This paper investigates the link between the consumer perception that a company is socially oriented and the consumer intention to buy products marketed by that company. We suggest that this link exists when at least two conditions prevail: (1) the products sold by that company comply with ethical and social requirements; (2) the company has an acknowledged commitment to protect consumer rights and interests. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a survey among the clients of retail chains offering Fair Trade (...) products. The results show that socially oriented companies can successfully leverage their reputation to market products with high symbolic values. (shrink)

Åsa Burman has recently introduced the important notion of telic power and differentiated it from deontic power in an attempt to build a bridge between ideal and non-ideal social ontology. We find Burman’s project promising but we argue that more is to be done to make it entirely successful. First, there is a palpable tension between Burman’s claim that telic power can be ontologically independent of deontic power and her examples, which suggests that these forms of power share the same (...) basis. Second, it is not completely clear how telic power specifically helps non-ideal social ontologists explain oppression. We offer solutions to both problems. First, we argue that Burman’s arguments for the conclusion that telic power can exist without deontic power are unsuccessful. Burman contends that this is possible because some social roles involving telic power can exist independently of institutions as sets of constitutive rules, which are––in her opinion––the source of deontic power. Burman’s arguments are not persuasive because she disregards the plausible view that all social roles involve deontic power, whether or not they are institutional. Second, we argue that while the exercise of deontic power requires a collective recognition of the social roles of the interacting agents and, therefore, a recognition of the associated norms, the exercise of telic power does not require recognition of the relevant norms. This is why invoking telic power is particularly useful in explaining how oppression and injustice can arise. Lastly, we suggest that the relation between teleological normativity and the forms of telic power has not been fully clarified by Burman and requires a deeper analysis. (shrink)

Scholarly research largely converges on the argument that trust is of paramount importance to drive economic agents toward mutually satisfactory, fair, and ethically compliant behaviors. There is, however, little agreement on the meaning of trust, whose conceptualizations differ with respect to actors, relationships, behaviors, and contexts. At present, we know much better what trust does than what trust is. In this article, we present an extensive review and analysis of the most prominent articles on trust in market relationships. Using computer-aided (...) content analysis and network analysis methods, we identify key, recurring dimensions that guided the conceptualization of trust in past research, and show how trust can be developed as a multifaceted and layered construct. Our results are an important contribution to a convergence of research toward a shared and common view of the meaning of trust. This process is important to ensure the body of trust research’s internal theoretical consistency, and to provide reliable and common principles for the management of business relationships – a context in which opportunism and imperfect information may induce economic actors to cheat and stray from fair and ethically compliant behaviors. (shrink)

I discuss two competing theories of the progressive: the theory proposed in Parsons (1980, 1985, 1989, 1990) and the theory proposed in Landman (1992). These theories differ in more than one way. Landman regards the progressive as an intentional operator, while Parsons doesn't. Moreover, Landman and Parsons disagree on what uninflected predicates denote. For Landman, cross the street has in its denotation complete events of crossing the street; the aspectual contribution of English simple past (perfective aspect) is the identity function. (...) For Parsons, both complete and incomplete events of crossing the street can be in the denotation of the base VP; perfective aspect restricts its denotation to the events that culminate. I present a version of ParsonÕs theory that avoids the problems raised by Landman, in particular the problem posed for Parsons by creation verbs. The repaired version and Landman's theory still differ in the way they analyze uninflected verbs. The repaired version and Landman's theory still differ in the way they analyze uninflected predicates. I present evidence from Slavic languages that both theories are needed. Finally, I discuss some evidence that may favor one or the other approach to the semantics of the English progressive. (shrink)

We largely agree with Grimwade et al ’s1 conclusion that challenge trial participants may ethically be paid, including for risk. Here, we add further arguments, clarify some points from the perspective of economics and indicate areas where economists can support the development of a framework for ethically justifiable payment. Our arguments apply to carefully constructed and monitored controlled human infection model trials that have been appropriately reviewed and approved. Participants in medical studies perform a service. Outside the domain of research (...) participation, there is nearly universal agreement that workers providing a service should be compensated fairly, and that work involving more discomfort and risk should be compensated more generously. Accordingly, labour regulations impose floors, not caps on compensation. Caps, even if intended to protect against undue inducement, also raise concerns about illegal price-fixing that disadvantages workers. Such limits on payment for egg donors have successfully been challenged in court.i Moreover, caps on compensation may harm everyone at risk of infection, not just potential participants. Insufficient compensation may impede the recruitment of enough suitable subjects, for example, when representativeness of the subject sample is required. Delays in vaccine development not only prolong disruption of social, educational and economic activity but also lead to excess infections and deaths. Unlike paid CHIM participants, individuals exposed to such infection do not accept it voluntarily, are not compensated for it, and are unlikely to receive the level of medical supervision afforded to closely monitored CHIM participants. Payment caps can lead to attempts to circumvent the regulation. For example, many countries …. (shrink)

What are words? How should words be individuated? Such questions set the agenda for the metaphysics of words. Unfortunately, misunderstandings are piling up in this field. Although the discussion between Kaplan, Cappelen, Hawthorne, Lepore and others has given rise to interesting insights into many aspects of words, I contend that the debate is highly compromised by a lack of clarity about the questions in the first place. The purpose of this article is to partially clarify the debate on the metaphysics (...) of words by examining the very nature of the questions to be addressed. I shall differentiate three inquiries about words and shall provide explanations of why misunderstandings can and do arise. I claim that, in so doing, we may put the debate back on solid footing in order to rethink the real nature of words. (shrink)

Resumen En este texto se intenta mostrar que la radicalización de la tesis expresada por Platón en el libro X de la República no permite "apreciar" el valor que el filósofo ateniense sabe que posee la poesía, pues ella podría ser un medio para el ejercicio reflexivo si se sirve de la sobriedad que la filosofía propone. Para realizar esta tarea es menester trazar tres puntos sobre los cuales gira este texto: primero, se ubica al lector en la discusión entre (...) poesía y filosofía para comprender el contexto de la crisis entre estos dos factores de la educación en la antigüedad griega; segundo, se aborda la crítica establecida en el libro X sobre la falta de rigor que muestran los poetas en la búsqueda del conocimiento; finalmente se vislumbra o abre una posibilidad interpretativa acerca del interés que puede tener la proposición de una "poesía filosófica" en la obra de Platón.The following text will try to show that radicalization of the thesis expressed by Plato in the book X does not allow "to "estímate" the value that the Athenian philo-sopher knows that poetry possesses, since poetry might be a means for the reflexive exercise if it takes advantage of the sobriety that philosophy proposes. To carry out this task it is necessary to define three points on which this paper will be about: first, the author will inform the reader about the old discussion among poetry and philosophy to understand the context of the crisis between these two forms of teaching; Second, criticism established in the book X on the lack of rigor in the search of knowledge that poets have will be addressed. Finally, the paper glimpses or opens an interpretive possibility about the interest that the proposition of a "philosophical poetry" can have in Plato's work. (shrink)

This textbook presents a concise, accessible and engaging first introduction to deep learning, offering a wide range of connectionist models which represent the current state-of-the-art. The text explores the most popular algorithms and architectures in a simple and intuitive style, explaining the mathematical derivations in a step-by-step manner. The content coverage includes convolutional networks, LSTMs, Word2vec, RBMs, DBNs, neural Turing machines, memory networks and autoencoders. Numerous examples in working Python code are provided throughout the book, and the code is also (...) supplied separately at an accompanying website. Topics and features: introduces the fundamentals of machine learning, and the mathematical and computational prerequisites for deep learning; discusses feed-forward neural networks, and explores the modifications to these which can be applied to any neural network; examines convolutional neural networks, and the recurrent connections to a feed-forward neural network; describes the notion of distributed representations, the concept of the autoencoder, and the ideas behind language processing with deep learning; presents a brief history of artificial intelligence and neural networks, and reviews interesting open research problems in deep learning and connectionism. This clearly written and lively primer on deep learning is essential reading for graduate and advanced undergraduate students of computer science, cognitive science and mathematics, as well as fields such as linguistics, logic, philosophy, and psychology. (shrink)

According to the theoretical framework relating hypnosis to attention, baseline attentional functioning in highly hypnotizable individuals should be more efficient than in low hypnotizable individuals. However, previous studies did not find differences in Stroop-like tasks in which the measure indicative of the Stroop interference effect was based on response latencies. This study was designed to determine whether subjects with different levels of hypnotic susceptibility show differences in baseline attentional functioning. To assess this hypothesis, high, medium, and low hypnotizable subjects performed (...) a Stroop task designed to evaluate accuracy performance, before being subjected to hypnotic induction. Results showed that the Stroop interference effect was smaller in high hypnotizable subjects than in low hypnotizable subjects, whereas it was not different between high, and medium hypnotizable subjects. This outcome supports the notion that baseline attentional functioning is related to hypnotic susceptibility. (shrink)

In the context of propositional logics, we apply semantics modulo satisfiability—a restricted semantics which comprehends only valuations that satisfy some specific set of formulas—with the aim to efficiently solve some computational tasks. Three possible such applications are developed.We begin by studying the possibility of implicitly representing rational McNaughton functions in Łukasiewicz Infinitely-valued Logic through semantics modulo satisfiability. We theoretically investigate some approaches to such representation concept, called representation modulo satisfiability, and describe a polynomial algorithm that builds representations in the newly (...) introduced system. An implementation of the algorithm, test results and ways to randomly generate rational McNaughton functions for testing are presented. Moreover, we propose an application of such representations to the formal verification of properties of neural networks by means of the reasoning framework of Łukasiewicz Infinitely-valued Logic.Then, we move to the investigation of the satisfiability of joint probabilistic assignments to formulas of Łukasiewicz Infinitely-valued Logic, which is known to be an NP-complete problem. We provide an exact decision algorithm derived from the combination of linear algebraic methods with semantics modulo satisfiability. Also, we provide an implementation for such algorithm for which the phenomenon of phase transition is empirically detected.Lastly, we study the game theory situation of observable games, which are games that are known to reach a Nash equilibrium, however, an external observer does not know what is the exact profile of actions that occur in a specific instance; thus, such observer assigns subjective probabilities to players actions. We study the decision problem of determining if a set of these probabilistic constraints is coherent by reducing it to the problems of satisfiability of probabilistic assignments to logical formulas both in Classical Propositional Logic and Łukasiewicz Infinitely-valued Logic depending on whether only pure equilibria or also mixed equilibria are allowed. Such reductions rely upon the properties of semantics modulo satisfiability. We provide complexity and algorithmic discussion for the coherence problem and, also, for the problem of computing maximal and minimal probabilistic constraints on actions that preserves coherence.prepared by Sandro Márcio da Silva Preto.E-mail: [email protected]:https://doi.org/10.11606/T.45.2021.tde-17062021-163257. (shrink)

This article addresses the modern concept of sovereignty as a multivocal and conflictual semantic field, arguing for the necessity to trace its genealogy based on the structural tensions that haunt its logical framework – as well as its representations – rather than on a linear historiographic reconstruction. In particular, the scrutiny I propose aims to examine a series of exchanges that have been characterizing this concept since the beginning: the global and the European, the maritime and the territorial, the colony (...) and the state, the imperial and the proprietary. The problematic balance between ‘imperium’ and ‘dominium’ is indeed assumed here as the turning point of the rise of a sovereign power that appears to be originally rooted in the very production and governance of the global space, thus giving up all possible Eurocentric narratives of modernity. To illustrate my argument, I focus on the frontispieces to three of Thomas Hobbes’s most important books, that is, his translation of Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars, De Cive and Leviathan. A thorough analysis of these images enables us to understand how these lines of force traverse the very heart of modern European political concepts, along with the mirroring effects that constantly bounce their normative construction of subjectivity back and forth from the periphery to the centre and, ultimately, from the market to the state. (shrink)

The research hypothesis that we call border as method offers a fertile ground upon which to test the potentiality and the limits of the topological approach. In this article we present our hypothesis and address three questions relevant for topology. First, we ask how the topological approach can be applied within the heterogeneous space of globalization, which we argue does not obey the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion. Second, we address the claim of neutrality that is often linked to the (...) topological approach. Our point is that in mapping a space of flows and porous borders, the topological approach must be grasped in its ambivalence; it can become a tool for control as well as a tool for the expansion of freedom and equality. Finally, we argue that it is useful, perhaps even necessary, to locate the topological approach on the border, investigating concrete practices of border crossing that challenge the very possibility of a neutral mapping. (shrink)

Eliminative materialists argue that we can overcome the phenomenological gap between two different ways of referring to our subjective experiences – either as introspectively grasped in terms of folk psychology or as explained in neurological terms – by abandoning the pre-scientific concepts of folk psychology. However, unless these theorists can offer a plausible explanation for why the scientific view of the human mind proposed by cognitive neuroscience is so deeply counter-intuitive, this argument will remain unconvincing. In order to address the (...) difficulties involved in making the paradigm shift from folk psychology to cognitive neuroscience I briefly review the theoretical revolution that marked the transition from classical mechanics to the theory of relativity at the beginning of 20th century; identify some similarities between this paradigm shift in physics and the birth of a new scientific view of the mind; explain by means of and why neurological theories that reduce consciousness and the Self to aspects of brain dynamics appear implausible from a common sense perspective despite being sound from a scientific point of view. (shrink)

In Italian Sign Language (LIS), when past or future time adverbs are present, the signs for verbs exhibit the same manual configurations whether the sentence reports a past event or a future event. Facts of this kind, also observed for American Sign Language (ASL) and other sign languages, have led some authors (Friedman, among others) to conclude that these languages, on a par with spoken languages like Chinese, lack grammatical tense. Neidle et al. and Jacobowitz and Stokoe have challenged this (...) view for ASL and have argued that ASL sentences contain tense markers. I present some data showing that LIS verbs inflect for tense. I argue, moreover, that the apparent lack of tense inflection when LIS past and future time adverbs are present is due to the fact that these adverbs shift the s-point and that LIS past and future tenses are absolute tenses. I provide a formal account of the LIS tense system based on these assumptions. The account is implemented in Heim’s analysis of tense. (shrink)

Collapse models predict the spontaneous collapse of the wave function, in order to avoid the emergence of macroscopic superpositions. In their mass-dependent formulation, they claim that the collapse of any system’s wave function depends on its mass. Neutral K, D, B mesons are oscillating systems that are given by Nature as superposition of two distinct mass eigenstates. Thus they are unique laboratory for testing collapse models that are sensitive to the mass. In this paper we derive—for the single mesons and (...) bipartite entangled mesons—the effect of the mass-proportional CSL (Continuous Spontaneous Localization) collapse model on the dynamics on neutral mesons. We compare the theoretical prediction with experimental data from different accelerator facilities. (shrink)

La Historik de Reinhart Koselleck representa un importante intento filosófico —llevado a cabo siguiendo la estela de la hermenéutica clásica alemana— de formalizar las categorías trascendentales de la experiencia histórica del tiempo. El ensayo pone a prueba la hipótesis de Koselleck y pretende demostrar cómo éste, refiriéndose a Kant y de manera análoga a Foucault, extrae circularmente los criterios formales para su Historik a partir de la experiencia de aceleración y temporalización de la historia que caracteriza a la modernidad como (...) época. (shrink)

We compute the effect of collapse models on neutrino oscillations. The effect of the collapse is to modify the evolution of the spatial part of the wave function and we will show that this indirectly amounts to a change on the flavor components. For the analysis we use the mass proportional CSL model, and perform the calculation to second order perturbation theory. As we will show, the CSL effect is very small—mainly due to the very small mass of neutrinos—and practically (...) undetectable. (shrink)

The 3sg pronouns “he” and “she” impose descriptive gender conditions (being male/female) on their referents. These conditions are standardly analysed as presuppositions (Cooper in Quantification and syntactic theory, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1983; Heim and Kratzer in Semantics in generative grammar, Blackwell, Oxford, 1998). Cooper argues that, when 3sg pronouns occur free, they have indexical presuppositions: the gender condition must be satisfied by the pronoun’s referent in the actual world. In this paper, we consider the behaviour of free 3sg pronouns in conditionals (...) and focus on cases in which the pronouns’ gender presuppositions no longer seem to be indexical and project locally instead. We compare these cases to previously reported shifty readings of indexicals in so-called “epistemic conditionals” (Santorio in Philos Rev 121(3):359–406, 2012) and propose a unified account of locally projected gender presuppositions and shifty indexicals based on the idea that indicative conditionals are Kaplanian monsters. (shrink)

Discovery science in health over the past two decades has embraced, with considerable enthusiasm, the potential of two movements: precision medicine and the ascent of big data. Each of these developments has been suggested to hold substantial promise both to advance our health science and to lead to the development of approaches that can improve health.Precision medicine—emerging naturally from the Human Genome Project almost two decades ago—promises to use genomic and molecular approaches to identify the causes of disease particular to (...) individuals with the end of helping develop tailored treatments and interventions. This approach builds on what is perhaps a deeply held... (shrink)

This article argues that a manuscript dated to the summer of 1927 by the editors of Bohr’s Collected Works was written a year earlier. The re-dating allows the conclusion that Bohr was well on his way to complementarity before his famous fight with Heisenberg over the uncertainty principle early in 1927. The literature that assumes that complementarity was Bohr’s response to Heisenberg is therefore in error. The editors of the Collected Works assigned the document the date of 1927 because it (...) refers to electron-diffraction experiments by Davisson and Germer, which were published in 1927. But as the article points out, Bohr and other leading physicists such as Max Born met Davisson in Britain in 1926 and discussed the experiments with him then. That demolished the basis of the earlier dating. Finally, the article argues that when the document takes its place between the Bohr–Kramers–Slater theory (1924) and the 1927 drafts of complementarity, everything falls neatly into place. (shrink)

“Todo o poder emana do povo...” “ Todos são iguais perante a lei...” (BRASIL, 1988) Estes pequenos trechos, respectivamente do Parágrafo Único do Artigo 1º e do Artigo 5º da constituição brasileira de 1988 não foram redigidos por acaso, ou porque os legisladores assim quiseram, pois acharam que soaria bem; e nem porque de fato acreditavam nisso, mesmo enquanto representantes escolhidos pelo povo, quando de sua promulgação. O Brasil como membro fundador da Organização das Nações Unidas, incorporou em sua constituição (...) diversos pontos da Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos (ORGANIZAÇÃO DAS NAÇÕES UNIDAS (UN), 1948). Em 1992, o Brasil se torna signatário da Convenção Americana Sobre Direitos Humanos (ORGANIZAÇÃO DOS ESTADOS AMERICANOS (OAS), 1969), (também conhecido como Pacto de San José da Costa Rica) que existia desde 1969, e que provavelmente não fora ratificado antes devido ao, vamos chamar assim, Estado de Exceção (1964 a 1985). A teoria é que estes tratados permitam uma maior igualdade entre as pessoas, se agreguem à política e às agendas de seus países signatários, e de alguma forma, tenham valor de lei ou ao menos de referência em questões legais. Em última instância, se alguma lei local não tiver como decidir por algo, recorre-se aos tratados internacionais. A ideia por trás deste artigo é analisar o viés individualista destas cartas, remetendo sua origem a Hobbes e Rousseau, mostrando a manutenção da desigualdade entre os homens. Vale ressaltar, no entanto, que seus artigos – são 30 no da ONU, e 82 no da OEA - transpassam, perpassam e unem diversas obras, de forma que fica impossível tratar de apenas um autor ou obra específica nos trechos analisados. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Beitrag will die Frage nach dem Ereignis in eine ursprünglichere Beziehung zur Daseinsanalytik setzen und damit das Zugehörigkeitsgeflecht zwischen Sein und Dasein durch die Erörterung dreier für Heideggers post-metaphysische Versuche grundlegende Denkfiguren (Sterblichkeit, Inständigkeit, Weite) entfalten. Es wird dann möglich sein, die aus dem Humanismus-Brief entstandene und noch lebendige Diskussion über die Stellung des Menschen im Denken Heideggers auf das seinsgeschichtliche Niveau zu stellen und weiter zu entwickeln. Die klassische Auszeichnung des Menschen in Vergleich mit allen anderen Lebewesen (...) kann daher nur in einer engen Verbindung mit dem Sein als Ereignis neu gedacht werden: «In der Wesung des Ereignisses muß die Einzigkeit der Auszeichnung des Menschen erfahren werden. In dieser Erfahrung entspringt das Wissen vom Da-seyn ». (shrink)

Resultado de uma investigação bibliográfica, o artigo promove aproximações e evidencia afastamentos entre Paulo Freire e Jürgen Habermas, dedicando especial ênfase ao possível impacto de suas ideias para os propósitos da práxis educativa na concepção popular. As conclusões enfatizam a fragilidade da proposta habermasiana e destacam a maior consistência da perspectiva freireana na luta contra a opressão social.

This article compares Weber’s notion of Verstehende Soziologie with Znaniecki’s concepts of humanistic coefficient and cultural sociology. While both authors follow an interpretive perspective and agree that the specific object of sociological inquiry is social action, they diverge in their conceptions of social action and in their definition of sociology and its methods and aims. For, in contrast to Znaniecki, Weber holds that sociology aims not only to understand social action, but also to explain it. Social action, moreover, is differently (...) defined according to whether it is oriented to the conduct of others, as with Weber, or aims to exert influence on others, as with Znaniecki. As for their respective methods of inquiry, Znaniecki proposes to reconstruct the actor’s experiences and viewpoints, while Weber advocates the formulation of generic ideal types for the purposes of describing and explaining social and historical courses of events. Finally, the study of the social order belongs to the cultural sciences, according to Znaniecki. For Weber, the social order is sociological, and follows from the prevalence of consensual action in particular communities such as the market or language communities. Otherwise, its prevalence should not be taken for granted. (shrink)

In this paper we propose an non-machine learning artificial intelligence (AI) based approach for telecom data analysis, with a special focus on clique detection. Clique detection can be used to identify households, which is a major challenge in telecom data analysis and predictive analytics. Our approach does not use any form of machine learning, but another type of algorithm: satisfiability for propositional logic. This is a neglected approach in modern AI, and we aim to demonstrate that for certain tasks, it (...) may be a good alternative to machine learning-based approaches. We have used a simple DPLL satisfiability solver over an artificially generated telecom dataset (due to GDPR regulations), but our approach can be implemented on any telecom data by following the SAT encoding we have developed, and the DPLL solver can be substituted by a more advanced alternative such as CDCL. This paper extends the method presented in [1] for banking logs to data containing caller information, and proposes a more efficient encoding. -/- . (shrink)

Il saggio affronta i concetti di «Stato» e di «Federalismo» all'interno dell'analisi di Reinhart Koselleck che traduce in prassi collettive le strutture della fatticità heideggeriana, radicando, con Schmitt, la concettualità giuridica sul concreto della sociologia. Analizzando alcune voci fondamentali dei _Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe_ (S_taat, Souveranität, Bund, Bündnis, Föderalismus, Bundesstaat_) viene ricostruito il modo in cui Koselleck formula una prognosi immediatamente politica in merito al processo di unificazione europea, evidenziando che il federalismo, lungi dall’essere solamente un reperto archeologico del passato, rappresenta una (...) risorsa per un ordine politico postnazionale. (shrink)

_Abstract_: Here, I examine the main philosophical solutions to the mind-body problem distinguishing between “historicist” solutions that (more or less clearly) separate philosophy from science and solutions that instead result from a double “cognitive turn”, and see “continuity” between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. The “historicist” solutions include ontological dualism (together with “skepticism” and “new mysterianism”), epistemological dualism, subjective idealism, and absolute idealism. In this group, transcendental idealism, phenomenology, and neutral monism are the solutions most open to a (...) dialogue between philosophy and science. The “naturalistic” solutions can be divided into four groups: (1) behaviorism (psychological, logical, philosophical-analytical behaviorism); (2) materialism (identity theory, physicalism); (3) “weak naturalism” (functionalism, anomalous monism, “biological naturalism”, liberal naturalism, emergentism); (4) “strong naturalism” (“cognitive neo-evolutionism”, eliminativism). These offer a physicalist-eliminative solution to the mind-body problem (here called “soft physicalistic eliminativism”) that allows for more continuity between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. _Keywords_: Mind/Body-Problem; Cognitive Science; Cognitive Turn; Naturalism; Eliminativism _Il problema mente-corpo in filosofia e le scienze cognitive___ _Riassunto_: Vengono esaminate le principali soluzioni filosofiche al problema mente-corpo al fine di distinguere le soluzioni di origine storicistica che separano (più o meno chiaramente) filosofia e scienza da quelle che invece, nate da una duplice “svolta cognitiva”, favoriscono la “continuità” tra filosofia della mente e scienze cognitive. Le soluzioni del primo gruppo sono anzitutto il dualismo ontologico (insieme allo “scetticismo” e al “neo-misterianismo”), il dualismo epistemologico, l’idealismo soggettivo e l’idealismo assoluto. L’idealismo trascendentale, la fenomenologia e il monismo neutrale sono invece soluzioni più aperte al dialogo tra filosofia e scienza. Le soluzioni del secondo gruppo, quelle “naturalistiche”, vengono suddivise in quattro grandi gruppi: (1) il comportamentismo (psicologico, logico e filosofico-analitico); (2) il materialismo (teoria dell’identità e fisicalismo); (3) il “naturalismo debole” (funzionalismo, monismo anomalo, “naturalismo biologico”, naturalismo liberalizzato e emergentismo); (4) il “naturalismo forte” (“neo-evoluzionismo cognitivo” ed eliminativismo). In conclusion, una soluzione di tipo fisicalistico-eliminativo (qui chiamata “eliminativismo fisicalistico moderato”) al problema mente-corpo è quella che più di altre favorisce la continuità tra filosofia della mente e scienze cognitive. _Parole chiave_: Problema mente/corpo; Scienza cognitiva; Svolta cognitiva; Naturalismo; Eliminativismo. (shrink)

Este texto é uma apresentação da interpretação feita por Gilles Deleuze da filosofia de Henri Bergson. Procura-se enfocar os temas que viriam a ser retomados pela filosofia deleuziana, sendo desenvolvidos em Diferença e repetição e a partir dessa obra. Dentre os mais relevantes, encontrase o tema da ontologia afirmativa, que envolve a passagem do virtual para o atual através do processo de diferenciação do ser. O ser não deixa de ter existência ao atualizar-se, mas ele diferencia a si mesmo nesse (...) processo, individuando-se como as coisas presentes na experiência. O ser é, desse modo, pré-individual e pré-subjetivo. Em Bergson, haveria a coexistência virtual de todos os graus de diferenças na duração. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é mostrar como a tradição de matriz africana e afro-brasileira presente no espaço do Terreiro de Candomblé pode ser considerado como um exemplo de Topofilia. É um estudo de Pós-Doutorado desenvolvido no CCS, no NEPPINS, na UFRB. O lócus ocorre na cidade de Cachoeira, no estado da Bahia. A metodologia adotada foi a do trabalho de campo e da observação participante, utilizando-se de publicações locais específicas sobre a temática. Os principais dados demonstram que o espaço do (...) Terreiro de Candomblé, que é considerado sagrado, possui elementos de natureza topofílica, tendo a possibilidade de contribuição positiva para a população negra no Recôncavo Baiano. (shrink)

In this paper, through the analysis of the division of different scientific fields, we deal with the nature of mathematics as a scientific discipline. Through the historical analysis of the division of science, but also the analysis of the nature of mathematics and the ontological status of the objects that mathematics deals with, we show that the now-established divisions among scientific fields are the result of social circumstances and that mathematics itself is closer to the humanities than the natural sciences.

Neural networks are widely used in systems of artificial intelligence, but due to their black box nature, they have so far evaded formal analysis to certify that they satisfy desirable properties, mainly when they perform critical tasks. In this work, we introduce methods for the formal analysis of reachability and robustness of neural networks that are modeled as rational McNaughton functions by, first, stating such properties in the language of Łukasiewicz infinitely-valued logic and, then, using the reasoning techniques of such (...) logical system. We also present a case study where we employ the proposed techniques in an actual neural network that we trained to predict whether it will rain tomorrow in Australia. (shrink)

When communicating, people adapt their linguistic representations to those of their interlocutors. Previous studies have shown that this also occurs at the semantic level for vague and context-dependent terms such as quantifiers and uncertainty expressions. However, work to date has mostly focused on passive exposure to a given speaker's interpretation, without considering the possible role of active linguistic interaction. In this study, we focus on gradable adjectives big and small and develop a novel experimental paradigm that allows participants to ask (...) clarification questions to figure out their interlocutor's interpretation. We find that, when in doubt, speakers do resort to this strategy, despite its inherent cognitive cost, and that doing so results in higher semantic alignment measured in terms of communicative success. While not all question–answer pairs are equally informative, we show that speakers become better questioners as the interaction progresses. Yet, the higher semantic alignment observed when speakers are able to ask questions does not increase over time. This suggests that conversational interaction's key advantage may be to boost coordination without committing to long-term semantic updates. Our findings shed new light on the mechanisms used by speakers to achieve semantic alignment and on how language is shaped by communication. (shrink)

The ESR model proposes a new theoretical perspective which incorporates the mathematical formalism of standard (Hilbert space) quantum mechanics (QM) in a noncontextual framework, reinterpreting quantum probabilities as conditional on detection instead of absolute. We have provided in some previous papers mathematical representations of the physical entities introduced by the ESR model, namely observables, properties, pure states, proper and improper mixtures, together with rules for calculating conditional and overall probabilities, and for describing transformations of states induced by measurements. We study (...) in this paper the relevant physical case of the quantum harmonic oscillator in our mathematical formalism. We reinterpret the standard quantum rules for probabilities, provide new expressions for absolute probabilities, and show how the standard state transformations must be modified according to the ESR model. (shrink)

The article deals with the ambiguous relation between fear and expertise, and examines how it affects institutions’ legitimation. In contemporary societies the so-called expert systems can be considered as powerful trust creators. However their power can also cause fear, as their control over the majority of everyday life tasks can have a “disabling” effect on lay people. This double-edged role deeply influences the relation between citizens and institutions, the latter considerably relying on expertise in order to be perceived as rational (...) actors. Fear, therefore, can be considered as a central element in determining the legitimacy of institutions in modern societies. (shrink)