Lange war die philosophische Mediävistik über die Lehre und Person des in die universitären Verurteilungen von 1210 und 1215 verwickelten Magister David von Dinant nur äußerst schlecht unterrichtet. Spärliche Erwähnungen in mittelalterlichen Chroniken und vor allem das Zeugnis Alberts des Großen stellten den einzigen Zugang zu einer Person dar, die — wie die gesamte frühe Geschichte der Pariser Universität — weitgehend im Dunkeln lag. Die quaternuli, ein im Verurteilungsdekret von 1210 genanntes Werk des Dinanter, galten als verschollen, und Gabriel (...) Théry unterzog sich der mühevollen Arbeit, aus den Erwähnungen Alberts einen Rekonstruktionsversuch derselben vorzulegen. (shrink)

In recent years, many disciplines have become interested in the scientific study of morality. However, a conceptual framework for this work is still lacking. In The Moral Background, Gabriel Abend develops just such a framework and uses it to investigate the history of business ethics in the United States from the 1850s to the 1930s. According to Abend, morality consists of three levels: moral and immoral behavior, or the behavioral level; moral understandings and norms, or the normative level; and (...) the moral background, which includes what moral concepts exist in a society, what moral methods can be used, what reasons can be given, and what objects can be morally evaluated at all. This background underlies the behavioral and normative levels; it supports, facilitates, and enables them. Through this perspective, Abend historically examines the work of numerous business ethicists and organizations--such as Protestant ministers, business associations, and business schools--and identifies two types of moral background. "Standards of Practice" is characterized by its scientific worldview, moral relativism, and emphasis on individuals' actions and decisions. The "Christian Merchant" type is characterized by its Christian worldview, moral objectivism, and conception of a person's life as a unity. The Moral Background offers both an original account of the history of business ethics and a novel framework for understanding and investigating morality in general. (shrink)

Insincerity is the intentional conflict between a state of mind and a synchronic linguistic act. Three cases have to be distinguished: lying, as the opposition of belief and assertion (the act is untruthful); dishonesty, as the opposition of will and declaration of will (act empty); and simulation, as the opposition of emotion and exclamation (act ungenuine). One of the problems arising is: Are there insincere commands, and if not, why?Disloyalty, on the other hand, is a diachronic inconsequence, the breach of (...) a linguistic action (act unredeemed) which was binding for the future (such as, e.g. a promise). There is a cross-connection to dishonesty, which can be seen as the will to be disloyal. (shrink)

Some political philosophers believe that equality emerges as a moral concern where and because people coerce each other. I shall argue that they are wrong. The idea of coercion as a trigger of equality is neither as plausible nor as powerful as it may initially appear. Those who rely on the idea that coercion is among the conditions that give rise to equality as a moral demand face a threefold challenge. They will have to succeed in jointly (a) offering a (...) convincing account of the wrongness of coercion, (b) rendering cogent the idea that the demand of equality arises in response to the moral problem of coercion, and (c) identifying some types of interaction as relevantly coercive. This challenge, I believe, cannot be met. More precisely, I argue that two important accounts of coercion fail to meet it. (shrink)

El trabajo enfoca la emigración desde la ética de la alteridad de Emmanuel Levinas, lo cual exige ciertas decisiones metódicas. Primero reivindicar para la alteridad la misma legitimidad filosófica de categorías consoliddadas como la identidad. Después explorar las diferencias internas a la alteridad en su despliegue temporal o histórico y espacial o (multi)cultural. Tercero, asociar la alteridad a la ética y sus diferencias para, en cuarto lugar, centrar el argumento en la alteridad ética de Emmanuel Levinas articulada, como se sabe, (...) en torno a la categoría del “otro” que, al presentarse como “rostro”, aparece como la expresión de la vulnerabilidad misma. Esta vulnerabilidad abstracta – en quinto lugar – se concreta como vulnerabilidad migratoria, efecto de condiciones socio-culturales determinadas cuyo portador, el emigrante (sobre todo el musulmán y el subshariano) encarna por derecho propio la figura filosófica del otro levinasiano y su interpelación por la justicia. En este contexto, finalmente, la responsabilidad asimétrica se revela como la imposibilidad de que los interpelados no den/demos una respuesta. . (shrink)

Multiple studies show that periodic reanalysis of genomic test results held by clinical laboratories delivers significant increases in overall diagnostic yield. However, while there is a widespread consensus that implementing routine reanalysis procedures is highly desirable, there is an equally widespread understanding that routine reanalysis of individual patient results is not presently feasible to perform for all patients. Instead, researchers, geneticists and ethicists are beginning to turn their attention to one part of reanalysis—reinterpretation of previously classified variants—as a means of (...) achieving similar ends to large-scale individual reanalysis but in a more sustainable manner. This has led some to ask whether the responsible implementation of genomics in healthcare requires that diagnostic laboratories routinely reinterpret their genomic variant classifications and reissue patient reports in the case of materially relevant changes. In this paper, we set out the nature and scope of any such obligation, and analyse some of the main ethical considerations pertaining to a putative duty to reinterpret. We discern and assess three potential outcomes of reinterpretation—upgrades, downgrades and regrades—in light of ongoing duties of care, systemic error risks and diagnostic equity. We argue against the existence of any general duty to reinterpret genomic variant classifications, yet we contend that a suitably restricted duty to reinterpret ought to be recognised, and that the responsible implementation of genomics into healthcare must take this into account. (shrink)

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)

This essay argues for a model of pictorial representation which aims to explain the relationship between pictorial content and pictorial accuracy. Focusing on cases where pictures are intended to convey accurate information, the model distinguishes between two fundamental representational relations: on one hand, a picture expresses a content; on the other, it aims at a target scene. Such a picture is accurate when the content it expresses fits the target scene it aims at. In addition, the model follows the traditional (...) division of content into two aspects: singular content specifies the particular individuals which a picture is of, and attributive content specifies the properties and relations which the picture ascribes to those individuals. For a picture to be accurate, both aspects must be matched in the target. I call this the Three-Part Model because it distinguishes between the triad of factors, singular content, attributive content, and target, which together determine pictorial accuracy. Though previous work on depiction has not recognized the distinctive role played by target, I will argue that it is essential in order to make sense of accuracy judgements across a range of central cases. (shrink)

Although recent trends in politics and media make it appear that conspiracy theories are on the rise, in fact they have always been present, probably because they are sustained by natural dispositions of the human brain. This is also the case with medical conspiracy theories. This article reviews some of the most notorious health-related conspiracy theories. It then approaches the reasons why people believe these theories, using concepts from cognitive science. On the basis of that knowledge, the article makes normative (...) proposals for public health officials and health workers as a whole, to deal with conspiracy theories, in order to preserve some of the fundamental principles of medical ethics. (shrink)

Resumo Houve, durante o século XX, uma persistente recorrência do tema da síntese ou integração das artes, em especial no campo da arquitetura: desde as vanguardas dos anos de 1920 até a ressurgência do tema, no imediato Pós-II Guerra, com Le Corbusier, Sigfried Giedion e Fernand Léger. No Brasil, nos anos de 1950, o entusiasmo de Mário Pedrosa com a construção da nova capital seguiu o lema Brasília, a cidade nova, síntese das artes. A literatura correspondente menciona com frequência os (...) nomes do arquiteto Gottfried Semper, um teórico oitocentista do estilo, e sua cooperação com o compositor Richard Wagner. O interesse contemporâneo pelo tema da síntese ou integração das artes e suas relações com arte e arquitetura aponta para os trabalhos desses dois autores como a proposição inicial, no âmbito da Gesamtkunstwerk ou a obra de arte total. Neste estudo, examina-se a feição especulativa com que Wagner sustentou a Gesamtkunstwerk, como passo estratégico para os estudos sobre o tema.There had been througout the 20th century a persistent recurrence of the theme of the synthesis or integration of arts, in the field of architecture at least. It was present amongst the early twentieth century vanguards but had a bounce back in the early postwar period with Le Corbusier, Sigfried Giedion and Fernand Léger. In Brazil in the 1950s, art critic Mário Pedrosa under the mote Brasilia enthusiastically hailed the construction of Brasília the New City, Synthesis of Arts. The corresponding literature points out to architect and historian Gottfried Semper, a nineteenth century theorist of style, who cooperated closely with composer and operist Richard Wagner as the authors who put forth the original conceptions of the Gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork. In this study, we examine the speculative guise with which Wagner held up the Gesamtkunstwerk, as a strategic step for the studies on the theme. (shrink)

Summary Although the Copernican hypothesis is popularized in Japan by Shiba Kōkan's books published between 1793 and 1805, the whole of the conceptions of the Occidental astronomy remains unknown at that time to most of the Japanese. Through the publication of Ensei kanshō zusetsu in 1823, Yoshio Nankō does achieve posthumously the project designed two years earlier by his young disciple, Kusano Yōjun, to spread this knowledge widely among the society. The book is a great and unprecedented success. Well known (...) nowadays for its appendix (Chidō wakumon) and the influence that its content, while claiming the mobility of the Earth, did exert on the propagation of the heliocentrism in Japan until the very end of the Edo period, the book also provides as we think an unexpected and completely new platform for classical science, being the emissary of certain concepts invented by Shizuki Tadao from his relentless studies of Newtonian mechanics. Once we briefly recount Yoshio's career and discuss the sources and the morphology of his work, we give some arguments towards it. (shrink)

Sociological propositions about the workings of cognition are rarely specified or tested, but are of central relevance to studies of culture, social judgment, and social movements. This paper draws out lessons of recent work from sociological theory, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience on the embodied nature of knowledge and thought, and develops implications of these lessons for cultural and cognitive sociology. Knowledge ought to be conceived of as fundamentally embodied, because sensory information is a fundamental component of experience as it (...) is stored in long-term memory, and because bodily responses and intuitions often precede reflexive or strategic thought. I argue that the challenge of embodied knowledge for cultural sociology is threefold: to develop cultural theories of motivation; to specify the ways in which the body structures discourses endogenously; and to specify how embodied motivations and embodied discourses interact. (shrink)

O pensamento do filósofo britânico Michael Oakeshott é frequentemente recrutado no debate entre conservadorismo e posições progressistas, no qual algumas de suas distinções e explicitações são postas a serviço da crítica a determinados aspectos dessa última. Um de seus principais movimentos argumentativos consiste em apontar que posições políticas fundamentalmente revolucionárias pressupõem certa concepção de racionalidade que, por sua vez, estaria em desacordo com uma visão clássica acerca da faculdade intelectiva humana ao mesmo tempo em que privilegia tal concepção em relação (...) a outras esferas da experiência humana. No entanto, embora usual, tal reconstrução não apenas não faz justiça aos objetivos e à argumentação de Oakeshott, como parece ignorar uma compreensão mais genuína do racionalismo nos séculos XVII e XVIII. Assim, o objetivo deste artigo é explorar a argumentação de Oakeshott tal qual exposta na seção III de seu Rationalism in Politics a fi m de, simultaneamente, precisar seus objetivos e colocá-los em perspectiva em relação à gênese histórico-temática do racionalismo. (shrink)

This article argues that many, if not most, behavior descriptions and sequencing are in essence an interpretation of signs, and are evaluated as sequences of signs by researchers. Thus, narrative analysis, as developed by Barthes and others, seems best suited to be used in behavioral/biosemiotic studies rather than mathematical modeling, and is very similar to some classic ethology methods. As our brain interprets behaviors as signs and attributes meaning to them, narrative analysis seems more suitable than mathematical modeling to describe (...) and study behavior. Mathematical models are, on many occasions, extremely reductionist and simplifying because of computational and/or numerical representation limitations that lead to errors and straitjacketing interpretations of reality. Since actual animals are not as optimal in real life as our mathematical models, here it is proposed that we should consider logical/verbal models and semantic interpretations as equally or even better suited for behavioral analysis, and refrain from enforcing mathematical modeling as the only way to study and understand biological problems, especially those of a behavioral and biosemiotic nature. (shrink)

La condición del arte contemporáneo no puede sino pensarse enmarcada en el cambio cultural del “tardocapitalismo” en donde como identificación se revela un nuevo régimen de la imagen en el que la obra individual es desplazada por la muestra o exhibición como la unidad mínima de significación. Este desplazamiento resulta un cambio de paradigma que prefigura el rol determinante del curador –un productor de servicios y no de objetos u artefactos- que, como intentaremos desarrollar en este trabajo, en el ámbito (...) local y ante la falta de estímulos, se asume no tanto como gestión museística sino como iniciativa de una conciencia artística que produce a partir del trabajo del otro, pero sin dejar resto físico-a excepción de la redacción en un eventual catálogo- ni participar del precario régimen propietario. (shrink)

Some contractualist egalitarians try to accommodate a concern for numbers by embracing a pluralist strategy. They incorporate the belief that the number of people affected matters for what distribution one ought to bring about by arguing that their primary contractualist concern for justifiability to each may be outweighed by aggregative considerations. The present contribution offers two arguments against such a pluralist strategy. First, I argue that advo- cates of the pluralist strategy are forced to abandon the rationale behind the criterion (...) of universal acceptability. Second, I show that pluralist contractualists will be unable to avoid the dreaded conclusion that originally motivated their contractualism. Ultimately, these arguments matter for the nature of egalitarian- ism. They should give those in search of sound distributive principles a reason to make sense of their egalitarian commitment in a non-contractualist way. If a sound set of distributive principles includes comparative and relational princi- ples, while contractualist egalitarianism does not lend itself to being pluralistically combined with non-individualist principles, telic egalitarianism may after all be part of the truth in distributive ethics. (shrink)

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)

The prelims comprise: To Kalon as Effective Teleological Order The Visibility of the Fine Pleasure and Praise The Value of the Fine Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes References Further reading.