Straipsnio tikslas – parodyti modernios Lietuvos sulietuvinimo ir kultūrėjimo proceso tęstinumą pasitelkus Lietuvos kultūros politikos raidos analizę. Kultūros politika analizuojama iš istorinės perspektyvos, remiamasi įvairių socialinių tyrimų duomenimis. Bibliotekos ir kultūros centrai laikomi vienomis svarbiausių institucijų, įgyvendinančių valstybės kultūros politikos tikslus.Atlikta analizė leidžia teigti, kad dabartinė Lietuvos kultūros politika užtikrina ne tiek Lietuvos sulietuvinimo ir kultūrėjimo plėtrą, galinčią atremti globalizacijos iššūkius, kiek esamos padėties stabilumą. Pozityvių pokyčių kultūros politikoje stoka, turint omenyje ir įvairių institucijų bendradarbiavimą, ir veiklos koordinavimą, optimizavimą bei (...) kultūros įstaigų veiklos regionuose didesnį rėmimą, didina recesijos, t. y. lietuvių nutautėjimo ir nukultūrėjimo, grėsmę. (shrink)

While philosophers have been debating for decades on whether different entities—including severely disabled human beings, embryos, animals, objects of nature, and even works of art—can legitimately be considered as having moral status, this question has gained a new dimension in the wake of artificial intelligence (AI). One of the more imminent concerns in the context of AI is that of the moral rights and status of social robots, such as robotic caregivers and artificial companions, that are built to interact with (...) human beings. In recent years, some approaches to moral consideration have been proposed that would include social robots as proper objects of moral concern, even though it seems unlikely that these machines are conscious beings. In the present paper, I argue against these approaches by advocating the “consciousness criterion,” which proposes phenomenal consciousness as a necessary condition for accrediting moral status. First, I explain why it is generally supposed that consciousness underlies the morally relevant properties (such as sentience) and then, I respond to some of the common objections against this view. Then, I examine three inclusive alternative approaches to moral consideration that could accommodate social robots and point out why they are ultimately implausible. Finally, I conclude that social robots should not be regarded as proper objects of moral concern unless and until they become capable of having conscious experience. While that does not entail that they should be excluded from our moral reasoning and decision-making altogether, it does suggest that humans do not owe direct moral duties to them. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin is a seminal philosopher whose work makes us think about the concepts of experience, child, and childhood. A journey through his life experience and personal narratives brings us closer to the world of his own childhood. As such, it is a philosophical journey in the sense of taking us towards something that is unknown to us and that in the end can transform us. We will travel through the following texts by Benjamin: Children’s Hour Radio Narrative (2015), Berlin (...) Childhood: around 1900 (2013), Reflections on the child, the toy and education (2009), One-Way Street (2013) and The Storyteller:Reflections on the works of Nikolai Leskov (2018). To navigate these texts is to allow and encourage us to experiment with other ways of looking at and being in the world. His narrative allows us to experience the experiences of the child Benjamin, to traverse its unique and sparsely inhabited places, and thus to travel through any child’s world, feeling a child’s temporality and a child’s gaze. According to Jorge Larrosa (2003), childhood is an enigma. Benjamin’s narratives allow us to enter this enigma, to unveil images redolent with the experience of children and childhood, and thereby to approach this mystery that is both philosophical and pulsating with life, like the life of this philosopher himself. (shrink)

Biomimicry studies natural systems and attempts to use the gained knowledge and understanding to solve human problems. Can biomimicry, if applied in urban planning, help to make our cities more sustainable or, precisely, more friendly for walkable and 15-minute city models? Various researchers identify the following features of natural systems as form fits function, catalysis of cooperation, local contextuality, continuity of development, diversity, integrity, redundancy, decentralization, multifunctionality, and less energy consumption (e.g. TOD if the energy needed for transportation is considered), (...) hierarchy, fractality, etc. The presented research has two objectives: analyze the possibility of describing and evaluating the degree of expression of the features of natural systems in urban spatial structures to use them for comparison, benchmarking, or creation of a biomimicry index; evaluate if cities with more strongly expressed biomimicry features could be considered more walkable and close to the 15-minute city concept. To give answers to the above-presented questions Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn were investigated. They represent both certain similarities and differences in terms of history, urban planning, political context, size, etc. A simulative mathematical graph model was used as the main tool to describe and analyze complex urban structures based on spatial configurations. Various graph centralities were employed to describe and compare the expression of natural systems’ features in the selected cities. OSM data was used to overlap graph models with such information as the density of inhabitants, concentrations of various points of interest in order to evaluate walkability and 15-minute city friendliness. The research results could be seen as an important step for better understanding of informal principles of biomimicry that can help transform urban areas. (shrink)

The objective of this text is to show how the figure of the Legislator presented by Rousseau is essential for carrying out the transition movement from the abstract to the concrete in the Social Contract. The occurrence of such a movement is noticeable in different parts of the work, but our focus is to address it right at the beginning, starting from book two. To this end, we deal with the chapters concerning the Legislator, the people and the various systems (...) of legislation: in the chapter on the Legislator, we understand the need for such an individual in Rousseau's theory, as well as his centrality for the consolidation of a legitimate society, such as the principles of political law prescribe; the chapters referring to the people and the different systems of legislation, in turn, allowed us to reflect on the historical circumstances of the people, which must be taken into account by the Legislator, so that he can propose adequate legislation for the people to whom it is intended. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 214 Seiten: 139-158.

As we step into an era in which artificial intelligence systems are predicted to surpass human capabilities, a number of profound ethical questions have emerged. One such question, which has gained some traction in recent scholarship, concerns the ethics of human treatment of robots and the thought-provoking possibility of robot rights. The present article explores this very aspect, with a particular focus on the notion of human rights for robots. It argues that if we accept the widely held view that (...) moral status and rights (including human rights) are grounded in certain cognitive capacities, then it follows that intelligent machines could, in principle, acquire these entitlements once they come to possess the requisite properties. In support of this perspective, the article outlines the moral foundations of human rights and examines several main objections, arguing that they do not successfully negate the prospect of considering robots as potential holders of human rights. Subsequently, it turns to the key epistemic challenges associated with moral status and rights for robots, outlining the main difficulties in discerning the presence of mental states in artificial entities and offering some practical considerations for approaching these challenges. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of establishing a suitable framework for moral decision-making under uncertainty in the context of human treatment of artificial entities, given the gravity of the epistemic problems surrounding the concepts of artificial consciousness, moral status, and rights. (shrink)

One of the characteristics of what has been called “dogwhistle politics” is the presence of a rhetoric that targets minority groups implicitly. For example, terms like ‘illegals’ and ‘illegal immigrants’, used to target Latin-Americans, have come to permeate the American political discourse as well as everyday conversations. Here I focus on how such expressions, which I call illegality frame code words (IFCW, for short), can be countered by recalcitrant hearers. I begin with the assumption that IFCWs are racial code words, (...) conversational devices that convey implicit racial appeals while allowing for deniability. I then discuss how the existence of an Illegality Frame in the American Immigration debate supports their deniability. Lastly, I discuss how recalcitrant hearers can counter utterances that contain them. In particular, I propose reframing as an adequate strategy. In reframing, agents take control of the goals or the QUD (question under discussion) of the conversation to exclude certain topics from the common ground and include others. The idea is to “change the conversation” to neutralize problematic moves. This maneuver is advantageous not only because it helps to hinder veiled discriminatory practices, but also because it affords control over “the terms of the conversation”. (shrink)

El presente trabajo es parte de una investigación de magíster en la cual se examina el problema de los universales en el período medieval, específicamente en los autores Avicena, Enrique de Gante y Duns Scotus. En él se analiza la comprensión escotista de los universales, así como también su relación con el conocimiento, Dios y el principio de individuación. Scotus dedica el conocimiento abstractivo a los universales, o sea, el conocimiento abstractivo es el tipo de conocimiento que permite a los (...) seres humanos conocer a los universales. Estos, por su parte, son totalmente contingentes, siendo creados o destruidos por Dios con base solamente en la voluntad divina. Además, un universal adquiere una existencia material cuando es concretado por la haecceitas, cuando “está presente” en un individuo existente en acto. Para tal análisis se utilizan partes de textos como Quodlibet q. 13, Ordinatio II, d. 3, Lectura I, d. 39, Reportatio I-A, d. 38. (shrink)

The author of the article describes globalization processes as inevitable historic and objective phenomena, the driving force of society’s development and progress. It is emphasized that these processes result in harmful effects of global character on the environment and society. In the opinion of the author, one of the most important negative effects of globalization is the increase in environmental pollution which in turn results in the change of climate, extreme ecological situations, and threats to the natural environment and human (...) health. The author argues that one of the main legal instruments for limiting and neutralizing the harmful effect of pollution on the environment and society is the integrated system of environmental legal regulation. The author considers the safeguarding of the environmental objects and resources (climate atmosphere, soil and subsoil, water, air, biologic diversity, etc.) as the object of the legal regulation of the integrated environmental protection. What is more, the author of the article analyzes certain problematic aspects related to climate change and integrated prevention and control of climate pollution which are regulated under the new integrated institute of environmental protection under the environmental protection law. The author compares the provisions of international agreements, the European Union and Lithuanian legislation regarding these relations and concludes that Lithuania has not fully met its international obligations in this field. (shrink)

The paper discusses the myth of the founding of Vilnius as an example of a myth of city foundation. The myth has received two independent semiotic interpretations. Narrative grammar procedures are applied to the analysis of the mythical story and the semantic code generating the story in the paper “Gediminas’ Dream (Lithuanian myth of city foundation: an attempt at analysis)” by Algirdas Julien Greimas (1971). The sovereignty ideology expressed in the myth, which describes religious and spiritual culture of the Grand (...) Duchy of Lithuania, is linked to the tri-functional model of the Indo-European social structure. The semantics of the Vilnius myth is seen as analogous with such Indo-European myths as king’s accession to the throne and creation of a city-state. The Lithuanian myth of Vilnius is linked paradigmatically to the Indo-European mythology in the study “Vilnius, Wilno, Vil’na: City and myth” by Vladimir Toporov (1980). At the level of the signifier, phonological equivalents of toponyms of Vilnius are traced. At the level of the signified, transformations of the “core” Indo-European myth are identified. The myth of the city foundation can be read both as a figurative form of cultural expression and as an ideology narrated as a plot of a story. In this view, the paradigmatic and syntagmatic approaches complement each other. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend that demonstratives are expressions of joint attention. Though this idea is not exactly new in the philosophical or linguistic literature, we argue here that their proponents have not yet shown how to incorporate these observations into more traditional theories of demonstratives. Our purpose is then to attempt to fill this gap. We argue that coordinated attentional activities are better integrated into a full account of demonstratives as meta-pragmatic information. Our claim is twofold. First, we claim (...) that pragmatically presupposing salience is a fundamental aspect of using demonstratives. Secondly, we hold that the pragmatics of demonstrating can only be properly understood in relation to meta-pragmatic conditions that have to do with joint attention. We use tests of truth-value gap as evidence for our claim. Our proposal provides us with a complete view of what speakers do and presuppose when engaging in acts of demonstrative reference through language. (shrink)

O paradigma informacional da comunicação estipula que agentes usam a fala para transmitir informação não-redundante a outros agentes. Se olharmos para a fala auto-direcionada e, em particular, para a fala privada, no entanto, nos deparamos com um claro contraexemplo: nela, os papéis de falante e ouvinte coincidem no mesmo agente. Meu objetivo aqui será, então, somar-me aos esforços de buscar um paradigma alternativo que explique a fala privada, em seus vários usos, intrapessoais e intersubjetivos. Para isso, considero dois candidatos: o (...) paradigma disposicional e o deôntico, segundo os quais a fala serve, respectivamente, para gerar disposições e para negociar compromissos em ações coordenadas. Ao comparar os méritos de ambos, mostro que o segundo é preferível por conseguir explicar usos da fala privada com função fática mais facilmente que o primeiro. Tais usos evidenciam que a comunicação também pode voltar-se para aspectos de sua própria infraestrutura e da ação-entre-participantes. Lamentavelmente, eles vêm sendo negligenciados na literatura filosófica, embora pareçam ser peça-chave de qualquer resposta completa à pergunta “Por que falamos?”. (shrink)

For decades the study of social perception was largely compartmentalized by type of social cue: race, gender, emotion, eye gaze, body language, facial expression etc. This was partly due to good scientific practice, and partly due to assumptions that each type of social cue was functionally distinct from others. Herein, we present a functional forecast approach to understanding compound social cue processing that emphasizes the importance of shared social affordances across various cues. We review the traditional theories of emotion and (...) face processing that argued for dissociable and noninteracting pathways, as well as more recent evidence for combinatorial processing of social cues. We argue here that early, and presumably reflexive, visual integration of such cues is necessary for adaptive behavioral responding to others. In support of this claim, we review contemporary work that reveals a flexible visual system, one that readily incorporates meaningful contextual influences in even nonsocial visual processing, thereby establishing the functional and neuroanatomical bases necessary for compound social cue integration. Finally, we explicate three likely mechanisms driving such integration. Together, this work implicates a role for cognitive penetrability in visual perceptual abilities that have often been ascribed to direct encapsulated perceptual processes. (shrink)

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas švietimo prieinamumas kaip vienas iš svarbiausių žmogaus gerovės kūrimo transformuotoje visuomenėje principų. Švietimo prieinamumas transformuotoje visuomenėje laiduoja asmens socialinį mobilumą, karjerą, pajamas, o tai pagrindiniai rodikliai, turintys įtakos valstybės gerovės indeksui. Taip pat pateikiamas atliktas empirinis tyrimas, kuriame atsispindi švietimo prieinamumo galimybės įvairių socialinių grupių atstovams.

Straipsnyje analizuojamos mokslinės struktūrinio funkcionalizmo, kapitalo, socialinio konflikto, tinklaveikos, modernizmo teorijos. Šių teorijų prieiga leidžia interpretuoti švietimo institutą, jo reikšmę visuomenei ir individui, švietimo instituto funkcijų kaitą, ugdymo dalyvių lygiavertiškumą bei švietimo prieinamumą visų socialinių grupių atstovams.

Bozickovic’s The Indexical Point of View is a richly informative and solid philosophical work about the problem of cognitive significance involving indexical thoughts and expressions. Although I tend to agree with most of what is said in the book, here I will make some comments on two minor correlated points regarding Bozickovic’s Fregean account of indirect speech reports (or ISRs). After presenting some of the author's ideas about reports, I will claim that the tracking and updating involved in ISRs is (...) of a complex kind that requires attention to the role played by speech reporters and their audiences. Following that, I will hold that a general theory of correct ISR strictly in Fregean terms (as Bozickovic’s) fails to account for that - at least directly. (shrink)

Determining what content is expressed by a demonstrative when its reference cannot be determined is a problem for those who assume that demonstrative reference is cognized by interpreters and demonstrative meaning has a mere indicative role. Here, I explore a concept of content that gives meaning a cognitively relevant role, namely, John Perry’s classificatory concept of content. With that purpose, I compare the interpretation of a deictic demonstrative in two cases: for an eavesdropper and a conversational participant, aiming to show (...) that meaning, in the form of reflexive rules, can be recruited to play the role of content when information is scarce. (shrink)

When and why do we need the indexical ‘I’? Perry (1979) thinks that ‘I’ is an essential ingredient to the explanation and prediction of action. We need ‘I’ to classify the kind of belief that causes an agent to produce a new action. In his view, classifying the agent’s belief in terms of ‘I’ makes sense because, when asked to explain her behavior, the agent will be disposed to say ‘I’. Here, we argue that this dispositional assumption is problematic. The (...) disposition to act according to an essential indexical and the disposition to make a speech act that contains ‘I’ are two very different things that are not always related. The most common circumstances in which we need to say ‘I’ to explain ourselves involve other agents: when we coordinate in joint actions or when we engage in self-talk to save face before the eyes of potential witnesses. Finally, we revisit Perry’s famous messy shopper anecdote to offer a better story about why its main character is disposed to say ‘I’. (shrink)

This article provides a comparative analysis of the contents of two parliamentary hearings on BSE carried out in Portugal in 1993 and 1996 as instances of interaction between science and politics. One question to be addressed is the extent to which relationships between science and politics in Portugal as a so-called “semiperipheral society” differ from those of more advanced states, and how one can possibly explain those differences. Another issue to be considered is whether the Europeanization of BSE crisis after (...) March 1996 has played a role and, if so, what role in the evolution of the attitudes and behavior of Portuguese policy makers toward science and toward risk. The question is whether political and administrative culture is changing in Portugal under the effect of both the Europeanization of regulatory processes and the emergence of a “risk society.”. (shrink)

Sexting has been defined as sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, images, or photos to others through digital platforms, and can assume more consensual or more abusive and violent forms. This study aims to explore the prevalence of abusive sexting in Portuguese adolescents and the psychological characteristics of sexting abusers in terms of emotional and behavioral problems, potential markers of psychopathy, childhood trauma and maltreatment, and different forms of aggression. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 4,281 participants, aged 12–20 (...) years, of whom 204 engaged in abusive sexting behaviors and 182 self-identified as being a non-consensual sexting victim. Abusive sexting was more common among boys and middle adolescents, and abusive sexting victims were more likely to be children of single-parent families. Engaging in abusive sexting and being a victim of abusive sexting were also related to behavioral and emotional problems, callousness, experiences of neglect and abuse in childhood, and various forms of aggression. Implications for future research and intervention are discussed. (shrink)

Counterspeech is a kind of communicative resistance that tries to oppose, neutralize or remedy harmful speech. It can be defined as a form of non-coercive intervention that is, in some cases, available for any competent speaker. In recent years, some philosophers of language have focused on analyzing and proposing different varieties of in situ counterspeech in the hopes that their insights about communicative mechanisms can contribute to the identification of efficient strategies. This investigation is however still new and in programmatic (...) expansion. Our first goal then is to suggest a separation between two categories of counterspeech, confrontational and redirecting, adopting the impact of the intervention on the cooperation between participants as an organizational criterion. Secondly, we propose a type of confrontational counterspeech, which we call elucidation, and a type of redirecting counterspeech, namely, reframing. In cases of elucidation, the recalcitrant hearer makes a problematic aspect of what was said salient. This is a way of calling the bigot out for the commitments that he/she undertakes in virtue of choosing to use certain words. In reframing, the recalcitrant hearer tries to neutralize the effects of code words by replacing them for semantically equivalent alternatives that have different social meanings and connotations. For example, replacing ‘ideologia de gênero’ (‘gender ideology’) by ‘diversidade de gênero’ (‘gender diversity’), when accommodated, gives the hearer additional control over the discursive topics (the QUD) and the “terms of the conversation”. (shrink)

Straipsnyje siekiama atskleisti, kiek įtakos švietimo funkcijoms turi visuomenės socialinė kaita. Analizuojamos tos funkcijos, kurios tapo svarbios po Lietuvos nepriklausomybės paskelbimo, nes Lietuvai perėjus prie laisvosios rinkos, vienos aktualiausių yra švietimo funkcijos, turinčios užtikrinti švietimo prieinamumą ir socialinį teisingumą. Pagrindinis švietimo funkcijų tikslas – sušvelninti socialinę nelygybę, sumažinti skurdąir socialinę atskirtį. Straipsnio autorių nuomone, pagrindinės švietimo funkcijos, galinčios užtikrinti didesnę visuomenės homogenizaciją, yra: socializacija ir kultūrinė reprodukcija, socialinė kontrolė ir socialinė integracija.

A pobreza e a vulnerabilidade no Brasil originam um cenário no qual a população não é contemplada com seus direitos básicos, incluindo a alimentação. Nesse sentido, a Insegurança Alimentar e Nutricional (IAN) é caracterizada quando uma família não tem acesso aos alimentos, em quantidade e qualidade que supra suas necessidades nutricionais. O estudo tem como objetivo avaliar o risco de Insegurança Alimentar e Nutricional e seus fatores associados em famílias beneficiadas pelo Programa Bolsa Família (PBF), no município de Pantano Grande, (...) RS. A pesquisa foi do tipo transversal com abordagem quantitativa a partir de uma amostra não probabilística, com famílias beneficiadas pelo PBF. Foram aplicados três questionários, sendo um para avaliar os dados socioeconômicos, um de Triagem para Risco de Insegurança Alimentar e outro para avaliar os marcadores de consumo alimentar. Os dados foram analisados no software EpiInfo versão 7.2.5.0. Foram avaliadas 44 famílias e a prevalência de IAN foi de 91%, sendo 75% de IAN grave. Dentre os resultados, a IAN foi mais presente nas famílias chefiadas por mulheres brancas (38,7%; n=17), com idade entre 29 e 50 anos (59,1%; n=26), solteiras (59,1%; n=26), desempregadas (65,9%; n=29), que recebiam menos de um salário mínimo (54,5%; n=24) e com ensino fundamental incompleto (38,7%; n=17), contudo os resultados não apresentaram diferença estatística. Conclui-se que é necessário a implementação de políticas públicas para garantir o direito humano à alimentação adequada e a criação de programas complementares de geração de renda, principalmente para população que já se encontra em situação de vulnerabilidade social. (shrink)

Este artículo representa una parte de una tesis de magíster asociada al proyecto Fondecyt de Iniciación nro. 11170810, "Primacía del ser o primacía del ente. Un estudio comparado entre Enrique de Gante y Duns Scoto", que estudia la relación de la noción de universal entre Avicena, Enrique de Gante y Duns Scotus. En este extracto, luego de una breve exposición sobre la vida de Enrique, serán abordados los conceptos de esencia, ser de esencia y ser de existencia, equivalentes a la (...) noción de universal y sus modos de ser en Avicena. A continuación, se presentan las nociones de “res a ‘reor, reris’” y “res a ratitudine”, así como la relación de estas con las esencias. Y por último será analizado el lugar propio de las esencias, junto con la pregunta sobre la posibilidad de cambio de dichas esencias. (shrink)

Counterspeech is a kind of communicative resistance that tries to oppose, neutralize or remedy harmful speech. It can be defined as a form of non-coercive intervention that is, in some cases, available for just any competent speaker. In recent years, some philosophers of language have focused on analyzing and proposing different varieties of counterspeech in the hopes that their insights about communicative mechanisms can contribute to the development of efficient strategies of contention. This investigation is however still new and in (...) programmatic expansion. Our first goal then is to suggest a separation between two larger categories of counterspeech, confrontational and redirecting, adopting as an organizational criterion the impact of the interventions on the cooperativity between participants. Secondly, we propose a type of confrontational counterspeech, which we call elucidation, and a type of redirecting counterspeech, namely, reframing. In cases of elucidation, the recalcitrant hearer makes a problematic aspect of what was said especially salient. This is a way of calling the bigot out for the commitments that he/she undertakes in virtue of choosing to use certain words. In reframing, the recalcitrant hearer tries to neutralize the effects of code words by replacing them for semantically equivalent alternatives that have different social meanings and connotations. For example, replacing ‘ideologia de gênero’ (‘gender ideology’) by ‘diversidade de gênero’ (‘gender diversity’), when accommodated, gives the hearer additional control over the discursive topics (the QUD) and the “terms of the conversation”. (shrink)

BackgroundPrevious studies suggest that engagement in any type of physical activity can be protective against mental health issues, whereas elite-level athletes can endure various mental health challenges. The aim of this study was to determine variations in the prevalence of psychological distress among elite sambo athletes and their recreational counterparts.MethodsA sample consisting of 245 athletes was chosen. Out of the total sample, 105 were elite-level athletes while 140 were recreational athletes. Participants were accessed via the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 to (...) determine their stress in various domains at a given time.ResultsData indicated that all tested differences between elite sambo athletes and recreational athletes were statistically significant; recreational athletes had a higher score on the depression scale, anxiety and stress, and a general distress score than sambo athletes. Although there are no gender differences in psychological distress in the total sample of athletes, elite sambo athletes achieve significantly lower scores in all tested variants than recreational ones. Women who engage in recreational activities have stood out as a vulnerable subsample in psychological stress.ConclusionFuture epidemiological and interventional studies should explore optimal strategies to identify mental health needs based on specific sport activity, especially in terms of gender. There is a need to place special emphasis on psychological distress in the context of combat sports. (shrink)