IRBs often face dueling values in research: their historically grounded mission to protect research participants from harm conflicts with more recent attention to the importance of including underr...

The 360° medium, an immersive dome-based video projection environment (immersive dome environment (IDE)) also called ‘fulldome’, is often seen as an old concept of a traditional planetarium setting. This article invites the reader to look at it as a unique, hybrid media format, which opens new ways of perception.

The essay analyzes Marx’s articles on India, focusing on the problem of the colonial government in its relation to the world market. While the contested passages where Marx ascribes to English colonialism a ‘revolutionary’ function are considered in the context of his polemic against Henry Carey, the essay maintains that Marx’s inquiries do not reveal a progressive and unilinear conception of history, but rather the recognition of an historical rift that requires a global understanding of political forms and of the (...) subjects that oppose capital’s domination. (shrink)

Debido a la contingencia por Covid-19, los Estados deciden frenar la economía y delimitar su espacio personal. Esto provocó como respuesta colectiva la segregación debida al apalabramiento al cual fue sometido el discurso por parte de la ciencia y el capitalismo. La pregunta investigativa ¿qué es lo estructural del sujeto que, apalabrado por el discurso de la ciencia, encuentra formas de segregar? que orientó la reflexión se respondió metodológicamente por el rigor en la conjetura. Para ello, se desarrollaron dos acápites: (...) primero, “Cuerpo saludable: antonomasia del discurso de la salud”, donde se abordó el tránsito de la biopolítica/liberalismo a la psicopolítica/neoliberalismo, en relación con el discurso del capitalismo y de la ciencia; y segundo, “Afectos y segregación: mecanismos ante la angustia”, donde se presentó el discurso de la ciencia como el nuevo Sujeto Supuesto Saber en su estrecha relación con la angustia, que los afectos del miedo y del odio recubren, generando segregación frente al Real de la muerte y al Real del virus. Se concluyó que lo que subyace a la segregación es la evasión o el exterminio del otro, en quien el sujeto ha localizado el displacer que le es propio. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 63-87.

The work defines the sigh as a type of breath expressing or communicating specific physical or mental internal states. To investigate the meanings of the sigh, the paper presents analyses of written and oral corpora, finding out that it may express different emotions like boredom or frustration, but also positive meanings like self-encouragement; then it focuses on the use of sighs in political debates. Finally a perception study shows participants’ agreement on the meanings of sighs in terms of valence and (...) arousal. These results lay the bases for future studies to set a clearer distinction between sighs and other vocalisations as well as other effects on its meaning caused by the combination with other body signals like rolling eyes or shaking head. (shrink)

Science-fiction (SF) has become a reference point in the discourse on the ethics and risks surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). Thus, AI in SF—science-fictional AI—is considered part of a larger corpus of ‘AI narratives’ that are analysed as shaping the fears and hopes of the technology. SF, however, is not a foresight or technology assessment, but tells dramas for a human audience. To make the drama work, AI is often portrayed as human-like or autonomous, regardless of the actual technological limitations. Taking (...) science-fictional AI too literally, and even applying it to science communication, paints a distorted image of the technology's current potential and distracts from the real-world implications and risks of AI. These risks are not about humanoid robots or conscious machines, but about the scoring, nudging, discrimination, exploitation, and surveillance of humans by AI technologies through governments and corporations. AI in SF, on the other hand, is a trope as part of a genre-specific mega-text that is better understood as a dramatic means and metaphor to reflect on the human condition and socio-political issues beyond technology. (shrink)

Globalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories -- such as "the people" -- that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as (...) shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital.". (shrink)

Chronically disabling health impairments affect an increasing number of people worldwide. In close relationships, disability is an interpersonal experience. Psychological distress is thus common in patients as well as their spouses. Dyadic coping can alleviate stress and promote adjustment in couples who face disabling health impairments. Much research has focused on dyadic coping with cancer. However, other health problems such as physical and sensory impairments are also common and may strongly impact couple relationships. In order to promote couples' optimal adjustment (...) to impaired health, the identification of disability-related relationship challenges is required. Furthermore, ways in which dyadic coping with these challenges may benefit couples could inform researchers and practitioners how to support couples in coping with health impairments. Accordingly, the aims of this study were to systematically review dyadic challenges and dyadic coping when one partner has a chronically disabling physical or sensory impairment. Out of 873 articles identified through database searches, 36 studies met inclusion criteria. The disability-related dyadic challenges identified in the review were changed roles and responsibilities within the couple, altered communication, compromised sexual intimacy, and reduced social participation. These challenges were reported to burden both partners and the couple relationship. Dyadic adjustment benefitted from a we-perspective, i.e., when couples viewed the disability as a shared challenge and engaged in conjoint dyadic coping. The results suggest that patient/care recipient and partner/caregiver roles should be de-emphasized and that disability should be recognized as an interpersonal experience. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

En el presente artículo se presenta un paso del isomorfismo al isodinamismo en la filosofía de Gilbert Simondon. Para ello, se explica el argumento del isomorfismo y algunas de sus implicaciones y críticas. Posteriormente se exponen algunos elementos generales sobre la teoría de la individuación del ser en devenir desde la perspectiva de Simondon. Finalmente, se analiza en qué consiste el paso del isomorfismo al isodinamismo y se ofrecen algunos ejemplos de posibles aplicaciones del isodinamismo. Básicamente, este proceso del isomorfismo (...) al isodinamismo consiste en un cambio de perspectiva que implica pasar de la semejanza entre estructuras a la analogía entre operaciones diversas, por ejemplo, entre los modos de funcionamiento presentes en distintos niveles del ser (fisicoquímico, biológico y psicosocial). (shrink)

Il saggio discute il regime temporale algoritmico a partire da un inquadramento, esito di un con la teoria di Bruno Latour e di alcuni suoi critici, della tecnologia come costrutto non solo operativo, ma anche ideologico. Il saggio ricostruisce la storia concettuale del calcolo algoritmico riconoscendone le radici nella cibernetica e in una più risalente storia della quantificazione sociale che permette di misurare il modo in cui gli algoritmi ridefiniscono la logica e la direzione dell’intervento amministrativo. Attraverso gli algoritmi, l’amministrazione (...) si struttura a partire da un “design retroattivo”, in cui il futuro viene presentificato per automatizzare la ripetizione dei comportamenti passati. La disciplina algoritmica si salda così con i processi di individualizzazione neoliberali disegnando i tratti di una _moral economy_ automatizzata. (shrink)

Questo contributo prende in considerazione uno dei fenomeni più trasversali a numerose lingue, antiche e moderne: la designazione delle diverse parti di un vaso con lo stesso lessico impiegato per le parti del corpo umano. Il lavoro si concentra su quattro tra le lingue moderne più utilizzate nella bibliografia archeologica (italiano, inglese, francese e tedesco) e sulle due lingue classiche per eccellenza (greco e latino), offrendo una panoramica del lessico utilizzato e delle metafore o figure retoriche che nel mondo antico (...) e moderno includono la figura del vaso e le sue parti. In un secondo momento vengono presentati dei casi studio relativi, a loro volta, all’antichità e alla contemporaneità: da un lato, l’associazione dei vasi al corpo umano nella Grecia arcaica e il caso dei canopi etruschi; dall’altro, gli esempi straordinari di produzione di vasi antropomorfi o di assimilazione completa nel trattamento superficiale tra ceramica e corpo umano di alcune popolazioni centro-africane (Yungur, Mafa e Bulahay). A conclusione di questo articolo vengono proposte alcune ipotesi interpretative del fenomeno, i cui elementi fondativi possono essere ritrovati sia in alcuni racconti cosmogonici tipici del mondo antico, sia negli studi di linguistica cognitiva degli ultimi decenni. (shrink)

artigo analisa a crítica de Perrenoud ao sistema seriado de ensino e à pedagogia tradicional como sendo promotores da mera adaptação ao sistema de produção capitalista, propondo que sejam substituídos pela Pedagogia das Competências e sua organização escolar em ciclos, como superação dessa adaptação acrítica. Nesta análise, tecemos um diálogo entre as afirmativas de Perrenoud e os teóricos-críticos da Escola de Frankfurt.

L’introduzione alla sezione monografica _Politica dell’algoritmo: tecnologie, poteri, teorie_, prende in esame il nesso tra tecnologia e politica a partire dal modo in cui la prima, e in particolare le tecnologie guidate dagli algoritmi, ha investito irreversibilmente le coordinate istituzionali e sociali entro le quali si è costituito il canone politico moderno, attivando una soglia storica nella quale mutano le forme dei rapporti sociali di dominio, si determinano le possibilità della loro contestazione da parte di uomini e donne che sono (...) collocati in posizioni diverse nei rapporti societari, e si ridefinisce complessivamente la semantica del potere. La «politica dell’algoritmo» riguarda il modo in cui i rapporti sociali sono incorporati nella tecnologia e, di conseguenza, sono riprodotti, legittimati e istituzionalizzati dalla tecnologia. Il suo studio va quindi collocato nell’ambito della storia costituzionale che, nel punto di connessione tra storia sociale e dei concetti, apre il campo di una storia concettuale della tecnologia. (shrink)

This paper examines the essential yet ambivalent role of the law, i.e. of limits and prohibitions, within the subjective experience of desire. In order to investigate the dialectics between limit and desire, it firstly focuses on the perspective of George Bataille and his analysis of eroticism. Moreover, the contribution takes into account the perspective of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who focus on the relationship of desire to capitalist society, in order to affirm a different revolutionary economy of desire, celebrating (...) immediate libidinal transgressions against any limitations. On the contrary, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan shows the absolute need of the law for the experience of desire and the process of subjectivation, since only through the Symbolic order the subject can join a sociolinguistic community. The final part of the contribution aims at enlightening possible correspondences among these perspectives, focusing on the Letters of the Apostle Paul and his profound understanding of the dialectics between law and desire. The Pauline Epistles offer a significant paradigm to understand the necessary but not sufficient role of the law in the experience of the Christian believer as well as of the subject as such. (shrink)

This study identifies some of the ethical issues that arise in the everyday practice of researching in collecting interactional data. A form of conceptualizing ethics in research is proposed as awareness of the social dimension of research practices and their transformative nature. The collection of ethnographic data—including interviewing, observing, audiovisual recording, and other methods—is achieved by means of social interactions that necessarily imply issues of face, relevance, appropriateness, politeness, and identity, to name a few. Research activities have an impact on (...) both the setting and the participants in the study, in fact, they become part of the setting studied. At times, participants may be using the research activity for their own ends. It is important for researchers to be aware of and responsible for the impact they have on the setting under study. Some ethical problems encountered conducting actual research activities are discussed as an illustration: issues related to negotiation of consent in semipublic settings and to the protection of informants’ anonymity. The actual resolution of these problems is presented as research findings from the everyday practice of doing research. Systematic reflection on the social and interactional dimension of how ethical decisions are taken during actual research activities could make legislation on the protection of research participants and ethical guidelines more realistic and useful. (shrink)

This paper presents a model of persuasion in terms of goals and beliefs. Among the various ways to influence people, that is, to raise or lower the likelihood for them to pursue some goal, ranging from threat to suggestion, persuasion is viewed as a case of communicative non-coercive goal hooking. A persuader leads a persuadee to pursue some goal out of a free choice, i.e., by convincing him/her that the proposed goal is useful for some other goal that the persuadee (...) already has. It is argued that the Aristotelian persuasive strategies of logos, ethos and pathos (rational argumentation, the speaker¿s credibility and reliability, and the appeal to emotion) are always present in every persuasive discourse, and that they are exploited to raise the value of the goal proposed and to strengthen the believability of the link between it and the persuadee¿s previous goals. The paper proposes an analysis of discourse in terms of a hierarchy of goals as a tool to single out these strategies within the discourse structure. By applying this model to different kinds of persuasive messages (political discourse, advertising, dialogues in the health domain), it shows how, in the fragments presented, this kind of analysis allows to clarify the relationships between the persuader¿s and the persuadee¿s goals and to elucidate how much and how directly the persuader appeals to logos, ethos and pathos in his/her discourse. (shrink)

The article explores the construction of boundaries, alterity and otherness in modern science-fiction films. Boundaries, understood as real state borders, territoriality and sovereignty, as well as the construction of the other beyond an imagined border and delimited space, have a significant meaning in the dystopian settings of SF. Even though SF topics are not bound to the contemporary environment, be it of a historical, technical or ethical nature, they do relate to the present-day world and transcend our well-known problems. Therefore, (...) SF offers a pronounced discourse about current social challenges under extreme conditions such as future technological leaps, encounters with the alien other or the end of the world. At the same time the genre enables us to play through future challenges that might really happen. Films like Equilibrium, Code 46, Children of Men and District 9 show that in freely constructed cinematic settings we are not only unable to escape from our border conflicts, but quite the contrary, we take them everywhere with us, even to an alternative present or into the future, where new precarious situations of otherness are constructed. (shrink)

In this study caring is shown to be a membershipbound activity to kin and gender categories with strong moral connotations. Being a daughter or being a son are good enough reasons for becoming a caregiver, more so for women than for men. Caregivers were interviewed within the research project The role of women in family care of disabled elderly conducted by the Social and Economic Research Department of INRCA, Ancona, Italy. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed through a detailed discourse (...) analysis within an ethnomethodological framework. Interview data are treated as interactional encounters that occasion members to display relevant aspects of their identities and morally adequate images of being a caregiver. In the interview interaction, interlocutors display an orientation towards the production of a moral order in which duty and responsibilities are allocated on the basis of gender distinction. Males are generally described as not being responsible for caring tasks, except for situations in which females are absent or sick, that is, for serious reasons. Caregivers'' perception of time dedicated to caring is pervasive. Most caregivers said it occupied all their time, but gender differences were noticeable. Caring tasks are recognized as gender specific practices, thus failing to carry out these tasks is morally sanctionable when women are involved, but not so for men. Many caregivers described caring for older relatives as an intense source of stress, involving serious physical and psychological problems. The study on moral and identity issues related to caregiving highlights endangering constructions of caring. (shrink)

In logic, including the designer logics of artificial intelligence, and in the philosophy of science, one is often concerned with qualitative, comparative orderings on the states of a system, or on theories expressing information about the system. States may be compared with respect to normality, or some preference criterium, or similarity to some given (set of) state(s). Theories may be compared with respect to logical power, or to truthlikeness, or to how well they capture certain information. We explain a number (...) of these relations, study their properties, and unravel some of their interrelationships. (shrink)

La noción de información es esencial para la teoría de la individuación de Gilbert Simondon. Este autor se distancia de las concepciones tradicionales sobre la información dado que estas la consideran medible y controlable. Además, una posible implicación de esta sustancialización en las teorías tradicionales es que, en la sociedad actual, la información se utiliza, en conjunto con la comunicación, para controlar y manipular los sistemas sociales, y en este sentido, puede ir en vías de la alienación de los sujetos. (...) Profundizar en este concepto desde la perspectiva de Simondon nos permite observar algunas de sus implicaciones en el ámbito psicosocial. Para ello, tenemos en cuenta los conceptos de amplificación, transducción, modulación, organización, metaestabilidad, significación y transindividualidad. Por último, proponemos que el proceso de individuación guarda una relación de continuidad con la adaptación (biológica y psicológica), entendida como una operación específica de la cual se sirve la transducción para resolver las tensiones en los seres vivientes, incluyendo allí al ser humano. (shrink)

Il libro di Petra Werner, ricercatrice alla Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungsstelle dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Berlino (Berlin-Brandebur- gische Akademie der Wissenschaften), costituisce un contributo singolare nel panorama degli studi sulla vita, le opere e il pensiero di Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). Werner analizza, per la prima volta all’interno della Humboldt-Forschung, il rapporto di Humboldt con le arti figurative e con l’arte, studiando e valutando la sua corrispondenza epi...

O presente trabalho visa analisar de forma circunscrita a relação entre os conceitos de autonomia da vontade (Autonomie des Willens) e autocracia do arbítrio (Autokratie der Willkür) na filosofia prática de Kant. Já que o filósofo Immanuel Kant foi responsável pela inovação no campo da moral ao apresentar uma concepção para “autonomia da vontade”, a qual é a faculdade da autodeterminação legislativa obrigante da razão prática pura. O problema desse conceito se encontra na sua aplicação para ações específicas. Para resolver (...) tal querela, utilizaremos o conceito também forjado por Kant como "autocracia". A autocracia se refere a aplicação efetiva da moralidade via faculdade do arbítrio. A autocracia é, em suma, o governo de si necessário para que a moralidade seja realmente executada como disciplina do arbítrio. (shrink)

Summary The paper discusses the political thought of Cesare Balbo (1789?1853), a leading Risorgimento moderate liberal and politician, in the context of the efforts by the Piedmontese political elite to support and legitimise the constitutional regime introduced by King Charles Albert in 1848. Revising current interpretations of Risorgimento moderate liberalism as backward and provincial, it seeks to locate the political thought of Balbo and his colleagues at the heart of contemporary European, and particularly French, debates regarding liberty and aristocracy. In (...) particular, it argues that the views of Balbo and more broadly Piedmontese moderate liberals on centralisation, the importance of a social elite to defend freedom, and equalisation, were conversant with the ideas of Guizot, Chateaubriand, Burke and Tocqueville. Their harsh condemnation of republican virtue, on the other hand, rendered their liberalism peculiar in the Italian context, where Tuscan moderate liberals continued to resort to the language of civic humanism after 1848 to defend their political and social model. (shrink)

Feigning symptoms distorts diagnostic evaluations. Therefore, dedicated tools known as symptom validity tests have been developed to help clinicians differentiate feigned from genuine symptom presentations. While a deviant SVT score is an indicator of a feigned symptom presentation, a non-deviant score provides support for the hypothesis that the symptom presentation is valid. Ideally, non-deviant SVT scores should temper suspicion of feigning even in cases where the patient fits the DSM’s stereotypical yet faulty profile of the “antisocial” feigner. Across three studies, (...) we tested whether non-deviant SVT scores, indeed, have this corrective effect. We gave psychology students and clinical experts a case alluding to the DSM profile of feigning. In successive steps, they received information about the case, among which non-deviant SVT outcomes. After each step, participants rated how strongly they suspected feigning and how confident they were about their judgment. Both students and experts showed suspicion rates around the midpoint of the scale and did not respond to non-deviant SVT outcomes with lowered suspicion rates. In Study 4, we educated participants about the shortcomings of the DSM’s antisocial typology of feigning and the importance of the negative predictive power of SVTs, after which they processed the case information. Judgments remained roughly similar to those in Studies 1–3. Taken together, our findings suggest that students and experts alike have difficulties understanding that non-deviant scores on SVTs reduce the probability of feigning as a correct differential diagnosis. (shrink)

The way in which Stengers thinks “with” rather than “about” Whitehead is explained through an examination of the transformational function of speculative propositions. The article then investigates the significance of the recurrent theme of “coherence” throughout Whitehead’s philosophical and socio-organizational writings. This theme guides and unifies his thought through its various conceptual adventures.

Many babies with trisomy 13 and 18 die in the first year of life. Survivors all have severe cognitive impairment. There has been a debate among both professionals and parents about whether it is appropriate to provide life-sustaining interventions to babies with these serious conditions. On one side of the debate are those who argue that there is no point in providing invasive, painful, and expensive procedures when the only outcomes are either early death or survival with severe cognitive impairment. (...) Others suggest that, although mortality is high and cognitive impairment universal, babies with these conditions have an acceptable quality of life. In this paper, we will discuss both points of view. We will review the ways in which these conditions are portrayed in pediatrics textbooks and on social media sites that offer support to parents. We will then suggest an appropriate way to deal with clinical decisions for babies with these trisomies. (shrink)

The intuitive notion of a binary relation on information-bearers, comparingthem with respect to their closeness to the available information, is oftenconstrued in terms of comparing their symmetric difference with, orcompositional similarity to, the available information. This happens forinstance in some treatments of verisimilitude. We expound an abstractmathematical rendering of the relevant data-dependent relation in theframework of Boolean algebras. For every element t of a Boolean algebra B we construct the t-modulated Boolean algebra Btin which the order relation represents `is at (...) most as compatible with t as'' or `is at best as similar to t as''. In the case of Lindenbaum-Tarskialgebras, t expresses the available information, and the compatibilityrelation turns out to be an entwinement of inferential and conjecturalrelations. It is just classical entailment when no information is available(i.e., when t is logically true) and becomes more boldly abductive themore information is available. The rich algebraic structures of a Boolean algebra –- including its Boolean group structures –- play a significant role in this combination of deduction and abduction and also induce cautious anddaring variants of the compatibility relation. Links with the literature onverisimilitude, abduction, and related topics are indicated. (shrink)

Given the prevalence of debilitating anxiety associated with music performance, there is a need for rapid, pinpointed assessment of the extent to which an individual experiences music performance anxiety. A short, five item scale, the Mazzarolo Music Performance Anxiety Scale, was developed to capture retrospective self-reported estimates of the frequency, intensity and aversion tendency associated with performing music. 102 musicians completed the scale, as well as an established MPA inventory. The M-MPAS was found to be internally reliable with all items (...) being statistically relevant to the overall scale. Furthermore, the M-MPAS was correlated with the relevant factors of an established MPA measure, suggesting that the new scale exhibited good construct validity. M-MPAS is easy to score, with a scale range of 0–30. A score of 11 or above is suggested as the range in which a diagnosis of potential high MPA can be made, but more research into this and the psychometric robustness of the scale is called for. Nevertheless, the reliability and validity demonstrated in the present study, along with the brevity of the M-MPAS suggest that the newly proposed scale may offer considerable triaging benefits for pinpointed assessment of the extent to which an individual experiences MPA. (shrink)