Este artículo realiza un análisis crítico de las respuestas que se han estructurado a nivel jurídico y político para hacer frente a las migraciones climáticas. Resalta la necesidad de incorporar el enfoque étnico-racial en el abordaje de este fenómeno debido a su impacto diferencial sobre los derechos de las personas afrodescendientes e indígenas, en especial en lo relativo al territorio y la propiedad colectiva. Examina, además, las causas estructurales que le subyacen y utiliza ese estudio como base para fijar parámetros (...) que puedan ser tenidos en cuenta en la construcción de futuras políticas internacionales. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente trabajo se centra en el análisis del Anteproyecto de reforma de la legislación civil española en materia de capacidad jurídica de las personas con discapacidad publicado recientemente por el Gobierno español. Su objetivo consiste en determinar la adecuación de las principales modificaciones planteadas en este anteproyecto a las exigencias del artículo 12 de la Convención Internacional sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad tal y como han sido interpretadas por su Comité en la Observación General Nº1 (...) Abstract: This paper focuses on the analysis of the prelimimary Draf Law of reform of the Spanish civil legislation on legal capacity of persons with disabilities, published by the Spanish Government on September 26th 2018. Its aim is to determine the conformity of the main modifications proposed in this preliminary Draft to the requirements of article 12 of the Conventionon the Rights of Persons with Disabilitiesas interpreted by its Committee in the General Comment Nº 1. (shrink)

El pensamiento y la actividad del movimiento feminista se ha traducido en una conquista de realidades nuevas y diferentes tendentes a lograr la transformación de la situación de dependencia y sumisión de las mujeres respecto a los hombres. Si bien es cierto que a lo largo de este proceso de emancipación las mujeres han cosechado un innegable éxito en las sociedades democráticas, al menos en lo que se refiere a la construcción legislativa, se mantiene una desigual posición de hombres y (...) mujeres en ámbitos diversos. En este sentido, la aplicación de la Ley de Dependencia, ejemplo en nuestro país de ampliación de los derechos sociales, puede tener el efecto no deseado de contribuir al mantenimiento de los roles tradicionales de hombres y mujeres. (shrink)

The native language changes as a result of contact with a second language, and the pattern and degree of such change depend on a variety of factors like the bilingual experience or the linguistic level. Here, we present a systematic review and meta-analysis of works that explore variations in native sentence comprehension and production by comparing monolinguals and bilinguals. Fourteen studies in the meta-analysis provided information regarding the bilingual experience and differences at the morphosyntactic level using behavioral methods. Overall, we (...) observed that first language processing is subject to small transformations in bilinguals that occur in sentence comprehension and production. The magnitude of the changes depended on bilingual experiences, but only length of residence in an L2 setting predicted the degree of change, where shorter length of residence was associated with larger changes. Results are discussed and related to the cognitive processes that potentially cause the transformations in the first language. The present work reveals some limitations in the field that should be addressed in future studies to better understand the mechanisms behind language attrition. (shrink)

Nowadays, the quality standards of higher education institutions pay special attention to the performance and evaluation of the students. Then, having a complete academic record of each student, such as number of attempts, average grade and so on, plays a key role. In this context, the existence of missing data, which can happen for different reasons, leads to affect adversely interesting future analysis. Therefore, the use of imputation techniques is presented as a helpful tool to estimate the value of missing (...) data. This work deals with the academic records of engineering students, in which imputation techniques are applied. More specifically, it is assessed and compared to the performance of the multivariate imputation by chained equations methodology, the adaptive assignation algorithm based on multivariate adaptive regression splines and a hybridization based on self-organisation maps with Mahalanobis distances and AAA algorithm. The results show that proposed methods obtain successfully results regardless the number of missing values, in general terms. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Este artículo analiza el sentido e implicaciones del Artículo 12 de la Convención Internacional sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapadad a la luz de la Observación General Nº1 de su Comité y se centra en determinar su impacto en el régimen general de atribución de personalidad y capacidad jurídica y en el ámbito del Derecho Privado y de Familia del Estado de Qatar. ABSTRACT: This paper analyzes the meaning and implications of Article 12 of the International Convention (...) on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the light of the General Comment No. 1 of its Committee. It focuses on determining the impact of this General Comment to the general regime of personality and capacity attribution in the field of Private law and Family law on Qatar. PALABRAS CLAVE: capacidad jurídica, CDPD, derecho privado, legislación qatarí. KEYWORDS: legal capacity – CRPD – private law – Qatari legislation. (shrink)

Se presenta una propuesta de innovación educativa, dirigida al alumnado de Educación Secundaria, fundamentada en el uso de los itinerarios didácticos teatralizados como recurso didáctico con perspectiva de género. Para su confección se pretende una metodología que privilegia los contenidos procedimentales y que fomenta el pensamiento histórico y, por ende, el pensamiento crítico. Los contenidos seleccionados están relacionados con el siglo XVI y XVII y, más concretamente, con la persecución y procesamiento de mujeres por brujería y hechicería por parte del (...) Tribunal de la Inquisición. Para ello se toma como centro de estudio el proceso que se llevó a cabo en Córdoba contra Leonor Rodríguez, lo que llevará al alumnado a reflexionar y a preguntarse sobre los estereotipos de la mujer en la historia, así como en la actualidad, con la intención de formar a una ciudadanía crítica y comprometida. (shrink)

Contrary to an understanding of the struggle against gender violence as placing men and women in opposition to one another, victims have always been supported by both women and men. To prevent violence is important to know not only which message should be transmitted but also how the dialogue should unfold, and the characteristics of the people engaging in that dialogue. Because of the existing association between attraction and violence in our society, the unity of the language of ethics and (...) the language of desire in such dialogue has become a key element in the struggle against gender violence. This study identifies the strong presence of communicative acts that unify these languages in the women and men who are successful in this struggle. The opposition to violence that they defend guide their own desires, which are transmitted through their communicative acts to the people around them. (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

Objective: To measure the stability of life-sustaining treatment preferences amongst older people and analyse the factors that influence stability. Design: Longitudinal cohort study. Setting: Primary care centres, Granada (Spain). Eighty-five persons age 65 years or older. Participants filled out a questionnaire with six contexts of illness (LSPQ-e). They had to decide whether or not to receive treatment. Participants completed the questionnaire at baseline and 18 months later. Results: 86 percent of the patients did not change preferences. Sex, age, marital status, (...) hospitalisation, and self-perception of health and pain did not affect preferences. Morbidity and the death of a relative did. Conclusion: Stability of preferences of older persons in relation to end-of-life decisions seems to be more probable than instability. Some factors, such as the death of a relative or the increase in morbidity, can change preferences. These findings have implications for advance directives (ADs) and advance care planning. (shrink)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to analyze the influence and measurement of the relationship and interaction between the elderly lifestyles after the appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 variant and the factors analyzed comprised life satisfaction levels, social relationships, and daily-life activities.MethodsThe study population was ≥ 65 in Castile-La Mancha. The research design was quantitative and arose from primary data collected via an ad hoc survey carried out through the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview system by randomly stratified sampling. The sample size was made up (...) of 1,065 cases, and the participants were selected through a random sampling stratified by gender quotas, age, province, and habitat size.ResultsThe results obtained revealed two main lifestyles, from which a notable behavioral change in personal relationships led to infer toward alternative lifestyles.ConclusionNotwithstanding the variation in lifestyles of the elderly after the pandemic, certain relationships remained unaltered. Thus, from the analyzed variables, relatives and friends relationships were scarcely influenced by the supervened incident. (shrink)

El descubrimiento estético del ser vivo del Espacio, el Lugar y el Cuerpo, que se tensionan por contraste con el Vacío, el Abismo y el Caos, según las flexibles y múltiples declinaciones del Devenir, el Tiempo y el Límite, figura entre los más recientes y creativos hallazgos del Pensamiento de la Diferencia actual, pues se conecta esencialmente con el ser del Lenguaje tanto plástico como teórico y práctico, atravesando los universos del Arte y las Tecnologías más inteligentes. Ello afecta, además, (...) esencialmente a campos tales como la ontología, la arquitectura, la ecología, la estética y la historia, alcanzando críticamente a cuestionar algunos de los supuestos ya impositivos ya acostumbrados de la racionalidad positivista, que van desde la Física a la Política, impidiendo el acontecer de otras posibilidades y paradigmas, que claman por aflorar en nuestros mundos, pugnando por poder aparecer. Que el Espacio vivo no es un No-Ser, apela desde la obra de Heidegger y Chillida, por ejemplo, a un Arte y Lenguaje fascinantes, que dejan ver de otro modo las relaciones intensivas de los enlaces abiertos que no engloban por extensión sino por sincronía, así como ponen de manifiesto potencias incalculables de la Ausencia que no se da como presente pero sí es perceptible de modo actual y virtual… Asuntos que ya exploraba la Tragedia Ática y su puesta en escena del límite de la muerte como alteridad radical, y son lanzados por el Pensamiento-Arte de la Diferencia de los siglos XX y XXI, yendo a veces desde las raíces de nuestro Inicio hacia los futuros desconocidos que abren y transitan los autores/as de este libro maravilloso. Para ello su texto coral opera trazando viajes por el espacio-tiempo estético a descubrir. Muchos de tales autores/as son doctos conocedores que nos traducen, transmiten y comparten, tanto su saber, como la pasión singular de su explorar y su experiencia, moviéndose por entre constelaciones complejas emergentes. Actúan a través de otros lenguajes y ponen en obra otros mundos posibles que atraviesan distancias llegando hasta nosotros. Este libro nace en el Tajo de Ronda-Málaga mirando al cielo y al abismo de instantes eternos reunidos a la vez, por el pensar-poetizar de espacios y lenguajes abiertos para quienes se atrevan a asumir el riesgo de crear. ---- The aesthetic discovery of the living being of Space, Place and Body, which are tensioned by contrast with Emptiness, Abyss and Chaos, according to the flexible and multiple declinations of Becoming, Time and Limit, is among the most recent and creative findings of the current Thinking of Difference, as it essentially connects with the being of Language both plastic and theoretical and practical, crossing the universes of Art and the most intelligent Technologies. This also essentially affects fields such as ontology, architecture, ecology, aesthetics and history, critically questioning some of the already imposed assumptions of positivist rationality, ranging from Physics to Politics, preventing the emergence of other possibilities and paradigms, which cry out to emerge in our worlds, struggling to be able to appear. That the living Space is not a Non-Being, appeals from the work of Heidegger and Chillida, for example, to a fascinating Art and Language, which allow us to see in another way the intensive relations of the open links that do not encompass by extension but by synchrony, as well as revealing incalculable powers of the Absence that is not given as present but is perceptible in a current and virtual way... Issues that were already explored by the Attic Tragedy and its staging of the limit of death as radical alterity, and are launched by the Thought-Art of Difference of the 20th and 21st centuries, sometimes going from the roots of our Beginning towards the unknown futures that the authors of this marvellous book open and pass through. To this end, their choral text operates by tracing journeys through the aesthetic space-time to be discovered. Many of these authors are learned connoisseurs who translate, transmit and share with us their knowledge, as well as the singular passion of their exploration and experience, moving through complex emerging constellations. They act through other languages and create other possible worlds that cross distances and reach us. This book is born in the Tajo de Ronda-Malaga looking at the sky and the abyss of eternal instants gathered at the same time, by the thinking-poeticising of spaces and languages open to those who dare to take the risk of creating. (shrink)

The use of images in education has received little attention despite the dual role of images in school textbooks, one aimed at the acquisition of knowledge and the other at the transmission of attitudes, values and norms, that constitute a valuable source of historical, educational and communicative research. We will study, through the analysis of content, the characteristics of the catechisms, the legislation of the time related to the publication of school textbooks, the presence of images, types, the didactic function (...) and the transmission of social models and ideology. The research suggests that the images of school catechisms are not simply reflections of a reality that facilitates the learning of the contents taught in schools, but that they also become an effective tool in the transformation of the values and ideological thinking of the social context in which they are produced. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Este trabajo considera la conceptualización y aplicación de la figura de los ajustes razonables en Qatar tras nueve años desde la ratificación de la Convención sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad (CDPD). En él se trata de analizar la situación de igualdad y no discriminación de las personas con discapacidad utilizando como medida de impacto la figura de ajustes razonables. El artículo destaca las principales fallas y virtudes del Estado de Qatar respecto a esta figura y traza (...) un camino a fin de poder avanzar en la inclusión de las personas con discapacidad a la luz de la CDPD. ABSTRACT: This paper considers the conceptualization and application of reasonable acommodation in Qatar after nine years since the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It analyzes the situation of equality and non-discrimination of people with disabilities using the figure of reasonable adjustments as an impact measure. The article highlights the main failures and virtues of the State of Qatar regarding reasonable accommodation and draws a path to move forward in the inclusion of people with disabilities in the light of the CRPD. PALABRAS CLAVE: ajustes razonables, igualdad, CDPD, Qatar. KEYWORDS: reasonable accommodation, equality, CRPD, Qatar. (shrink)

This article reflects on the concepts of health, well‐being, gender, and dignity when providing nursing care to older adults, focusing on their wisdom and the phenomena that can affect their health or improve their quality of life. These concepts are analyzed based on the current health conditions of older adults and their needs, on the perspectives of authors in this field of research, and on Patricia Benner's philosophy: the integration of science, clinical wisdom, and ethics in nursing practice. Furthermore, (...) this article aims at contributing to the health, well‐being, gender, and dignity of older adults, despite the discrimination that they may face, as well as to the reality of nursing practice. As such, this study stems from the observed reality, experiences as caregivers and reflection of nurses committed to the values of the profession. Therefore, the article begins with the conceptualization of health, well‐being, gender, and dignity, subsequently analyzing the health–disease status of older adults from a gender perspective, addressing nursing care for older adults based on Patricia Benner's philosophy and concluding with reflections on nursing practice for a better future for older adults. (shrink)

The pioneering anthology Home Girls features writings by Black feminist and lesbian activists on topics both provocative and profound. Since its initial publication in 1983, it has become an essential text on Black women's lives and writings. This edition features an updated list of contributor biographies and an all-new preface that provides a fresh assessment of how Black women's lives have changed-or not-since the book was first published. Contributors are Tania Abdulahad, Donna Allegra, Barbara A. Banks, Becky Birtha, Julie Carter, (...) Cenen, Cheryl Clarke, Michelle Cliff, Michelle T. Clinton, Willie M. Coleman, Toi Derricotte, Alexis De Veaux, Jewelle L. Gomez, Akasha (Gloria) Hull, Patricia Jones, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Raymina Y. Mays, Deidre McCalla, Chirlane McCray, Pat Parker, Linda C. Powell, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Spring Redd, Gwendolyn Rogers, Kate Rushin, Ann Allen Shockley, Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, Shirley O. Steele, Luisah Teish, Jameelah Waheed, Alice Walker, and Renita Weems. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Let ‘semantic relevance’ be the thesis that the wide semantic properties of representational mental states (like beliefs and desires) are causally relevant to behavior. A popular way of arguing for semantic relevance runs as follows: start with a sufficient counterfactual condition for causal or explanatory relevance, and show that wide semantic properties meet it with respect to behavior (e.g., Loewer & Lepore (1987,1989), Rescorla (2014), Yablo (2003)).This paper discusses an in‐principle limitation of this strategy: even the most sophisticated counterfactual criteria (...) systematically misclassify irrelevant properties as relevant when they stand in certain kinds of modal co‐variation or ‘entanglement’ relations to genuinely relevant properties. This entanglement problem, I argue, is more general and more serious than proponents of the counterfactual strategy have recognized: it threatens recent interventionist arguments for semantic relevance, and is not easily solved by appeal to proportionality or naturalness. I end by suggesting that proponents of semantic relevance may need to shift their attention from patterns of counterfactuals to the lawful psychological generalizations that explain them. (shrink)

There have been several different and even opposed conceptions of the problem of logical constants, i.e. of the requirements that a good theory of logical constants ought to satisfy. This paper is in the first place a survey of these conceptions and a critique of the theories they have given rise to. A second aim of the paper is to sketch some ideas about what a good theory would look like. A third aim is to draw from these ideas and (...) from the preceding survey the conclusion that most conceptions of the problem of logical constants involve requirements of a philosophically demanding nature which are probably not satisfiable by any minimally adequate theory. (shrink)

BackgroundThis article aims to contribute to a better conceptualization of pain and suffering by providing non-essential and non-naturalistic definitions of both phenomena. Contributions of classical evidence-based medicine, the humanistic turn in medicine, as well as the phenomenology and narrative theories of suffering and pain, together with certain conceptions of the person beyond them are critically discussed with such purpose.MethodsA philosophical methodology is used, based on the review of existent literature on the topic and the argumentation in favor of what are (...) found as better definitions of suffering and pain.ResultsPain can be described in neurological terms but cognitive awareness, interpretation, behavioral dispositions, as well as cultural and educational factors have a decisive influence on pain perception. Suffering is proposed to be defined as an unpleasant or even anguishing experience, severely affecting a person at a psychophysical and existential level. Pain and suffering are considered unpleasant. However, the provided definitions neither include the idea that pain and suffering can attack and even destroy the self nor the idea that they can constructively expand the self; both perspectives can b e equally useful for managing pain and suffering, but they are not defining features of the same. Including the existential dimension in the definition of suffering highlights the relevance of suffering in life and its effect on one’s own attachment to the world. An understanding of pain and suffering life experiences is proposed, meaning that they are considered aspects of a person’s life, and the self is the ever-changing sum of these experiences.ConclusionsThe provided definitions will be useful to the identification of pain and suffering, to the discussion of how to relieve them, and to a better understanding of how they are expressed and experienced. They lay the groundwork for further research in all these areas, with the twofold aim of a) avoiding epistemological mistakes and moral injustices, and b) highlighting the limitations of medicine in the treatment of suffering and pain. (shrink)

Working memory is a foundational construct of cognitive psychology, where it is thought to be a capacity that enables us to keep information in mind and to use that information to support goal directed behavior. Philosophers have recently employed working memory to explain central cognitive processes, from consciousness to reasoning. In this paper, I show that working memory cannot meet even a minimal account of natural kindhood, as the functions of maintenance and manipulation of information that tie working memory models (...) and theories together do not have a coherent or univocal realizer in the brain. As such, working memory cannot explain central cognition. Rather, I argue that working memory merely redescribes its target phenomenon, and in doing so it obfuscates relevant distinctions amongst the many ways that brains like ours retain and transform information in the service of cognition. While this project ultimately erodes the explanatory role that working memory has played in our understanding of cognition, it simultaneously prompts us to evaluate the function of natural kinds within cognitive science, and signals the need for a productive pessimism to frame our future study of cognitive categories. (shrink)

Abordar el tema del hombre es de suyo arriesgado, teniendo en cuenta que su dinámica de búsqueda constante limita la reflexión filosófica al campo de los hechos históricos; cabe afirmar también que toda acción humana, tratada con cierto rigor y sistematicidad requiere acudir a la filosofía para indagar, entre otras cosas, por sus fundamentos. Este es el caso del proceso educativo, una realidad que involucra al hombre en sociedad y le ofrece las bases para tomar conciencia de su “ser persona”; (...) así, la antropología filosófica se postula como la reflexión sobre el hombre desde su realidad dinámica e interpersonal de relación consigo mismo y con el entorno que le rodea. Es necesario, pues, buscar el marco argumentativo del hecho y del discurso que constituyen el proceso educativo, labor propia de la filosofía de la educación, y caracterizada como “el saber racional y crítico de las condiciones de posibilidad de la realidad experimental educativa en su conjunto” (Fullat, 1992, pp. 89-90). Desde esta doble perspectiva, se considerarán los fundamentos del proceso educativo. (shrink)

Carroll shaped the corporate social responsibility discourse into a four-dimensional pyramid framework, which was later adapted to corporate citizenship and sustainability approaches. The four layers of the pyramid—structured from foundation to apex as economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities—drew considerable managerial attention. An important criticism of the economic foundation of the Carroll pyramid concerns the identification and ordering of the four dimensions, which are inadequately justified theoretically. The authors of this article propose an alternative approach that builds on the public (...) value concept, which integrates a microfoundation of psychological research into basic human needs. Drawing on their Swiss Dialogue process, the authors argue that a four-dimensional pyramid does have heuristic value for managers. The advantage of this alternative pyramid logic is that it may be contingently adapted to different cultural contexts, because it allows adaptive internal reordering. (shrink)

Respect for human embryos is often defended on the basis of the potentiality argument: embryos deserve respect because they already possess potentially the features that in adults are fully actualized. Opponents of this argument challenge it by claiming that if embryos should be respected because they are potentially adults, then gametes should be respected because they are potentially embryos. This article rejects this reductio ad absurdum argument by showing that there are two different types of potentiality involved so that the (...) transitivity of potentiality does not hold up in this case. Respect for embryos does not logically entail respect for gametes. (shrink)

El modelo de cultura sirvió para mostrar cómo el hombre podría simultáneamente ser un individuo, único en el orden biológico y psicológico y ser, al mismo tiempo, fundamentalmente social, viviendo y pensando en función de su grupo de acuerdo con concepciones compartidas gracias a su capacidad de comunicación simbólica. Los conceptos de contacto cultural, de resistencia cultural, de choque cultural, de aculturación, de cambio social y cultural, y más tarde de cambio social aparecen en el campo de la Antropología en (...) la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, en el marco de la expansión capitalista mundial. (shrink)

Working memory is thought to be the psychological capacity that enables us to maintain or manipulate information no longer in our environment for goal-directed action. Recent work argues that working memory is not a so-called natural kind and in turn cannot explain the cognitive processes attributed to it. This paper first clarifies the scope of this earlier critique and argues for a pluralist account of working memory. Under this account, working memory is variously realized by many mechanisms that contribute to (...) the maintenance and manipulation of information across tasks. This view in effect updates one of the earliest pluralist formulations of working memory. Juxtaposing this view against deflationary descriptions allows us to delineate two gradients that help us chart various accounts of working memory and identify their respective theoretical commitments. In turn, we can isolate those accounts that fail to accord with the evidence supporting a pluralist view, and we can begin to rehabilitate working memory as a pluralist, and ultimately more informative, construct. (shrink)

Medical professionals routinely offer prenatal genetic testing services to their expecting patients. In theory, this testing helps expecting parents better prepare for the birth of their child: e.g., if the child will have a disability. In practice, however, such testing often leads to the termination of pregnancies that would produce a child who has a disability. Some bioethicists believe that in light of our society’s history of poor treatment of people who have disabilities, when expecting parents use prenatal testing for (...) selective abortion and when medical professionals promote the use of such testing, they express a disparaging message to and about extant disabled people: e.g., that disabled people’s lives are... (shrink)

I defend a semantic theory of quotation marks, according to which these are ambiguous, as they have several different acceptations involving corresponding different conventional indications. In particular, in allusion (“mixed”) uses, the corresponding conventional indication is one with an adverbial or prepositional content, roughly equivalent to “using the quoted expression or an appropriate version of it”. And in “scare” uses, the corresponding conventional indication is that the enclosed expression should be used not plainly but in some broadly speaking distanced way, (...) or that it is being so used by the utterer. I also defend this view against some alternative views on which allusion and distance indications are to be seen as pragmatically conveyed. In particular, I consider several views that attempt to explain especially allusion and distance indications as pragmatic suggestions generated from a meager conventional basis, and I argue that they cannot accommodate a number of linguistic phenomena and reflectively supported theses about the use of quotation marks. I lay special emphasis on the fact that the main pragmatic theories fail to pass an extremely plausible test for challenges to polysemic accounts of an expression. (shrink)

Logic is formal in the sense that all arguments of the same form as logically valid arguments are also logically valid and hence truth-preserving. However, it is not known whether all arguments that are valid in the usual model-theoretic sense are truthpreserving. Tarski claimed that it could be proved that all arguments that are valid (in the sense of validity he contemplated in his 1936 paper on logical consequence) are truthpreserving. But he did not offer the proof. The question arises (...) whether the usual modeltheoretic sense of validity and Tarski's 1936 sense are the same. I argue in this paper that they probably are not, and that the proof Tarski had in mind, although unusable to prove that model-theoretically valid arguments are truth-preserving, can be used to prove that arguments valid in Tarski's 1936 sense are truth-preserving. (shrink)

Tarski implicitly postulated that a certain pre-theoretical concept of logical consequence and his technical concept of logical consequence are co-extensional. This chapter makes explicit a few theses about logical consequence or logical truth that sound Tarskian somehow, including one that most deserves the name ‘Tarski's Thesis’. Some of these theses are probably true or close to true but weaker than Tarski's. Some are false but stronger than Tarski's. Tarski's Thesis plausibly postulated that a sentence of a classical language possibly extended (...) with non-traditional extensional logical constants is logically true, if it is true in all classical interpretations of all its non-logical constants. But it is noted that this thesis turns out to be false on most conceptions of logical truth, for some sentences of a classical language extended with extensional logical constants are true in all classical interpretations of all its non-logical constants, but are not necessary. (shrink)

Si, pour Heidegger, Nietzsche représente le dernier penseur de la métaphysique, ce n’est pas seulement en raison de son appartenance à la conceptualité de l’onto-théologie ni des limites intrinsèques à sa tâche d’un renversement du platonisme. La lecture des traités et des cahiers posthumes concernant la pensée de l’ Ereignis précise la critique heideggérienne et la complète par l’opposition totale à la tentative d’un élevage ( Züchtung ) de l’être humain supérieur. En effet, Heidegger voit dans la notion d’élevage la (...) fixation voire la radicalisation, à l’époque de la fabrication ( Machenschaft ), de la définition métaphysique de l’être humain comme animal rationale. Contre la Züchtung nietzschéenne, il pense la possibilité d’une préparation ( Vorbereitung ) du Da-sein, comme la plus haute transformation de l’essence humaine. Ce sont les rapports de ces deux notions, l’élevage tel qu’il apparaît dans la critique heideggerienne de Nietzsche, et le concept qu’il lui oppose, la préparation, que nous analysons dans cet article, en exposant non seulement la manière dont l’un répond à l’autre, mais également les limites de ce couple de concepts. Par là, nous cherchons d’une part à mieux comprendre la place de Nietzsche dans le projet de l’histoire de l’Être, et, d’autre part, à déterminer la portée de son dépassement. (shrink)

Maya Sabatello and coauthors, in “Structural Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic,” have called our attention to how preexisting systemic racism in the United States has produced exactly the racial disp...

Brains enjoy a bodily life. Therefore animals are subjects with a point of view. Yet, coding betrays an anthropomorphic bias: we can, therefore they must. Here I propose a reformulation of Brette's question that emphasizes organismic perception, cautioning for misinterpretations based on external ideal-observer accounts. Theoretical ethology allows computational neuroscience to understand brains from the perspective of their owners.

Using data from 88 countries, we test hypotheses linking a country’s economic freedom and cultural values with the propensity and timing of decisions to impose stringent policies to combat the spread of Covid-19, as well as society’s compliance with those restrictive measures. Our analysis supports hypotheses that a country’s economic freedom and cultural dimensions of individualism and masculinity predict early implementation of stringent policies. After accounting for endogeneity, we find that individualism also helps explain residents’ compliance with stringent measures. These (...) findings illustrate how institutions and cultural values influence government policies and societal compliance. (shrink)

I postulate that the extension of a degree adjective is fixed by implicitly accepted non-analytic reference-fixing principles (“preconceptions”) that combine appeals to paradigmatic cases with generic principles designed to expand the extension of the adjective beyond the paradigmatic range. In regular occasions of use, the paradigm and generic preconceptions are jointly satisfied and determine the existence of an extension/anti-extension pair dividing the adjective’s comparison class into two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive subclasses. Sorites paradoxical occasions of use are irregular occasions (...) of use in which the paradigm and generic preconceptions are not jointly satisfied. In them, the relevant degree adjective lacks an extension, and utterances of sentences containing it appearing in sorites arguments do not have truth conditions. I also postulate a probable psychology of paradigm intuitions, used in a psychological explanation of the preference for solutions of the sorites paradox on which paradigm preconceptions retain their intuitive truth-values. (shrink)

Quotation marks are ambiguous, although the conventional rules that govern their different uses are similar in that they contain quantifications over quotable expressions. Pure uses are governed by a simple rule: by enclosing any expression within quotation marks one gets a singular term, the quotation, that stands for the enclosed expression. Impure uses are far less simple. In a series of uses the quotation marks conventionally indicate that (part of) the enclosed expression is a contextually appropriate version of expressions uttered (...) by some relevant agent. When the quotation marks have this meaning, it is tempting to think of them as contributing that indication to the truth-conditional content of the utterance. I adopt a cautious attitude towards this hypothesis, for the evidence in its favor is inconclusive. In other uses the quotation marks conventionally indicate that the enclosed expression should be used not “plainly” but in some broadly speaking “distanced” way, or that it is being so used by the utterer, and typically context makes clear the exact nature of the “distance” at stake. In these cases the quotation marks do not even appear to contribute that indication to the truth-conditional content of the utterance. (shrink)