At its mid-point of implementation, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—and broader sustainability—is challenged by multiple crises facing the international community. Despite the unprecedented adoption of the 2030 Agenda by UN Member States in 2015, there are clear signals that there is inadequate progress on achieving the Agenda's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This article aims to encourage discussion, from an affective research angle, on potential emotional barriers to SDG implementation. It equally strives to spur greater insight into how the field (...) of affective sciences can help overcome these and other hurdles and provide invaluable insights and recommendations to bridge the gap between policy and practice. (shrink)

This article focuses on the animal cruelty, health, psychological and social consequences, as well as environmental consequences of an animal-based diet. Animals are intensively bred and raised in factory farms in the most inhumane ways. By far, the greatest numbers of animals reared and killed by humans every year is for human consumption. The numbers are estimated to be greater than 56 billion animals globally. The cruelty involved in the intensive farming of animals is the most widespread form of cruelty (...) imposed by humans on other species. This has significant implications for who we are as a species. Moreover, the belief that humans need to consume animal products to maintain good health has been seriously questioned over the past few decades. It is also a lifestyle choice that is responsible for significant damage to the environment. In contrast, a strong evidence base exists to show that a plant-based diet is health promoting and sustainable. Thus, by cultivating a culture of compassion toward nonhuman animals, current and future generations will benefit through better physical and psychological health and through markedly reduced damage to the planet and all of its inhabitants. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has strongly affected oncology patients. Many screening and treatment programs have been postponed or canceled, and such patients also experience fear of increased risk of exposure to the virus. In many cases, locus of control, coping flexibility, and perception of a supportive environment, specifically family resilience, can allow for positive emotional outcomes for individuals managing complex health conditions like cancer. This study aims to determine if family resilience, coping flexibility, and locus of control can mitigate (...) the negative affect caused by the pandemic and enhance positive affect in breast cancer patients. One hundred and fifty-four female patients with breast cancer completed the Walsh’s Family Resilience Questionnaire, the Perceived Ability to Cope With Trauma Scale, the Positive-Negative Affect Schedule, and the Mini Locus of Control Scale. Family resilience and internality of locus of control contribute significantly to positive affective responses. Family resilience is responsible for mitigating the negative affect perceived during the pandemic and is enhanced by external locus of control. Evidence suggests that clinical psychologists should develop and propose programs to support oncology patients’ family resilience, coping flexibility, and internal locus of control, allowing for decreased stress and improved adaptability for effectively managing cancer treatment during the pandemic. (shrink)

Le but de cet article est de contribuer au débat sur la relation entre les pratiques prédictives et l’orthodoxie religieuse, telle qu’elle est exposée dans le Liber introductorius de Michel Scot. Au cœur de ce travail se trouve l’étude de la discussion de l’interprétation des signes inhabituels et des événements inattendus par Michel Scot, à la fois dans le Liber quatuor distinctionum et le Liber particularis. L’analyse de nouvelles preuves textuelles, jusque là passées inaperçues, permettra par ailleurs la réévaluation de (...) la réception de Michel Scot en tant qu’autorité dans le domaine des pratiques prédictives. (shrink)

Cet article étudie les différentes formes de l’éducation du caractère dans la pensée de James Mill. Selon cette étude, Mill donne la priorité à l’éducation du caractère intellectuel plutôt qu’à l’éducation du caractère moral, lequel est façonnée à travers le premier. Cet article présente tout d’abord le concept de caractère et la conception générale de l’éducation selon James Mill, en distinguant entre caractère intellectuel et caractère moral. Ensuite, cette thèse est développée sur la base de deux exemples de projets éducatifs (...) de James Mill : son programme éducatif lié aux écoles de Lancaster et l’éducation de John Stuart Mill. Aussi, cette étude considère-t-il des cas montrant l’importance de la formation du caractère moral. Cette analyse aide à clarifier le rôle spécifique de la formation du caractère moral aux yeux de James Mill. Finalement, l’article examine les raisons théoriques sur lesquelles la priorité de l’éducation du caractère intellectuel est fondée. Ce texte souligne... (shrink)

Contemporary debate explores and enhances the relationship between philosophy and translation from various perspectives and cultural traditions. Nevertheless, there seems to be a lack of reflection on the aesthetic significance of the relation- ship between philosophy and translation and the specificity of the translation of philosophical texts. After attempting to explore the reasons for this, the paper aims at showing how philosophy reveals the aesthetic side of conceptual production when it is confronted with the problem of translation, both as a (...) translation of experience into concepts and as a translation practice of conceptual language. (shrink)

Proposer une interprétation du rôle que revêt Israël dans la première période de la pensée hégélienne, de l'Esprit du christianisme et son destin jusqu'à la Phénoménologie de l'esprit, c'est ce à quoi s'attelle cet essai et ceci en montrant de quelle manière la confrontation entre Hegel et Israël est à la base de la formation des concepts de réconciliation, pardon et expérience. Hegel développe en effet certaines des thématiques centrales de sa réflexion justement au contact d'Israël, ce qui témoigne bien (...) que ce signe d'Abraham ne cesse d'interroger la pensée hégélienne dans son coeur génératif. A travers la façon dont la confrontation de Hegel avec Israël permet de jeter une lumière nouvelle sur son interprétation de l'entendement kantien, du problème de la loi (de dérivation paulinienne) et de celui du langage, cet essai entend illustrer comment la confrontation du jeune Hegel avec son fond théologique est aussi l'occasion pour la pensée de réfléchir sur sa propre genèse et sur son propre statut. En passant en revue les changements de position qui caractérisent la relation de Hegel avec Israël comme figure de la pensée, cet ouvrage montre comment l'expérience de la pensée est aussi une expérience dans le sens subjectif de ce génitif. La dernière partie de ce volume, consacrée à la dialectique qui aboutit au pardon dans l'oeuvre de 1807, unit ainsi le problème historiographique au problème théorique. (shrink)

Moving on to a higher level of schooling represents a crucial developmental challenge for children: studies have shown that transitioning to a new school context can increase the perceived importance of peer acceptance, popularity, and adaptation to the new social environment. The aim of this study was to investigate simultaneously the influence of interpersonal variables and personal variables on role-taking in bullying episodes from a longitudinal perspective. These variables were assessed on 41 children in their last year of kindergarten and (...) in their 1st year of primary school. The main longitudinal results showed that prosocial behaviors are more stable than hostile, victim, and outsider behaviors. Moreover, social preference—together with affective empathy—at t1 had a clear negative predictive effect on hostile roles at t2, while social preference had a positive effect on prosocial roles at t2. Social impact at t1 negatively predicted being a victim at t2. On the other hand, social preference at t2 was negatively predicted only by the victim role at t1. Social impact at t1 had a significant and negative effect on being victimized at t2 while was negatively predicted at t2 by the outsider at t1. Our study—even if exploratory—seems to highlight the existence of a specific, differentiate effect of two distinct social status indices on the participant role-taking in bullying episodes in the transitional period from kindergarten to primary school. (shrink)

(1994). Introduction to the special issue on art and science: Studies from the world academy of art and science. World Futures: Vol. 40, Art and Science: Studies from the World Academy of Art and Science, pp. 1-1.

This paper is centered on the semantic theory of truth, formulated by Alfred Tarski. According to some authors, this theory is to be construed as a contemporary version of the traditional correspondence theory, namely, the one that defines truth as the correspondence between language and the world. In contrast, there are others who think that Tarki´s theory reveals a deflationary conception of truth, according to which truth can be reduced to a linguistic resource for semantic ascent. Since I agree with (...) the last group, I set out to support a special version ─the so-called “semanticalist version” ─ of the deflationary interpretation of the semantic theory. In the first section, I characterize the two alternative conceptions of truth above mentioned, that is, correspondence and deflationism. The second section contains and exposition of the modal argument, wich takes the Tarskian theory to inspire a syntacticalist version of the deflationary conception. In the third section, I criticize the argument in question and attempt to ground the above mentioned wide, semanticalist interpretation of deflationism. (shrink)

The so-called Evolutionary Debunking Arguments are arguments that appeal to the evolutionary genealogy of our beliefs to undermine their justification. When applied to morality, such arguments are intended to undermine moral realism. In this paper I will discuss Andreas Mogensen’s recent effort to secure moral realism against EDAs. Mogensen attempts to undermine the challenge provided by EDAs in metaethics through the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes in biology. The problem with this move is that the proximate/ultimate distinction is misconceived. (...) If ultimate and proximate causes are properly understood to be complementary, such distinction cannot affect EDAs in metaethics. Therefore, I will argue, Mogensen’s argument fails and moral realism is still in danger. (shrink)

This paper is about paradigmatic slurs, i.e. expressions that are prima facie associated with the expression of a contemptuous attitude concerning a group of people identified in terms of its origin or descent, race, sexual orientation, ethnia or religion, gender, etc. Our purpose is twofold: explaining their expressive meaning dimension in terms of a version of stereotype semantics and analysing their original and most typical uses as insults, which will be called with a neologism ‘insultive’, in terms of a speech (...) act theory. (shrink)

According to the nineteenth-century polymath William Stanley Jevons, natural phenomena were a series of combinations and permutations. The similarity between Jevons’s account and other instances of ars combinatoria has already been noticed, although this topic has never been extensively addressed in the literature. In this paper, I offer a novel interpretation of Jevons’s logic and philosophy of science as an art of combinations. Jevons’s position shall be compared with other theorizers in the ars combinatoria tradition. This study will show that (...) Jevons’s art of combinations differed from some of the examples here investigated because he did not believe that language could refer to the primal constituents of reality. Rather, his art of combinations relied on the order of combinations, displaying a syntactical nature. Consequently, I will argue that Jevons’s logic presents some relevant similarities to Leibniz’s characteristica. Moreover, this analysis offers a contribution to the study of Jevons’s logic, highlighting the ontological implications embedded in his logical thought. (shrink)

Nel sesto libro del De musica Agostino pone il problema della natura del conoscere a partire da una descrizione, che si potrebbe definire fenomenologica, dei movimenti ritmici di cui il soggetto fa esperienza. Inizia così un percorso conoscitivo, che prendendo le mosse dalle tracce dei numeri arriva a indagare le condizioni di possibilità della conoscenza, rilanciando continuamente l’indagine su molteplici livelli. Con questo articolo si intende comprendere le più rilevanti implicazioni del paradigma conoscitivo agostiniano, il quale non appare riducibile a (...) una mera logica numerica ma permette di gettare uno sguardo filosofico fino alla realtà metafisica della creatura. In the De musica’s sixth Book Augustin puts the question of the knowledge’s nature from the description of the rhytmical movements experienced by the subject. This is the beginning of a cognitive process that starts from the numers’ traces and ends with the inquiry about the conditions of knowledge’s possibility, giving impulse to a research on several levels. The article’s purpose is to understand the most important implications of the Augustinian cognitive paradigm, that doesn’t seem to be a mere numerical logic but allow us to take a philosophical glance to the creature’s metaphysical truth. (shrink)

The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy" employs a wide construal of 'philosophy' that was common in former centuries. Its biographical entries include writers on mainstream philosophical topics whose individual contribution was small. But the encyclopedia also includes celebrated figures from other intellectual domains, who had something to say on topics that count as broadly philosophical. This interdisciplinary approach, coupled with sophisticated indexing and cross-referencing, makes "CEBP" easily accessible to students and specialists across a huge range of subjects. It will become (...) a highly important resource to support teaching and research in literature, history, classics, cultural studies, politics, economics, language, aesthetics, psychology and science, as well as in mainstream philosophy itself. (shrink)

In this essay I examine authority from the viewpoint of the paradigm of recognition: this theoretical framework, as I wish to demonstrate, is particularly suitable for both a clear definition and a consistent practical-normative analysis of authority. In section I propose a definition of authority which, resting on the normative meaning intrinsic to the concept of recognition, allows to systematically differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate forms of authority. After delineating the characteristics of a legitimate political authority, I focus on authority (...) as a means of domination, on the one hand, and of emancipation, on the other. Firstly I consider the long-standing question of why social groups sometimes support an authority oppressing them, and I determine what, instead, can cause a struggle for recognition to occur. Then I discuss hegemony, understood as an intra-group leadership aimed at fostering struggles against domination: can it constitute a legitimate, emancipat.. (shrink)

L’interlocuzione con la psicologia e la psicoanalisi, in particolare con il pensiero di Sigmund Freud, costituiva una delle componenti fondamentali dell’approccio multidisciplinare della prima generazione della Scuola di Francoforte. Ridimensionato da Habermas, tale aspetto torna ad assumere una posizione di rilievo nella concezione elaborata da Axel Honneth, ad oggi considerato il più autorevole prosecutore dell’eredità francofortese. In questo articolo mi propongo di ripercorrere criticamente gli sviluppi attraversati dalla concezione psicologica elaborata da Honneth. Inizialmente riassumerò la prospettiva originaria che Honneth delinea (...) in Lotta per il riconoscimento, la quale permane fin nell’articolo del 1999 Teoria delle relazioni oggettuali e identità postmoderna. Nel secondo paragrafo mi concentro invece sui temi delle origini psicologiche del misconoscimento e del «negativo», rispetto ai quali, in una serie di articoli pubblicati tra il 2001 e il 2002, Honneth compie diverse messe a punto della sua concezione, con esiti talvolta problematici. Nel paragrafo successivo considero infine la fase più recente delle riflessioni psico-analitiche honnethiane, che è anche la più vicina al programma della prima generazione di teorici critici francofortesi: qui Honneth rivolge la sua attenzione alle condizioni psicologiche individuali della cittadinanza democratica, giungendo a una interessante sistematizzazione delle sue prospettive. Tuttavia, come proverò a mostrare nelle conclusioni, tali riflessioni sarebbero state condotte alle loro coerenti conseguenze politiche e sociali solo se, nell’esporle, Honneth avesse messo a tema anche le necessarie condizioni sostantive – di tipo materiale, relazionale e culturale – che, per preservare una disposizione alla democrazia e al pensiero critico, andrebbero assicurate nella società a tutti i cittadini. (shrink)

New sciences born or developed in the 20th century (information, materials, life science) are based on forms of complementarity that differ from the past. The paper discusses cognitive, or disciplinary, institutional, and technical complementarity. It argues that new sciences apply a reductionist explanatory strategy to complex multi-layered systems. In doing so the reductionist promise is falsified, generating the need for multi-level kinds of explanation (e.g. in post-genomic molecular biology), new forms of complementarity between scientific and non-scientific organizations, and new forms (...) of experimental and informational facilities. The paper develops the argument in theoretical terms, comparing it with the STS literature, and offers preliminary evidence based on the experience of Networks of Excellence. (shrink)

I discuss the epistemic status of algorithmic predictions in the legal realm. My main claim is that algorithmic predictions do not give us knowledge, not even probabilistic knowledge. The situation, however, is relevantly different from the one in which we find ourselves at the time of assessing statistical evidence in general, and it is rather related to the fact that algorithmic fairness in legal contexts is essentially undetermined. In the light of this, we have to settle for justified beliefs and (...) justified credences. I end by drawing some morals for the Knowledge Norm of action. (shrink)

The article addresses the issue of dynamics of science, in particular of new sciences born in twentieth century and developed after the Second World War (information science, materials science, life science). The article develops the notion of search regime as an abstract characterization of dynamic patterns, based on three dimensions: the rate of growth, the degree of internal diversity of science and the associated dynamics (convergent vs. proliferating), and the nature of complementarity. The article offers a conceptual discussion for the (...) argument that new sciences follow a different pattern than established sciences and presents preliminary evidence drawn from original data in particle physics, computer science and nanoscience. (shrink)

What should citizens understand about science to participate in democratic life? Against the prevailing approach, we argue that “what” a public understanding of science is about strongly depends on the specific epistemological nature of the science related issues considered in different contexts and circumstances. We identify three specific categories of such issues and show how, equally, specific models of public understanding are required to address them. Only by endorsing such an alternative approach will citizens arguably be able to form sound (...) opinions about those very issues, as well as to discuss and deliberate rationally about them. (shrink)

Epistemic transparency tells us that, if an agent S knows a given proposition p , then S knows that she knows that p . This idea is usually encoded in the so-called KK principle of epistemic logic. The paper develops an argument in favor of a moderate version of KK , which I dub quasi-transparency , as a normative rather than a descriptive principle. In the second Section I put forward the suggestion that epistemic transparency is not a demand of (...) ideal rationality, but of ideal epistemic responsibility, and hence that ideally responsible agents verify transparency principles of some sort; I also contend that their satisfaction should not be tied to an internalist epistemology. The central argument in favor of transparency is then addressed in Sections 3 to 8, through the development of a formal system. I show that, in a well-behaved formal setting, a moderate version of transparency is imposed upon us as a result of a number of independent decisions on the structure of higher-order probabilities, as long as we request that our probability and knowledge attributions cohere with each other. Thus I give a rationale to build a model for a hierarchy of languages with different levels of knowledge and probability operators; we obtain an analogous to KK for successive knowledge operators without actually demanding transitivity. The formal argument reinforces the philosophical intuition that epistemic transparency is an important desideratum we should not be too ready to dismiss. (shrink)

Other-perspective taking, distancing, time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion highly affect decision-making. Even though they influence each other, so far these cognitive processes have been unrelated or only partly related to each other in neuroscience. This article proposes a philosophical interpretation of these cognitive processes that is elaborated in the updated theory of Adam Smith’s prudence. The UTSP is inspired by Smith’s account of prudence and is in line with the neuroscientific and behavioral studies on OPT, distancing, (...) time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion. The UTSP represents a framework aiming to interpret and connect these cognitive processes and providing a consistent and empirically sound account of a “Smithianly” prudent style of decision-making. The two pillars of the UTSP are the shift of perspective in space and time and loss aversion. On the basis of this theory, a normative updated theory of Smithian prudence is outlined. The latter is useful for moral philosophy for two reasons: firstly, according to preliminary evidence, it is effective in guiding the agent in decisional contexts in which her well-being is at stake and she can affect other people with her actions. Secondly, since the NUTSP is based on neuroscientific findings on decision-making, it has a sound empirical basis that prevents a source of alienation for the agent. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the treatment of prudence by Adam Smith. Smith was one of the few philosophers to conceive of it as a moral virtue. Smithian prudence is the care of one's own happiness that is limited and ennobled, respectively, by the sense of justice and that of self-command. A reconstruction of Smith's view of prudence helps to clarify three central points in his thought: the interaction between the agent's economic and moral dimensions, the relationship between the self and (...) the other, and the dialectical tension between partiality and impartiality. Furthermore, Smithian prudence is important, in itself, as an approach to the above-mentioned points that is still viable. These three points are recurrent crucial issues in the history of ethics. (shrink)

During the era of the English Revolutions and shortly after that, some spaces, albeit limited, of female visibility open up. Thanks to the window of opportunity caused by the collapse of censorship, the participation in the radical sects and in the Civil war, some remarkable women succeed in introducing themselves in the public sphere, shaping it since its very genesis. Moreover, analysing law institutions as jointure and feoffment, the attempt is to reconstruct some fragments of juridical female autonomy, which belie (...) the total pervasiveness of coverture in the XVII century. As in private law, in public law women, in the role of queens, gain centrality: the principle of female authority, while safeguards the holding of the monarchical regime, destabilizes its patriarchal structure. Going through the works of Katherine Chidley, Margaret Cavendish, Damaris Masham and Mary Astell, the essay aims at reconstructing women's public voice, a voice which upsets the consolidated frames and subverts the established positions, questioning the same social hierarchies. (shrink)

En este trabajo argumento a favor de la idea de que una explicación científica es una respuesta a una pregunta, aunque no necesariamente a una pregunta-por-qué. Esto no quiere decir que las preguntas-por-qué no sean elementos fundamentales de toda investigación científica: su importancia radica en que son capaces de organizar y sistematizar un conjunto dado de creencias. Para justificar esta afirmación, comienzo por identificar tres estadios básicos en los cuales pueden surgir preguntas-por-qué, y luego procedo a caracterizar su estructura. Muestro (...) finalmente cómo usar este análisis para elucidar la noción de poder de unificación de hipótesis rivales. Entiendo que esta última noción, a su vez, constituye uno de los criterios que debemos considerar a la hora de evaluar cuál de dichas hipótesis rivales es la mejor explicación disponible, comparativamente hablando. In this paper I take scientific explanations to be answers to questions, though not necessarily to why-questions. This, however, is not meant to imply that why-questions are not fundamental in their own peculiar way. As I understand it, why-questions are crucial elements in any research process because they are able to organize and systematize an agent's belief set. In order to justify my claim I start by identifying three basic stages in which whyquestions can arise, and then I proceed to characterize their structure. I also show how to use this analysis to elucidate the notion of comparative unification power of rival hypotheses. The notion of comparative unification power, in turn, can be thought of as one of the criteria that we should take into account at the time of assessing which of such rival hypotheses is the best explanation available, comparatively speaking. (shrink)

Cet article se réfère au cours de Heidegger du semestre d’hiver 1942-1943, consacré au poème Sur la nature de Parménide, afin de mettre en évidence la différence qui se produit quand, avec la romanité, la vérité – qui pour les Grecs est l’autre nom du πόλεμος – est reformulée comme « rectitude ». Le regard est centré sur la portée éthique de cette transposition de la vérité dans le domaine d’expérience de la romanité. Ce travail vise à montrer, à partir (...) de l’analyse de Heidegger, comment cette transposition dans une autre sphère d’expérience a signifié un écart entre la vérité et l’éthique. (shrink)