Future robots should have common sense about the world in order to handle the problems they will encounter. A large part of this commonsense knowledge must be naive physics knowledge, since carrying out even the simplest everyday chores requires familiarity with physics laws. But how should one start codifying this knowledge? What kind of skills should be elicited from the experts (each and every one of us)? This paper will attempt to provide some hints by studying the mental models of (...) force and motion. (shrink)

In On Not Expecting Too Much from Narrative, Lamarque (2004) challenges theories of narrative identity. For while narrativity might tell us something of interest about our selves, the requirements for this would be so strong that theories of narrative identity would not be able to meet them. In contrast, he identifies minimal conditions for narrativity, so that our identity could be of a narrative nature as well. But in that case, the concept of narrativity would be so weak that it (...) would hardly be able to tell us anything about ourselves. I first examine Lamarque's criticism of narrative concepts of identity. He shows that stories, understood in a minimal sense, are not found but told and that they establish a temporal relationship between at least two events. I then examine the concept of teleological explanations of action. Considering the problem of deviant causal chains that causalists are confronted with, they are at least a serious alternative to causal explanations of action. By doing that, I also attempt to render plausible the irreducibility of teleological explanations of action to causal ones. Subsequently, I outline some features of teleological explanations of action. Finally, I defend the idea that teleological explanations of action are essentially narrative explanations of action because they meet Lamarque's minimal conditions of narratives. I then make the case that these kinds of narratives are not trivial with respect to our personal identity but, on the contrary, are the prerequisite under which we can perceive ourselves as rational agents. (shrink)

Drawing on Anscombe, in this essay I argue that we should not take Aristotle to be a moral philosopher, nor a virtue ethicist. This is because contemporary virtue ethics has little to do with Aristotelian ethics. While contemporary virtue ethics (or aretaic moral theory, as one may call it) operates on the level of moral and thus categorical norms, Aristotelian ethics—an aretaic life ethics—is primarily concerned with pragmatic norms. The main question for Aristotle is what a good general conduct of (...) life is. The major concern of aretaic moral theory, on the other hand, is to provide a criterion of morally right action and hence to define the concepts of the morally right, the impermissible and moral duty in aretaic terms. This shows that contemporary authors assume a primacy of virtue, while Aristotle assumes a primacy of eudaimonia. I illustrate this distinction by addressing the question of how the virtues benefit their possessor. (shrink)

In On Not Expecting Too Much from Narrative, Lamarque (2004) challenges theories of narrative identity. For while narrativity might tell us something of interest about our selves, the requirements for this would be so strong that theories of narrative identity would not be able to meet them. In contrast, he identifies minimal conditions for narrativity, so that our identity could be of a narrative nature as well. But in that case, the concept of narrativity would be so weak that it (...) would hardly be able to tell us anything about ourselves. I first examine Lamarque's criticism of narrative concepts of identity. He shows that stories, understood in a minimal sense, are not found but told and that they establish a temporal relationship between at least two events. I then examine the concept of teleological explanations of action. Considering the problem of deviant causal chains that causalists are confronted with, they are at least a serious alternative to causal explanations of action. By doing that, I also attempt to render plausible the irreducibility of teleological explanations of action to causal ones. Subsequently, I outline some features of teleological explanations of action. Finally, I defend the idea that teleological explanations of action are essentially narrative explanations of action because they meet Lamarque's minimal conditions of narratives. I then make the case that these kinds of narratives are not trivial with respect to our personal identity but, on the contrary, are the prerequisite under which we can perceive ourselves as rational agents. (shrink)

Can video games or the playing of such games be morally objectionable? Many attempts to justify our intuitions about the morality of certain games or game activities are either unsuccessful or fall short. This is mainly due to a normative gap between reality and virtuality that classical approaches to moral philosophy cannot bridge. I am investigating to what extent an accurate action analysis can help us to justify our intuitions that, in some cases, something is ethically wrong with video games. (...) To do so, I am using Frankfurt’s volition theory to show how virtual game actions can be evaluated based on virtue ethics. This virtue ethical assessment is compatible with Ostritsch’s (2017) endorsement view. Especially in light of the gamification of our surroundings, the question of the ethical status of video gaming is becoming more and more urgent. By arguing that a virtue ethical approach can tell us more about the ethical aspects of video gaming, I will also argue that virtue ethics (because of similar problems in these fields) is promising regarding the ethics of simulation, art, and literature. (shrink)

In the context of the relationship between science and society, the internalist pa- radigm of the history of science does not appear to be satisfactory. The fact that a paradigm for Science and Technology / Society Studies has not been built yet, does not prevent the researchers to analyse the effects of social phenomena on science. The economic structure of society, which is one of the non-epistemological factors, has at least as much effect as the epistemological factors on the development (...) or stagnation of science in a given society. In this study, we intend to make a comparison between European Science that developed through “non-scientific” factors in the 17th century and Ottoman Science that could not develop due to “non-scientific” factors. The Science evolved into positivism from its phase of craftsman and engineers developed relatively due to the economic and social structure differences in the Ottoman Empire compared to Europe. (shrink)

There are different narratives on mathematics as part of our world, some of which are more appropriate than others. Such narratives might be of the form ‘Mathematics is useful’, ‘Mathematics is beautiful’, or ‘Mathematicians aim at theorem-credit’. These narratives play a crucial role in mathematics education and in society as they are influencing people’s willingness to engage with the subject or the way they interpret mathematical results in relation to real-world questions; the latter yielding important normative considerations. Our strategy is (...) to frame current narratives of mathematics from a virtue-theoretic perspective. We identify the practice of mathematizing, put forward by Freudenthal’s ‘Realistic mathematics education’, as virtuous and use it to evaluate different narratives. We show that this can help to render the narratives more adequately, and to provide implications for societal organization. (shrink)

The presence of both myocardial hypertrophy and coronary-to-cameral fistula has been reported previously. However, the exact mechanisms are not clear. Herein, we reported a patient with mid-cavitary hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and concomitant connections between coronary arteries and left ventricular cavity.

Linguistic expressions frequently make reference to the situation in which they are uttered. In fact, there are expressions whose whole point of use is to relate to their context of utterance. It is such expressions that this article is primarily about. However, rather than presenting the richness of pertinent phenomena (cf. Anderson & Keenan 1985), it concentrates on the theoretical tools provided by the (standard) two-dimensional analysis of context dependence, essentially originating with Kaplan (1989)--with a little help from Stalnaker (1978) (...) and Lewis (1979a, 1980), and various predecessors including Kamp (1971) and Vlach (1973). The current article overlaps in content with the account in Zimmermann (1991), which is however much broader (and at times deeper).. (shrink)

We are witnesses to a major reshaping of our world: the World and our lives as we used to know are ending and they are reshaping constantly and drastically under pressure. Everything we knew about this world, our old habits, values, human rights, ethical patterns et all. These days, since the pandemic outburst, I saw the perceptions we have/had on religious impositions and requirements changing for an unprecedented behavior and inconsiderably reshaping religious phenomenon could have ever think of. With the (...) title taken from the topic of this volume, Inspired by the conference titled, we have tried to envision the actual human environment through the ongoing pandemic that revolutions the entire human society in a way we had never considered as possible and so that we will not recognize in a year or so. Following the Philosophy of Dialectics and seeing a larger number of possibilities beyond those that were revealed to us in most obvious ways, we wonder thus, what makes us, in fact, do these changes – is the pandemic itself and its requirements or is it just US, humans, that were long longing for a change, a motif to do it all new again? It is though a human-divine desire to anew all from time to time and seek a reboot to all wrongness that grows in the world. (shrink)

Contract cheating, or students outsourcing their assignments to be completed by others, has emerged as a significant threat to academic integrity in higher education institutions around the world. During the COVID-19, when traditional face-to-face instruction became unsustainable, the number of contract cheating students increased dramatically. Through focus group interviews, this study sought the perspectives of 25 students enrolled in first year writing in a private higher education institution in Kuwait during the pandemic in 2020–2021, on their attitudes towards contract cheating. (...) MAXQDA 2020 was used to examine the data. The participants believe that the primary motivations for engaging in contract cheating are mainly the opportunities presented by online learning and the psychological and physical challenges they experienced during online learning. Those who did not cheat had some shared traits, such as a competitive spirit, confidence in their talents, and a strong desire to learn. Additionally, those with high moral values avoided cheating. To combat contract cheating, students believe that teaching and evaluation techniques should be drastically altered and that students should be educated about plagiarism, while institutions should impose tougher sanctions on repeat offenders. (shrink)

Conversion is a word with a variety of meanings. It also has various significations, from the exchange between different currencies, to job conversion or the change of career path, to the change from one religion, political belief, viewpoint, etc., to another – all these types of conversion have mutual methods and shared purposes. They are all requiring malleability, the capacity of exchanging old things for the new ones, openness to different, the will to adopt something new or at least different, (...) and the legerity of giving up on the old things. All these requirements are always easier said than done, and therefore conversion is not for all types of characters and personalities, some being more stable and fundamental, thus resistant to renewal. There is no religion, on the one hand, that does not promote conversion and thus use proselytism to do it. On the other hand, same religions that believe conversion is an act of God, a sign that everyone should embrace and leave whatever religious belief they might have previously, consider it as a ‘sin’, an act that should be forbidden, the conversion/leaving for other, diverse religion. How is it regarded by religions and scientific thought and at what point it became obsolete? (shrink)

In this work we argue that there is no strong demarcation between pure and applied mathematics. We show this first by stressing non-deductive components within pure mathematics, like axiomatization and theory-building in general. We also stress the “purer” components of applied mathematics, like the theory of the models that are concerned with practical purposes. We further show that some mathematical theories can be viewed through either a pure or applied lens. These different lenses are tied to different communities, which endorse (...) different evaluative standards for theories. We evaluate the distinction between pure and applied mathematics from a late Wittgensteinian perspective. We note that the classical exegesis of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, due to Maddy, leads to a clear-cut but misguided demarcation. We then turn our attention to a more niche interpretation of Wittgenstein by Dawson, which captures aspects of the aforementioned distinction more accurately. Building on this newer, maverick interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, and endorsing an extended notion of meaning as use which includes social, mundane uses, we elaborate a fuzzy, but more realistic, demarcation. This demarcation, relying on family resemblance, is based on how direct and intended technical applications are, the kind of evaluative standards featured, and the range of rhetorical purposes at stake. (shrink)

This paper investigates the semantics of implicit comparatives (Alice is tall compared to Bob) and its connections to the semantics of explicit comparatives (Alice is taller than Bob) and sentences with adjectives in plain positive form (Alice is tall). We consider evidence from two experiments that tested judgments about these three kinds of sentence, and provide a semantics for implicit comparatives from the perspective of degree semantics.

We give an overview of Lakatos’ life, his philosophy of mathematics and science, as well as of this issue. Firstly, we briefly delineate Lakatos’ key contributions to philosophy: his anti-formalist philosophy of mathematics, and his methodology of scientific research programmes in the philosophy of science. Secondly, we outline the themes and structure of the masterclass Lakatos’ Undone Work – The Practical Turn and the Division of Philosophy of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, which gave rise to this special issue. Lastly, (...) we provide a summary of the contributions to this issue. (shrink)

Objectives: Inferior oblique muscle overaction (IOOA) is a common ocular motility disorder. Ocular Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials (oVEMP) are tests that evaluate the reflex pathway between the utricular macula and the inferior oblique muscle to detect vestibular diseases. Our study is of great importance as it is the first study in the literature to evaluate the effect of inferior oblique muscle overaction on oVEMP parameters. -/- Methods: Thirty-five patients with unilateral inferior oblique muscle overaction (IOOA group) and 18 healthy volunteers (...) without any neurological or vestibulocochlear disease were included in this study. All patients and healthy volunteers were evaluated with oVEMP. -/- Results: No statistically significant difference was found between the n1 latency, p1 latency, n1-p1 latency measurement values of the participants included in the study (p>0,05). A statistically significant difference was found between the n1-p1 amplitude measurement values of the participants in patient groups (non-squint eyes, squint eyes) and control groups (p-value was 0.038). -/- Conclusion: In IOOA patients, vestibulo-ocular reflex pathway may be affected, vestibular symptoms may develop thus o-VEMP responses may be affected. A careful anamnesis should be taken in IOOA patients, and it should be kept in mind that n1-p1 amplitudes and asymmetries may be significantly higher when o-VEMP is performed. (shrink)

Coronary artery vasospasm (CAVS) is a clinical entity that can cause angina, but also unstable angina pectoris, acute myocardial infarction, fatal arrhythmias, and sudden death. Although it is a condition that is usually controlled with medical treatment, more aggressive treatments may rarely be required. In this case, the patient with a known diagnosis of CAVS had multiple arrests despite optimal medical treatment. We observed that fatal arrhythmias persisted in the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) records, even though we implanted a stent (...) and gave the patient maximal medical treatment. We performed sympathectomy as a last resort and we did not detect any recurrence in the 6-month follow-up of the patient. ICD implantation and sympathectomy should always be considered in resistant CAVS cases. (shrink)

This article studies the epic space of Dam San that is associated with traditional beliefs, rituals in festivals, and contexts associated with Ede’s productive labor and living activities. In that context, the image of the hero Dam San is an ideal leader with strength, talent, courage, virtue, great ambitions, and great ideals, and those ideals also represent the ideals of an ethnic group. The epic space of Dam San is just like a large theme reflecting the cultural life and anchoring, (...) transmitting traditional cultural values of the Ede ethnic group in Vietnam. (shrink)

In my Racialization: A Defense of the Concept, I argue that ‘race’ fails as an analytic category and that we should think in terms of ‘racialization’ and ‘racialized groups’ instead (Hochman 2019c). I define these concepts and defend them against a range of criticisms. In Rethinking Racialization: The Analytical Limits of Racialization, Deniz Uyan critiques my “theory of racialization” (Uyan 2021). However, I do not defend a theory of racialization; I defend the concept of racialization. I argue that racialization (...) is a useful idea, but I do not advance a theory to explain or predict the phenomena it describes. While Uyan’s critique therefore misses its mark, it raises important questions about the explanatory scope of the racialization concept. Ironically, I may be even more skeptical of the prospects of any general theory of racialization than Uyan. I argue that while we ought to develop theories to explain particular instances of racialization, we should not develop a general theory of racialization, because it is simply too varied in the agents that drive it, their intents, the mechanisms through which it operates, and the outcomes it produces. While hope for any general theory of racialisation should be abandoned, I argue that the racialisation concept is still extremely useful. It offers a necessary alternative to race realist concepts, allowing us to point to the wide-ranging effects of belief in race without falsely implying that race itself is real. Uyan does not focus on my arguments against racial realism. However, the theoretical failures and normative risks of racial realism motivate my defense of the racialization concept. In this paper, I reiterate my arguments against racial realism and offer further defense of the concepts of ‘racialization’ and ‘racialized group’. (shrink)

Toisaalta ennennäkemätön äärettömien joukko-opillisten menetelmien hyödyntäminen sekä toisaalta epäilyt niiden hyväksyttävyydestä ja halu oikeuttaa niiden käyttö ovat ratkaisevasti muovanneet vuosisatamme matematiikkaa ja logiikkaa. Tämän kehityksen vaikutus nykyajan filosofiaan on myös ollut valtaisa; merkittävää osaa siitä ei voi edes ymmärtää tuntematta sen yhteyttä tähän matematiikan ja logiikan vallankumoukseen. Lähestymistapoja, jotka tavalla tai toisella hyväksyvät äärettömän matematiikan ja perinteisten logiikan sääntöjen (erityisesti kolmannen poissuljetun lain) soveltamisen myös sen piirissä, on tullut tavaksi kutsua klassiseksi matematiikaksi ja logiikaksi erotuksena nämä hylkäävistä radikaaleista intuitionistisista ja (...) konstruktivistisista opeista. (shrink)

Článek se zabývá problematickou politické korektnosti ve vztahu k feministické filosofii vědy. Zaměřuje pozornost na užší pojem politické korektnosti - hodnotově motivovanou nekorektní práci s fakty. Konstatuje, že navzdory explicitnímu soustředění feministických autorek a autorů na význam hodnot v projektu vědy nelze chápat feministickou filosofii vědy jako politicky korektní nebo jako vybízení k politicky korektní vědě. Naopak se politicky korektní argumentace v tomto užším smyslu mohou dopouštět i práce vystupující proti feministické či politicky korektní agendě ve vědě.

Chapter 14. Andrea Timár engages with literary representations of the experience of perpetrators of dehumanization. Her chapter focuses on perpetrators of dehumanization who do not violate laws of their society (i.e., they are not criminals) but exemplify what Simona Forti, inspired by Hannah Arendt, calls “the normality of evil.” Through the parallel examples of Dezső Kosztolányi’s Anna Édes (1926) and Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950), Timár first explores a possible clash between criminals and perpetrators of dehumanization, showing literature’s (...) exceptional ability to reveal the gap between ethics and law. Second, she examines novels focalized through perpetrators and the difficult narrative empathy they provoke, arguing that only the critical reading of these novels can make one engage with the potential perpetrator in oneself. As case studies, Timár examines Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), which may potentially turn its reader into an accomplice in the process of dehumanization, and J.M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986), which puts on critical display the dehumanizing potentials of both aesthetic representation and sympathy as imaginative violence. Third, she reads Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones [Les Bienveillantes, 2006], which can make the reader question, through the polyphony of the voice of its protagonist, the notions of narrative voice and readerly empathy, only to reveal that the difficulty involved in empathizing with perpetrator characters lies not so much in the characters’ being perpetrators, but rather in their being literary characters. Eventually, Timár briefly touches upon the problem of the aesthetic and the comic via Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) to ask whether one can avoid some necessarily dehumanizing aspects of humor. (shrink)

Os problemas da lei e da autoridade marcaram fortemente o pensamento políticomedieval ocidental, e em especial o desenvolvimento da noção de soberania, ponto deconvergência dos grandes conflitos de jurisdição no período. O debate acerca dadistribuição das jurisdições constituiu um dos momentos importantes para a construção damoderna idéia de soberania. Na medida em que se tomava a lei como dada, o sentido daautoridade tinha necessariamente de ser vinculado à idéia de comissão: a autoridade eraum atributo daquele que podia fazer cumprir a (...) lei em nome do legislador divino. Outromomento relevante foi o da emergência do problema do poder legislativo, tal como entendidomodernamente. Jurisdição, a partir daí, passaria a incluir também o direito de criar ede impor as normas válidas para toda a comunidade por um legislador agora humano. Aospoucos, a vontade do príncipe, que não se limita mais pelo rigor da razão e da moralidade,passa a ser entendida como fonte criadora, transformadora e revogadora da lei. Mostrar aslinhas gerais deste percurso constitui o objetivo imediato deste artigo. (shrink)

We live in a world that is increasingly shaped by and bathed in science, with most scientific progress occurring in the past century, and much of it in the past few decades. Yet, several authors have puz- zled over the observation that modern societies are also characterized by a high degree of belief in a variety of pseudoscientific claims that have been thoroughly debunked or otherwise discarded by scientists (Anonymous, 2001; Ede, 2000).

1. Hume e a Magna Carta: em torno do círculo da justiça, Maria Isabel Limongi; 2. Hume e o problema da justificação da resistência ao governo, Stephanie Hamdan Zahreddine; 3 O surgimento dos costumes da sociedade comercial e as paixões do trabalho, Pedro Vianna da Costa e Faria; 4. O sentido da crença: suas funções epistêmicas e implicações para a teoria política de Hume, Lilian Piraine Laranja; 5. O Status do Fideísmo na Crítica de Hume à Religião Natural, Marília Côrtes (...) de Ferraz; 6. Da imaterialidade da alma: a desconstrução mais incisiva de Hume de um pressuposto metafísico, Marcos César Seneda; 7. A “irresistibilidade” e a “inevitabilidade” das crenças naturais e o caráter normativo da epistemologia de Hume, Claudiney José de Sousa; 8. Filosofia e vida comum na epistemologia de Hume, Marcos Fonseca Ribeiro Balieiro; 9. Hume e o relativismo moral, Flávio Zimmermann; 10. Hume e a vivacidade das crenças morais, André Luiz Olivier da Silva; 11. Virtudes sociais e refinamento na filosofia moral de David Hume, Andreh Sabino Ribeiro; 12. O movimento razão-crença na interpretação da teoria da motivação de Hume, Franco Nero Antunes Soares; 13. Sentimentos e Normatividade em David Hume segundo Annette Baier, Giovani Lunardi; 14. Simpatia e aprovação moral da justiça na filosofia de David Hume, Denize Carolina da Cunha & Nivaldo Machado; 15. Do eu como feixe de percepções ao eu das paixões: Hume e a identidade pessoal no Tratado, Susie Kovalczyk dos Santos; 16. Imaginação em Hobbes e Hume: cadeias mentais reguladas e princípios de associação, Andrea Cachel; 17. Hume e o princípio fundamental da filosofia moderna, Rafael Bittencourt Santos; 18. A conexão necessária entre Hume e Malebranche, Bruna Frascolla; 19. Realismo ontológico e antirrealismo epistemológico na problemática sobre o mundo externo em Hume, Leandro Hollanda; 20. Uma possível inversão kantiana da tese humeana da inércia da razão, Carlos Eduardo Moreno Pires; Nota sobre João Paulo Monteiro, Rolf Nelson Kuntz. (shrink)

The structure "home - world - ideals" is presented as the structure of "philosophical striving" (F. Marković). It could be formally described as a model consisting of a domain, relations and a valuation. On that basis, the identity, openness, and the significance of Croatian philosophy is investigated. The programme of the renewal of Croatian philosophy (as proposed 1882 by Franjo Marković) is re-examined, and some unsolved historical-cultural discontinuities within the programme are described. The written beginnings of Croatian philosophical thought are (...) detected in the Charter of Duke Trpimir (852). (shrink)