Este artículo delimita las principales tendencias de la crítica literaria feminista en el periodo 1980-2023. Mediante la investigación bibliográfica y el análisis documental, se caracterizan y analizan cinco modalidades específicas del trabajo crítico, realizado en el marco de los estudios literarios centroamericanos contemporáneos, a saber: (a.) las biografías y los estudios históricos sobre escritoras centroamericanas, (b.) las antologías de literatura escrita por mujeres, (c.) las traducciones de literatura femenina (d.) los trabajos monográficos, comparativos y de análisis de casos concretos y (...) (e.) las entradas de diccionarios a propósito de autoras regionales. (shrink)

Medical communication in Western-oriented countries is dominated by concepts of shared decision-making and patient autonomy. In interactions with Roma patients, these behavioral patterns rarely seem to be achieved because the culture and ethnicity have often been shown as barriers in establishing an effective and satisfying doctor–patient relationship. The study aims to explore the Roma’s beliefs and experiences related to autonomy and decision-making process in the case of a disease with poor prognosis. Forty-eight Roma people from two Romanian counties participated in (...) semi-structured interviews, conducted by a research team from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Iasi. Participants were recruited among the chronically ill patients and caregivers. The Roma community opposes informing the terminal patients about their condition, the “silence conspiracy” being widely practiced. The family fully undertakes the right of decision making, thus minimizing the patient’s autonomy. We identified ethical dilemmas concerning autonomy, lack of patients’ real decision-making power, and paternalistic attitudes exerted firstly by the family and, on demand, by the physician. Instead, the Roma patient benefits from a very active support network, being accompanied at the hospital by numerous relatives. The patient’s right to make autonomous decisions promoted in the Western countries and stipulated by the Romanian law has diminished value in the Roma community. For the Roma, the understanding of dignity is not simply individual and personal, but it is closely related to their cultural particularities. Ignoring their cultural values could create conflicts between healthcare providers and community. (shrink)

In order to assure optimal care of patients with chronic illnesses, it is necessary to take into account the cultural factors that may influence health-related behaviors, health practices, and health-seeking behavior. Despite the increasing number of Romanian Roma, research regarding their beliefs and practices related to healthcare is rather poor. The aim of this paper is to present empirical evidence of specificities in the practice of healthcare among Romanian Roma patients and their caregivers. Using a qualitative exploratory descriptive design, this (...) study is based on data gathered through three focus groups with 30 health mediators in the counties of Iasi and Cluj (Romania). We identified various barriers to access to healthcare for Roma patients: lack of financial resources and health insurance coverage, lack of cognitive resources or lack of personal hygiene, but also important cultural issues, such as the shame of being ill, family function, disclosure of disease-related information, patient’s autonomy, attitudes towards illness and health practices, that should be considered in order to create a culturally sensitive environment in Romanian medical facilities:… The role of the health mediators within the context of cultural diversity is also discussed, as cultural brokers contributing to health care quality among Romanian Roma patients Bridging cultural differences may improve patient–healthcare provider relationships, but may have limited impact in reducing ethnic disparities, unless coupled with efforts of Roma communities to get involved in creating and implementing health policies. (shrink)

A patient suffering from a severe illness that is entering its terminal stage is forced to develop a coping process. Of all the coping patterns, the religious one stands out as being a psychological resource available to all patients regardless of culture, learning, and any age. Religious coping interacts with other values or practices of society, for example the model of a society that takes care of it's elder members among family or in an institutionalized environment or the way the (...) health system offers or not psychological support for a terminally ill patient. Health care providers should have at least some psychological coping patterns training because not all patterns of religious coping are equally effective, and some have been described as increasing the level of stress or producing other negative psychological effects on the patient. This article aims to review the complex models of religious coping that are unanimously accepted in psychooncology, arguments in favor of religious coping, the types of patients that use this model, ethical dilemmas that could be reinterpreted using religious arguments. Finally, we will also discuss the need of Romanian patients to embrace a religious coping in case of an incurable illness, and also the support that they can receive from both curative and palliative health care providers.  . (shrink)

This volume uses the art of Rome to help us understand the radical historical break between the fundamental ancient pre-supposition that there is a natural world or cosmos situating human life, and the equally fundamental modern emphasis on human imagination and its creative power. Rome's unique art history reveals a different side of the battle between ancients and moderns than that usually raised as an issue in the history of science and philosophy. The book traces the idea of a cosmos (...) in pre-modern art in Rome, from the reception of Greek art in the Roman republic to the construction of the Pantheon, to early Christian art and architecture. It then sketches the disappearance of the presupposition of a cosmos in the High Renaissance and Baroque periods, as creativity became a new ideal. Through discussions of the art and architecture that defines proto-modern Rome- from Michelangelo's terribilita' in the Sistine Chapel, Caravaggio's realism, Baroque illusionism, the infinities of Borromini's architecture, to the Grand Tour's representations of ruins- through an interpretation of such major issues and works, this book shows how modern art liberates us while leaving us feeling estranged from our grounding in the natural world. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, architectural history, classics, philosophy, and early modern history and culture. (shrink)

Advance directives, a set of written instructions that a person gives that specify what actions should be taken for their health if they are no longer able to make decisions due to illness or incapacity, are a well-implemented tool in America, but few European countries have specific provisions about them in the law. Significant differences exist regarding the way advance directives are regulated and implemented between countries. The authors analyze the attitudes of several professional categories in Romania and Lithuania towards (...) the advance directive using data obtained by conducting several interviews in Lithuania and a focus group in Romania. Both Romania and Lithuania are post-communist, now European Union member countries. All respondents thought that advance directives should be introduced in the law, but their social acceptance is expected to be low in Lithuania. (shrink)

Rarement oeuvre littéraire aura autant pâti de l'éclat ­ des éclats ­ de son auteur. En effet, si George Sand bénéficie aujourd'hui d'une cote de popularité exceptionnelle parmi les personnalités qui ont marqué le XIXe siècle, ce n'est certes pas en raison de la réputation peu flatteuse qui s'attache à une production romanesque riche de plusieurs dizaines de titres. Les romans de Sand demeurent pour une large part mal aimés ­ trop vite jugés fades ou simplistes ­ mais ils sont (...) surtout .. (shrink)

Among the theses that for centuries have ensured Niccolò Machiavelli an ambiguous fame, a special place goes to his extremely positive opinion of social conflicts, and, more in particular, to the claim that in ancient Rome 'the disunion between the plebs and the Roman senate made that republic free and powerful'. Contrary to a long tradition that had always highly valued civic concord, Machiavelli thought that - at least under certain conditions - internecine discord could be a source of strength (...) and not of weakness, and built upon this daring proposition an original vision of political order. Machiavelli in Tumult is the first book-length study entirely devoted to analyzing this idea, its ancient roots, its enduring influence up until the American and the French Revolution, and its relevance for contemporary political theory. (shrink)

Philologus, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the field of Classics. It publishes articles on Greek and Latin literature, historiography, philosophy, history of religion, linguistics, reception, and the history of scholarship. The journal aims to contribute to our understanding of Greco-Roman culture and its lasting influence on European civilization. The journal Philologus, conceived as a forum for discussion among different methodological approaches to the study of ancient texts and their reception, publishes original scholarly (...) contributions with a strong international focus. Publications languages are: German, English, Italian, French. As of 2014 the publication of supplementary volumes will be resumed. The series Philologus. Supplemente / Philologus. Supplementary Volumes will publish monographs and edited volumes pertaining to all aspects of the study of ancient literature and its reception, with a special focus on topics concerning literary theory, philosophy and the history of scholarship from an interdisciplinary perspective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rediscovering the Imprecatory Psalms:A Thomistic ApproachGabriel Torretta O.P.WHILE DEBATING the structure of the new Liturgy of the Hours, some members of the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy (Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia) drew attention to certain so-called imprecatory psalms1 that contained material they deemed problematic for the modern person of prayer, describing the passages as “offensive to modern sensibilities”2 and arguing that (...) the “spiritual discomfort caused by expressions of anger and revenge... is felt especially by the younger people and by those who say the Office in the vernacular.”3 After a great deal of debate about whether these concerns justified the removal of certain psalms from the Liturgy of the Hours,4 Pope Paul VI decreed that “a selection be made of psalms better suited to Christian prayer and that the imprecatory and historical psalms be omitted,” without further [End Page 23] specification.5 To this end, 120 verses were omitted from the Liturgy of the Hours text,6 comprising three whole psalms and additional verses from nineteen others.7 In explaining the decision, the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours makes the following statement:Three psalms (58[57], 83[82], and 109[108]) have been omitted from the Psalter cycle because of their curses; in the same way, some verses have been omitted from certain psalms, as noted at the head of each. The reason for the omission is a certain psychological difficulty, even though the psalms of imprecation are in fact used as prayer in the New Testament, for example, Rv 6:10, and in no sense to encourage the use of curses.8The concern about the suitability of certain strident verses from the Psalter for contemporary prayer noted in this passage [End Page 24] is not limited to texts for Roman Catholic worship; the current editions of the United Methodist Hymnal, the Revised Common Lectionary, and the Episcopal Sunday Lectionary have also omitted certain of the imprecatory psalms and edited out a number of verses in others.9 A question naturally emerges from this common concern about imprecation in public prayer: Does the “psychological difficulty” raised by certain passages of the Psalter mean that Christians cannot or may not any longer pray the psalms of imprecation publically?This question, pressing as it may be for compilers of liturgical books and those who recite the Psalter as part of their daily lives of prayer, has been surprisingly neglected in the scholarly realm. A handful of articles throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has addressed different aspects of imprecation in the Scriptures,10 and three short monographs have attempted to provide a theological interpretation of the imprecatory psalms, with an eye to their use in preaching.11 Moreover, in response to Pope Benedict’s discussion of the [End Page 25] “dark” passages of the Bible in Verbum Domini,12 another recent book has attempted to provide a hermeneutic for Scripture’s most difficult passages, although without particularly focusing on the Psalter or imprecation.13 Although often limited in its scope, this body of scholarship has provided many fruitful insights into the historical-critical context and contemporary relevance of the psalms; a notable lacuna, however, is a treatment of major figures from the Christian theological tradition who have engaged seriously with the issue of imprecation.To begin to address this lacuna, this article will examine Thomas Aquinas’s use of the imprecatory psalms and verses that have been omitted from the contemporary Liturgy of the Hours, as a way to understand the place of imprecation in prayer in the concrete practices of the Church today. I argue that Thomas’s multi-layered, literal hermeneutic of imprecation in the Scriptures provides a theological and practical foundation for a much-needed reappropriation of the imprecatory psalms in the public liturgy of the Church. To see why this is so, I will first elaborate the status quaestionis in contemporary scholarship, then I will trace Thomas’s theology of imprecation through his commentary on relevant psalms, and lastly I will address the relevance of Thomas’s theory for the present day.I. Imprecation... (shrink)

Dao Cao Dai (Caodaism in English) is the third largest religion in Viet Nam (after Buddhism and Roman Catholicism).

Spiders have always fascinated humankind as whilst they are often reviled, their product, the web and its silk, are commonly viewed in awe. As such, silks’ material properties and the fear and fascination surrounding the animals that spin it are seen to play an important role in the development of many cultures and societies. More recently this is even more so with the formalization of this inspiration in scientific and technical communities through biomimetics. The aim of this work is to (...) reflect on the beginnings of our relationship with silk and discuss concepts associated with spider silks and webs in ancient Greek and Roman times whilst comparing this with our current understanding of the field. In this way, ancient texts, namely Greek and Latin ones, are found to intersect with modern advanced disciplines, ranging from architecture to medicine to physics. This allows us not only to understand how natural observation has evolved from antiquity to today, but also how such a highly interdisciplinary research network has been spun by some shared conceptual threads. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl devoted much attention to the analysis of internal time consciousness beginning as early as the turn of the twentieth-century. His various notes and lectures were left unorganized and unpublished until Husserl's capable assistants were given the responsibility of organizing his work for publication. This paper provides a social and philosophical account of the redaction of Husserl's materials on time consciousness as it involved the activity of his famous assistants Edith Stein, Roman Ingarden and Martin Heidegger. Special attention is (...) given to the way that both Stein and Heidegger appropriated Husserl's work and at the same time challenged fundamental elements of the master's phenomenology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A NOTE ON THE RELATION OF PACIFISM AND JUST-WAR THEORY: IS THERE A THOMISTIC CONVERGENCE? 1 GABRIEL PALMER-FERNANDEZ Youngstown State University Youngstown, Ohio FOR CENTURIES, the moral analysis of war began with a consideration of a set of principles which together form the doctrine of the just-war and with a rejection of pacifism. However, several recent studies by Catholic moralists argue that pacifism and just-war theory have much (...) in common and converge in at least one morally important way-namely, they share a presumption against violence. In this note I want to consider whether or not classical just-war theory gives us reason to accept this claim. I will give evidence against it, and suggest that the "original just-war question," as James Turner Johnson calls it, does not begin with aprohibitive presumption or some equivalent constraint on action. If we are to speak of a presumption in classical just-war theory, it is that justice be done for the sake of the common good. Up to very recent times, those Christian denominations which Ernst Troeltsch called the "church-type" (Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist, and Roman Catholic) upheld a " two-tiered " or "double" morality. A "vocational" pacifism was required of clerical ranks, and the individual Christian was obligated to take up arms for the sake of the common good. For example, prior to the Second Vatican Council, Roman Catholic teaching on war rejected conscientious objection to all war (i.e., pacifism) as an option for Catholics. Manuals of moral theology prior to Vatican 1 I wish to acknowledge the very helpful and detailed comments provided by Richard B. Miller to an earlier version of this paper. 247 248 GABRIEL PALMER-FERNANDEZ II did prohibit the soldier from fighting in an unjust war and made room for subjective doubt about the justice of a particular war. But the consensus among Catholic theologians was both wide and deep. Pacifism for individual Christians did not have any moral-theological justification. It was, in fact, a grave moral error. In spite of this, Vatican II called for a " completely fresh reappraisal of war." 2 The policy of obliterating whole cities enacted during World War II, coupled with the development of nuclear and other indiscriminate weapons of destruction (e.g., incapacitating gases, biological weapons, etc.) and the instability of superpower relations, created an unprecedented condition for which traditional teachings on war seemed woefully inadequate, if not morally dangerous. A new, more far-reaching perspective was needed. And this was to allow for individuals the pacifist option as a second and complementary moral doctrine alongside traditional teaching on war.3 As the American Catholic bishops said in their pastoral letter on war and peace : 2 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, in A. Flannery, 0.P., ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Collegeville, Minn. : Liturgical Press, 1975), par. 80. 3 This development in contemporary Roman Catholic teaching on war and peace has been challenged with considerable force by George Weigel in what has become one of the most controversial studies on the subject. In Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), Weigel advances several arguments which are meant to correct what he insists is a failure among Catholic ethicists in the U.S. to develop their tradition, and, indeed, an abandonment of their heritage. " At the level of moral theory," Weigel maintains, "the two classic positions [just-war theory and pacifism] are not reconcilable. The attempt to merge them... tends to corrupt both traditions. Pacifists end up making judgments on military strategy and tactics, and just-war theorists are held accountable to arguments they previously declined to accept.... The net result is to bifurcate morality and politics, and to abandon attempts to apply the tradition of reason to the limit case of the use of armed force in the defense of values-which is precisely the result Murray most feared in his strictures against moralism" (251). For David Hollenbach's rebuttal, see his review essay, "War and Peace in American Catholic Thought: A Heritage Abandoned? " Theological Studies 48 (1987) : 711-727... (shrink)

Jean-Luc MARION, De surcroît. Études sur les phénomènes saturés ; Magda KING, A Guide to Heidegger’s Being and Time ; Andreas MICHEL, Die französische Heidegger-Rezeption und ihre sprachlichen Konsequenzen ; Alfred DENKER, Historical Dictionary of Heidegger’s Philosophy ; John B. BROUGH & Lester EMBREE, The Many Faces of Time ; Daniel O. DAHLSTROM, Heidegger’s Concept of Truth ; Cristina LAFONT, Heidegger, Language, And World-Disclosure ; Eliane ESCOUBAS & Bernhard WALDENFELS, Phénoménologie française et phénoménologie allemande ; Eckard WOLZ-GOTTWALD, Transformation der Phänomenologie. (...) Zur Mystik bei Husserl und Heidegger ; Martin HEIDEGGER, Ontology – The Hermeneutics of Facticity ; Arkadiusz CHRUDZIMSKI, Die Erkenntnistheorie von Roman Ingarden ; Jocelyn BENOIST, L’apriori conceptuel. Bolzano, Husserl, Schlick ; Dennis King KEENAN, Death and Responsibility. The “Work” of Levinas ; Dan ZAHAVI, Self-awareness, Temporality, and Alterity. Central Topics in Phenomenology ; Sonya SIKKA, Forms of Transcendence. Heidegger and Medieval Mystical Theology ; Alfred DENKER, Omdat filosoferen leven is. Een archeologie van Martin Heideggers Sein und Zeit; Seán HAND, The Levinas Reader ; ; Ion MINCÃ, Informatica şi teoria cunoaşterii. O paradigmã fenomenologicã a domeniului hardware ; John van BUREN, The Young Heidegger. Rumor of the Hidden King. (shrink)

L'auteur se propose de comparer la theorie de I'homme de saint Thomas d'Aquin et de Gabriel Marcel. II est interessant de faire une comparaison entre ces deux penseurs, car la philosophie de Gabriel Marcel est souvent pergue comme un nouveau type de philosophie chretienne. On dit parfois que la philosophie de ce dernier est beaucoup plus proche de I'homme contemporain que ne l'est celle de Thomas d'Aquin.

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} O presente artigo aborda dois tópicos específicos em ética: o problema dos conflitos morais em filosofia e a questáo da consistência em teorias morais. A relaçáo entre conflitos morais e consistência moral estabelecida neste trabalho foi realizada graças à natureza de alguns tipos de conflitos morais, a saber: os (...) insolúveis ou genuínos - que seráo explicados ao longo do trabalho. Conflitos desse tipo sáo capazes de causar inconsistências nas normas de certos sistemas morais, como por exemplo, os preponderantemente racionalistas. Partindo desse problema, os autores que se dispõe a trabalhar este tema demonstram opiniões divididas: alguns optam por defender a genuinidade dos conflitos morais insolúveis e consideram as eventuais inconsistências na teoria moral como secundárias, enquanto outros optam por salvaguardar a lógica do pensamento e das teorias morais, negando os conflitos morais insolúveis. Este artigo busca esboçar tal “divisáo” entre os autores, ao explorar brevemente as argumentações de ambas as partes. Por fim, fica demonstrado que uma discussáo sobre consistência e conflitos morais precisa considerar tanto a esfera metaética quanto a esfera normativa da ética. (shrink)

This book validates the claim that the process of reproduction of social inequalities in teacher education is not a perfect, static process, but on the contrary, the real “seeds of transformation” within teacher education departments are abundant.

This paper looks at philosophical questions that arise in the context of AI alignment. It defends three propositions. First, normative and technical aspects of the AI alignment problem are interrelated, creating space for productive engagement between people working in both domains. Second, it is important to be clear about the goal of alignment. There are significant differences between AI that aligns with instructions, intentions, revealed preferences, ideal preferences, interests and values. A principle-based approach to AI alignment, which combines these elements (...) in a systematic way, has considerable advantages in this context. Third, the central challenge for theorists is not to identify ‘true’ moral principles for AI; rather, it is to identify fair principles for alignment that receive reflective endorsement despite widespread variation in people’s moral beliefs. The final part of the paper explores three ways in which fair principles for AI alignment could potentially be identified. (shrink)

Those who wish to claim that all facts about grounding are themselves grounded (“the meta-grounding thesis”) must defend against the charge that such a claim leads to infinite regress and violates the well-foundedness of ground. In this paper, we defend. First, we explore three distinct but related notions of “well-founded”, which are often conflated, and three corresponding notions of infinite regress. We explore the entailment relations between these notions. We conclude that the meta-grounding thesis need not lead to tension with (...) any of the three notions of “well-founded”. Finally, we explore the details of and motivations for further conditions on ground that one might add to generate a conflict between the meta-grounding thesis and a well-founded constraint. We explore these topics by developing and utilizing a formal framework based on the notion of a grounding structure. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a philosophy and a social movement that aims to revolutionise the way we do philanthropy. It encourages individuals to do as much good as possible, typically by contributing money to the best-performing aid and development organisations. Surprisingly, this approach has met with considerable resistance among activists and aid providers who argue that effective altruism is insensitive to justice insofar as it overlooks the value of equality, urgency and rights. They also hold that the movement suffers from methodological (...) bias, reaching mistaken conclusions about how best to act for that reason. Finally, concerns have been raised about the ability of effective altruism to achieve systemic change. This article weighs the force of each objection in turn, and looks at responses to the challenge they pose. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell offered an influential paradox of propositions in Appendix B of The Principles of Mathematics, but there is little agreement as to what to conclude from it. We suggest that Russell's paradox is best regarded as a limitative result on propositional granularity. Some propositions are, on pain of contradiction, unable to discriminate between classes with different members: whatever they predicate of one, they predicate of the other. When accepted, this remarkable fact should cast some doubt upon some of the (...) uses to which modern descendente of Russell's paradox of propositions have been put in recent literature. (shrink)

Ground offers the hope of vindicating and illuminating an classic philosophical idea: the layered conception, according to which reality is structured by relations of dependence, with physical phenomena on the bottom, upon which chemistry, then biology, and psychology reside. However, ground can only make good on this promise if it is appropriately formally behaved. The paradigm of good formal behavior can be found in the currently dominant grounding orthodoxy, which holds that ground is transitive, antisymmetric, irreflexive, and foundational. However, heretics (...) have recently challenged the orthodoxy. In this paper, I examine ground’s ability to vindicate the layered conception upon various relaxations of the orthodox assumptions. I argue that highly unorthodox views of ground can still vindicate the layered conception and that, in some ways, the heretical views enable ground to better serve as a guide to reality’s layering than do orthodox views of ground. (shrink)

Groups are ubiquitous in our lives. But while some of them are highly structured and appear to support a shared intentionality and even a shared agency, others are much less cohesive and do not seem to demand much of their individual members. Queues, for example, seem to be, at a given time, nothing over and above some individuals as they exemplify a certain spatial arrangement. Indeed, the main aim of this paper is to develop the more general thought that at (...) a given time, a group is nothing over and above some individual members as they exemplify a certain complex condition. The general conception of groups that emerges is able to accommodate a variety of constraints on a reasonable answer to the question of what are groups. (shrink)

I would like to discuss the claim that the resources of plural reference and plural quantification are sufficient for the purpose of paraphrasing all ordinary statements apparently concerned with composite material objects into plural statements concerned exclusively with simples.

Philosophers often explain what could be the case in terms of what is, in fact, the case at one possible world or another. They may differ in what they take possible worlds to be or in their gloss of what is for something to be the case at a possible world. Still, they stand united by the threat of paradox. A family of paradoxes akin to the set-theoretic antinomies seem to allow one to derive a contradiction from apparently plausible principles. (...) Some of them concern the interaction between propositions and worlds, and they appear to afford the means to map classes of propositions into propositions – or, likewise, classes of worlds into worlds – in a one-to-one fashion that leads to contradiction. Yet another family of paradoxes threaten the view that whatever could exist does, in fact, exist, which is in line with modal realism, for example. This article aims to survey and identify the source of each family of paradoxes as well as to outline some responses to them. (shrink)

When viewed as the most comprehensive theory of collections, set theory leaves no room for classes. But the vocabulary of classes, it is argued, provides us with compact and, sometimes, irreplaceable formulations of largecardinal hypotheses that are prominent in much very important and very interesting work in set theory. Fortunately, George Boolos has persuasively argued that plural quantification over the universe of all sets need not commit us to classes. This paper suggests that we retain the vocabulary of classes, but (...) explain that what appears to be singular reference to classes is, in fact, covert plural reference to sets. (shrink)

This paper takes a close look at the thought that mereological relations on material objects mirror, and are mirrored by, parallel mereological relations on their exact locations. This hypothesis is made more precise by means of a battery of principles from which more substantive consequences are derived. Mereological harmony turns out to entail, for example, that atomistic space is an inhospitable environment for material gunk or that Whiteheadian space is not a hospitable environment for unextended material atoms.

ABSTRACT This essay has three goals. The first is to introduce the notion of fundamentality and to argue that physicalism can usefully be conceived of as a thesis about fundamentality. The second is to argue for the advantages of fundamentality physicalism over modal formulations and that fundamentality physicalism is what many who endorse modal formulations of physicalism had in mind all along. Third, I describe what I take to be the main obstacle for a fundamentality-oriented formulation of physicalism: ‘the problem (...) of abstracta’, which asks how physical can accommodate phenomena such as mathematics and universals, and which modal formulations do not face. I canvas three solutions: the inapt for ground solution, the concrete restriction, and the contingency restriction. (shrink)

Warfare is becoming increasingly automated, from automatic missile defense systems to micro-UAVs (WASPs) that can maneuver through urban environments with ease, and each advance brings with it ethical questions in need of resolving. Proponents of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) provide varied arguments in their favor; robots are capable of better identifying combatants and civilians, thus reducing "collateral damage"; robots need not protect themselves and so can incur more risks to protect innocents or gather more information before using deadly force; (...) robots can assess situations more quickly and do so without emotion, reducing the likelihood of fatal mistakes due to human error; and sending robots to war protects our own soldiers from harm. However, these arguments only point in favor of autonomous weapons systems, failing to demonstrate why such systems need be made *lethal*. In this paper I argue that if one grants all of the proponents' points in favor of LAWS, then, contrary to what might be expected, this leads to the conclusion that it would be both immoral and illegal to deploy *lethal* autonomous weapons, because the many features that speak in favor of them also undermine the need for them to be programmed to take lives. In particular, I argue that such systems, if lethal, would violate the moral and legal principle of necessity, which forbids the use of weapons that impose superfluous injury or unnecessary harm. I conclude by highlighting that the argument is not against autonomous weapons per se, but only against *lethal* autonomous weapons. (shrink)

Confirmation bias has been widely studied for its role in failures of reasoning. Individuals exhibiting confirmation bias fail to engage with information that contradicts their current beliefs, and, as a result, can fail to abandon inaccurate beliefs. But although most investigations of confirmation bias focus on individual learning, human knowledge is typically developed within a social structure. We use network models to show that moderate confirmation bias often improves group learning. However, a downside is that a stronger form of confirmation (...) bias can hurt the knowledge producing capacity of the community. (shrink)

The doctrine that whatever could exist does exist leads to a proliferation of possibly concrete objects given certain principles of recombination. If, for example, there could have been a large infinite number of concrete objects, then there is at least the same number of possibly concrete objects in existence. And further cardinality considerations point to a tension between the preceding doctrine and the Cantorian conception of the absolutely infinite. This paper develops a parallel problem for a variety of possible worlds (...) accounts of modality which eschew the commitment to a plethora of possibly concrete objects. Moreover, the difficulty is importantly different from more familiar threats of paradox exemplified by certain descendants of Russell's paradox of propositions and Kaplan's paradox. (shrink)

This biography of Emil du Bois-Reymond, the most important forgotten intellectual of the nineteenth century, received an Honorable Mention for History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at the 2013 PROSE Awards, was shortlisted for the 2014 John Pickstone Prize (Britain's most prestigious award for the best scholarly book in the history of science), and was named by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as one of the Best Books of 2014. -/- In his own time (1818–1896) du Bois-Reymond (...) grew famous for his groundbreaking research in neuroscience and his provocative addresses on politics and culture. His discovery of the electrical transmission of nerve signals, his innovations in laboratory instrumentation, and his reductionist methodology all helped lay the foundations of modern neuroscience. -/- In addition to describing the pioneering experiments that earned du Bois-Reymond a seat in the Prussian Academy of Sciences and a professorship at the University of Berlin, this book also recounts du Bois-Reymond’s family origins, private life, public service, and lasting influence. In talks that touched on science, philosophy, history, and literature, du Bois-Reymond introduced Darwin to German students (triggering two days of debate in the Prussian parliament), asked on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War whether France had forfeited its right to exist, and proclaimed the mystery of consciousness, heralding the age of doubt. The first modern biography in any language, "Emil du Bois-Reymond" recovers an important chapter in the history of science, the history of ideas, and the history of Germany. (shrink)

I present a puzzle for absolutely unrestricted quantification. One important advantage of absolutely unrestricted quantification is that it allows us to entertain perfectly general theories. Whereas most of our theories restrict attention to one or another parcel of reality, other theories are genuinely comprehensive taking absolutely all objects into their domain. The puzzle arises when we notice that absolutely unrestricted theories sometimes impose incompatible constraints on the size of the universe.

Identity is a modally inflexible relation: two objects are necessarily identical or necessarily distinct. However, identity is not alone in this respect. We will look at the relation that one object bears to some objects if and only if it is one of them. In particular, we will consider the credentials of the thesis that no matter what some objects are, an object is necessarily one of them or necessarily not one of them.

Do mereological fusions have their parts necessarily? None of the axioms of non-modal formulations of classical mereology appear to speak directly to this question. And yet a great many philosophers who take the part-whole relation to be governed by classical mereology seem to assume that they do. In addition to this, many philosophers who make allowance for the part-whole relation to obtain merely contingently between a part and a mereological fusion tend to depart from non-modal formulations of classical mereology at (...) least when it comes to the axiom of Unique Fusion, which states that no two different mereological fusions ever fuse exactly the same objects. This is no coincidence. There are reasons of principle why one’s adherence to classical mereology should exert some pull towards the view that mereological fusions have their parts necessarily. There is, however, no direct route from the combination of classical mereology and propositional modal logic to the hypothesis that the part-whole relation obtains necessarily between a part and a mereological fusion. In order to bridge between a modal formulation of classical mereology and the hypothesis that fusions have their parts necessarily, one needs to strengthen the axiom of Unrestricted Fusion in a way that is agreeable to many philosophers on both sides of the debate. (shrink)

We shall introduce in this paper a language whose formulas will be interpreted by games of imperfect information. Such games will be defined in the same way as the games for first-order formulas except that the players do not have complete information of the earlier course of the game. Some simple logical properties of these games will be stated together with the relation of such games of imperfect information to higher-order logic. Finally, a set of applications will be outlined.

In this paper, I first explore Hegel’s own distinctions between various types of idealism, most of which he explicitly rejects. I discuss his notions of subjective, transcendental and absolute idealism and present the outlines of his criticisms of the first two as well as the motivation behind his commitment to a version of absolute idealism. In particular, I argue that the latter does not share the defining features of what is now commonly called ‘idealism’, as Hegel neither denies the existence (...) of an external world nor even holds that we can only somehow indirectly infer the truth of propositions about the external world from the structure of some given mental material. I give a basic account of what Hegel’s concept of ‘the absolute idea’ is about, which lies behind his absolute idealism. In this context, I maintain that it is crucial for our understanding of Hegel and of his potential relevance for contemporary metaphysics and epistemology that the absolute idea is precisely not a mental or ‘spiritual’ (geistig) entity. Rather, it amounts to a set of methodological assumptions designed to guarantee the overall intelligibility of what there is, regardless of its actual natural, social or more broadly normative structure. (shrink)