We aimed to conduct a scoping review to assess the profile of retracted health sciences articles authored by individuals affiliated with academic institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). We systematically searched seven databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, Medline/Ovid, Scielo, and LILACS). We included articles published in peer‐reviewed journals between 2003 and 2022 that had at least one author with an institutional affiliation in LAC. Data were collected on the year of publication, study design, authors' countries of (...) origin, number of authors, subject matter of the manuscript, scientific journals of publication, retraction characteristics, and reasons for retraction. We included 147 articles, the majority being observational studies (41.5%). The LAC countries with the highest number of retractions were Brazil (n = 69), Colombia (n = 16), and Mexico (n = 15). The areas of study with the highest number of retractions were infectology (n = 21) and basic sciences (n = 15). A retraction label was applied to 89.1% of the articles, 70.7% were retracted by journal editors, and 89.1% followed international retraction guidelines. The primary reasons for retraction included errors in procedures or data collection (n = 39), inconsistency in results or conclusions (n = 37), plagiarism (n = 21), and suspected scientific fraud (n = 19). In conclusion, most retractions of scientific publications in health sciences in LAC adhered to international guidelines and were linked to methodological issues in execution and scientific misconduct. Efforts should be directed toward ensuring the integrity of scientific research in the field of health. (shrink)

What is the real significance of covariance anyway, and why should it be regarded as so fundamental ? What we mean by a covariant expression is one whose ...

The “Slicing Problem” is a thought experiment that raises questions for substrate-neutral computational theories of consciousness, including those that specify a certain causal structure for the computation like Integrated Information Theory. The thought experiment uses water-based logic gates to construct a computer in a way that permits cleanly slicing each gate and connection in half, creating two identical computers each instantiating the same computation. The slicing can be reversed and repeated via an on/off switch, without changing the amount of matter (...) in the system. The question is what do different computational theories of consciousness believe is happening to the number and nature of individual conscious units as this switch is toggled. Under a token interpretation, there are now two discrete conscious entities; under a type interpretation, there may remain only one. Both interpretations lead to different implications depending on the adopted theoretical stance. Any route taken either allows mechanisms for “consciousness-multiplying exploits” or requires ambiguous boundaries between conscious entities, raising philosophical and ethical questions for theorists to consider. We discuss resolutions under different theories of consciousness for those unwilling to accept consciousness-multiplying exploits. In particular, we specify three features that may help promising physicalist theories to navigate such thought experiments. (shrink)

Throughout his literary career Walker Percy read and studied the philosophical thought of Charles Sanders Peirce in an attempt to re-present in language the world as Percy knew it. Beginning in 1984 and ending in 1990, the year of his death, Percy corresponded with Kenneth Laine Ketner about the "semiotic" of Peirce. Their letters - honest, instructive, and often filled with down-home humor - record an epistolary friendship of two men both passionately interested in Peirce's theory of (...) signs. This volume of letters provides a rich philosophical perspective for better understanding the fiction and nonfiction of Walker Percy. (shrink)

Cyril Scott once described Percy Grainger as a `lovable eccentric'. The Australian-American pianist, composer, ethnologist, and aspiring `all-round man' was, however, more eccentric to his own age than to ours. His views on the environment, food, the body, participatory democracy, and sex all anticipated by several decades views more typical of the mid-late twentieth century. Prolific as a composer, performer, and recording artist, Grainger was an indefatigable writer. This selection of forty-six essays about the production, promotion, and propagation of (...) music is drawn from his over 150 public writings. Written between the turn of the century and the early 1950s, these essays reveal Grainger's youthful compositional plans, his ideas about piano technique, and his enduring high regard for the music of Edvard Grieg, Frederick Delius, and `Frankfurt Group' colleagues Cyril Scott, Roger Quilter, and Henry Balfour Gardiner. Grainger on Music also pursues his evolving thoughts about Nordic music, `Free Music', instrumental usage, and his occasional suggestions for musical development in Australia and the United States. (shrink)

Implementing an algorithm on part of our causally-interconnected physical environment requires three choices that are typically considered arbitrary, i.e. no single option is innately privileged without invoking an external observer perspective. First, how to delineate one set of local causal relationships from the environment. Second, within this delineation, which inputs and outputs to designate for attention. Third, what meaning to assign to particular states of the designated inputs and outputs. Having explained these types of arbitrariness, we assess their relevance for (...) algorithms from various computational theories of mind (CTM) seeking to account for phenomenal consciousness. Some CTM accounts can survive some of these arbitrariness challenges, but eventually each one examined faces a trilemma. Each is under pressure to dilute at least one of three important CTM desiderata: its causal relevance, its substrate neutrality, or its assignment discrimination (e.g. ability to avoid near-panpsychism). However, unlike previous research, we suggest the debate cannot be fully settled at the level of principle. Certain complex CTM algorithms may be salvageable, albeit not the algorithms specified to date. The paper specifies three areas of investigative work, as well as further theoretical avenues of research, which computationalists may wish to explore to escape the trilemma. (shrink)

This paper presents a nine step argument for “Connectionist Structuralism” (CS), a physical nominalist position that takes seriously the non-physical phenomenology of abstract objects. CS provides an ontology of sensible properties as a subtype of abstract objects, e.g. “is red” or “is a rectangle”. CS proposes that each sensible property a person draws on corresponds to a subset of their brain structure with functionality isomorphic to a suitable connectionist network. While a common assumption in parts of the artificial intelligence literature, (...) such discussions have not developed formal accounts nor engaged with metaphysical issues that potentially undermine it. Using evidence from cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, and evolutionary biology, as well as a fully worked toy example, we describe how CS can support our core cognitive uses of sensible properties and account for our core phenomenal experiences of them. Six phenomenal features are accounted for—feeling intangible, non-located, transparent, and unchanging, along with raw sensation and ante rem phenomenologies—with potential future accounts for further phenomena such as synaesthesia, semantic clarity, and sensory overload. A response is provided to three common objections to nominalist positions that similarly reject intangible, universal benchmarks for sensible properties: referential opacity; identity of indiscernibles; and infinite regression. CS leads to a four-layer hierarchy of similarity for whether your “red” is the same as mine, arguing they are likely non-identical but can be made close enough for practical purposes. Finally, we describe future work to elaborate CS as a metaphysical project and test it through empirical research. (shrink)

This memorable essay offers in lay language a profound criticism of the limitations of modern thought as based on Descartes, Darwin, and Freud. It highlights the decissive role of Peirce's approach to language and human activity in order to close the modern rift between matter and mind, between biology and grammar.

In 1971, John Rawls published A Theory of Justice, the burden of which was strongly egalitarian. But Rawls eventually came to the conclusion that the project of working out a stable, well‐ordered society as argued in A Theory of Justice had failed. In 1993, in Political Liberalism, Rawls sought to establish a sounder theoretical foundation for a stable, well‐ordered society. Rawls was widely viewed, however, as having given up egalitarianism in Political Liberalism ‐ the commitment to a fair distribution, or (...) ‘justice as fairness’, along lines originally developed in A Theory of Justice. I argue, by contrast, that Political Liberalism does not in fact repudiate the egalitarianism of A Theory of Justice. Political liberalism has many variants, including variant conceptions of justice. In the first part of what follows, the question is raised whether political liberalism can defend a conception of justice that is as egalitarian as ‘justice as fairness’. Such a conception would guarantee the fair value of political liberties and would also contain the so‐called ‘difference principal’, which states that social and economic inequalities are to be adjusted so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. Although it seems possible to defend such an egalitarian conception of justice, it does not seem necessary, all the same, that all variants of political liberalism should be as egalitarian as justice as fairness. Thus, in the second part of my argument, I seek to overturn, or at least substantially to qualify, the idea that there is no need for political liberalism to be strongly egalitarian. I conclude that the egalitarian credentials of political liberalism have to be bolstered, even more so than Rawls himself seems to think. (shrink)

The stream of human consciousness appears to be interruptible, in that we can experience a sensation of ‘returning to ourselves after an absence of content’ (e.g. sleep, anaesthesia, full-absorption meditation). Prima facie, such evidence poses a challenge to simple applications of theories of consciousness based on electromagnetic or neural activity in the brain, because some of this activity persists during periods of interruption. This paper elaborates one of several possible responses to the challenge. We build on a previous theory in (...) which EM field topology delineates complex macrophenomenal experience. We first apply an analytic lens to identify different ways in which field topologies might generate sensations of ‘absence of content’. We then test the feasibility of a particular phenomenological approach for assessing those field topologies, powered by the unusual lucidity about cessation pathways induced via certain meditation practices and psychedelic dosages. We build computational simulations of these cessation pathways and test them on eight interviewees with various levels of experience in cessation states. We conclude that this approach can generate usable insight, but requires further formalisation to fulfil its potential. The findings tentatively support our claims but the theory remains speculative at this stage. We set out empirical tests with 11 specific predictions, both for further phenomenological research and for brain manipulation research. Although they align neatly, our ontological and cessation theories can also be separated. The paper describes how our theories can be consistent with other perspectives on consciousness, such as variants of predictive processing or global network theory. (shrink)

What is a just political order? What does justice require of us? These are perennial questions of political philosophy. John Rawls, generally acknowledged to be one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century, answered them in a way that has drawn widespread attention, not only from political philosophers, but from political scientists, economists, those in the field of public policy, and experts in jurisprudence. It is not only academics who have been inspired by Rawls' ideas; they have (...) also influenced the theory of government and continue to play a role in actual public political debates. This introduction outlines Rawls' work on the theory of justice. Focusing on Rawls' own writings, from his first publication in 1951 to his final ones some fifty years later, Percy B. Lehning demonstrates how and why they can be considered as one consistent and coherent body of work. (shrink)

This paper explores ways in which experiential learning theories, in particular transformative learning theory, can inform farmer participatory research and extension (PR&E). I identify and discuss three key elements of experiential learning theory – second-order experiences, reflection, and dialogue – that are particularly pertinent to PR&E practice. I then turn to one experiential learning theorist – Mezirow, and examine his theory of transformative learning to assess how it may inform the PR&E process. I outline the basic components and stages of (...) transformative learning and summarize the main criticisms of the theory. Following this, parallels are drawn between transformative learning and what actually takes place in PR&E, and examples are given of the ways in which scientists and rural people may undergo transformative learning through the PR&E process. Ways in which transformative learning can be encouraged within the PR&E context are discussed. I conclude that Mezirow’s work can provide PR&E practitioners and theorists with additional insights into how adults learn and especially how they – researchers, extensionists and rural people – can transform their ways of thinking to accommodate a shift from conventional research and extension to PR&E. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Beschrijving van het leven en gedachtegoed van de Amerikaanse rechtsfilosoof John Rawls, die in zijn werk een filosofisch concept uitwerkte van een samenleving waarin vrijheid en gelijkheid beide tot hun recht zouden komen.