The COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of chaos throughout the world. Its devastating indirect and direct consequences spare no one. This paper explores the struggles of sidewalk vendors in the Southern Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic. It seeks their coping ways and insights about their experiences during the crisis. We employed a descriptive phenomenological research design. Ten sidewalk vendors participated in the semistructured key informant interview. The findings revealed three themes for their struggles. These are incapability of earning, helplessness, (...) and loss of income. For their coping mechanisms, small trading, gain assistance, and monetary loans were the identified themes. For their insights, two themes emerged- hopefulness and frugality. Sidewalk vendors were left with no choice but to stop selling temporarily because of the virus's threat. Even if their livelihood is in jeopardy, they became resilient and continued to find a living. (shrink)

Background: Despite the reported harms and ethical concerns about physical restraint use in the critical care settings, nurses’ intention to apply them is unequal across countries. According to the theory of planned behaviour, eliciting nurses’ beliefs regarding the use of physical restraints would provide additional social information about nurses’ intention to perform this practice. Aim: To explore the salient behavioural, normative and control beliefs underlying the intention of critical care nurses to use physical restraints from the theory of planned behaviour. (...) Research design: A belief elicitation study was conducted. Participants and research context: Twenty-six critical care nurses were purposively sampled across gender, work-shift patterns and professional experience in five intensive care units of three hospitals in Spain. Data were obtained from a nine-item open-ended questionnaire and a focus group. Deductive content analysis was performed. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval was obtained from the hospital ethics committee. Participants were assured their participation was voluntary. Findings: Nurses framed the use of restraints as a way of prioritising patients’ physical safety. They referred to contextual factors as the main reasons to justify their application. Nurses perceived that their decision is approved by other colleagues and the patients’ relatives. Some nurses started advocating against their use, but felt powerless to change this unsafe practice within an unfavourable climate. Control beliefs were linked to patients’ medical condition, availability of alternative solutions, analgo-sedation policies and work organisation. Discussion: Safety arguments based on the surrounding work environment were discussed. Conclusion: Nurses’ behavioural and control beliefs were related. Nurses should be trained in alternatives to physical restraint use. The impact of analgo-sedation protocols, relatives’ involvement, leadership support and intensive care unit restraint policies on physical restraint practices need to be revised. Further research is required to explore why nurses do not act with moral courage to change this harmful practice. (shrink)

This response to Rosemary Ruether’s ‘Should Women Want Women Priests or Women-Church,’ an article published in this issue of Feminist Theology, is written by a Roman Catholic Womanpriest and pastor of a non-canonical Catholic parish. Jane Via finds more support in the New Testament for women in leadership roles than does Rosemary Radford Ruether. Via argues the impact of Aristotelian philosophy on Christian thought and the precedent it creates to use contemporary philosophy to interpret Christianity begs popularization. Ruether’s historical summary (...) of women’s roles in Protestant churches enlarges feminist awareness. Via addresses the positive contributions of Women-Church and RCWP and the limitations of each. She concurs with Ruether: women need both. (shrink)

Ethics committees and palliative care consultants can function in a complementary fashion, seamlessly and effectively. Ethics committees can “air” and help resolves issues, and palliative care consultants can use a low-key, longitudinal approach.

Analogies, contaminations and assonances between certain aspects of the thought of Aby Warburg and Walter Benjamin are still at the center of the contemporary theoretical debate. In the absence of tangible and documented exchanges, the similarities between the two scholars can be found in the structure of their most original and significant works, the Atlas of Memory and the Passagen-Werk, and in the adoption of the fragment as a conceptual language. Of particular interest is the reflection on baroque which, for (...) both scholars, involves the relation with the ancient tragedy and the modern drama. (shrink)

One possible way of tracing the history of fantastic forms in Western culture is to link it to the adventure of bodies that encounter radical alterity, which may appear in the guise of something purely external, or as the externalized expression of an intimate experience that has become terrifying, unbearable, and schizoid.1The fantastic represents a privileged realm of imagination for contemplating a corporeal history of different forms of violence. It constitutes the exemplary locus of a negative reverie on the frightening (...) and fantasized alterities and otherworldliness of the flesh. That is true not only due to its imaginary realm of metamorphosis, transformation, and mutation, but... (shrink)

This article examines a collection of singular artifacts, originating in the 1960s and 1970s, which I call "cybertrance" devices. These devices are based on the reappropriation of instruments from the academic world in order to place users in modified states of consciousness, far from the ordinary mode of wakefulness. All of these inventions draw on the heritage of American cybernetics, and re-articulate the man-machine concept central to it: passing from neo-mechanistic theory to experimentations with coupling and prostheses, and from rational (...) analysis to countercultural mysticism.If these cybertrance devices literally dismantle the man-machine, using technology to disorder the senses, in no way do they seek to... (shrink)

Behavioral interventions have shown promising neuroprotective effects, but the cascade of molecular, brain and behavioral changes involved in these benefits remains poorly understood. Projecte Moviment is a 12-week multi-domain, single-blind, proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial examining the cognitive effect and underlying mechanisms of an aerobic exercise, computerized cognitive training and a combined groups compared to a waitlist control group. Adherence was > 80% for 82/109 participants recruited. In this study we report intervention-related changes in plasma biomarkers and structural-MRI and how they (...) related to changes in physical activity and individual variables and their potential role as mediators in the cognitive changes. Our results show that although there were no significant changes in molecular biomarker concentrations in any intervention group, changes in ICAM-1 and SDF1-α were negatively associated with changes in physical activity outcomes in AE and COMB groups. Brain volume changes were found in the CCT showing a significant increase in precuneus volume. Sex moderated the brain volume change in the AE and COMB groups, suggesting that men may benefit more than women. Changes in molecular biomarkers and brain volumes did not significantly mediate the cognitive-related benefits found previously for any group. This study shows crucial initial molecular and brain volume changes related to lifestyle interventions at early stages and highlights the value of examining activity parameters, individual difference characteristics and using a multi-level analysis approach to address these questions. (shrink)

In this article we argue for the existence of ‘analogue simulation’ as a novel form of scientific inference with the potential to be confirmatory. This notion is distinct from the modes of analogical reasoning detailed in the literature, and draws inspiration from fluid dynamical ‘dumb hole’ analogues to gravitational black holes. For that case, which is considered in detail, we defend the claim that the phenomena of gravitational Hawking radiation could be confirmed in the case that its counterpart is detected (...) within experiments conducted on diverse realizations of the analogue model. A prospectus is given for further potential cases of analogue simulation in contemporary science. 1 Introduction2 Physical Background2.1 Hawking radiation in semi-classical gravity2.2 Modelling sound in fluids2.3 The acoustic analogue model of Hawking radiation3 Simulation and Analogy in Physical Theory3.1 Analogical reasoning and analogue simulation3.2 Confirmation via analogue simulation3.3 Recapitulation4 The Sound of Silence: Analogical Insights into Gravity4.1 Experimental realization of analogue models4.2 Universality and the Hawking effect4.3 Confirmation of gravitational Hawking radiation5 Prospectus. (shrink)

El artículo plantea la actualidad de la via pulchritudinis en la “era postmetafísica” cuando se la comprende desde su movimiento descendente en el que la via negationis queda asumida en la via eminentiae. En efecto, si la belleza puede hoy ser considerada uno de los “caminos del ser”, ha de vérsela como puerta que le abre al hombre su secreto y que le exige una actitud receptiva de escucha y de espera no de conquista. De este modo, se produce la (...) purificación y el tránsito del esteticismo como construcción de dioses imaginarios o ídolos a la estética teofánica del vero icono del Dios que se revela en la noche. Esta gramática del misterio es la puerta que la belleza nos abre desde el ser, camino que desde la perspectiva descendente transitan de la mano la estética filosófica y la estética teológica. (shrink)

Legg and Hutter, as well as subsequent authors, considered intelligent agents through the lens of interaction with reward-giving environments, attempting to assign numeric intelligence measures to such agents, with the guiding principle that a more intelligent agent should gain higher rewards from environments in some aggregate sense. In this paper, we consider a related question: rather than measure numeric intelligence of one Legg- Hutter agent, how can we compare the relative intelligence of two Legg-Hutter agents? We propose an elegant answer (...) based on the following insight: we can view Legg-Hutter agents as candidates in an election, whose voters are environments, letting each environment vote (via its rewards) which agent (if either) is more intelligent. This leads to an abstract family of comparators simple enough that we can prove some structural theorems about them. It is an open question whether these structural theorems apply to more practical intelligence measures. (shrink)

The VIA Inventory of Strengths and the VIA model were originally developed to assess and study 24 character strengths. In this paper, I discuss how the VIA Inventory and its character strength model can be applied to the field of moral education with moral philosophical considerations. First, I review previous factor analysis studies that have consistently reported factors containing candidates for moral virtues, and discuss the systematic structure and organization of VIA character strengths. Second, I discuss several issues related to (...) the VIA model, including a lack of previous studies that directly support the moral justifiability of the model and the presence of a fundamental virtue component required for optimal moral functioning in virtue ethics, phronesis, practical wisdom, in the model. Finally, I propose future directions for research on the VIA model in order to address the aforementioned issues and facilitate the application of the model in moral education. (shrink)

One of Tarski’s stated aims was to give an explication of the classical conception of truth—truth as ‘saying it how it is’. Many subsequent commentators have felt that he achieved this aim. Tarski’s core idea of defining truth via satisfaction has now found its way into standard logic textbooks. This paper looks at such textbook definitions of truth in a model for standard first-order languages and argues that they fail from the point of view of explication of the classical notion (...) of truth. The paper furthermore argues that a subtly different definition—also to be found in classic textbooks but much less prevalent than the kind of definition that proceeds via satisfaction—succeeds from this point of view. (shrink)

We report on progress and an unsolved problem in our attempt to obtain a clear rationale for relevance logic via semantic decomposition trees. Suitable decomposition rules, constrained by a natural parity condition, generate a set of directly acceptable formulae that contains all axioms of the well-known system R, is closed under substitution and conjunction, satisfies the letter-sharing condition, but is not closed under detachment. To extend it, a natural recursion is built into the procedure for constructing decomposition trees. The resulting (...) set of acceptable formulae has many attractive features, but it remains an open question whether it continues to satisfy the crucial letter-sharing condition. (shrink)

The article investigates one of the positions of Zubiri with respect to the problem ofGod, which the author terms the “cosmic way” to distinguish it from the better-known “wayof relegation”. In his “cosmic way,” Zubiri elaborates an argument for the existence of Godstarting from the data of the physics of his time, in particular, the cosmology of the “BigBang.” Undoubtedly, the “way of relegation” is the most characteristic of Zubiri’s philosophy, and the one which is in best agreement with the (...) whole corpus of his work. And theadvantages of the “way of relegation” stand out especially when it is compared to the “cosmic way”. But this does not mean that the “cosmic way” cannot be considered criticallyfrom the point of view of its own merits.El artículo investiga uno de los planteamientos de Zubiri en torno al problema de Dios,y que el autor denomina “vía cósmica” para distinguirla de la más conocida “vía de la religación”. En su vía cósmica, Zubiri elaboraba un argumento sobre la existencia de Dios apartir de los datos de la física de su tiempo, especialmente a partir de la cosmología del “BigBang”. Sin embargo, la vía de la religación es la más característica de la filosofía de Zubiri,y la más acorde con el conjunto de su filosofía. Las ventajas de la vía de la religación destacan especialmente cuando se la compara con la vía cósmica. Ello no obsta para que la víacósmica de Zubiri pueda ser considerada críticamente desde el punto de vista de sus propios méritos. (shrink)

Sufficiently frequent interaction between partners has been identified by, a.o., Axelrod as a more-or-less sufficient condition for stable cooperation. The underlying argument is that rational cooperation is ensured if short-term benefits from opportunistic behavior are offset by the long-term costs of sanctions imposed on the culprit. In this paper, we develop a model for ‘embedded trust’ in which a trustee interacts with a number of trustors who may communicate via a social network with each other about the behavior of the (...) trustor. The analysis reconfirms the standard predictions about how the level of trust depends on the payoffs and shadow of the future. We provide new predictions both on between-network effects (“which network is more favorable for cooperation?”) and on within-network effects (“in what network position can you trust more?”). (shrink)

Objetivo: O presente artigo visa apresentar o processo de Representação Temática da Informação como via mediadora da informação. Intenta-se demonstrar confluências entre a pragmática biblioteconômica e os conceitos que fundamentam a Teoria do Agir Comunicativo, numa perspectiva de reorientação das ações de mediação da informação a partir da ação comunicativa orientada para o consenso linguístico para a superação da colonização do mundo da vida. Método: Construímos esse caminho por meio de uma pesquisa bibliográfica, buscando em bases de dados da área (...) da Ciência da Informação produções que discorrem sobre tais conceitos, aproximando as discussões sobre representação temática, enquanto elemento de mediação da informação, e a referencialidade teórica habermasiana como possibilidade para a construção de uma abordagem crítica que possibilite aos indivíduos interagirem com a informação, por um processo mediador da informação reorientado por uma razão comunicativa, instada num consenso linguístico aceito por uma comunidade de usuários. Resultado: Apresentamos a representação temática da informação como via pela qual se perfaz a mediação da informação, associando o processo técnico da representação temática da informação à Teoria do Agir Comunicativo. Vislumbra-se, desta maneira, propor uma mediação da informação que busque o consenso linguístico e a interação, via agir comunicativo, em oposição à razão instrumentalizada pelo capital, reorientando as ações para uma tomada de consciência que leve os atores envolvidos nos processos informativos à superação da visão hegemônica do capital, por meio do uso da razão comunicativa, a partir da qual o consenso estabelecesse por uma linguagem que visa o entendimento comum no ambiente sistêmico das bibliotecas. (shrink)

We study randomness beyond${\rm{\Pi }}_1^1$-randomness and its Martin-Löf type variant, which was introduced in [16] and further studied in [3]. Here we focus on a class strictly between${\rm{\Pi }}_1^1$and${\rm{\Sigma }}_2^1$that is given by the infinite time Turing machines introduced by Hamkins and Kidder. The main results show that the randomness notions associated with this class have several desirable properties, which resemble those of classical random notions such as Martin-Löf randomness and randomness notions defined via effective descriptive set theory such as${\rm{\Pi (...) }}_1^1$-randomness. For instance, mutual randoms do not share information and a version of van Lambalgen’s theorem holds.Towards these results, we prove the following analogue to a theorem of Sacks. If a real is infinite time Turing computable relative to all reals in some given set of reals with positive Lebesgue measure, then it is already infinite time Turing computable. As a technical tool towards this result, we prove facts of independent interest about random forcing over increasing unions of admissible sets, which allow efficient proofs of some classical results about hyperarithmetic sets. (shrink)

Online consumer reviews are increasingly being written on and posted from mobile devices such that some platforms have started to indicate when this is the case with cues such as “via mobile”. Reviews from mobile devices differ from those from non-mobile devices; for example, reviews from mobile devices are more likely to include typographical errors. For this study, a web-based experiment was conducted to investigate viewers’ evaluation and adoption of online reviews in regard to a mobile cue and typographical errors. (...) The results indicate an interaction effect between the presence of a mobile cue and typographical errors. When a review did not include typographical errors, the presence of a mobile cue negatively affected the evaluation and adoption of information. However, the effects of a mobile cue were not significant for a review with typographical errors. Further, the results suggest that the viewer’s perception of the review writing effort and the review’s information usefulness are sequential mediators explaining the information adoption mechanism. The findings provide interesting insights into consumers’ perceptions of online reviews in the current media landscape in which the large-scale adoption of mobile devices is a well-recognized phenomenon. (shrink)

Taking our inspiration from modal correspondence theory, we present the idea of correspondence analysis for many-valued logics. As a benchmark case, we study truth-functional extensions of the Logic of Paradox (LP). First, we characterize each of the possible truth table entries for unary and binary operators that could be added to LP by an inference scheme. Second, we define a class of natural deduction systems on the basis of these characterizing inference schemes and a natural deduction system for LP. Third, (...) we show that each of the resulting natural deduction systems is sound and complete with respect to its particular semantics. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship borne by the traditional paradoxes of set theory and semantics to formal incompleteness phenomena. A central tool is the application of the Arithmetized Completeness Theorem to systems of second-order arithmetic and set theory in which various “paradoxical notions” for first-order languages can be formalized. I will first discuss the setting in which this result was originally presented by Hilbert & Bernays (1939) and also how it was later adapted by Kreisel (1950) and Wang (1955) in (...) order to obtain formal undecidability results. A generalization of this method will then be presented whereby Russell’s paradox, a variant of Mirimanoff’s paradox, the Liar, and the Grelling–Nelson paradox may be uniformly transformed into incompleteness theorems. Some additional observations are then framed relating these results to the unification of the set theoretic and semantic paradoxes, the intensionality of arithmetization (in the sense of Feferman, 1960), and axiomatic theories of truth. (shrink)

This paper is a critical evaluation of Kuenne's attempt to define truth via quantification into the position of a sentence.

Artificial intelligent (AI) systems that perform image classification tasks are being used to great success in many application contexts. However, many of these systems are opaque, even to experts. This lack of understanding can be problematic for ethical, legal, or practical reasons. The research field Explainable AI (XAI) has therefore developed several approaches to explain image classifiers. The hope is to bring about understanding, e.g., regarding why certain images are classified as belonging to a particular target class. Most of these (...) approaches use visual explanations. Drawing on Elgin’s work (True enough. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2017), I argue that analyzing what those explanations exemplify can help to assess their suitability for producing understanding. More specifically, I suggest to distinguish between two forms of examples according to their suitability for producing understanding. I call these forms samples and exemplars, respectively. Samples are prone to misinterpretation and thus carry the risk of leading to misunderstanding. Exemplars, by contrast, are intentionally designed or chosen to meet contextual requirements and to mitigate the risk of misinterpretation. They are thus preferable for bringing about understanding. By reviewing several XAI approaches directed at image classifiers, I show that most of them explain with samples. If my analysis is correct, it will be beneficial if such explainability methods use explanations that qualify as exemplars. (shrink)

El trabajo apunta a presentar los argumentos de Aristóteles y de Hobbes para justificar la esclavitud. Así, por un lado, se mostrará que Aristóteles intenta defender tal institución bajo argumentos de premisas naturalistas, aunque incongruentes con sus propios fundamentos filosóficos. Por el otro, se señalará que los argumentos de Hobbes apelan a la libertad y el consentimiento, llegando a establecer dos tipos de esclavitud, una de tipo voluntario y otra que no lo es. En consecuencia, con el contraste argumental de (...) ambos autores se podrá ver la vía moderna y la antigua para justificar el esclavismo. (shrink)

Cases where analogy has played a significant role in the formation of a new scientific concept are well-documented. Yet, how is it that genuinely new representations can be constructed from existing representations? It is argued that the process of ‘generic modeling’ enables abstraction of features common to both the domain of the source of the analogy and of the target phenomena. The analysis focuses on James Clerk Maxwell's construction of the electromagnetic field concept. The mathematical representation Maxwell constructed turned out (...) to be a system of abstract laws that when applied to electromagnetic systems yield laws of a dynamical system that will not map back onto the mechanicals domains used in their construction. (shrink)

In recent years, the biomedical field has witnessed the emergence of novel tools and modelling techniques driven by the rise of the so-called Big Data. In this paper, we address the issue of predictability in biomedical Big Data models of cancer patients, with the aim of determining the extent to which computationally driven predictions can be implemented by medical doctors in their clinical practice. We show that for a specific class of approaches, called k-Nearest Neighbour algorithms, the ability to draw (...) predictive inferences relies on a geometrical, or topological, notion of similarity encoded in a well-defined metric, which determines how close the characteristics of distinct patients are on average. We then discuss the conditions under which the relevant models can yield reliable and trustworthy predictive outcomes. (shrink)

The resurrection axioms are forcing axioms introduced recently by Hamkins and Johnstone, developing on ideas of Chalons and Veličković. We introduce a stronger form of resurrection axioms for a class of forcings Γ and a given ordinal α), and show that RAω implies generic absoluteness for the first-order theory of Hγ+ with respect to forcings in Γ preserving the axiom, where γ = γΓ is a cardinal which depends on Γ. We also prove that the consistency strength of these axioms (...) is below that of a Mahlo cardinal for most forcing classes, and below that of a stationary limit of supercompact cardinals for the class of stationary set preserving posets. Moreover, we outline that simultaneous generic absoluteness for Hγ0+ with respect to Γ0 and for Hγ1+ with respect to Γ1 with γ0 = γΓ0≠γΓ1 = γ1 is in principle possible, and we present several natural models o... (shrink)

Words indicate concepts, which have various adicities. But words do not, in general, inherit the adicities of the indicated concepts. Lots of evidence suggests that when a concept is lexicalized, it is linked to an analytically related monadic concept that can be conjoined with others. For example, the dyadic concept CHASE(_,_) might be linked to CHASE(_), a concept that applies to certain events. Drawing on a wide range of extant work, and familiar facts, I argue that the (open class) lexical (...) items of a natural spoken language include neither names nor polyadic predicates. The paper ends with some speculations about the value of a language faculty that would impose uniform monadic analyses on all concepts, including the singular and relational concepts that we share with other animals. (shrink)

Quotation has been much studied in philosophy. Given that quotation allows one to diagonalize out of any grammar, there have been comparatively few attempts within the linguistic literature to develop an account within a formal linguistic theory. Nonetheless, given the ubiquity of quotation in natural language, linguists need to explicate the formal mechanisms it employs. The central claim of this paper is that once one assumes a dialogical perspective on language such as provided by the KoS (KoS is not an (...) acronym, despite emphasizing a Konversationally Oriented Semantics) framework, formalized in a rich type theory like Type Theory with Records, much of the mystery evaporates. In particular, one can utilize as denotations for quotative constructions entities that are independently motivated for dialogue processing—utterance types and locutionary propositions, Austinian propositions about speech events. (shrink)

Although there has been consistent interest in Marx and Marxism there has been little sustained interest in the origins of Marx’s ethical thought and his relation to the German philosophical tradition as a whole. Work has been done linking Marx to Fichte, and a great deal more linking him to Hegel. However, the fundamental concept joining them all is recognition, or interpersonal relations in general. In this regard, none of the German thinkers can be understood withoutfirst grasping their understanding of (...) the human person as one among many. This article begins this process for Marx. Although some literature has been devotedto the explication of Marx’s notion of species-being it is sparse and dated. In this article I proceed to reiterate how important species-being is as the foundationto Marx’s ethical philosophy. However, my main focus is on simply how to understand the concept itself. I, therefore, devote the majority of the article to ananalysis of Marx’s use of the concept in his early work as well as his critique of Ludwig Feuerbach’s use of it. This account provides the basis for understandingMarx’s concept of human essence and is the beginning of a project of rephrasing Marxian ethics around the concept of recognition thus reconnecting him to theGerman philosophical tradition. (shrink)

We prove that the set of all recursive functions cannot be inferred using first-order queries in the query language containing extra symbols $\lbrack +, . The proof of this theorem involves a new decidability result about Presburger arithmetic which is of independent interest. Using our machinery, we show that the set of all primitive recursive functions cannot be inferred with a bounded number of mind changes, again using queries in $\lbrack +, . Additionally, we resolve an open question in [7] (...) about passive versus active learning. (shrink)

Some philosophers have suggested that, instead of attempting to arrive at a satisfactory definition of the physical, we should adopt the ‘via negativa.’ That is, we should take the notion of the mental as fundamental, and define the physical in contrast, as the non-mental. I defend a variant of this approach, based on some information about how children form concepts. I suggest we are hard-wired to form a concept of intentional agency from a very young age, and so there’s some (...) reason to believe that our concept of the physical does include, as part of its content, a contrast with the mental. (shrink)

This essay examines the connection between socioeconomic mobility and equality, and argues for two conclusions: (a) Socioeconomic mobility is conceptually distinct from three common species of equality: (1) equality of opportunity, (2) equality of outcome, and (3) relational equality. -/- (b) However, socioeconomic mobility is connected — in different ways — to each species of equality, and, if we value one or more of these species of equality, these connections endow mobility with derivative normative significance.

An apparent inadequacy of the velocity addition theorem in handling a Fizeau (like) experiment beyond the resonance frequence is shown not to be a true failing. The proof consists in showing that the invariance of the signal velocity is unrelated to its maximality. Next, Lorentz transformations which connect frames moving with supersignal velocity to those of subsignal velocity are derived, taking a cue from the acoustic case. Methods are also suggested for laboratory verification of the theory.

Inductive inference considers two types of queries: Queries to a teacher about the function to be learned and queries to a non-recursive oracle. This paper combines these two types — it considers three basic models of queries to a teacher (QEX[Succ], QEX[ The results for each of these three models of query-inference are the same: If an oracle is omniscient for query-inference then it is already omniscient for EX. There is an oracle of trivial EX-degree, which allows nontrivial query-inference. Furthermore, (...) queries to a teacher cannot overcome differences between oracles and the query-inference degrees are a proper refinement of the EX-degrees. In the case of finite learning, the query-inference degrees coincide with the Turing degrees. Furthermore oracles can not close the gap between the different types of queries to a teacher. (shrink)

In this paper, we critique the emergent international normative framework of growth – the knowledge economy. We point out that the standardized character of knowledge economy's flagship – intellectual property rights (IPRs) – has an adverse impact on women in emerging economies, such as India. Conversely, this impact on women, a significant consumer segment, has a feedback effect in terms of market growth. Conceptually, we analyze the consequences of knowledge economy and standardized IPR through a feminist lens. We extend the (...) analyses by pointing to various contradictions surrounding growth norms; for example, there are inherent contradictions between established "formal" legalistic interpretation ofIPR, "soft law" norms of corporate social responsibility, a fluid situation of moral claims of human rights, and different institutional capabilities at the international and domestic level. Consequently, we are able to demonstrate how standard IPR laws fail to deliver equity for all. We argue our case through exploring the growth aspects of the agricultural sector in India and the adverse impact of standard biopatenting on women farmers' rights (as producers and consumers) and preservation of environment. We suggest that desired gendered equity is better achieved when there is a constellation of actors – private–sector business, the state, and civil-society leaders – working together to ensure a balanced development through tailoring of IPR to local needs. (shrink)

We state the defining characteristic of mathematics as a type of symmetry where one can change the connotation of a mathematical statement in a certain way when the statement's truth value remains the same. This view of mathematics as satisfying such symmetry places mathematics as comparable with modern views of physics and science where, over the past century, symmetry also plays a defining role. We explore the very nature of mathematics and its relationship with natural science from this perspective. This (...) point of view helps clarify some standard problems in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

In this chapter, Michael Quinn argues that although Bentham’s only works on international trade were discussions on “the balance of trade” and “colonial trade,” these works reveal several new aspects of Bentham’s broader political economy. Like Smith, Bentham considered international trade to be mutually beneficial and strongly criticized mercantilist fallacies concerning balance of trade and the fetishization of precious metals. However, Bentham’s views differ from Smith’s on the issues of paper money and inflation. The chapter explains Bentham’s struggles to combine (...) elements of both commodity and credit theories of money in a coherent package. (shrink)

Standard accounts of shame characterize shame as an emotion of global negative self-assessment, in which an individual necessarily accepts or assents to a global negative self-evaluation. According to non-standard accounts of shame, experiences of shame need not involve a global negative self-assessment. I argue here in favor of non-standard accounts of shame over standard accounts. First, I begin with a detailed discussion of standard accounts of shame, focusing primarily on Gabriele Taylor’s (1985) standard account. Second, I illustrate how Adrian Piper’s (...) ([1992] 1996) experience of groundless shame can be portrayed as 1) both a rational and an irrational experience of shame, in accordance with Taylor’s account as a paradigm model of standard accounts of shame, and 2) as a rational experience of shame when taken in its own right as a legitimate, rational account of shame. Third, without denying that some experiences of shame either are or can be irrational experiences of shame, I elucidate how standard accounts of shame can act as mechanisms of epistemic injustice, and in doing so can transmute the righteous indignation of the marginalized by recasting them as shameful experiences (i.e., by recasting them as experiences of the righteous shame of the marginalized). -/- (This chapter was previously published in Hypatia, forthcoming, under the title "Rationality through the Eyes of Shame: Oppression and Liberation via Emotion"). (shrink)