The classification of medical interventions as either invasive or non-invasive is commonly regarded to be morally important. On the most commonly endorsed account of invasiveness, a medical intervention is invasive if and only if it involves either breaking the skin (‘incision’) or inserting an object into the body (‘insertion’). Building on recent discussions of the concept of invasiveness, we show that this standard account fails to capture three aspects of existing usage of the concept of invasiveness in relation to medical (...) interventions—namely, (1) usage implying that invasiveness comes in degrees, (2) that the invasiveness of an intervention can depend on the characteristics of the salient alternative interventions, and (3) that medical interventions can be invasive in non-physical ways. We then offer the beginnings of a revised account that, we argue, is able to capture a wider range of existing usage. Central to our account is a distinction between two properties: basic invasiveness and threshold invasiveness. We end by assessing what the standard account gets right, and what more needs to be done to complete our schematic account. (shrink)

(2013). Distributed intentionality: A model of intentional behavior in humans. Philosophical Psychology: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 267-290. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2011.641743.

This essay pushes the history of a scientific discipline, morphology, toward a broader philosophically informed and cross-disciplinarily engaged history of knowledge. It shows that by looking at how knowledge and practices circulated between scientific disciplines (such as biology) and technoscientific ones (like architecture and design) we can better understand how (morphological) knowledge was produced. By doing so, the analysis contributes to the study of the mechanisms of knowledge exchange between the organic and the technical worlds and, more broadly, to the (...) study of the dynamics of knowledge circulation. First, the essay analyzes the engineering studies of organic form conducted by the Austro-Hungarian botanist Raoul Heinrich Francé (1874–1943) and the Scottish polymath D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948). Subsequently, the essay moves to twenty-first-century morphogenesis. It examines the transfer of the notion of morphospace, a paleontological practice of data visualization, into biology-inspired architectural design. The conclusion deals with the broader features of knowledge transfer and circulation. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century morphologists successfully translate and transfer morphogenetic processes from nature into technical artifacts to achieve technical solutions to given problems. In the translation of organic morphogenesis into a technical process, evolution’s intrinsic historical contingency was deliberately left behind. (shrink)

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu present a sophisticated argument in defense of the imperative of moral enhancement. They claim that without moral enhancement, the future of humanity is seriously compromised. The possibility of ultimate harm, caused by a dreadful terrorist attack or by a final unpreventable escalation of the present environmental crisis aggravated by the availability of cognitive enhancement, makes moral enhancement a top priority. It may be considered optimistic to think that our present moral (...) capabilities can be successfully improved by means of moral education, moral persuasion, and fear of punishment. So, without moral enhancement, drastic restrictions on human freedom would become the only alternative to prevent those dramatic potential outcomes. In this article, I will try to show that we still have reason to be less pessimistic and that Persson & Savulescu’s arguments are fortunately unconvincing. (shrink)

Debates on situated affectivity have mainly focused on tools that exert some positive influence on affective experience. Far less attention has been paid to artifacts that interact with the expression of affect, or to those that exert some negative influence. To shed light on that shadowy corner of our affective social lives, I describe the workings of an atypical socio-affective artifact, namely, sunglasses. Drawing on insights from psychology and other social sciences, I construe sunglasses as a social shield that helps (...) us block spontaneous emotional expressions, as well as affecting other social processes that heavily depend on the eye region: gaze direction detection, identity recognition, and the sense of intimacy afforded by eye contact. (shrink)

The importance of intention reading for communication has already been emphasized many<br>years ago by Paul Grice. More recently, the rich debate on “theory of mind” has convinced many<br>that intention reading may in fact play a key role also in current, cognitively oriented theories of<br>pragmatics: Relevance Th eory is a case in point. On a close analysis, however, it is far from clear<br>that RT may really accommodate the idea that intention reading drives comprehension. Here<br>I examine RT’s diffi culties with that idea, (...) and propose a framework where intention reading is<br>actually assigned a signifi cant role. Th is framework is compatible with RT’s account of a unifi ed,<br>automatic mechanism of interpretation in lexical pragmatics, to the extent that the account<br>shares many features of associative and constraint-based explanations of other linguistic phenomena.<br>In fact, my suggestion is that our sensitivity to others’ intentions depends crucially on the<br>availability of specifi c patterns of intentional behaviour grounded in social regularities. In other<br>words, intention reading would be just a case, though a very special one, of pattern recognition. (shrink)

Research on organizational epistemic vice alleges that some organizations are epistemically malevolent, i.e. they habitually harm others by deceiving them. Yet, there is a lack of empirical research on epistemic malevolence. We connect the discussion of epistemic malevolence to the empirical literature on organizational deception. The existing empirical literature does not pay sufficient attention to the impact of an organization’s ability to control compromising information on its deception strategy. We address this gap by studying eighty high-penalty corporate misconduct cases between (...) 2000 and 2020 in the United States. We find that organizations use two different strategies to deceive: Organizations ‘sow doubt’ when they contest information about them or their impacts that others have access to. By contrast, organizations ‘exploit trust’ when they deceive others by obfuscating, concealing, or falsifying information that they themselves control. While previous research has focused on cases of ‘sowing doubt’, we find that organizations ‘exploit trust’ in the majority of cases that we studied. This has important policy implications because the strategy of ‘exploiting trust’ calls for a different response from regulators and organizations than the strategy of ‘sowing doubt’. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Um dos autores mais importantes do Renascimento é o italiano Marsílio Ficino. Deixando de lado os estudos filosóficos baseados em Aristóteles e Lucrécio, voltou-se com afã a Platão. Em seu Comentário ao Banquete de Platão, ele retoma o filósofo grego e, deixando-se influenciar também pela Ética aristotélica, por Cícero, Agostinho e os poetas italianos, entre outros, produz uma obra ainda capaz de despertar admiração e surpresa no leitor contemporâneo.

A standard approach to examining Deleuze's concept of difference in Difference and Repetition is to follow his critique of representation through an overturning of Platonism, which Deleuze finds to be the definitive task of philosophy after Nietzsche. While engaging this largely critical project, however, there is a tendency to overlook the dimensions of Platonism that Deleuze rehabilitates in a differential and immanent register. This paper aims to recover the essential dimensions of Platonism at the very heart of Deleuze's philosophy of (...) difference. This recovery is accomplished by distinguishing Nietzsche's overturning of Platonism through his evaluation of the reactive politics of the Idea from Deleuze's own reversal of Platonism through his evaluation of the active politics of simulacra. (shrink)

Shamans, healers, and doctors have always known that patients may improve even if no real therapy is administered. In the Charmides, Plato noted that to soothe a headache, one needed "a kind of leaf, which required to be accompanied by a charm, and if a person would repeat the charm at the same time he used the cure, he would be made whole; but that without the charm would be of no avail". Similarly, more than two millennia later, Thomas Jefferson (...) observed, "One of the most successful physicians I have even known has assured me that he used more bread pills, drops of colored water, and powder of hickory ashes, than of all other medication put together"; Jefferson famously labeled this... (shrink)

ABSTRACT The paper aims to show that Rahel Jaeggi's objections to Walzer's model of internal critique are in many respects inconsistent, and above all that these objections are a sign of a political deficit in the neo-Hegelian methodology adopted by Jaeggi to develop her model of immanent critique. The same deficit concerns Jaeggi's use of Marx's model of the critique of ideology, which can be fruitfully reworked by Walzer's reinterpretation of Gramsci's theory of the struggle for hegemony.

In the theoretical literature on moral responsibility, one sometimes comes across cases of manipulated agents. In cases of this type, the agent is a victim of wholesale manipulation, involving the implantation of various pro-attitudes (desires, values, etc.) along with the deletion of competing pro-attitudes. As a result of this manipulation, the agent ends up performing some action unlike any that she would have performed were it not for the manipulation. These sorts of cases are sometimes thought to motivate historical views (...) of responsibility, on which the agent’s past is relevant to whether she is responsible for a specific action. In a recent paper, Daniel Sharp and David Wasserman bring these theoretical discussions on moral responsibility to bear on practical issues regarding neurological modifications of individuals. After proposing and arguing for a historical view, Sharp and Wasserman offer some insight into how such a view may help us in determining the responsibility of subjects who have undergone Deep Brain Stimulation. This paper aims to join this discussion, by arguing that the correct historical view to be applied will also appeal to the agent’s control over her mental life and the fact that this was bypassed. I conclude with some brief comments on the practical implications of such a historical view. (shrink)

In this paper, I delineate the first pages of a philosophical genealogy which outlines the cornerstones of a philosophy of bio-technical forms. In so doing, the essay contributes to the philosophical understanding of some key scientific concepts. In particular, it analyses the philosophical and historical preconditions, the epistemic assumptions, as well as the ontological commitments of the concept of form as used in digital design and in bionics. In the first section, I investigate Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technical forms. In (...) the second section, I analyse the emergence of biotechnology, today’s bionics, as an independent technical discipline. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Austro-Hungarian botanist Raoul Heinrich Francé (1874–1943) founded this discipline with the aim of imitating the technical solutions chosen by nature. In the conclusion, I draw broader conclusions about the philosophy of bio-technical forms. Particularly, I argue, first, that the role of materiality and form-intrinsic propriety is of central importance in processes of form design. Second, I define morphology as a theory of possible constructions of forms in space and not, as in evolutionary biology, a science of the changes of forms in time. This characterises what I have called the ontological turn in form-design disciplines: nature operates technically to conceive new forms. (shrink)

Between 1909 and 1913, Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin Museum of Natural History) unearthed more than 225 tons of fossils in former German East Africa and transported them to Berlin. Among them were the bones of Brachiosaurus brancai, which would eventually become the biggest mounted dinosaur in the world. By analyzing the social and communicative strategies that made this expedition possible, this paper aims to reveal several aspects of natural history knowledge production at the end of the long nineteenth century. (...) Using rhetoric, the director of the Geological–Paleontological Museum in Berlin, Wilhelm von Branca, conducted a highly successful campaign to market the dinosaurs in Prussia and to convince public opinion and the Prussian central state of the value of paleontology. He fired the Prussian imagination and took advantage of the competitive urge to emulate American paleontology and industry. This work examines how his public relations strategies shaped the German biological “landscape” of the first decades of the twentieth century. It asks: when and under what conditions did paleontology successfully appeal to the public? How does communication dictate, shape, and constrain the development of a specific epistemic agenda? And what kind of power do the public and money have? (shrink)

In Husserlian scholarship it is common to characterize Husserl’s early analyses in the Philosophy of Arithmetic as an epistemology without a subject. The article questions this reading. First, I introduce the method used by Husserl in his analyses of the concept of number in the Philosophy of Arithmetic. Second, I outline Husserl’s critique of Kant’s conception of synthesis and contrast it with its phenomenological alternative, namely relation theory. Finally, I focus on the product of synthesis, that is, the number, and (...) argue that even if Husserl’s early analyses of the concept of number contains a reference to the subject of synthesis, his theory cannot be regarded as psychologistic. (shrink)

This article examines quantitatively the determinants of purchase decisions based on corporate social responsibility (CSR), adopting a hierarchical conceptual model of decision making where the key factors are personal concern, information availability and financial considerations. We use best–worst methods to assess consumer priorities (personal concern) for CSR activities in milk production; and elicit consumer interpretation of four labels (organic, Validus, Colorado Proud and rBST free) in terms of CSR and other outcomes (information availability). We then elicit willingness to pay (WTP) (...) for the labels (financial considerations), and estimate regression models to determine how predictive each label perceptual profile is of WTP for milk. Animal welfare and sustainable agricultural practices are the most important activities, and milk labels do convey CSR-related messages. With the exception of the pair animal welfare-Validus, the link between CSR messages and WTP is tenuous. The discussion emphasizes the central role of each label’s perceptual profile in triggering product differentiation among consumers. (shrink)

Vice epistemology studies the qualities of individuals and collectives that undermine the creation, sharing, and storing of knowledge. There is no settled understanding of which epistemic vices exist at the collective level. Yet understanding which collective epistemic vices exist is important, both to facilitate research on the antecedents and effects of collective epistemic vice, and to advance philosophical discussions such as whether some collective epistemic vices are genuinely collective. I propose an empirical approach to identifying epistemic vices in corporations, analyzing (...) a large dataset of online employee reviews. The approach has parallels to the methodology for identifying the big-five personality traits. It surfaces epistemic vices that are attributed to corporations by its own members and reduces the number of vices to the minimum required to describe differences between corporations. This approach yields a new taxonomy of epistemic vices for corporations. While two vices identified have close correlates in the existing literature, four others have not been identified at all or only in aspects. Two of these vices are ‘genuinely’ collective in the sense that they can only be attributed to collectives. (shrink)

Recensiòn del libro Jacques Ellul de Carlos Díaz.

Este estudio se define y articula a partir de la pregunta por el significado, sentido y estructura de la noción de “historia del pensamiento”, tal como ésta emerge y actúa desde los últimos pronunciamientos e intervenciones de Foucault, de un modo singularmente claro y revelador a partir de la primera versión del Prefacio a la “Historia de la sexualidad”, texto del que nos ocupamos con atención prioritaria a lo largo de este trabajo.

Partindo das reflexões de Michel Foucault no final dos anos 1970 e da noção desenvolvida mais recentemente de “governamentalidade algorítmica”, entendida como um novo regime de poder e saber baseado na coleta, mineração e cruzamento de grandes volumes de dados, o presente artigo pretende analisar criticamente as chamadas “cidades inteligentes”, nas quais a infraestrutura e os serviços são interligados de maneira supostamente mais racionalizada e eficiente, oferendo finalmente o sonhado bem-estar e a vida feliz. Essa utopia de organização social será (...) associada a uma nova forma de racionalidade política e estratégia de governo por meio de algoritmos, que colocam importantes e inquietantes questões. Neste trabalho, ressaltaremos a capacidade que os algoritmos possuem de nos governar, no sentido de conduzir nossas condutas e estruturar o campo das ações possíveis. E o foco deste artigo recairá sobre a tensão entre liberdade e controle inscrita nessa nova governamentalidade, que tem por objeto mais imediato os dados, as relações e os ambientes. (shrink)

In his article, ‘Social constructionism and climate science denial’, Hansson claims to present empirical evidence that the cultural theory developed by Dame Mary Douglas, Aaron Wildavsky and ourselves leads to science denial. In this reply, we show that there is no validity to these claims. First, we show that Hansson’s empirical evidence that cultural theory has led to climate science denial falls apart under closer inspection. Contrary to Hansson’s claims, cultural theory has made significant contributions to understanding and addressing climate (...) change. Second, we discuss various features of Douglas’ cultural theory that differentiate it from other constructivist approaches and make it compatible with the scientific method. Thus, we also demonstrate that cultural theory cannot be accused of epistemic relativism. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how bio-hybrid forms can be created and combined starting from organic forms. The thesis put forward is epistemological: the combinatorial practice of bionics, biomimetics, biorobotics, and all design strategies inspired by nature is not based on a kind of biomimetic inspiration, i. e., on a kind of imitation of nature, but on a practice of translation. To develop this thesis, I focus on the practices of contemporary biorobotics, first examining the practice of translating natural forms (...) into technical artefacts as developed by Raoul Heinrich Francé at the beginning of the 20th century, secondly, analysing the production of robots capable of replicating complex locomotion systems and, finally, investigating the interaction between robots and living organisms (fish). In the last part of the paper, I reflect on the philosophical payoff and broader conditions of possibility for this translational practice. I discuss when and to what extent a translation of biological forms into biotechnical ones is acceptable and point out the notion of form that underlies this practice. Moreover, I draw attention to the need to philosophically investigate what happens between different domains of knowledge – and especially between science and technology. This article is thus an invitation to philosophers to develop a philosophy in the interstices of knowledge production. (shrink)

The question of “time” is a worthy topic of psychoanalytic inquiry, concerning at least three different levels: technical, epistemological, and existential. However, if subjective well-being is the ultimate purpose of the analytic experience, it is immediately clear that the last level also defines the previous ones. In this perspective, we can attribute an innovative role to Lacan’s inquiry on time, in receiving the Freudian psychoanalytical legacy and in participating in the contemporary thought about subjective consciousness of time. Indeed, starting from (...) the paper entitled “Logical time”, Lacan completely abandons a linear notion of time: what concerns psychoanalysis is not the “real” past sequence of events in themselves, but the way these events exist “now” in memory, and the way the patient reports them. This dynamic idea of subjective temporality was immediately received not only by clinical therapy but also by other branches of knowledge. Nevertheless, in his late teaching Lacan directly engages the epistemological level of time analysis, trying to offer constants to the dynamic of time consciousness. Therefore, in the last years of his Seminar, he introduces into his work the mathematical concept of topological space, and begins to delineate a close relationship between time and space from the immanent point of view of discourse theory. If “rhythm” seems to be the ultimate horizon opened by Lacan’s teaching on time toward the end of his career, this perspective could mark the definitive return to Freud and anticipate some of the current most valid research in semiotics and physics. Unfortunately, the death of the French psychoanalyst resulted in this perspective remaining only barely sketched out. (shrink)

This paper proposes new ways of characterizing eighteenth-century French Cartesianism. Besides two widely-accepted elements—the belief in “strict mechanism” and the idea that to demonstrate in physics does not involve mathematics, but reference to mechanical models—I add two more, hitherto neglected, features. First, a strong emphasis on experimentalism, namely the view that experiments are crucial to natural-philosophical practice. Second, an epistemological thesis that I call “conjecturalism,” which consists in doubting that natural philosophy would attain an ultimate truth on the nature of (...) things. To explore these facets of Cartesianism, I focus on the works of the Jesuit Noël Regnault. (shrink)

Volgendo l’attenzione alla problematica traduzione del cosiddetto basilicus iactus menzionato nella commedia Curculio di Plauto questo articolo cerca di fornire un nuovo contributo allo studio della cultura ludica latina. Sulla scorta di evidenze interne al testo, in particolare a proposito dell’identità drammatica dei suoi protagonisti e delle isotopie narrative presenti, e grazie a testimonianze esterne alla commedia, nello specifico alcune tradizioni cultuali greche e magno-greche, questa ricerca propone di intendere l’espressione basilicus iactus non come “colpo del re” bensì come “colpo (...) della regina”, con un rinvio implicito alla dea Venus e al colpo degli astragali che dalla divinità prendeva il nome. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the notions of organic form and morphology—a scientific field historically associated with the eighteenth century polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe —have stealthy re-assumed a central role in various scientific disciplines. Although the study of organic form was apparently excluded from the main stage of evolutionary theory and biological sciences during the second half of the twentieth century, since morphology was considered as a descriptive and ancillary science unable to contribute to the neo-Darwinian synthesis of evolution1, morphological (...) concepts and approaches have now been re-brought onto the central stage of mainstream science.2In fact, several interdisciplinary... (shrink)