yeats's treatment of the transcendent moment, and postmodernists Samuel Beckett's and Graham Swift's handling of the perpetual present form two conflicting time worlds. The modernists' transcendent moment signifies a temporary release from the progressive stream of time. As a sudden flash of awareness, it offers a transcendental vision of reality. Contrariwise, the postmodernists' perpetual present is cut off from the past as well as the future, suggesting the infinite time of the middle. It (...) is dissociated from a transcendent reality and has no room for revelatory moments, which establishes its bleak character. (shrink)

Heidegger’s failure to discuss ‘the body’ in Being and Time has generated a cottage industry of criticism. In his recently translated Zollikon Seminars, Heidegger provides a response to the critics by offering a thematic account of the body that is strikingly similar to Merleau-Ponty’s account in Phenomenology of Perception. In this article, I draw on the parallels between these two texts in order to see how Heidegger’s neglect of the body affects his early project of fundamental ontology and to determine (...) whether or not an account of the body is necessary to complete the project. I defend Heidegger by suggesting that any analysis of the body is ‘ontic’ or regional and is made possible only on the basis of Dasein, understood as a public ‘clearing’ or ‘there’ of intelligibility that determines in advance the way things emerge-into-presence as the kinds of things that they are. Heidegger’s core concern in Being and Time is to unearth the essential, ‘ontological-existential’, structures of Dasein that make it possible for us to begin regional investigations into the problem of the body in the first place. (shrink)

Despite the growing interest in sentience, especially regarding sentience in non-human animals, there is little agreement around its evolutionary origin and distribution, ontological status or ethical relevance. One aspect of this work-in-progress situation is a panoply of definitions of sentience to be found in the literature, from intensional ones appealing to ontological features (such as awareness, agency, consciousness) to implicit extensional ones based on physiological, morphological or behavioural features. We review and classify some of the most common definitions of sentience (...) to underline how they inevitably rely on pragmatical interests and ontological commitments which, when not explicitly declared, lead to pitfalls and fallacies when the definition is applied in practice. We claim that the obstacles, impasses and complications in the definition of sentience are consubstantial to its interest- and theory-laden, subjective nature. We suggest that, given these features, each definition should only be used in the limited epistemic and practical area it is produced for, while the general discourse around sentience is better developed through metaphorical rather than definitional language. (shrink)

In the article, I analyze the representation of Blaise Pascal’s thinking that was presented by the German philosopher and theologian Romano Guardini. This author explored Pascal’s philosophy in the 1920s and 1930s when Germany experienced a large wave of interest in Kierkegaard’s thinking, known as the “Kierkegaard Renaissance.” Guardini participated actively in this renaissance but was strongly opposed to using Kierkegaard’s philosophy as an interpretative key for reading Pascal. He was concerned that the fashionable philosophy of Kierkegaard would overshadow Pascal’s (...) intellectual originality. I will try to demonstrate that Guardini did not entirely succeed in resisting the temptation of following popular trends and himself used Kierkegaardian concepts and topics when discussing Pascal’s thought. Thus we encounter in his works a specific image of Pascal that reflects in great measure contemporary intellectual tendencies. (shrink)

In Massachusetts, a proposed bill would reduce the sentence of those incarcerated who become living donors of either organs or bone marrow. We outline two concerns with such a proposal, which relate directly to the content of the proposal (as opposed to broader debates about payment for organs and validity of consent obtained from the incarcerated). The first of these concerns is about equality of opportunity. The proposal provides the opportunity for a sentence reduction for some but not for others (...) – and the distribution of these opportunities reflects circumstances largely beyond the control of the incarcerated. The second concern is that the proposal may conflict with why we punish in the first place. The proposal is at odds with the non-consequentialist general deterrence defended by Tadros, retributivism, and communicative theories of punishment. Among the theories examined, only the purely consequentialist version of general deterrence might find the practice palatable. The upshot of the latter observation is that the proposal presupposes the truth of a purely consequentialist theory of punishment and sets aside others. (shrink)

Paradox theory offers a unique approach through which the complex and often conflicting aspects of corporate sustainability (CS) can be addressed. Although a growing body of literature has focused on the organizational-level outcomes of a paradox approach to sustainability, we know less about how such an approach creates business contributions to sustainable development beyond the organization (societal sustainability). The present study addresses this gap in research through a qualitative meta-analysis of 32 empirical case studies. While the analyzed studies confirmed the (...) effectiveness of a paradox approach to managing CS tensions from an organizational perspective, indications of contributions to societal sustainability were ambiguous. This finding led to the creation of a typology of response–outcome pathways. These pathways illustrate variations in the societal sustainability outcomes of CS paradox responses based on the moderating effects of three factors: level of commitment to sustainability, the approach to stakeholder engagement, and the level of strategy–practice alignment. This analysis contributes to the CS paradox perspective by offering important boundary conditions to the commonly held assumption that a paradox approach leads to superior business contributions to sustainability and highlights the need for research that examines outcomes of extant CS approaches beyond the organization. (shrink)

THE PROBLEM OF THE INTERPRETATION OF HAMANN Johann Georg Hamann is an intriguing but poorly known figure in the contemporary intellectual world. Yet this is the man whom Kierkegaard saluted as "Emperor!", whose writings were to have been arranged for publication by none other than Goethe himself, and whom Dilthey numbered among the primordial figures in the rise of modern historical consciousness. There are reasons for the persistence of this general ignorance. Hamann is deep. And, in addition, there is his (...) forbidding style. The readers of Kierkegaard and Dilthey, two other giants who them selves achieved late recognition, have not had to face this kind of imposing obstacle. Not only does Hamann expect his readers to handle themselves in deep water, but to intuit their way between his ideas which bob up like islands with no visible connection between them. Like Kierkegaard too, Hamann has had his troubles with the public. He himself referred to the hope that he would be understood by a "better posterity". In fact only the last few years have seen the printing of some of his more controversial writings, in particular his theories on the nature of human sexuality. (shrink)

P. F. Strawson famously distinguishes what a speaker presupposes from what she asserts in uttering a sentence like “The present King of France is bald”. This paper defends a claim about presupposition's epistemic significance, namely that presupposition can provide a distinctive testimony‐based way for an audience to learn about the world.

To discover affects within Husserl’s texts designates a difficult investigation; it points to a theme of which these texts were forced to speak, even as they were explicitly speaking of regional ontologies and the foundations of sciences. For we may at first wonder: where can affection find a positive role in the rigor of a pure philosophy that seeks to account for its phenomena from within the immanence of consciousness? Does this not mean that the very passivity and foreignness of (...) affect will be overlooked; will it not be continually linked to a Vorstellung that issues as a ray of the pure ego? That is, will the phenomenological account of affect be reduced to the cognition of an object, as Emmanuel Levinas suggests? Yet there are affects in Husserl’s texts that maintain their autonomy and resist subsumption to an objectivating intentionality.We may see this in the Lectures On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time: in the longitudinal intentionality of retention, through which consciousness becomes aware of its elapsed phases without making them into objects—a passive synthesis that gives the flow of time-constituting consciousness the form of a continually deferred auto-affection.1We find it again as early as the fifth Logical Investigation, 2 providing us with the impetus to radicalize Husserlian phenomenology. (shrink)

Zombies make trouble for physicalism. Intuitively, they seem conceivable, and many take this to support their metaphysical possibility – a result that, most agree, would refute physicalism. John Hawthorne (2002) [Philosophical Studies 109, 17–52] and David Braddon-Mitchell (2003) [The Journal of Philosophy 100, 111–135] have developed a novel response to this argument: phenomenal concepts have a conditional structure – they refer to non-physical states if such states exist and otherwise to physical states – and this explains the zombie intuition. I (...) argue that this strategy fails. The considerations Hawthorne and Braddon-Mitchell adduce in support of their analysis in fact do no such thing. Further, their main argument for the analysis is self-defeating: exactly similar reasoning would undermine the view it is meant to establish. Finally, on closer inspection the conditional analysis is incompatible with the zombie intuition. Thus, not only is the analysis incapable of explaining the intuition: the intuition’s plausibility indicates that the analysis is incorrect. I also suggest that the allure of the conditional-analysis strategy may derive from a questionable view about what explaining the intuition would require. (shrink)

Born into a poor, Muslim family at the end of the 19th century, Gama became World Champion wrestler by defeating the reigning Polish champion in London in 1910. By focusing on the life of Gama, the heroic representations of Gama that appear in the Hindi language literature, and the transformations in wrestling regimens that have occurred over the past several centuries, I locate the discourse and practice of wrestling within a context of intersecting concerns with nationalism, class identity and embodied (...) consciousness. To articulate the way in which subaltern identity is embodied in relation to nationalist ideas about masculine fitness, and in relation to the state as a political institution, I provide an analytic interpretation of the heroic body that focuses on themes of nervousness and obsession. (shrink)

Naive speakers find some logical contradictions acceptable, specifically borderline contradictions involving vague predicates such as Joe is and isn’t tall. In a recent paper, Cobreros et al. (J Philos Logic, 2012) suggest a pragmatic account of the acceptability of borderline contradictions. We show, however, that the pragmatic account predicts the wrong truth conditions for some examples with disjunction. As a remedy, we propose a semantic analysis instead. The analysis is close to a variant of fuzzy logic, but conjunction and disjunction (...) are interpreted as intensional operators. (shrink)

The Romans’ conquest of Syracuse and other Greek cities led to a fascinating encounter between two of the sources most at the heart of what we often call ‘Western Civilization’. Notwithstanding the Greeks’ achievements, several thoughtful Romans were fearful that an influx of Greek sophistication would weaken the Roman Republic. Cato the Elder was the most prominent of this group, and we begin here with a review of the limited remaining evidence of his thinking. We then look further afield for (...) allies who might develop his case further. We find them, ironically enough, among the Greeks themselves. (shrink)

We derive and estimate a production function for microfinance institutions to provide empirical evidence of the ethical dilemma of balancing social and financial logics in hybrid organizations. A worldwide panel dataset of microfinance institutions is utilized and a production function augmented by average loan size is estimated using the control function approach. We show how this framework can be used to quantify the tradeoff between social outreach and financial sustainability in relation to the expansion of microfinance institutions’ credit operations. The (...) study reveals that expanding the extensive margin (increasing the number of loan clients) requires on average more than twice as many inputs as expanding the intensive margin (increasing the average loan size) to achieve the same growth in assets. Beyond the case of microfinance our production function illustrates that as hybrid organizations expand, they will inevitably face an ethical dilemma as the laws of economic efficiency exert pressure on their social missions. (shrink)

Sometimes we are faced with discussions in which we might think that one or more of our interlocutors should not be partaking in the argument. Sometimes we are faced with discussions where we are unfairly denied participation, or we recognise that some arguers are denied participation. This paper develops an account and typology of ‘argumentative exclusion’. We understand ‘argumentative exclusion’ as the denial of participation in a discussion because of different phenomena. In this paper, we distinguish between argumentative exclusions that (...) are unwarranted and argumentative exclusions that are in service of justice and resistance to social oppression. Online argumentation and online hate speech form the core examples of this work. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM), the cognitive capacity to attribute internal mental states to oneself and others, is a crucial component of social skills. Its formal study has become important, witness recent research on reasoning and information update by intelligent agents, and some proposals for its formal modelling have put forward settings based on Epistemic Logic (EL). Still, due to intrinsic idealisations, it is questionable whether EL can be used to model the high-order cognition of ‘real’ agents. This manuscript proposes a (...) framework that takes visibility, memory, perspective and communication as the main factors underpinning mental attributions. This is more in-line with findings in cognitive science and allows us to model well-known False-Belief Tasks that are typically used in testing people's ToM. We discuss some of the framework's technical features, arguing why it does justice to empirical observations. (shrink)

This volume explores the philosophy of Étienne Bonnot de Condillac. It presents, for the first time, English-language essays on Condillac's philosophy, making the complexity and sophistication of his arguments and their influence on early modern philosophy accessible to a wider readership. Condillac's reflections on the origin and nature of human abilities, such as the ability to reason, reflect and use language, took philosophy in distinctly new directions. This volume showcases the diversity of themes and methods inspired by Condillac's work. The (...) chapters are divided into four thematic sections. Part 1 highlights themes and discussions that were central to Condillac's own philosophical thinking, thus laying the ground for the subsequent discussions that trace Condillac's influence in the 19th century and beyond. Part 2 focuses on the different ways in which Condillac's philosophy has been taken up, criticised and further developed in France. Part 3 discusses thinkers working in other European countries and parts of the world who took up Condillac's work. Finally, Part 4 looks at the practical applications of Condillac's philosophy in a variety of different fields, such as economics, psychology, psychopathology and deaf studies. Condillac and His Reception will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on early modern philosophy, history of science and intellectual history. (shrink)

This book rethinks the discussion of sport as a cinematic subject. Arguing for the vitality of the sports film as distinctively 'modern' genre, the book looks at its innovative potential to capture twentieth- and twenty-first-century sport in all its complexity. Written in an accessible style and illustrated throughout, the book integrates work and ideas from film studies with thinking from sports psychology, philosophy, data theory and ecocriticism. In its detailed analyses of a wide-ranging group of films, the book shows how (...) film, from fictional works to biopics to experimental documentaries, can illuminate individual sporting experience, as well as sport's wider place in modern life. (shrink)