Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

The need for new models of social development capable of increasing the resilience of society and of counteracting the destructive processes that ruined a once-powerful state edifice has led to an interest in Eurasianism-a philosophical-historical, culturological, and intellectual-political movement that arose in Russian émigré circles in the early 1920s. Eurasianism made itself known by the publication in 1921 in Sofia of a collection with the symbolic title Exodus to the East [Iskhod k Vostoku]. The initiators of this work were (...) the economist and geographer P.N. Savitskii, the linguist N.S. Trubetskoi, the theologian and philosopher G.V. Florovskii, and the art critic P.P. Suvchinskii. The legal scholar N.N. Alekseev, the historian and philosopher L.P. Karsavin, the historian G.V. Vernadskii, and other eminent Russian émigré scholarly and cultural figures also took part in the movement. (shrink)

The paper discusses Dostoevsky’s insight into the oxymoronic metaphysics of the Russian revolution. The keys to it are contained in two of Dostoevsky’s works. The first is Demons with Kirillov’s idea of self-deification in death intended to fill the gap left by the proclaimed absence of God. The second is Notes from the House of the Dead, where Dostoevsky depicts the Russian peasants as people for whom even such notions as freedom, happiness and honor are expressed in monetary terms. The (...) Russian revolution was created by people of Kirillov’s persuasion; yet this ideal was offered to people whose teleology was firmly rooted in the earthly life. The interpenetration of these worldviews resulted in the initial victory of the revolution, but the dominance of the peasant Weltanschauung with its earthly teleology ultimately led to the collapse of the communist project a few decades later. (shrink)

The article surveys various potential sources for Dostoevsky’s knowledge of the Faust legend, examines a range of arts, from literature to music, and focuses on the novel of Friedrich Maximilian Klinger as an important influence for Dostoevsky as the writer interacts with Faustian themes in The Brothers Karamazov on both literary and meta-literary levels. Klinger’s novel is considered in terms of the problems of epistemology and the limits of human cognition, problems rooted in finiteness as a defining characteristic of human (...) nature. In the literary worlds of Klinger and Dostoevsky, the attempts to establish limited human cognition as unlimited, essentially divine, and capable of grasping the entire picture of the existence of both the individual human being and humanity as a whole cause unforeseen and tragic consequences. The article treats the Faustian musical scene in The Adolescent as a variation on the relevant scene in Gounod’s Faust, exploring similar epistemological problems. The article claims that Dostoevsky grants his characters and readers the same degree of freedom in exploring the nature of their cognitive processes and in choosing the voice they decide to listen to and follow. (shrink)

New trends in the economic systems management in the context of modern global challenges: collective monograph / scientific edited by M. Bezpartochnyi, in 2 Vol. // VUZF University of Finance, Business and Entrepreneurship. – Sofia: VUZF Publishing House “St. Grigorii Bogoslov”, 2020. – Vol. 1. – 309 p.

The article presents the results of the study of young scientists and their role in the functioning of research teams and the academic system. It shows why this topic has not only applied relevance connected with the theoretical justification of science policy but also concerns fundamental issues of philosophy of science. The nature of the structural organization of scientific teams and the scientific community as a whole is discussed. It is argued that science shares with other social institutions a socio-epistemic (...) hierarchy, involving the division of participants into more and less experienced ones, performing certain functions in accordance with the available amount of knowledge and skills. It is shown that this hierarchy is supported by the system of division of labor in science, but does not lead to the formation of a rigid structure, which is reflected in the mismatch of social and cognitive hierarchies of research teams. It is also shown that the contribution of young scientists to the overall scientific result can not only be great due to the appearance of young geniuses. Scientific youth performs a number of cognitive and social functions that are system-forming and are not duplicated at other levels of the scientific hierarchy. These functions may undergo changes depending on the general state of both a separate research area and the scientific system as a whole. This makes the research of scientific youth promising for studying the transformations of science as a social institution and a cultural and historical phenomenon, in particular, for analyzing scientific communications that constitute the scientific community as a collective subject of scientific knowledge, and changes in scientific ethos. (shrink)

The response to the article by O.E. Stolyarova the author shows why the proposed justification for the place of philosophy in the structure of science and technology studies does not work well in relation to the tasks of interdisciplinary communication. It is argued that it is more effective to refer to historical examples and analyze them than to use a purely theoretical explanation of why these examples arise. It is pointed out that, despite the results of postpositivist research of science, (...) the scientific community continues to rely on corporate “common sense”, in which science is seen as positive knowledge and on this basis is opposed to philosophy as a speculative discipline. The necessity of avoiding these ideas in the context of science policy tasks, primarily among scientific managers from among the scientists themselves, is substantiated. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of how production of scientific knowledge transforms nowadays. It is shown that current situation puts forward problem of integration different types of knowledge (not only scientific) – both for producing general meanings, and scientific knowledge. This problem is reflected in several conceptions in the philosophy of science: postacademic science, technoscience, transdisciplinarity. The author pays attention to an idea to be found in these conceptions and some current basic and applied studies; she calls it “the (...) principle of participation”. A few embodiments of this principle are brought out, its conceptual core is revealed, epistemological questions this principle generates in respect to scientific knowledge are defined and some of them are considered in the article: what is a mechanism for aggregating dispersed knowledge? what is the difference between dispersed knowledge and dispersed information? who is the agent of such forms of production of knowledge as Delphi, scientific crowdsourcing, civic science and foresight? Several strategies of knowledge production in modern science (both academic and postacademic) are revealed, two versions of the principle of participation are proposed. (shrink)

Modern dialogue of society and science proceeds in the conditions of social media distribution and the convergence of scientific knowledge. This processes change system of mass information and communication channels between scientific actors, leaders of public opinion and organizers of public initiatives. The conflict between an elite normativity of a scientific discourse and an egalitarian normativity of a public discourse takes the new forms. Authors show how in large quantities extending practice of civil expertise, based on civil journalism (a blogosphere (...) and social networks), interrupt into procedures of scientific examination. Active inclusion of civil experts became an attribute of transdisciplinary science. The main feature of this type of science is operational decision making in the conditions of uncertainty. However transition of transdisciplinary science to a phase of the technoscience defines convergence borders of the formal and informal knowledge. Technoscience takes root into the vital world as a magic “black box” for the inhabitant. Authors believe that the transdialogue formed by transdisciplinary scientific experts and deprofessionalized leaders of civil journalism is complicated by deficiency of epistemological competence of civil experts. One of the problem is inclusion the electronic media practices in production and the social circulation of scientific knowledge. Using rather known, but not yet entered in the field of philosophical scientific research examples of direct influence of civil experts on processes which in a former communication order were intra scientific, authors realised a research of the new aspects of modern science expanding a traditional subject of philosophy of science and technology. (shrink)

When interacting with other people, we assume that they have their reasons for what they do and believe, and experience recognizable feelings and emotions. When people act from weakness of will or are otherwise irrational, what they do can still be comprehensible to us, since we know what it is like to fall for temptation and act against one’s better judgment. Still, when someone’s experiences, feelings and way of thinking is vastly different from our own, understanding them becomes increasingly difficult. (...) Delusions and psychosis are often seen as marking the end of intelligibility. In this paper, I argue first for the importance of seeing other people as intelligible as long as this is at all possible. Second, I argue, based on both previous literature and my own lived experience, that more psychotic phenomena than previously thought can be rendered at least somewhat intelligible. Besides bizarre experiences like illusions, hallucinations and intense feelings of significance, I also explain what it is like to lose one’s bedrock, and how this loss impacts which beliefs one has reason to reject. Finally, I give an inside account of some disturbances of reason, and show that there are important similarities between certain psychotic reasoning problems and common non-pathological phenomena. (shrink)

Praise, unlike blame, is generally considered well intended and beneficial, and therefore in less need of scrutiny. In line with recent developments, we argue that praise merits more thorough philosophical analysis. We show that, just like blame, praise can be problematic by expressing a failure to respect a person’s equal value or worth as a person. Such patronizing praise, however, is often more insidious, because praise tends to be regarded as well intended and beneficial, which renders it harder to recognize (...) and object to. Among other things, a philosophical analysis of patronizing praise helps people on the receiving end articulate why they feel uncomfortable or offended by it, shows patronizing praisers how their praise is problematic, and provides input for further philosophical analysis of blame.In the first section of the paper, we discuss how hypocritical praise, just like hypocritical blame, can fail to respect the equality of persons by expressing that the praiser applies more demanding moral standards to the praisee than to themself. We further discuss obstructionist praise, which loosely corresponds to complicit blame, and can similarly express that certain moral standards apply to others but not to the praiser. In the second part of the paper, we discuss another variety of patronizing praise. Praise can be an inaccurate appraisal of a person based on irrelevant considerations – like race, gender, or class – and thereby constitute a failure to recognize their equal worth as a person. We identify three ways in which such praise can manifest. (shrink)

Wouter Kusters argues that madness has much to offer philosophy, as does philosophy to madness. In this paper, i support both claims by drawing on a mad phenomenon which I label Radical Psychotic Doubt, or RPD. First, although skepticism is a minority position in epistemology, it has been claimed that anti-skeptical arguments remain unsatisfying. I argue that this complaint can be clarified and strengthened by showing that anti-skeptical arguments are irrelevant to RPD sufferers. Second, there's a debate about whether so-called (...) hinge commitments are beliefs or not. I argue that RPD can be used to strengthen the case that they are. Moreover, if hinges are beliefs, some madpeople are more epistemically rational than some sane philosophers. Third, drawing on my own mad experiences, I challenge evidentialism by presenting a better candidate for a truly forced cchoice about what to believe than William James' traditional religious example. I further show that in certain psychiatric contexts, evidentialism has more radical implications than Jamesian pragmatism, which comes out as more conservative. Finally, I discuss how philosophical theories like pragmatism and Pyrrhonism can provide inspiration for new and much-needed coping strategies for RPD sufferers. (shrink)

Psychiatric patients sometimes ask where to draw the line between who they are – their selves – and their mental illness. This problem is referred to as the self-illness ambiguity in the literature; it has been argued that solving said ambiguity is a crucial part of psychiatric treatment. I distinguish a Realist Solution from a Constructivist one. The former requires finding a supposedly pre-existing border, in the psychiatric patient’s mental life, between that which belongs to the self and that which (...) belongs to the mental illness. I argue that no such border exists, and that attempts to find it might even render the felt ambiguity worse. Instead, any solution must be constructivist; the patient (and others) should deliberate and discuss what to identify with or not. I further argue that psychiatric patients need not see their mental illness as wholly distinct from themselves to avoid ‘identifying with their diagnoses' in a problematic way. Finally, we can excuse problematic behaviour by mentally ill people – in fact, we can do so in a more nuanced and constructive way – while rejecting the view that the mental illness is wholly distinct from the patient’s self. (shrink)

Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s metaphysics dissolves the necessary relationship between immateriality, immortality and thought. While in her youth this leads her to admit the possibility of thinking matter, in her mature work, it allows her to conceive space as non-thinking immaterial substance that links non-thinking material substance and thinking immaterial substance. To ground this conception of space, she draws on the thesis of the great chain of being. However, the possibility of thinking matter is not consistent with the hierarchy of beings, (...) because within this frame matter occupies the lowest place. My aim is to evaluate whether there is any alternative within Trotter's philosophy to solve this contradiction. -/- La metafísica de Catharine Trotter Cockburn disuelve la relación necesaria entre inmaterialidad, inmortalidad y pensamiento. Mientras que en su juventud esto la lleva a admitir la posibilidad de la materia pensante, en su madurez le permite concebir al espacio como sustancia inmaterial no pensante que oficia como eslabón entre la sustancia material no pensante y la sustancia inmaterial pensante. Para ello, apela también a la tesis de la gran cadena del ser. Sin embargo, la posibilidad de la materia pensante no es consistente con la tesis de la jerarquía de seres, porque en ella la materia ocupa el lugar más bajo. Me propongo estudiar si existe alguna alternativa dentro de la filosofía de Trotter que permita resolver esta contradicción. (shrink)

Robots are increasingly being studied for use in education. It is expected that robots will have the potential to facilitate children’s learning and function autonomously within real classrooms in the near future. Previous research has raised the importance of designing acceptable robots for different practices. In parallel, scholars have raised ethical concerns surrounding children interacting with robots. Drawing on a Responsible Research and Innovation perspective, our goal is to move away from research concerned with designing features that will render robots (...) more socially acceptable by end users toward a reflective dialogue whose goal is to consider the key ethical issues and long-term consequences of implementing classroom robots for teachers and children in primary education. This paper presents the results from several focus groups conducted with teachers in three European countries. Through a thematic analysis, we provide a theoretical account of teachers’ perspectives on classroom robots pertaining to privacy, robot role, effects on children and responsibility. Implications for the field of educational robotics are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue for two interrelated theses. First, if we take phenomenological psychopathology seriously, and want to understand what it is like to undergo various psychopathological experiences, we cannot treat madpeople’s testimony as mere data for sane clinicians, philosophers, and other scholars to analyze and interpret. Madpeople must be involved with analysis an interpretation too. Second, sane clinicians and scholars must open their minds to the possibility that there may be experiences that other people have, which they (...) nevertheless cannot conceive of. I look at influential texts in which philosophers attempt to analyze and understand depersonalization and thought insertion. They go astray because they keep using their own powers of conceivability as a guide to what is or is not humanly possible to experience. Several experiences labeled inconceivable and therefore impossible by these philosophers, are experiences I have had myself. Philosophers and others would be less likely to make this mistake if they would converse and collaborate more with the madpeople concerned. When this is not feasible, they should nevertheless strive to keep an open mind. Fantastical fiction may have a role to play here, by showing how bizarre experiences may nevertheless be prima facie conceivable. (shrink)

It has been argued that a retributivist criminal justice system treats offenders with a respect lacking in alternative criminal justice systems; retributivism presumably recognizes that offenders are fellow members of the moral community who can be held responsible for their actions. One version of the respect argument builds on P.F. Strawson’s moral responsibility theory. According to Strawson, we may take either a participant or objective attitude toward other people. The former is the default attitude when interacting with other adults, whereas (...) the latter is fit for children and the mentally disabled or ill, whom we merely try to manage and handle as best we can. The participant attitude also involves holding people responsible when they do wrong. Supposedly, a retributivist criminal justice system functions as a natural continuation of our everyday, participant, and responsibility-holding practices, unlike alternative systems that adopt an objective attitude toward offenders. I argue that this is wrong. The participant attitude requires reciprocity and, usually, some level of equality too. Even an idealized retributivist system has little room for this, not to mention the flawed versions of this system we see in reality. (shrink)

One of the most influential arguments against compatibilism is Derk Pereboom’s four-case manipulation argument. Professor Plum, the main character of the thought experiment, is manipulated into doing what he does; he therefore supposedly lacks moral responsibility for his action. Since he is arguably analogous to an ordinary agent under determinism, Pereboom concludes that ordinary determined agents lack moral responsibility as well. I offer a hard-line reply to this argument, that is, a reply which denies that this kind of manipulation is (...) responsibility undermining. I point out that fully fleshed-out manipulated characters in fiction can seem morally responsible for what they do. This is plausibly because we identify with such characters, and therefore focus on their options and the reasons for which they act rather than the manipulation. I further argue that we ought to focus this way when interacting with other agents. We have no reason to trust the incompatibilist intuitions that arise when we regard manipulated agents from a much more detached perspective. (shrink)

In this paper, I review arguments according to which harsh criminal punishments and poverty are undeserved and therefore unjust. Such arguments come in different forms. First, one may argue that no one deserves to be poor or be punished, because there is no such thing as desert-entailing moral responsibility. Second, one may argue that poor people in particular do not deserve to remain in poverty or to be punished if they commit crimes, because poor people suffer from psychological problems that (...) undermine their agency and moral responsibility. Third, one may argue that poor and otherwise marginalized people frequently face external obstacles that prevent them from taking alternative courses of action. The first kind of argument has its place in the philosophy seminar. Psychological difficulties may be important to attend to both in personal relationships and when holding ourselves responsible. Nevertheless, I argue that neither type of argument belongs in political contexts. Moral responsibility scepticism ultimately rests on contested intuitions. Labelling certain groups of people particularly irrational, weak-willed, or similar is belittling and disrespectful; such claims are also hard to prove, and may have the opposite effect to the intended one on people's attitudes. Arguments from external obstacles have none of these problems. Such arguments may not take us all the way to criminal justice reform, but in this context, we can supplement them with epistemic arguments and crime prevention arguments. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam and Cora Diamond both wrote on Wittgenstein’s Three Lectures on Religious Belief. They did it quite differently; my ultimate aim in this article is to explore this difference. Putnam’s view of religion is largely a view of ethical life; I look thus into his writings on ethics and his proposals to face the relativist menace therein. Still, in his incursions into philosophy of religion, describing religious experience through authors such as Rosenzweig, Buber, or Levinas, Putnam deals with what (...) Diamond calls, after Wittgenstein, “the gulfs between us.” Such gulfs, and the threat of relativism they bring, need to be accounted for. With that purpose in mind I complement Putnam’s reading of the Three Lectures with Diamond’s own reading. (shrink)

A short autobiographical piece on madness and philosophy that I wrote for the Schizophrenia Bulletin's First Person Account section.

The issue of communicated accountability is particularly important in Faith-Based Charity Organisations as the donated funds and use of those funds are often meant to fulfil religious obligations for the well-being of society. Integrating Stewart’s (1984) ladder of accountability with the Statement of Recommended Practice guidance for charities, this paper examines communicated accountability practices of Muslim and Christian Charity Organisations in England and Wales. Our content analysis results indicate communicated accountability to be generally limited, focusing on providing basic descriptive information (...) rather than judgement-based information. Our interviews with trustees and preparers of Trustee Annual Reports in Muslim Charity Organisations identified the reasons being due to high donor trust and consequently weak demand by stakeholders for the latter type of information, as well as internal organisational issues related to the organisational structure and culture, lack of internal professional expertise and high accountability cost. (shrink)

Justin Garson introduces the distinction between two views on Madness we encounter again and again throughout history: Madness as dysfunction, and Madness as strategy. On the latter view, Madness serves some purpose for the person experiencing it, even if it’s simultaneously harmful. The strategy view makes intelligible why Madness often holds a certain allure – even when it’s prima facie terrifying. Moreover, if Madness is a strategy in Garson’s metaphorical sense – if it serves a purpose – it makes sense (...) to use consciously chosen strategies for living with Madness that doesn’t necessarily aim to annihilate or repress it as far as possible. In this paper, we use our own respective stories as case studies. We have both struggled to resist the allure of Madness, and both ended up embracing a kind of Pyrrhonian scepticism about reality instead of clinging to sane reality. (shrink)

Aesthetic experience is original, dynamic and ever-changing. This article covers three research questions (RQs) concerning how immersive installation artworks can elicit emotions that may contribute to their popularity. Based on Yayoi Kusama’s and Peter Kogler’s kaleidoscopic rooms, this study aims to predict the emotions of visitors of immersive installation art based on their Twitter activity. As indicators, we employed the total number of likes, comments, retweets, followers, followings, the average of tweets per user, and emotional response. According to our evaluation (...) of emotions, panic obtained the highest scores. Furthermore, compared to traditional machine learning algorithms, Tree-based Pipeline Optimization Tool (TPOT) Automated Machine Learning used in this research yielded slightly lower performance. We forecast that our findings will stimulate future research in the fields of data analysis, cultural heritage management and marketing, aesthetics and cultural analytics. (shrink)

In a special issue of “Ethics and Information Technology” (September 2012), various philosophers have discussed the notion of online friendship. The preferred framework of analysis was Aristotle’s theory of friendship: it was argued that online friendships face many obstacles that hinder them from ever reaching the highest form of Aristotelian friendship. In this article I aim to offer a different perspective by critically analyzing the arguments these philosophers use against online friendship. I begin by isolating the most common arguments these (...) philosophers use against online friendship and proceed to debunk them one by one by pointing out inconsistencies and fallacies in their arguments and, where needed, offering empirical findings from media and communication studies that offer a more nuanced view on online friendships. I conclude my analysis by questioning the correctness of the application of the Aristotelian theory of friendship by the critics of online friendship: in my view, the critics are applying the Aristotelian theory to online friendships in a rather narrow and limited way. Finally, I conclude my thesis by proposing that in the rapidly changing online landscape, a one-size-fits-all application of the Aristotelian theory on friendship is not sufficient to accurately judge the multitude of relationships that can exist online and that the various positive and valuable elements of online friendships should also be acknowledged and analyzed. (shrink)

In this article I discuss Daniel Dennett’s view of the role of natural language in the evolution of the human mind. In contrast with defenders of the Language of Thought Hypothesis, Dennett claims that natural language is an evolved tool for communication, originating in behavioural habits of which users were initially not aware. Once in place, such habits changed access to information in human brains and were crucial for the evolution of human consciousness. I assess Dennett’s approach from the viewpoint (...) of philosophy of mind and language and consider its ontological implications. I contrast Dennett’s views with the universalist and internalist claims of Jerry Fodor and Noam Chomsky and show how, by appealing to memes and cultural evolution, Dennett resists such claims. I then analyse how this picture goes together with a deflationary view of consciousness. I end by pointing out that although Dennett’s global picture seems to point towards a pluralistic ontology, he himself refrains from taking such a step. (shrink)

In this book symposium text, I focus on Ciurria’s critique of P. F. Strawson’s incredibly influential paper “Freedom and Resentment”, and more generally present-day Strawsonians about moral responsibility. Ciurria rightfully argues that the picture painted of “our responsibility practices” is highly idealized; it ignores crucial power asymmetries and oppression. I agree with this. However, it seems to me that Ciurria sometimes lacks awareness of exactly how profound the disagreement between her and Strawson and his followers is.

Resumen: Ante las críticas insistentes a la distinción entre el empirismo y el racionalismo, se han propuesto alternativas para comprender de manera más adecuada el quehacer de los filósofos modernos. Entre ellas está la distinción entre filosofía especulativa y experimental. Intentaré evaluar la validez de esta distinción para la filosofía moral experimental del siglo XVIII y, en particular, para la propuesta de Hume. Mostraré que si la distinción se entiende en términos excluyentes, resulta inapropiada porque el mismo Hume plantea que (...) la especulación es lo que define a la filosofía. Además, antes que considerarlas como excluyentes, el filósofo escocés propone una conciliación entre la práctica de la experimentación y la teorización. Por último, sostendré que aquello que Hume considera como “falsa filosofía” no puede entenderse como sinónimo de filosofía especulativa.: A persistent criticism of the distinction between empiricism and ra-tionalism has provoked the emergence of new distinctions in order to under-stand modern philosophy in a more adequate way. One of those distinctions is that between speculative and experimental philosophy. My aim is to evalu-ate the validity of this distinction for eighteenth-century experimental moral philosophy in general and for Hume’s thought in particular. I will show that if this distinction is understood in exclusive terms, then it cannot be adequate because Hume himself states that speculation is what defines philoso-phy. Hume also proposes a reconciliation between experimental practice and theoretical activity instead of considering that they are mutually exclusive. Finally, I will make clear that what Hume condemns as “false philosophy” is not a synonym for speculative philosophy. (shrink)

In the early modern period the chain of being thesis was used by naturalists and philosophers to justify female subordination. My aim is to establish whether Catharine Trotter Cockburn's endorsement of this thesis entails that differences between sexes assigns differentiating places in the scale or not. I will review Locke’s formulation of the ontological scale first, because Cockburn refers to his description. Locke’s skepticism regarding our access to the real essence of substances hinders him from drawing unequivocal boundaries between species (...) and even within human species. However, he states that wives must subordinate to husbands on the basis of a higher capacity and strength naturally endowed to men. Cockburn’s understanding of the ontological scale rests on a realist conception where boundaries between species are clearly delimited because their nature is fixed and immutable. This insight into the ontological scale is employed to endorse natural equality between sexes, because if all members of a species share the same nature, they deserve equal treatment. Cockburn explains women subjection in terms of vicious notions and attitudes rooted in prejudice. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum argues that animals are entitled to a flourishing life according to the norm for their species. Nussbaum furthermore suggests that in the case of dogs, breed norms as well as species norms are relevant. Her theses capture both common intuitions among laypeople according to which there is something wrong with the breeding of “unnatural” animals, or animals that are too different from their wild ancestors, and the dog enthusiast’s belief that dogs departing from the norms for their breed (...) are tragic. I argue that the high diversity of the dog species and the ultimate arbitrariness of breed norms support the thesis that a conception of welfare must be tied to what the individual requires in order to flourish. In the second part of the paper, I discuss the implications that an individualized welfare conception has for the breeding of dogs for conformation shows, for the pet market and for the performance of various tasks for which we need working dogs. (shrink)

This article considers an international sample of venture capital and private equity funds to assess the role of law, corruption, and culture in setting fund manager fees. With better legal conditions, fixed fees are lower, carried interest fees are higher, clawbacks are less likely, and share distributions are more likely. Countries with lower levels of corruption have lower fixed fees and higher performance fees, and are less likely to have clawbacks and cash-only distributions. Hofstede's measure of power distance is negatively (...) related to fixed fees and the use of cash-only distributions, but positively related to performance fees and clawbacks. Overall, the data strongly indicate that corruption, culture, and legal settings are much more significant in determining fees than fund manager characteristics and/or market conditions. (shrink)

Background Respect is essential to providing high quality healthcare, particularly for groups that are historically marginalized and stigmatized. While ethical principles taught to health professionals focus on patient autonomy as the object of respect for persons, limited studies explore patients’ views of respect. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of a multiculturally diverse group of low-income women living with HIV (WLH) regarding their experience of respect from their medical physicians. Methods We analyzed 57 semi-structured interviews conducted (...) at HIV case management sites in South Florida as part of a larger qualitative study that explored practices facilitating retention and adherence in care. Women were eligible to participate if they identified as African American (n = 28), Hispanic/Latina (n = 22), or Haitian (n = 7). They were asked to describe instances when they were treated with respect by their medical physicians. Interviews were conducted by a fluent research interviewer in either English, Spanish, or Haitian Creole, depending on participant’s language preference. Transcripts were translated, back-translated and reviewed in entirety for any statements or comments about “respect.” After independent coding by 3 investigators, we used a consensual thematic analysis approach to determine themes. Results Results from this study grouped into two overarching classifications: respect manifested in physicians’ orientation towards the patient (i.e., interpersonal behaviors in interactions) and respect in medical professionalism (i.e., clinic procedures and practices). Four main themes emerged regarding respect in provider’s orientation towards the patient: being treated as a person, treated as an equal, treated without blame or prejudice, and treated with concern/emotional support. Two main themes emerged regarding respect as evidenced in medical professionalism: physician availability and considerations of privacy. Conclusions Findings suggest a more robust conception of what ‘respect for persons’ entails in medical ethics for a diverse group of low-income women living with HIV. Findings have implications for broadening areas of focus of future bioethics education, training, and research to include components of interpersonal relationship development, communication, and clinic procedures. We suggest these areas of training may increase respectful medical care experiences and potentially serve to influence persistent and known social and structural determinants of health through provider interactions and health care delivery. (shrink)

Using PitchBook’s private equity database of 4548 PE funds from 42 countries for the 2000 to 2012 period, we find that higher reporting frequency is associated with lower information asymmetry in performance reports from general partners to limited partners. We also find that endowments are systematically associated with less reported unrealized returns as a percentage of total returns generated from GPs. Moreover, endowments receive more performance reports from their PE funds, implying more stringent governance. These findings persist after controlling for (...) various institutional and GP characteristics and are robust to several adjustments for endogeneity concerns. This study also contributes to the finance, accounting, and business ethics literature on financial reporting quality. (shrink)

The contours of contemporary philosophy are difficult to trace. How can we orient ourselves among authors such as Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Foucault, Derrida, Adorno, Benjamin, Deleuze, Agamben, Zizek, Badiou , Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Austin, Putnam, Davidson, Rorty, Kripke, McDowell or Cavell? How can we orient ourselves among terms such as phenomenology, analytical philosophy, existentialism, pragmatism, feminism, postmodernism, Nietzscheanism, naturalism, materialism or cognitivism? Presenting a journey through figures and movements of contemporary philosophy, this book suggests an (...) answer, supporting the reader's personal exploration. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed an upsurge of political readings of the right to have rights. The gist of the argument is that this right only comes into being in the act of claiming or taking it. At the same time, the political reading suffers from a normative lacuna which is difficult to ignore if right is not to collapse into might. The present article seeks to show that this normative lacuna can be accounted for if one situates the political reading (...) in relation to a certain form of government. Acknowledging Montesquieu’s influence on Arendt’s resort to the principles which guide political action, the article offers a new interpretation of the normative basis of the right to have rights. It argues, first, that this right is democratic, not political, and second, that the principle which sets the right in motion is responsibility, not freedom. (shrink)

My response to Rashed's critique of my account as theorizing instead of showing what it is like.

Who is Anonymous? What is the group’s connection with hacktivism? Can we speak of an Internet group consisting of new ‘e-Robin Hoods’? Do modern heroes still exist as a source of inspiration? The answers to these questions are not unproblematic. Many would say that the group Anonymous falls into the contemporary hero category. If so, its members, Anons, could be deemed ‘reincarnations’ of the mythical Robin Hood but in digital form, since they tackle corruption, repression, and injustice, as he did. (...) Others will disagree with this view. The only safe statement is that Anonymous constitutes a global, Internet-based social movement of mostly young and dissatisfied people who have decided to follow their own strategy to oppose established global governance and order. This paper sheds light on the latest hacking activity of Anonymous against several governmental websites in Greece. According to Anonymous, it sought to protect/defend Greek citizens suffering because of the financial crisis and to teach a ‘strong lesson’ to the elected politicians in office. Drawing on material from videos, online articles from Greek newspapers, and a few online articles from international media outlets, we attempt to understand whether Anonymous follows the long tradition of Robin Hood by acting as a heroic figure/icon. This paper contributes to the semiotics of hacktivism, but also to the further investigation of the identity of Anonymous as comprising ‘new Robin-Hoods’ based on its staged identity and actions. (shrink)

My main goal in this article is methodological: I want to spell out how a Kantian perspective could accommodate current empirical work on cognition, and in particular on emotion. Having chosen John McDowell as a guide, I try to characterize his view of moral experience and underline its Kantian traits. I start by identifying the conception of freedom as exemplified in the rational wolf thought experiment in Two Forms of Naturalism as the main Kantian trait. I then go through the (...) characterization of two other crucial aspects of our moral experience – reasons and value. I suggest that McDowell’s approach to moral experience, although not itself strictly Kantian in all of its details, is an instance of a transformative view of rationality, as defended by Matthew Boyle and that such transformative view is the key to accommodate empirical research on cognition within a Kantian perspective. (shrink)

Although many philosophers have, throughout history, regarded themselves as answering the skeptic, the question arises whether answering the skeptic is the thing to do. If not, the question becomes how else to respond to her. Wittgenstein-inspired stances are, in general, therapeutic. In this article I focus on the problem of other minds in order to analyze and compare the different shapes such therapeutic stances may have. I begin by showing how crucial resisting the temptation to answer the skeptic was for (...) John McDowell’s early formulations of disjunctivism in the 1980s. In his article “Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge” I identify substantial positions such as the rejection of highest common factor views, the diagnosis of the connection between such highest common factor views and an conception of appearances, as well as the proposal of a non-Cartesian, or modest, approach to indistinguishability for a subject. Whatever his success in these other enterprises, McDowell continues to regard both the temptation to answer the skeptic and a substitute therapeutic stance as epistemologically motivated. But if skepticism is more than an intellectual conundrum, as maintained by Stanley Cavell, the source of such temptation has to be considered in a completely different light. (shrink)

Questions of social justice and health-care costs are some of the concerns of society. The cost caused by cardiovascular diseases can have an enormous impact, and it is important to know what patients think about illness costs when they are hospitalized. Two interviews were realized in a longitudinal study, in a sample of 106 patients submitted to expensive techniques in Cardiology (Portugal), to understand the patients’ perception about the health costs and behavior changes based on awareness. We can conclude that (...) cardiovascular diseases are a global phenomenon that generally affects all social groups. From those interviewed, 83% of the patients agree about getting information concerning the treatments and intervention costs during hospitalization because the information about costs can bring the necessary tools for improvement in patients and health resources; 70.8% of the patients say that this information could bring awareness to the patient’s life, enhancing responsibility and personal autonomy. (shrink)

The aim of the present article is to identify and analyze three particular disputes among current proponents of perceptual realism which may throw light on tensions present in the history of direct realism and current discussions. Starting from John Searle’s conception of direct realism, I first set McDowell and Travis’s approaches in contrast with it. I then further compare Travis’ view with McDowell’s. I claim that differences among the three philosophers are traceable first to methodological conceptions of the approach to (...) perceptual experience (whether philosophical naturalism implies dealing with the sub-personal level), then to what makes for the particularity of a perceptual experience (whether it involves consciousness and a task of unity or not), and finally to what makes for the determinacy of an experience of things in the world (whether such determinacy characterizes the world itself or, as such, involves language and thought). (shrink)

Published on Daily Philosophy 2021-10-18 Why do we have a criminal justice system? What could possibly justify the state punishing its citizens? Philosophers, scholars of law, politicians and others have proposed different justifications, one of them being retributivism: the view that we ought to give offenders the suffering that they deserve for harming others. However, intentionally harming other people and making them suffer is serious business. If we are to do this in the name of what’s right and good, we (...) better be very certain that what we do really is right and good. The so-called Epistemic Argument Against Retributivism calls this certainty into question. (shrink)

In this article I focus on Cavell’s theme of finding one’s voice, as it is articulated with reference to the philosophies of language of Wittgenstein and Austin. I start by spelling out Cavell’s Wittgensteinian-Austinian view of culture as the background for his approach to aesthetics and ethics. I then set out to explore the work done by the theme in aesthetics and ethics around the notion claim. I argue that Cavell’s effort to counter the pull of non-cognitivism in aesthetics and (...) ethics, building on the notion claim, is not only illuminating of his unique way of inheriting the history of analytic philosophy but also gives us a glimpse of where and how Continental and analytic philosophy may again cross paths in the future. (shrink)

Teaching is, to date, one of the most prone jobs to experiencing occupational stress and burnout. Owing to burnout’s negative personal, social, organizational and economic impacts, researchers, practitioners and education policy leaders are interested in developing practices and interventions aimed at preventing/reducing its prevalence. With teachers’ main professional demands to be of a social and emotional nature, interventions designed with a view to promote teachers’ social and emotional competence appears to be particularly promising, positively impacting teachers’ well-being and personal accomplishment (...) and contributing to a decrease in their psychological distress, namely emotional exhaustion. However, theoretical and empirically grounded interventions with ecological validity and specifically targeting teachers are still scarce. Thus, to bridge the previously identified gaps, the present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and the quality of the intervention’s implementation of the A+, an online social and emotional learning intervention for elementary-school teachers. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with a total of 81 participants from three different school contexts. School clusters were similar in size, organizational structure and socioeconomic level, and as regards previous attendance at social and emotional learning interventions; however, they differed with regards to perceived organizational climate. Data on the efficacy of the A+ was collected across four waves using a set of self-report questionnaires that assessed proximal variables and distal variables, and analyzed through Robust Linear Mixed-Effects Models. Coefficient omegas suggested adequate reliability of the measures. Additionally, two trained observers completed an observation grid to evaluate the quality of the A+ implementation, with excellent inter-rater reliability. Results suggested that, over time, the A+ had positive impacts across proximal and distal variables favoring the experimental group. However, results differed across the school contexts. These findings were accompanied by good implementation quality indicators, namely high fidelity in the delivery of the A+ contents and high participants’ responsiveness. Despite its limitations, this study contributes to a growing body of research which reinforces the importance of investing in social and emotional learning interventions to prevent teachers’ burnout and improve their occupational health. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of implementation quality research as a component of program planning with a view to enhancing programs’ efficacy, as well as the need to adapt and consider context variables in research and practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Even though there is a general agreement among the scholars concerning the relationship between Hume and experimental philosophy, yet important disagreements prevail regarding the subject of the “science of human nature,” as well as the reasons that ground the introduction of the experimental method into moral subjects, and the way in which Hume does it. Our aim is to shed some light into these three items in order to specify the sense in which Hume’s experimentalism should be understood. Regarding (...) the first one, we maintain that the science of human nature not only deals with the study of the mind but also with human interaction within society through the course of history. Concerning the second one, we consider that there is a common ontological ground to moral and natural phenomena, because both fall into what Hume calls ‘matters of fact.’ This, in turn is what enables him to apply the same research method to both. In order to clarify the third item, we will delve into the central role that is given to facts, which Hume understands as epistemically relevant events, which are handled through explanatory reduction, Finally, we will show through some examples how Hume uses the method. (shrink)

Within current philosophy of perception John McDowell has for quite some time been defending a view inspired by Kant. Charles Travis opposes such view and counters it with his own, Frege-inspired, approach. By analysing the clash between Travis’ idea of the silence of the senses and McDowell’s idea of intuitional content, the present article aims to characterize the core of their divergence regarding the nature of perceptual judgement. It also aims at presenting their engagement as a reformulated version of the (...) debate around conceptual and nonconceptual content of perception, bringing forth some of its stakes. Such reformulated version of the debate makes it possible to bring out what a Kantian position on representation, consciousness and appearances ultimately amounts to, as well as to identify a particular angle of criticism to it. (shrink)