Apresentam-se os resultados clínicos principais de uma primeira investigação efectuada a familiares de doentes sob tratamento paliativo no domicílio da área de Lisboa, com o instrumento de medida da satisfação SERVQUAL Modificado. Dos 58 familiares/doentes que responderam ao questionário apenas uma minona estava insatisfeita (uma classe de 5 indivíduos mostra-se francamente insatisfeita), uma classe de 15 estava moderadamente satisfeita, havendo 38 individuos fortemente satisfeitos com a qualidade e prontidäo dos serviços prestados. Porém urna percentagem elevada de doentes, segundo a opinião (...) retrospectiva dos cuidadores, faleceu com sintomatologia agravada, nomeadamente dores (60%), obstipação (67%) e depressão/ansiedade (43%). Discute-se a consistência e validade do questionáno SERVQUAL Modificado, contextualizam-se os resultados no que é o standard da prática da MCP e integram-se na promoção da dignidade humana no fim da vida. We present the main clinical findings of research on palliative home care, carried out among relatives of patients in the Lisbon area. An adapted version of SERVQUAL was used. Of a total of 58 carers surveyed only a small number (5) was unsatisfied 15 were only moderately satisfied. 38 family carers were strongly satisfied with the services. Yet, a high percentage of patients, as viewed in retrospect by their relatives died with some aggravated symptoms: 60% with more pain, 67% constipation, and 43% anxiety/depression. We discuss the consistency and validity of this adapted SERVQUAL tool and the main results are contextualized beanng in mind the standard practice of palliative medicine and the pursuit of human dignity in death. (shrink)

This paper presents a new method - which does not rely on the cut-elimination theorem - for characterizing the provably total functions of certain intuitionistic subsystems of arithmetic. The new method hinges on a realizability argument within an infinitary language. We illustrate the method for the intuitionistic counterpart of Buss's theory Smath image, and we briefly sketch it for the other levels of bounded arithmetic and for the theory IΣ1.

A partir da leitura da Fenomenologia do espírito [Phänomenologie des Geistes], de Hegel, em particular, da Introdução, busca-se elaborar os pressupostos da formação da consciência, mostrando os momentos em que essa passa pelo seu formar, diferentemente do que ocorria no período moderno. Percebe-se o surgimento de novo critério de formação, cujo fundamento é assinalado pela crítica que Hegel faz à formação representativa, que sustenta a educação mediante a interiorização do pensamento e a representa a partir de conceitos que não passaram (...) pela experiência com o objeto e nem realizaram a negação de seu saber com o intuito de formar outro. Já na formação dialética, a partir dos pressupostos hegelianos, a consciência sai do seu estado natural e percorre o movimento do círculo espiral e, em cada momento desse percurso circular, realiza a experiência entre o saber da consciência com a verdade do objeto. Nesse sentido, cada etapa dessa experiência é o aprofundar no saber da consciência e na verdade do objeto, causando dúvida e desespero em seu formar, pois vê desaparecerem o conhecer e a verdade que tinha do objeto. Com isso, têm-se os momentos de negação, de conservação e de superação tanto na consciência quanto no objeto, constituindo a suprassunção [Aufhebung] até alcançar o saber conceitual em que há a identificação entre o saber e a verdade. Com esse princípio de formação, Hegel faz a crítica da crítica e efetiva a experiência entre o saber do sujeito e a verdade do objeto. Nesse itinerário, a consciência, paulatinamente, entra no processo do trabalho de formação, cujo fundamento é o concrecere – crescer juntos; ou seja, o saber da consciência com a verdade do objeto. Isso se realiza no momento em que a consciência é tocada pelo fenômeno do objeto. Há, então, novo procedimento pedagógico que leva em consideração a negação, o ceticismo amadurecido e a experiência para alcançar o saber real de sua formação [Bildung]. Palavras-chave: Formação. Consciência. Experiência. Desespero. Ceticismo. (shrink)

Apresentamos um resumo do desenvolvimento e do contexto institucional do Projecto Humanização dos Cuidados Paliativos em Contexto Domiciliário, aprovado e financiado pela Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Utilizam-se largamente os próprios documentos que o justificaram e os relatórios oficiais para dar uma imagem vivida, realista e técnica das dificuldades da profissionalização e reforma dos Cuidados Paliativos, mesmo quando integrada em acções de formação num serviço de um Centro de Tratamento Compreensivo do Cancro. We put forward a synopsis of the development and institutional (...) context of the Project Humanização dos Cuidados Paliativos em Contexto Domiciliário, approved and financed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The groundwork documents are widely used as well as official reports so as to convey a lively, realistic and technical image arising from professionalizing and reforming Palliative Medicine even when it is based on in-service training programmes in an Comprehensive Cancer Center. (shrink)

The understanding of a wide array of practices related to fraud, bribery, corruption, and more widely, illicit practices have been capturing the attention of practitioners and management researchers worldwide. A substantial portion of the extant research has used university students to measure their actual or intended cheating behaviours and often studies have tested for variations across countries and cultures. We highlight some major concerns in this stream of inquiry and discuss both the definition and some inconclusive results in prior studies, (...) namely those deriving from differences in cheating behaviour across different cultural contexts. We suggest the need to examine intentionality, and further advance that intentionality may assume a reactive or a proactive essence. Depending on the social and formal contexts of different countries, both reactive and proactive intentions lead to distinct moral concerns, which we name in this work omorality (meaning ‘our morality’) or immorality (in the traditional sense). (shrink)

O PROBLEMA DO LICENCIAMENTO DE GRANDES EMPREENDIMENTOS PRIVADOS EM FACE DO DIREITO URBANÍSTICO: ANÁLISE DE UM CASO EMBLEMÁTICO NA PERIFERIA DA REGIÃO METROPOLITANA DO RIO DE JANEIRO.

O objetivo mais geral de nosso artigo é examinar a crítica de Nietzsche ao antiquarianismo e suas relações com a genealogia. Em primeiro lugar, ocupar-nos-emos com a crítica de Nietzsche à erudição e à história antiquária do século XIX e sua centralidade no pensamento do filósofo, em que história aparece não como simples atividade de erudição e pesquisa antiquária, mas como saber a serviço da vida. Depois de nos debruçarmos sobre a ideia de que Nietzsche é um opositor do antiquarianismo, (...) argumentaremos sobre a sua defesa do modelo de história crítica, que enfatiza as noções de esquecimento, justiça e rompimento com pedaços do passado. Na sequência, procuraremos esboçar uma análise do argumento que estrutura todo o nosso artigo, qual seja, o de que o deslocamento de Nietzsche de questões que passam e se manifestam por formas de escrita e pesquisa da história antiquária ainda praticada em seu tempo e em direção à história crítica proporciona, como alternativa plausível, a criação de uma nova história dos valores que, em nossos próprios termos, denominamos de “história genealógica e afirmadora da vida”. (shrink)

In times of crisis, one of the areas heavily affected has been food, as a direct consequence of the damage caused to family farming and therefore to Food and Nutrition Security (SAN). Climate change, in turn, causes widespread crises, which, due to their impact on humanity, and above all, on SAN, provide complex humanitarian crises, worsening hunger. The military conflict imposes difficulties in access to food and production. This study aimed to critically describe the panorama of climate change and armed (...) conflicts in Africa, relating them to the pandemic of COVID-19 as a factor of aggravating the situation of food insecurity in African countries. A literature review study was carried out in various databases, journals and portals for this purpose, with emphasis on Google Scholar, CAPES and governmental portals. The results point to climate change, as being multicausal, and constitute a risk factor for agriculture and SAN, in African countries, characterized by the destruction of crops and the reduction of food availability. Armed conflicts makes difficult to produce and distribute food, especially for people who’s affected. (shrink)

Coletânea de artigos em homenagem a Guido Antonio de Almeida e Raul Ferreira Landim Filho.

Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most widely used tools to assess economic decision-making. However, the research tradition on aging and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been mainly focused on the overall performance of older adults in relation to younger or clinical groups, remaining unclear whether older adults are capable of learning along the task. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine older adults’ decision-making on the IGT, to test the effects of aging on reversal learning (45 studies) (...) and to provide normative data on total and block net scores (55 studies). From the accumulated empirical evidence, we found an average total net score of 7.55 (± 25.9). We also observed a significant reversal learning effect along the blocks of the IGT, indicating that older adults inhibit the prepotent response towards immediately attractive options associated with high losses, in favor of initially less attractive options associated with long-run profit. During block 1, decisions of older adults led to a negative gambling net score, reflecting the expected initial pattern of risk-taking. However, the shift towards more safe options occurred between block 2 (small-to-medium effect size) and blocks 3, 4, 5 (medium-to-large effect size). These main findings highlight that older adults are able to move from the initial uncertainty, when the possible outcomes are unknown, to decisions based on risk, when the outcomes are learned and may be used to guide future adaptive decision-making. (shrink)

With respect to De Dreu and Gross's article, we comment on the psychological functions for attack and defense, focusing on associations between individual differences in psychopathic personality traits and the behavioral patterns observed in attack-defense conflicts. We highlight the dimensional nature of psychopathy and formulate hypothetical associations between distinct traits, their different behavioral outcomes, and associated brain mechanisms.

Objetiva compreender elementos constituintes das fotografias como documentos arquivísticos de valor secundário, isso a partir da análise de práticas documentárias e culturais que incidem sobre produção do arquivo no âmbito do programa extensionista ´Entre Comunidades´. Os procedimentos metodológicos adotados correspondem à pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e arquivística para atender ao objetivo. Evidencia-se que os valores arquivísticos são elementos constituintes das fotografias como documentos arquivísticos de valor secundário, associando-os às práticas documentárias, de ativação da memória e de mediação cultural. Concluiu-se que a (...) fotografia possui valores culturais, notadamente valor estético ou formal, sendo objeto de mediação cultural. (shrink)

É muitas vezes aceite que certas categorias, tipicamente as de género, raça, orientação sexual ou doença mental, são construções sociais e não divisões naturais no mundo. A distinção entre categorias naturais e categorias sociais, como pretende ser a distinção entre o sexo e o género, tem servido no âmbito da crítica e ciência social para advogar a abolição de certas normas sociais, e para a implementação de políticas mais equitativas. Contudo, há aspectos centrais do construtivismo que são pouco claros. O (...) que é que se nega ao rejeitar que as categorias construídas socialmente são naturais? E o que significa dizer que essas categorias são construções sociais? E será de todo verdade que certas categorias, como o género, são sociais e não naturais? Não tenho a pretensão de responder a todas estas complexas questões neste artigo, mas espero pelo menos iluminar parte do debate contemporâneo sobre estes problemas. Por uma questão de espaço, concentrar-me-ei na noção de género. (shrink)

Pretendemos abordar pedagogo português Faria de Vasconcelos (1880-1939) no contexto da Escola Nova, norteando-nos por uma pesquisa de metodologia hermenêutica na análise aos seus pressupostos pedagógicos sobre os problemas escolares e, principalmente a sua preocupação pela adolescência e jovens delinquentes, infratores e/ou indisciplinados. Recorremos conceptualmente aos seus textos (fontes primárias) e à sua obra compilada por Ferreira Marques, a fontes secundárias sobre Escola Nova e História da Educação em Portugal da época. O método hermenêutico permitiu-nos compreender os escritos (...) daquele pedagogista, na frágua da temática, quer pelo questionamento, quer pelo alicerçar dessa compreensão sobre (análise) o conteúdo a interpretar. Ou seja, a hermenêutica sendo a palavra, em que a correspondente interpretação vem sempre do texto, converteu-se em mediadora desse processo interpretativo. Os objetivos foram os seguintes: analisar os contributos de Vasconcelos ao estudo científico da criança/infância, em especial no seu desenvolvimento físico e mental, sob a influência da Escola Nova; compreender a sua análise à adolescência e delinquência juvenil, na relação que estabeleceu entre a inteligência (percentagens de deficiências mentais) e tipos de delitos/crimes cometidos. Pretendemos resgatar este pedagogo para a História da Educação em Portugal, divulgando os seus contributos em prole do estudo da criança, da adolescência e jovem delinquente. Palavras-chave: Faria de Vasconcelos; Adolescência; Jovem delinquente; Inteligência; Ideais Escola Nova. The analysis of adolescence and young offenders by the pedagogist Portuguese Faria de Vasconcelos: relationship between intelligence and types of offenders Abstract: Intending to approach pedagogue Portuguese Farai de Vasconcelos (1880-1939) in the context of the New School, we were based on our research for a hermeneutic methodology in the analysis of its pedagogical assumptions, especially about school problems and, especially, its concern for adolescence and young offenders or undisciplined. We use conceptually his texts (primary sources) and his work compiled by Ferreira Marques, to second sources on New School and History of Education in Portugal at the time. The hermeneutic method allowed us to understand the writings about this pedagogist, in the depth of the theme, either by questioning or by the support of understanding about (analysis) the content to be interpreted. That is, hermeneutics being the word, in which the corresponding interpretation always comes from the text, has become a mediator of this interpretative process. The objectives were: to analyse Vasconcelos contributions to the scientific study of children/childhood, especially in physical and mental development, understand their analysis of adolescence and juvenile offenders, in the relationship he established between intelligence (percentages of mental disabilities) and types of crimes/crimes committed. We intend to rescue the thought and work of this pedagogue for the History of Education, disseminating his contributions in favour of the study of children, adolescents, and young offenders. Key-words: Faria de Vasconcelos; Adolescence; Young offender; Intelligence; New School ideas. El análisis de la adolescencia y a los delincuentes juveniles por el pedagogo portugués Faria de Vasconcelos: relación entre la inteligencia y los tipos de delitos Resumen: Pretendemos acercarnos al pensamiento del pedagogo portugués Faria de Vasconcelos (1880-1939) en el contexto de la Escuela Nueva, guiándonos por una investigación de metodología hermenéutica en el análisis a sus supuestos pedagógicos, especialmente sobre los problemas escolares y, especialmente su abordaje a la adolescencia y jóvenes delincuentes y/o indisciplinados. Utilizamos conceptualmente sus textos (fuentes primarias) y el trabajo compilado por Ferreira Marques, además de fuentes secundarias sobre el periodo de la Escuela Nueva e Historia de la Educación en Portugal en la época. El método hermenéutico nos permitió comprender los escritos, en la profundidad del tema, ya sea cuestionando o por el apoyo a la comprensión sobre (análisis) el contenido a interpretar. Es decir, siendo la hermenéutica la palabra, en la que la interpretación correspondiente proviene del texto, se ha convertido en mediadora de este proceso interpretativo. Los objetivos fueron: analizar los aportes de Vasconcelos al estudio científico de los niños, especialmente en el desarrollo físico y mental, bajo la influencia de la Escuela Nueva; comprender su análisis a la adolescencia y los delincuentes juveniles, en la relación de la inteligencia (porcentajes de discapacidad mental) con los tipos de delitos/delitos cometidos. Pretendemos rescatar a este pedagogo para la Historia de la Educación en Portugal, difundiendo sus aportaciones a favor del estudio de los niños, adolescentes y jóvenes infractores. Palabras-Clave: Faria de Vasconcelos; Adolescencia; Joven delincuente; Inteligencia; Ideales de la Escuela Nueva. Data de registro: 10/06/2022 Data de aceite: 17/08/2022. (shrink)

John MacFarlane defends a radical form of truth relativism that makes the truth of assertions relative not only to contexts of utterance but also to contexts of assessment, or perspectives. Making sense of assessment-sensitive truth is a matter of making sense of the normative commitments undertaken by speakers in using assessment sensitive sentences. This paper argues against the possibility of making sense of such a practice. Evans raised a challenge to the coherence of relative truth. A modification of the challenge (...) can be given against MacFarlane’s revised views on assertion. The main objection to the relativist is that rational and earnest speakers are not bound by assessment-relative standards of correctness. (shrink)

This paper explores some alternative accounts of doxastic disagreement, and shows what problems each faces. It offers an account of doxastic disagreement that results from the incompatibility of the content of doxastic attitudes, even when that content’s truth is relativized. On the best definition possible, it is argued, neither non-indexical contextualism nor assessment-relativism have an advantage over contextualism. The conclusion is that conflicts that arise from the incompatibility (at the same world) of the content of given doxastic attitudes cannot be (...) accommodated by theoretical positions that allow for the compatibility (at the same world) of the content of different doxastic attitudes. (shrink)

This paper gives experimental evidence against the claim that speakers’ intuitions support semantic relativism about assertions of epistemic modal sentences and uses this evidence as part of a broader argument against assessment relativism. It follows other papers that reach similar conclusions, such as that of Knobe and Yalcin (Semant Pragmat 7:1–21, 2014). Its results were achieved simultaneously and independently of the more recent work of Kneer (Perspectives on taste. Aesthetics, language, metaphysics, and experimental philosophy. Routledge, 2022). The experimental data in (...) this paper supports two claims. The first is that, as Knobe and Yalcin (Semant Pragmat 7:1–21, 2014) also found, speakers diverge in their judgments about the truth-values and about the appropriate retraction of epistemic modal claims. The second is that speakers diverge in their judgments about when a retraction is appropriate and when it is required. This divergence was not tested by Knobe and Yalcin (Semant Pragmat 7:1–21, 2014) but aligns with the results independently reached by Kneer ((Kneer, Synthese 199(3–4): 6455–6471; Perspectives on taste. Aesthetics, language, metaphysics, and experimental philosophy. Routledge, 2022), and supports the arguments previously developed by Marques (Synthese 199(3–4): 6455–6471). The present studies tested the intuitions of both North American English speakers and of peninsular Spanish speakers, whose judgements on the topic had never been tested. The broader argument involves the relation between required retractions and falsity. (shrink)

This paper argues for contextualism about predicates of personal taste and evaluative predicates in general, and offers a proposal of how apparently resilient disagreements are to be explained. The present proposal is complementary to others that have been made in the recent literature. Several authors, for instance (López de Sa, 2008; Sundell, 2011; Huvenes, 2012; Marques and García-Carpintero, 2014; Marques, 2014a), have recently defended semantic contextualism for those kinds of predicates from the accusation that it faces the problem (...) of lost disagreement. These authors have proposed that a proper account of the resilient disagreement in the cases studied is to be achieved by an appeal to pragmatic processes, and to conflicting non-doxastic attitudes. It is argued here that the existing contextualist solutions are incomplete as they stand, and are subject to objections because of this. A supplementation of contextualism is offered, together with an explanation of why failed presuppositions of commonality (López de Sa), disputes over the appropriateness of a contextually salient standard (Sundell), and differences in non-doxastic attitudes (Sundell, Huvenes, Marques, and García-Carpintero) give rise to conflicts. This paper claims that conflicts of attitudes are the reason why people still have impressions of disagreement in spite of failed commonality presuppositions, that those conflicts drive metalinguistic disputes over the selection of appropriate standards, and hence conflicting non-doxastic attitudes demand an explanation that is independent of those context dependent pragmatic processes. The paper further argues that the missing explanation is 2-fold: first, disagreement prevails where the properties expressed by taste and value predicates are response-dependent properties, and, secondly, it prevails where those response-dependent properties are involved in evolved systems of coordination that respond to evolutionarily recurrent situations. (shrink)

The paper confronts the disagreement argument for relativism about matters of taste, defending a specific form of contextualism. It is first considered whether the disagreement data might manifest an inviariantist attitude speakers pre-reflectively have. Semantic and ontological enlightenment should then make the impressions of disagreement vanish, or at least leave them as lingering ineffectual Müller-Lyer-like illusions; but it is granted to relativists that this does not fully happen. López de Sa’s appeal to presuppositions of commonality and Sundell’s appeal to metalinguistic (...) disagreement are discussed, and it is argued that, although they help to clarify the issues, they do not fully explain why such impressions remain under enlightenment. To do it, the paper develops a suggestion that other writers have made, that the lingering impression of disagreement is a consequence of a practical conflict, appealing to dispositions to practical coordination that come together with presuppositions of commonality in axiological matters. (shrink)

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. (...) The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility of developing a hybrid version of dispositional theories of aesthetic values. On such a theory, uses of aesthetic predicates express relational second-order dispositional properties. If the theory is not absolutist, it allows for the relativity of aesthetic values. But it may be objected to on the grounds that it fails to explain disagreement among subjects who are not disposed alike. This paper explores the possibility of adapting recent proposals of hybrid expressivist theories for moral predicates (...) to the case of aesthetic predicates. Hybrid expressivist theories make no explicit commitment about the kind of property expressed by the predicate, but make explicit commitments to implicated (or presupposed)expressive content. It is argued that dispositionalism about the properties expressed by aesthetic predicates, combined with expressive implicatures (or presuppositions), can account for aesthetic disagreements even in cases where subjects are not relevantly alike. (shrink)

Kaplan (1999) argued that a different dimension of expressive meaning (“use-conditional”, as opposed to truth-conditional) is required to characterize the meaning of pejoratives, including slurs and racial epithets. Elaborating on this, writers have argued that the expressive meaning of pejoratives and slurs is either a conventional implicature (Potts 2007) or a presupposition (Macià 2002 and 2014, Schlenker 2007, Cepollaro and Stojanovic 2016). We argue that an expressive presuppositional theory accounts well for the data, but that expressive presuppositions are not just (...) propositions to be added to a common ground. We hold that expressives, including pejoratives and slurs, make requirements on a contextual record governed by sui generis norms specific to affective attitudes and their expressions. (shrink)

Intuitions about retractions have been used to motivate truth relativism about certain types of claims. Among these figure epistemic modals, knowledge attributions, or personal taste claims. On MacFarlane’s prominent relativist proposal, sentences like “the ice cream might be in the freezer” or “Pocoyo is funny” are only assigned a truth-value relative to contexts of utterance and contexts of assessment. Retractions play a crucial role in the argument for assessment-relativism. A retraction of a past assertion is supposed to be mandatory whenever (...) the asserted sentence is not true at the context of use and the context of assessment. If retractions were not obligatory in these conditions, there would be no normative difference between assessment-relativism and contextualism. The main goal of this paper is to undermine the claim that retractions reveal this normative difference. To this effect, the paper offers a review of three important objections to the obligatoriness of retractions. Taken together, these objections make a strong case against the alleged support that retractions give to assessment-relativism. The objections are moreover supported by recent experimental results that are also discussed. This will satisfy a further goal, which is to undermine the idea that there is a constitutive retraction rule. The paper also discusses two ways to understand what such a rule would be constitutive of, and concludes with a discussion of how to describe what retractions are. (shrink)

This article discusses the polarization of information and knowledge, a phenomenon that is increasingly relevant in different spheres of the contemporary socioeconomic dynamics. According to this notion, founded mainly on the works of Karl Marx, information and knowledge are central elements in the contradictions between capital and labour, as well as in the internal contradictions of the working class. The idea of polarization of information and knowledge offers a critical point of view against the authors who, while trying to grasp (...) the socioeconomic dynamics of our times, are captured by the enchantment of the techno-scientific progress. The article also adopts the Marxian concepts of universal labour and general intellect to argue that information, knowledge, and science are social constructions built collectively and should be treated as common goods. However, currently, the emancipatory perspective of the general intellect envisioned by Marx has been replaced by an opposite tendency: the private appropriation of the general intellect. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study is to examine the attitudes of Portuguese chartered accountants with respect to questions of ethical nature that can arise in their professional activity. Respondents were asked to respond to the Ethics Position Questionnaire developed by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(1), 175–184, 1980), in order to determine their idealism and relativism levels. Subsequently, they answered questions about five scenarios related to accounting practices, with the objective of measuring their ethical judgments. Based on (...) the idealism and relativism levels of our respondents, they were classified into one of four groups, representing different ethical ideologies (absolutism, exceptionism, subjectivism, and situationism). The results indicated that age was the major determinant of relativism. Contrary to previous research, older respondents revealed themselves significantly more relativistic than younger ones. Gender seems to be the most important determinant of ethical judgments; against expectations, men evidenced significantly stricter judgments than women in two of the five scenarios. Findings also indicated that respondents’ ethical judgments did not differ significantly based on their ethical ideology, supporting the idea that ethical ideology is not an important determinant of ethical judgments. (shrink)

Social constructionist claims are surprising and interesting when they entail that presumably natural kinds are in fact socially constructed. The claims are interesting because of their theoretical and political importance. Authors like Díaz-León argue that constitutive social construction is more relevant for achieving social justice than causal social construction. This paper challenges this claim. Assuming there are socially salient groups that are discriminated against, the paper presents a dilemma: if there were no constitutively constructed social kinds, the causes of the (...) discrimination of existing social groups would have to be addressed, and understanding causal social construction would be relevant to achieve social justice. On the other hand, not all possible constitutively socially constructed kinds are actual social kinds. If an existing social group is constitutively constructed as a social kind K, the fact that it actually exists as a K has social causes. Again, causal social construction is relevant. The paper argues that (i) for any actual social kind X, if X is constitutively socially constructed as K, then it is also causally socially constructed; and (ii) causal social construction is at least as relevant as constitutive social construction for concerns of social justice. For illustration, I draw upon two phenomena that are presumed to contribute towards the discrimination of women: (i) the poor performance effects of stereotype threat, and (ii) the silencing effects of gendered language use. (shrink)

This paper discusses and criticizes Segal’s 1989 argument against singular object-dependent thoughts. His argument aims at showing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant. My criticism of Segal’s argument has two parts. First, I appeal to common anti-individualist arguments to the effect that Segal’s type of argument only succeeds in establishing that object-dependent thoughts are explanatorily redundant for those aspects of subjects’ behaviour that do not require reference to external objects. Secondly, Segal’s view on singular thoughts is at odds with his (...) view on the semantics of proper names, which favours the singularity and object-dependency of the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur. In particular, his views are at odds with a position he holds, that truth-conditional semantics can adequately account for all aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence in the use of proper names. (shrink)

I suggest that the main aim Recanati proposes to achieve in Perspectival Though—that a moderate relativist should adopt a Kaplanian framework with three levels of content, rather than a Lewisian framework with only two— seems insufficiently motivated, and the arguments offered do not settle the issue. I suggest furthermore that the claim that subjects’ mental states and cognitive situations can determine parameters or indices in circumstances of evaluation is an original and very interesting contribution. It is also an important one, (...) since it sets further apart the radical from the moderate relativist, and it is relevant in the current relativism debate, where truth is deemed to be relative to parameters other than worlds, times, places and individuals. I also offer a few objections to some of the reasons Recanati puts forward in support of this latter claim; I object in particular to those that depend on some considerations about psychological modes. (shrink)

I argue that newborn infants are conscious. I propose a methodology for investigating infant consciousness, and I present two approaches for determining whether newborns are conscious. First, I consider behavioral and neurobiological markers of consciousness. Second, I investigate the major theories of consciousness, including both philosophical and scientific theories, and I discuss what they predict about infant consciousness.

In "'Yes" and "No'" (2000), Ian Rumfitt proposed bilateralism--a use-based account of the logical words, according to which the sense of a sentence is determined by the conditions under which it is asserted and denied. One of Rumfitt's key claims is that bilateralism can provide a justification of classical logic. This paper raises a techical problem for Rumfitt's proposal, one that seems to undermine the bilateralist programme.

We show how to interpret intuitionistic propositional logic into a predicative second-order intuitionistic propositional system having only the conditional and the universal second-order quantifier. We comment on this fact. We argue that it supports the legitimacy of using classical logic in a predicative setting, even though the philosophical cast of predicativism is nonrealistic. We also note that the absence of disjunction and existential quantifications allows one to have a process of normalization of proofs that avoids the use of "commuting conversions.".

Philosophers of language and metaethicists are concerned with persistent normative and evaluative disagreements – how can we explain persistent intelligible disagreements in spite of agreement over the described facts? Tim Sundell recently argued that evaluative aesthetic and personal taste disputes could be explained as metalinguistic negotiations – conversations where interlocutors negotiate how best to use a word relative to a context. I argue here that metalinguistic negotiations are neither necessary nor sufficient for genuine evaluative and normative disputes to occur. A (...) comprehensive account of value talk requires stronger metanormative commitments than metalinguistic negotiations afford. (shrink)

Recently several authors have proposed proxies of welfare that equate some (as opposed to all) choices with welfare. In this paper, I first distinguish between two prominent proxies: one based oncontext-independent choicesand the other based onreason-based choices. I then propose an original proxy based on choices that individuals state they would want themselves to repeat at the time of the welfare/policy evaluation (confirmed choices). I articulate three complementary arguments that, I claim, support confirmed choices as a more reliable proxy of (...) welfare than context-independent and reason-based choices. Finally, I discuss the implications of these arguments fornudgesandboosts. (shrink)

In this paper, we intend to offer an interpretation about the explanation of the (relative) idea of pure substance in general on John Locke’s philosophy, from Thomas Reid’s notion of ‘natural suggestion’. To achieve this aim, after contextualizing Locke’s notion of pure substance in general and distinguishing it from the idea of particular substance (section 1), we explicit that Locke’s words about the source of the idea of the former in the mind (either empirical or rational) are ambiguous and inconclusive (...) (section 2). Then, we argue that the parallels between this idea and that of ‘relation’, as well as of ‘power’ do not assist in that answer, due to some problems we identify on them (section 3). Finally, we argue that the Reidian explanation for the source of the idea of ‘mind’, from the notion of ‘natural suggestion’ allows us to i) avoid those problems and ii) inasmuch as, according to this interpretation, the idea of pure substance in general would have an empirical source, Lockian empiricism would remain intact (section 4). (shrink)

How can we disagree with a bald-faced liar? Can we actively disagree if it is common ground that the speaker has no intent to deceive? And why do we disapprove of bald-faced liars so strongly? Bald-faced lies pose problems for accounts of lying and of assertion. Recent proposals try to defuse those problems by arguing that bald-faced lies are not really assertions, but rather performances of fiction-like scripts, or different types of language games. In this paper, I raise two objections (...) to the fictionalist view, and then offer an analysis of how we disagree with bald-faced liars. I conclude that bald-faced lies are assertions, and that in pronouncing a bald-faced lie, the speaker tries to make it common ground that the assertion was in good standing qua assertion. (shrink)

A prevailing view in moral psychology holds that empathy and sympathy play key roles in morality and in prosocial and altruistic actions. Recently, Jesse Prinz (2011a, 2011b) has challenged this view and has argued that empathy does not play a foundational or causal role in morality. He suggests that in fact the presence of empathetic emotions is harmful to morality. Prinz rejects all theories that connect empathy and morality as a constitutional, epistemological, developmental, motivational, or normative necessity. I consider two (...) of Prinz’s theses: the thesis that empathy is not necessary for moral development, and the thesis that empathy should be avoided as a guide for morality. Based on recent research in moral psychology, I argue that empathy plays a crucial role in development of moral agency. I also argue that empathy is desirable as a moral emotion. (shrink)

Can an appeal to the difference between contrary and contradictory statements, generated by a non-uniform behaviour of negation, deal adequately with paradoxical cases like the sorites or the liar? This paper offers a negative answer to the question. This is done by considering alternative ways of trying to construe and justify in a useful way (in this context) the distinction between contraries and contradictories by appealing to the behaviour of negation only. There are mainly two ways to try to do (...) so: i) by considering differences in the scope of negation, ii) by considering the possibility that negation is semantically ambiguous. Both alternatives are shown to be inapt to handle the problematic cases. In each case, it is shown that the available alternatives for motivating or grounding the distinction, in a way useful to deal with the paradoxes, are either inapplicable, or produce new versions of the paradoxes, or both. (shrink)

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and (...) cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)

O artigo em pauta contém um estudo de caso relativo à dupla metáfora presente na “Reflexão” de número 614, das Reflexionen de Kant. Uma das tais duas metáforas está ligada à música, ao passo que a outra, ao paladar. Por meio de uma análise que busca ressaltar as especificidades de cada uma delas, seja com respeito à sua própria composição, seja com respeito à inserção de cada qual nos contextos respectivos do século XVIII, destaco a contrariedade comum a ambas, e, (...) em especial, a consonância de tal estrutura contrastante para com o próprio pensamento kantiano em geral. Exemplificando essa mesma estrutura, recordo alguns conceitos que, tal como “dissonância” e “dolce piccante”, contêm contrastes velados. Palavras-chave: Kant; Metáfora; Dissonância; Dolce Piccante; Contraste. Kant on “Dissonanz” and “dolce piccante”: a case study of a double metaphor Abstract: The present article consists of a case study referring to the double metaphor in “Reflection” 614, in Kant’s Reflexionen. One of these metaphors relates to music, whereas the other relates to taste. Through an analysis aimed at stressing the specificities of each of them, be it with regard to their own composition be it with regard to their insertion in each of their contexts in the 18th century, my aim is to highlight the contrast that is common to both and in special the consonance between such a contrasting structure and Kant’s thought in general. As an example os this structure, we shall focus on some concepts which, just as “dissonance” and “dolce piccante”, contain veiled contrasts. Keywords: Kant; Metaphor; Dissonance; Dolce Piccante; Contrast. Kant sulla “dissonanza” e sul “dolce piccante”: un caso di studio di una doppia metafora Riassunto: L’articolo in questione prende in esame la duplice metafora presente nella riflessione 614 di Kant. Di queste due metafore una appartiene all’ambito musicale (la “dissonanza”), l’altra invece al gusto (il “dolce piccante”). Attraverso un’analisi che cerca di rilevare le specificità di ognuna delle due metafore, sia rispetto alla loro genesi sia rispetto al loro inserimento nel contesto del Settecento, metto in risalto la peculiare contrarietà interna comune a entrambe e soprattutto come tale struttura contrastante sia in consonanza con il pensiero kantiano in generale. Infine, come esempio di questo modo di procedere, ricordo altri tre contrasti che, come quelli presenti in “dissonanza” e “dolce piccante”, si presentano “velati”. Parole chiave: Kant; Metafora; Dissonanza; Dolce Piccante; Contrasto. Data de registro: 26/07/2024 Data de aceite: 28/08/2024. (shrink)

For fifty years the philosophy of language has been experiencing a stalemating conflict between the old descriptive and internalist orthodoxy (advocated by philosophers such as Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Strawson, and Searle) and the new causal-referential and externalist orthodoxy (mainly endorsed by Kripke, Putnam, and Kaplan). Although the latter is dominant among specialists, the former retains a discomforting intuitive plausibility. The ultimate goal of this book is to overcome the stalemate by means of a non-naïve return to the old descriptivist-internalist orthodoxy. (...) Concerning proper names, this means introducing second-order description-rules capable of systemizing descriptions of the proper name’s cluster to provide us with the right changeable conditions of satisfaction for its application. Such rules can explain how a proper name can become a rigid designator while remaining descriptive, disarming Kripke's and Donnellan’s main objections. In the last chapter, this new perspective is extended to indexicals in a discussion of David Kaplan’s and John Perry’s views, and of general terms, in a discussion of Hilary Putnam’s externalism. (shrink)