This essay contextualizes Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s plan of systematic colonization of Australia within the social and political economic debates surrounding the process of slave emancipation in the British West Indies from the 1830s onwards. Wakefield’s proposal to induce wage labour by preventing the labourers from becoming independent producers and proprietors was an important expression of a pan-imperial concern on the relation between the extension of the “field of employment” and the concentration of the labour force; this issue also troubled the (...) architects of the abolition, charged with the unprecedented task of turning over six hundred thousand West Indian slaves into free labourers without ruining plantation economy. Analysing a wide range of political, economic, and administrative sources related to the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean through the lens of Wakefield’s theory, this essay sheds light on the interconnectedness between the different parts of the British Empire and makes a critique of some crucial categories of political thought, such as the liberal concepts of freedom and labour, as well as the very notion of emancipation. (shrink)

Resumen. La educación en valores conservacionistas representa una vía para promover cambios permanentesde actitudes, formación de conciencia y sensibilidad hacia los problemas socioambientales, por lo que serequiere la cooperación y participación de las universidades para lograr la internalización de valores en lascomunidades. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo proponer un modelo de gestión ambiental basado envalores conservacionistas que contribuya a la integración de la Universidad Nacional Experimental delTáchira [UNET] con la comunidad Río Chiquito, Parroquia La Petrolea, Municipio Junín, Estado Táchira,Venezuela. (...) Metodológicamente se ubicó en una investigación de campo, descriptiva, bajo la modalidad deproyecto factible, con apoyo en el paradigma cuantitativo, adoptándose el diseño no experimentaltranseccional. La población estuvo conformada por cinco informantes claves encargados del desarrollo deprogramas ambientales y 137 familias del área en estudio; como muestra se seleccionó la totalidad de losinformantes y 102 familias, a quienes se les aplicó un guión de entrevista y un cuestionario, respectivamente,validados mediante la técnica juicios de expertos y obteniéndose un coeficiente Alfa de Cronbach de 0.97indicativo de una confiabilidad muy alta. Los resultados evidencian que en la comunidad poco se practicanvalores conservacionistas, como consecuencia a la no presencia de líderes vecinales que fomenten estosvalores, además, hay una exigua participación comunitaria y universitaria en materia ambiental. Por tanto, serecomienda la elaboración del modelo de gestión ambiental basado en valores conservacionistas paracontribuir en el proceso integración universidad comunidad y así consolidar la formación de un individuo conconciencia conservacionista.Palabras claves. liderazgo vecinal, participación comunitaria, participación universitaria, modelo de gestiónambiental, valores conservacionistas.. Conservation values education represents a way to promote permanent changes in attitudes, raisingawareness and sensitivity to environmental problems, so it requires the cooperation and participation ofuniversities to achieve the internalization of values in communities. This study aims to propose a model ofenvironmental management based on conservation values that contribute to the integration of the UniversidadNacional Experimental del Táchira [UNET] – Río Chiquito, Parroquia La Petrolea, Municipio Junín, EstadoTáchira, Venezuela. Methodologically was located in a field research, descriptive, in the form of feasibleproject, supported in the quantitative paradigm, adopting the experimental design is not transactional. Thepopulation consisted of five key informants responsible for the development of environmental programs and137 families in the study area, as the entire sample was selected informants and 102 families who wereadministered an interview guide and questionnaire, respectively, validated by technical experts and trialsyielding a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.97 indicating a very high reliability. The results show that inpractice little community conservation values, due to the non presence of neighborhood leaders to promotethese values, in addition, there is a low participation in community and university environment. Therefore, werecommend the development of environmental management model based on conservation values to contributeto the university community integration process and consolidate the formation of a conservation-consciousindividual.Keywords. conservation values, community involvement, university involvement, leadership, neighborhood,environmental management model. (shrink)

Questo saggio intende mostrare come negli Stati Uniti i sostenitori della free market economy fra gli anni Settanta e Ottanta abbiano fatto del conflitto con i movimenti di liberazione, in particolare con il femminismo, e dell’opposizione allo Stato sociale e alle sue _affirmative actions_, l’occasione per ridefinire gerarchicamente l’ordine di mercato, conferendogli legittimità e stabilità attraverso strumenti concettuali extra-economici. L’ipotesi avanzata è che l’analisi di questo conflitto permetta di osservare la specifica forma politica che il neoliberalismo ha assunto al momento (...) della sua ascesa negli Stati Uniti. Tale ipotesi è vagliata prendendo in esame il modo in cui i presupposti non mercantili dell’economia di mercato – in particolare, la morale, l’ordine ontologico-naturale e la biologia – sono stati mobilitati da figure chiave del neoconservatorismo, del libertarismo e del neoliberalismo, rispettivamente Irving Kristol, Murray Rothbard e Gary Becker, per ristabilire non solo l’ordine familiare, ma il complesso dei rapporti sociali gerarchici necessari all’efficace funzionamento del mercato. (shrink)

Envelhecer traz em si significações negativas que se agravam em situação de reclusão. Os procedimentos metodológicos pautaram-se em estudo bibliográfico e pesquisa em banco de dados. Os artigos encontrados foram organizados, analisados, chegando à conclusões como a falta de pesquisas sobre a mulher idosa encarcerada. Por isso, foi realizada a entrevista semi-estruturada com uma senhora sentenciada à privação de liberdade em São Paulo, Brasil. Os dados da pesquisa revelaram que a vida em regime fechado é precária para a mulher idosa (...) e, que se faz necessário repensar as políticas públicas priorizando medidas educativas e artísticas no ambiente prisional. (shrink)

A reflection on the aesthetic status of some typical objects of everyday life, and the relationship we have with them, may originate from the development of “aesthetic experience” by John Dewey and Neopragmatism. The continuity between the common practices and aesthetic ones determines the significance of ordinary objects if they are linked to a project of enrichment and fulfillment of experience. A case that thematizes the richness of these practices in the contemporary world, and also the related theoretical and critical (...) problems, is the production of skateboards. An established artist like Damien Hirst collaborates with the NYC-based streetwear brand Supreme; a new London-based brand, Palace Skateboards, and Tate realize together a few skateboard and a video. (shrink)

En el presente artículo nos hemos propuesto analizar las variantes textuales griegas relativas a los términos “vino” y “vinagre” dentro del contexto neotestamentario de la Pasión de Cristo, así como sus correlatos en la traducción de los Evangelios en antiguo eslavo. Como resultado de dicho análisis, hemos detectado una tendencia a introducir el término “vinagre” por parte de la tradición textológica del Nuevo Testamento griego, que es secundada además por otras tradiciones, como la siríaca o la eslava.

A Abordagem Interdisciplinar é relevante, porque é constitutiva da condição e do desejado desenvolvimento humano, uma vez que parece não haver nenhum fenômeno genuinamente físico, químico ou biológico, porquanto todos estão entrelaçados ou são interdependentes. Por isso, o objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre a relevância dessa Abordagem considerando a elaboração de uma proposta de atividade para a Educação Básica contemplando a Física. Trata-se de um extrato da experiência de preparação do professor-candidato-pesquisador-autor para um concurso público destinado ao provimento de (...) cargo integrante da carreira de magistério superior. Em linhas gerais, a proposta apresentada envolve a resolução do problema, “Como ocorre a digestão?”, o que pode: estimular a pesquisa e o pensamento criativo dos envolvidos; auxiliar cada estudante a dominar processos de reflexão e aprendizagem com relativa autonomia, criticidade e de modo interdisciplinar. (shrink)

Science and Religion: Methodology, History and Prospects in Latin America.

In this paper I analyse an argument for God's existence from the liberty proposed by Prof. Polo. I think that an examination of his transcendental antropology wild yield some important insights concerning of person and liberty. I argue this argument is sound and illuminating of our concept of God.

Pretende construir el autor, tomando como referencia a Foucaul y Nietzsche, una perspectiva genealógica de la historia capaz de responder a una serie de preguntas que expliquen cómo hemos llegado a ser lo que somos, ¿qué es la historia y para qué sirve?, ¿es una ciencia?, ¿cuál es su relación con la filosofía?, ¿es posible un conocimiento histórico objetivo?..

In this paper a comparison is made between the notion of truth as offered by Thomas Aquinas and John McDowell’s reflections on knowledge and truth. We suggest that some correspondences can be drawn between the thomist idea of trascendental truth and McDowell’s proposal of the unboundedness of the conceptual, and between the realist thesis that truth of things measure our understanding and McDowell’s defense of objectivity, understood as the constraint exerted by external reality on our thinking, which makes possible a (...) free and responsible exercise of conceptual capacities. In order to highlight those correspondences, we analyse two essays of McDowell, in which, by examining some aspects of Rorty’s position regarding knowledge and truth, the southafrican professor offers a defense of objectivity that, far from being an obstacle for the characteristic freedom of our rational capacity, is a condition for it. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 212 Seiten: 129-153.

Are wealthy countries' duties towards developing countries grounded in justice or in weaker concerns of charity? Justice in a Globalized World offers both an in-depth critique of the most prominent philosophical answers to this question, and a distinctive approach for addressing it.

In _The Boundaries of Babel_, Andrea Moro tells the story of an encounter between two cultures: contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive neurosciences. The study of language within a biological context has been ongoing for more than fifty years. The development of neuroimaging technology offers new opportunities to enrich the "biolinguistic perspective" and extend it beyond an abstract framework for inquiry. As a leading theoretical linguist in the generative tradition and also a cognitive scientist schooled in the new imaging technology, (...) Moro is uniquely equipped to explore this. Moro examines what he calls the "hidden" revolution in contemporary science: the discovery that the number of possible grammars is not infinite and that their number is biologically limited. This radical but little-discussed change in the way we look at language, he claims, will require us to rethink not just the fundamentals of linguistics and neurosciences but also our view of the human mind. Moro searches for neurobiological correlates of "the boundaries of Babel" -- the constraints on the apparent chaotic variation in human languages -- by using an original experimental design based on artificial languages. He offers a critical overview of some of the fundamental results from linguistics over the last fifty years, in particular regarding syntax, then uses these essential aspects of language to examine two neuroimaging experiments in which he took part. He describes the two neuroimaging techniques used, but makes it clear that techniques and machines do not provide interesting data without a sound theoretical framework. Finally, he discusses some speculative aspects of modern research in biolinguistics regarding the impact of the linear structure of linguistics expression on grammar, and more generally, some core aspects of language acquisition, genetics, and evolution. (shrink)

We whole-heartedly support Andrew Garland, Stephanie Morain, and Jeremy Sugarman’s claim that clinicians have a duty to participate in pragmatic clinical trials (Garland, Morain, and Sugarman 2023)...

Virtual Reality has often been referred to as an “empathy machine.” This is mostly because it can induce empathy through embodiment experiences in outgroup membership. However, the potential of intergroup contact with an outgroup avatar in VR to increase empathy is less studied. Even though intergroup contact literature suggests that less threatening and more prosocial emotions are the key to understanding why intergroup contact is a powerful mean to decrease prejudice, few studies have investigated the effect of intergroup contact on (...) empathy in VR. In this study, we developed a between-participants design to investigate how VR can be used to create a positive intergroup contact with a member of a stigmatized outgroup and present the results of the effect of intergroup contact in VR on empathy. Sixty four participants experienced either positive contact with a black avatar or no intergroup contact, with situational empathy being measured through a self-report questionnaire up to a week before and right after the VR contact experience. The experiment showed that satisfying degrees of body ownership of participants’ own avatar and co-presence with the contacted avatar can be achieved in simple and universally accessible virtual environments such as AltspaceVR. The results indicated that while VR intergroup contact had no significant direct effect on empathy, exploratory analyses indicated that post-intervention empathic interest increased with stronger feelings of co-presence in the intergroup contact condition. (shrink)

Arthur Danto's The Abuse of Beauty was a significant contribution to the acclaimed return of beauty that had been taking place since Dave Hickey's 1993 manifesto announced that beauty would be the defining problem of the next decade. One of the most original and important aspects of Danto's look at beauty is that he thought about it as a contribution to art criticism. External aesthetic qualities would be as meaningless as natural beauty intended to play role in conveying a work (...) 's meaning, constitute the aesthetic dimension of the work. For Danto, elegiac beauty can provide political role for the aesthetic quality, but the impossibility of what could be termed an “angry beauty,” capable of outraging people, seriously limits the option of beauty in “angrily political” contemporary art. Danto thought that activist art will try to inflect works with an angry mood in order to turn people against what they are about. (shrink)

A book review of Jon Robson, Aesthetic Testimony: An Optimistic Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, x+166 pp. ISBN 9780192862952.

The book is an intellectual analysis of the political ideas of English radical thinker Thomas Spence (1750-1814), who was renowned for his "Plan", a proposal for the abolition of private landownership and the replacement of state institutions with a decentralized parochial organization. This system would be realized by means of the revolution of the "swinish multitude", the poor labouring class despised by Edmund Burke and adopted by Spence as his privileged political interlocutor. While he has long been considered an eccentric (...) and anachronistic figure, the book sets out to demonstrate that Spence was a deeply original, thoroughly modern thinker, who translated his themes into a popular language addressing the multitude and publicized his Plan through chapbooks, tokens, and songs. The book is therefore a history of Spence's political thought "from below", designed to decode the subtle complexity of his Plan. It also shows that the Plan featured an excoriating critique of colonialism and slavery as well as a project of global emancipation. By virtue of its transnational scope, the Plan made landfall in the British West Indies a few years after Spence's death. Indeed, Spencean ideas were intellectually implicated in the largest slave revolt in the history of Barbados. (shrink)

In modern industrial society the issue of access to healthcare is inseparable from the question of whether there is a right to healthcare and whether government has the correlative duty to assure a minimum level of care to all citizens. While discussion in terms of rights and duties tends to direct our attention to broader, more theoretical ethical issues, discussion in terms of invites consideration of more practical concerns. The news media rarely report in terms of whether a citizen's right (...) to healthcare has been abridged or disregarded, but rather offers tales of people being denied access. Advocacy groups for specific illnesses do not necessarily argue for universal health insurance, but rather press that certain conditions, such as renal failure requiring dialysis, receive unlimited insurance coverage and that people with the condition be given automatic access to care. (shrink)

Arguably, the religious use of hallucinogenic drugs stems from a human search of metaphysical insight rather than from a direct need for cognitive, emotional, social, physical, or sexual improvement. Therefore, the sacramental and spiritual intake of hallucinogenic drugs goes so far beyond other biopsychosocial functions that it deserves its own category in the drug instrumentalization list.

In this paper, we propose a methodology of analysis for new videographies based on an analytical grid. We base our epistemological starting point on various critical cultural study authors, a semiotic analysis, and a critical discourse analysis. We apply the grid to a case study composed of a series of videos titledIdentibuzz: Hybrid identities, which was created within UBIQA, a Basque social innovation laboratory. In order to fully grasp the results of the analysis, we briefly outline some data referring to (...) transnational migrations in Spain as well as the representation of immigrants in Spanish mainstream media. We then compare the representations of immigrants in the videos to that in mainstream media to analyze the dissection between new videographies and more traditional video genres. (shrink)

Marriage patterns of California's eighteenth and nineteenth century Spanish-Mexican families are analysed using data from genealogies and mission records. A shortage of women among the military based colonists led to an unusual marriage pattern with a large age differential between husbands and wives. The average age at marriage was 18·4 years for women and 28·4 years for men. Spatial mobility was high for both sexes, particularly for men. More husbands than wives were born in Mexico. The Monterey presidial district of (...) central California was the birthplace of a disproportionate number of husbands and the southern California districts were a source of wives. The transition between a founding population predominantly composed of Mexican immigrants and a population of native-born Californians occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

We focus on the debate on the external validity of lab results in the area of experimental economics. More specifically, we focus on Colin Camerer’s and John List’s views, who postulate opposite positions on the issue. The problem is that they partially analyze the same empirical evidence and draw from it opposite conclusions. The goal of this work is to analyze such empirical evidence to try to explain the difference in interpretation of results. We argue that the dispute in interpretations (...) can be expressed in terms of difference of criteria used to determine external validity. From our analysis we propose the formulation of different types of external validity. (shrink)

In the late fifteenth centuryMuscovy an intellectual ecclesiastical elite promotes the production of treaties on calendar tables for the calculation of the Easter date (Paskhalia) in order to quell the unrest, that the end of the seventh millennium caused. In addition, in the Paskhalia there are controversial issues against Judaizing Heresy and againstWesternisers. At the same time, the treaties outline the basis of Muscovite hegemonic political ideology.

Cases of akratic behavior are generally seen as paradigmatic depictions of the knowledge-action gap (Darnell et al 2019): we know what we should do, we judge that we should do it, yet we often fail to act according to our knowledge. In recent decades attention has been given to a particular instance of akratic behavior, which is that of “inverse akrasia”, where the agent possesses faulty moral knowledge but fails to act accordingly, thus ending up doing the right thing. In (...) particular, two literary examples are considered as exemplifying this kind of akratic situation: Huckleberry Finn (Arpaly & Schroeder 1999, Arpaly 2000, Hursthouse 1999, Kleist 2009, Holton manuscript) and Neoptolemus as understood by Aristotle (NE; Arpaly & Schroeder 1999). In this paper I will argue that those of Neoptolemus and Huck Finn are not cases of inverse akrasia (Holton manuscript) but are much better explained as instances of what Williams (1993) called “moral incapacity”. In particular, the reason why they fail to act according to their original judgments is due to a lack of motivation to act accordingly, which is grounded in their moral self-identities (Blasi 1984; Vigani 2016). The paper will unfold as follows: I will, first, argue that neither Neoptolemus nor Huck Finn show akratic behavior; thus, they cannot be legitimately labeled as “inverse akratics” (par 1.); then, I will argue that they act the way they do notwithstanding their faulty judgments because they are effectively motivated to do so. Such motivation originates in their moral self-identities and is experienced through the threat of self-betrayal (par 2); finally, I will argue that when an agent is motivated to act in a way that is integral with her moral self-identity, acting otherwise is experienced as something one cannot ultimately do; that is, as a moral incapacity (par 3). This “cannot” is neither a metaphor for an “I shouldn’t”, nor an instance of what has been recently labeled a “moral impossibility” (Caprioglio Panizza 2020, 2021), since it does not arise from the normative force of deontic judgments, and it is neither physically nor psychologically impossible for the agent to act otherwise. (shrink)

There are no men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together different words, and thereby constructing a declaration by which to make their thoughts understood.... On the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect or happily circumstanced which can do the like.-Descartes Language is more like a snowflake than a giraffe's neck. Its specific properties are determined by laws of nature, they have not developed through the accumulation of historical accidents.-Noam Chomsky (...) In I Speak, Therefore I Am, the Italian linguist and neuroscientist Andrea Moro composes an album of his favorite quotations from the history of linguistics, beginning with the Book of Genesis and the power of naming and concluding with Noam Chomsky's metaphor that language is a snowflake. Moro's seventeen linguistic thoughts and his commentary on them display the humanness of language: our need to name and interpret this world and create imaginary ones, to express and understand ourselves. This book is sure to delight anyone who enjoys the ineffable paradox that is human language. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While interest in philosophy and medicine has burgeoned in the past two decades, there remains a need for an analysis of the intellectual activity embodied in good medical practice. In this setting, ethical and scientific decision‐making are complexly interrelated. The following paper, collaboratively written by physicians and philosophers, presents a view of applied (clinical) science and applied ethics. Making extensive use of illustrations drawn from routine case material, we seek to indicate a variety of philosophic issues to be found (...) in daily practice, elucidate various levels of critical reasoning within the medical setting, and demonstrate a remarkable similarity between medical and ethical decision‐making. (shrink)

The rejection of beauty from a political standpoint is a significant part of the legacy of avant-gardism in contemporary art. In particular, Arthur Danto signaled that artistic activism should avoid beauty simply because beauty induces the wrong perspective on whatever it is desired to have an impact upon. While artistic beauty’s tendency would be to heal, he claimed, political protest needs anger as its trigger. This article challenges such an argument that opposes beauty’s emotional effects on political action by examining (...) the complex nature of both beauty and anger. I contest a mere contemplative view of beauty and, using Carolyn Korsmeyer’s account of “terrible beauties,” bound up with discomforting emotions, I defend that beauty can be compatible with anger albeit, in order to be politically truly effective, anger must move from the wish to punish toward more productive forward-looking thoughts. Though often being necessary as a source of motivation to fight for justice, I believe, with Martha Nussbaum and Myisha Cherry, that anger is truly politically effective and keeps its noble side when detached from revenge and directed by hope, a value related to beauty. (shrink)