This article shows part of the results of a research project: The Impact of Social Change in Higher Education Staff Professional Life and Work (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, SEJ2006-01876). The main aim of this project was to explore and understand how scholars establish a dialogue, resist, adapt themselves or adopt changes, in the process of constructing their professional identities. As the members of the research team were scholars ourselves, teaching and carrying out research in Spanish universities, we started (...) this research by writing our own autoethnographies. As a result, we developed nine autoethnographies which give a complex and in-depth account of senior and junior scholars' journeys into their process of constructing their professional identity and working lives in a rapidly changing world. This article starts by giving a context to the research project and arguing the need for conducting autoethnographies. It goes on to discuss the process itself of writing autoethnographies in the context of a given research project. We then refer to the topics which have a bearing on how we have learnt to become scholars: our experience as university students, the beginning of the academic career, relationships with others, and the consequences of the mark of gender. We conclude with the lessons learnt around the dilemmas on writing autoethnographies. (shrink)

Gut microbiome plays a significant role in defining the health status of subjects, and recent studies highlight the importance of using time series strategies to analyse microbiome dynamics. In this paper, we develop a Bayesian model for microbiota longitudinal data, based on Dirichlet distribution with time-varying parameters, that take into account the compositional paradigm and consider principal balances. The proposed model can be effective for predicting the future dynamics of a microbial community in the short term and for analysing the (...) microbial interactions using the value of the estimated parameters. The usefulness of the proposed model is illustrated with six different datasets, and a comparison study with four alternative models is provided. (shrink)

In recent years coherence theories of law and adjudication have been extremely influential in legal scholarship. These theories significantly advance the case for coherentism in law. Nonetheless, there remain a number of problems in the coherence theory in law. This ambitious new work makes the first concerted attempt to develop a coherence-based theory of legal reasoning, and in so doing addresses, or at least mitigates these problems. The book is organized in three parts. The first part provides a critical analysis (...) of the main coherentist approaches to both normative and factual reasoning in law. The second part investigates the coherence theory in a number of fields that are relevant to law: coherence theories of epistemic justification, coherentist approaches to belief revision and theory-choice in science, coherence theories of practical and moral reasoning and coherence-based approaches to discourse interpretation. Taking this interdisciplinary analysis as a starting point, the third part develops a coherence-based model of legal reasoning. While this model builds upon the standard theory of legal reasoning, it also leads to rethinking some of the basic assumptions that characterize this theory, and suggests some lines along which it may be further developed. Thus, ultimately, the book not only improves upon the current state of coherence theory in law, but also contributes to the larger debate about how to articulate a theory of legal reasoning that results in better decision-making. (shrink)

Introducción de los editores al número especial de Quaestio Facti dedicado a la obra del filósofo Larry Laudan.

This book explores the relevance of virtue theory to law from a variety of perspectives. The concept of virtue is central in both contemporary ethics and epistemology. In contrast, in law, there has not been a comparable trend toward explaining normativity on the model of virtue theory. In the last few years, however, there has been an increasing interest in virtue theory among legal scholars. 'Virtue jurisprudence' has emerged as a serious candidate for a theory of law and adjudication. Advocates (...) of virtue jurisprudence put primary emphasis on aretaic concepts rather than on duties or consequences. Aretaic concepts are, on this view, crucial for explaining law and adjudication. This book is a collection of essays examining the role of virtue in general jurisprudence as well as in specific areas of the law. Part I puts together a number of papers discussing various philosophical aspects of an approach to law and adjudication based on the virtues. Part II discusses the relationship between law, virtue and character development, with some of the essays selected analysing this relationship by combining both eastern perspectives on virtue and character with western approaches. Parts III and IV examine problems of substantive areas of law, more specifically, criminal law and evidence law, from within a virtue-based framework. Last, Part V discusses the relevance of empathy to our understanding of justice and legal morality. (shrink)

This paper develops a virtue-account of legal reasoning which significantly differs from standard, principle-based, theories. A virtue approach to legal reasoning highlights the relevance of the particulars to sound legal decision-making, brings to light the perceptual and affective dimensions of legal judgment, and vindicates the relevance of description and specification to good legal reasoning. After examining the central features of the theory, the paper proposes a taxonomy of the main character traits that legal decision-makers need to possess to successfully engage (...) in legal reasoning. The paper concludes by discussing an array of strategies in legal education, institutional design, and legal culture that can be put in place to work virtue in legal decision-making. (shrink)

Transparency and openness are frequently praised as vital institutional strategies to foster public trust in science. The expectation is that transparent and open science will be more trusted, either because publics will have access to information about what scientists do or because scientists will behave better under the watchful gaze of others. In this contribution, we challenge this widespread assumption by searching for the downsides of transparency in relation to public trust in science. The question we ask is: could transparency (...) also have unintended negative effects on public trust? First, we consider _theoretical_ treatments of transparency that challenge its status as an absolute value. This analysis highlights the benefits of seclusion and secrecy and the perils of excessive transparency. Next, we turn to the _practice_ of transparency, as enacted via open-science strategies. Open Science is a framework defined by a commitment to openness, sharing and collaboration; effectively, it offers a set of actionable strategies for scientists to be transparent. We examine risks associated with both specific open-science strategies and an Open Science normativity. This allows us to explicate three concrete pathways via which the enactment of transparency could inadvertently harm public trust in science. These pathways indicate that transparency (as enacted via open-science strategies) could fuel 1) well-placed distrust, 2) misplaced trust or 3) misplaced distrust. Eventually, we conclude that the architecture of Open Science needs a conditional and contextual operationalisation of transparency which results in new responsibilities for the scientific community. (shrink)

Companies that are serious about corporate governance and business ethics are turning their attention to gender diversity at the most senior levels of business. Board gender diversity has been the subject of several studies carried out by international organizations such as Catalyst, the World Economic Forum, and the European Board Diversity Analysis. They all lead to reports confirming the overall relatively low proportion of women on boards and the slow pace at which more women are being appointed. Furthermore, the proportion (...) of women on corporate boards varies much across countries. Based on institutional theory, this study hypothesizes and tests whether this variation can be attributed to differences in cultural settings across countries. Our analysis of the representation of women on boards for 32 countries during 2010 reveals that two cultural characteristics are indeed associated with the observed differences. We use the cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede to measure this construct. Results show that countries which have the greatest tolerance for inequalities in the distribution of power and those that tend to value the role of men generally exhibit lower representations of women on boards. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to develop a coherence theory for the justification of evidentiary judgments in law. The main claim of the coherence theory proposed in this article is that a belief about the events being litigated is justified if and only if it is a belief that an epistemically responsible fact finder might hold by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. The article argues that this coherentist approach to evidence and legal proof has the resources to (...) meet some of the main objections that may be addressed against attempts to analyze the justification of evidentiary judgments in law in coherentist terms. It concludes by exploring some implications of the proposed version of legal coherentism for a jurisprudence of evidence. (shrink)

As a communicative activity, argumentation has been characterized as a specific type of speech act. In the analysis of the speech act of arguing, I have distinguished two illocutionary levels: one related to the speaker’s utterance and the other related to the communicative exchange involving the speaker and the interlocutor. In this article, I argue that these two levels are associated with the speaker’s meaning and the joint meaning, respectively. The two-level analysis of meaning makes it possible to account for (...) cases in which commitment attributions are at stake and that may, as a result, give rise to a special form of discursive injustice. (shrink)

This paper explores the relevance of exemplarity to virtue argumentation theory. It does so by using the law as both an illustrative and a normative example. The paper proceeds as follows. First, it argues that exemplars make a virtue theory of argumentation more robust in that (a) they are central to virtue education; (b) they help flesh out a richer account of the argumentative virtues; (c) they provide the theory with a normative standard that has some distinctive and attractive features; (...) and (d) they make the theory less vulnerable to the objection from action guidance. Next, it develops an account of argumentative exemplars that encompass a diversity of character traits besides argumentative virtues. Third, it argues that the law provides exemplars of argumentative virtue that are central for further developing a virtue theory of argumentation and shaping the argumentative public culture. It concludes with some suggestions for further research in virtue exemplarism about argumentation. (shrink)

This paper examines the normativity of law, that is, law’s capacity to guide behavior by generating reasons for action, from the perspective of virtue jurisprudence. It articulates a virtue-based model of law’s normativity according to which the law generates first order reasons for action (that is, loyalty-reasons) that need to be factored in citizens’ and legal officials’ practical reasoning, which consists, primarily, in the search for the best specification of the values involved in light of an account of the good (...) life and the role that the law plays wherein. The outcome of this piece of practical reasoning is a judgment about what ought to be done, the rightness of which depends, on the proposed model, on whether it is a judgment that a virtuous person would characteristically do in the circumstances. This model, it is argued, has distinctive features that set it apart from some prominent accounts of the normativity of law. It may, however, be disqualified as a plausible alternative account of the normativity of law on the grounds that it fails to provide action-guidance. The last part of the paper responds to this objection in a way that unveils the relevance of the social dimensions of virtue to law’s normativity. (shrink)

This paper argues for a coherentist theory of the justification of evidentiary judgments in law, according to which a hypothesis about the events being litigated is justified if and only if it is such that an epistemically responsible fact-finder might have accepted it as justified by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. It claims that this version of coherentism has the resources to address a main problem facing coherence theories of evidence and legal proof, namely, the problem of the (...) coherence bias. The paper then develops an aretaic approach to the standards of epistemic responsibility which govern legal fact-finding. It concludes by exploring some implications of the proposed account of the justification of evidentiary judgments in law for the epistemology of legal proof. (shrink)

This paper articulates an egalitarian conception of judicial humility and justifies its value on the grounds that it importantly advances the legal and political ideal of fraternity. This account of the content and value of the virtue of humility stands in sharp contrast with the dominant view of judicial humility as deference or judicial restraint. The paper concludes by discussing some ways in which the account of humility and of its value provided in the paper furthers our understanding of the (...) judicial virtues and of the political implications of giving virtue a role in adjudication. (shrink)

Parfois, nous discutons à propos de chats ou de l'existence d'un plus grand nombre premier. D'autres fois, nous discutons d'arguments. Dans ce cas, nous nous engageons dans une méta-argumentation. La plupart des descriptions de méta-argumentation dans la littérature l'abordent rétrospectivement : nous méta-argumentons sur des arguments déjà avancés. Ce faisant, nous pouvons trouver des méta-raisons de rejeter un argument par ailleurs valable, entre autres. Cet article aborde la méta-argumentation dans l'autre sens, c'est-à-dire de manière prospective. Pour illustrer ce concept, nous (...) explorons des cas où l'on a des méta-raisons de formuler intentionnellement de mauvais arguments, ou, dans d'autres cas, où l'on argumente sans argumenter du tout, mais en communiquant de manière non argumentative pour étayer d'autres arguments. Nous appelons ces derniers cas des para-arguments. (shrink)

Studies have shown that students may feel emotional discomfort when they are asked to identify ethical problems which they have encountered during their training. Teachers in medical ethics, however, more often focus on the cognitive and rational ethical aspects and not much on students’ emotions. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore students’ feelings and emotions when dealing with ethical problems during their clinical training and explore differences between two countries: Indonesia and the Netherlands. We observed a total (...) of eighteen ethics group discussions and interviewed fifteen medical students at two medical schools. Data were interpreted and analyzed using content analysis. We categorized students’ negative emotions based on their objects of reflection and came up with three categories: emotions concerning their own performance, emotions when witnessing unethical behaviors, and emotions related to barriers and limitations of their working environment. Our study suggests that addressing emotional responses in a culturally sensitive way is important to develop students’ self-awareness. Teachers should be able to guide students to reflect on and be critical of their own thoughts and emotions, to understand their own moral values, especially when confronted with other individuals. (shrink)

This paper develops a virtue-account of legal reasoning which significantly differs from standard, principle-based, theories. A virtue approach to legal reasoning highlights the relevance of the particulars to sound legal decision-making, brings to light the perceptual and affective dimensions of legal judgment, and vindicates the relevance of description and specification to good legal reasoning. After examining the central features of the theory, the paper proposes a taxonomy of the main character traits that legal decision-makers need to possess to successfully engage (...) in legal reasoning. The paper concludes by discussing an array of strategies in legal education, institutional design, and legal culture that can be put in place to work virtue in legal decision-making. (shrink)

Volume 30, Issue 6, December 2022, Page 953-972.

What is the role and value of virtue, emotion and imagination in law and legal reasoning? These new essays, by leading scholars of both law and philosophy, offer striking and exploratory answers to this neglected question. The collection takes a holistic approach, inquiring as to the connections and relations between virtue, emotion and imagination. In addition to the principal focus on adjudication, essays in the collection also engage with a variety of different legal, political and moral contexts: eg criminal law (...) sentencing, the Black Lives Matter movement and professional ethics. A number of different areas of the law are addressed and the issues explored include: the benefits and limits of empathy in legal reasoning; the role of attention and perception in judicial reasoning;, the identification of judicial virtues and judicial vices ; the values and dangers of certain imaginative devices ; and the interactive and social dimensions of virtue, emotion and imagination. (shrink)

Este articulo se sitúa en el punto de cruce entre spinozismo y feminismo. Retomando aspectos de la filosofia de Spinoza presentes en la lectura de Moira Gatens, se establecerá un entramado de conexiones entre las nociones de cuerpo y potencia, cuerpos e imaginarios, cuerpos sexuados y cuerpo politico, potencia y creación. The topic developed herein locates in the point where Spinozism and feminism cross over. Based on some aspects of Spinoza's thought as pointed out by Moira Gatens' reading, a lattice (...) of connections will be built based on the notion pairs: body and power, bodies and imageries, sexed bodies and political body, power and creation. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of coherence and its role in legal reasoning. First, it identifies some problem areas confronting coherence theories of legal reasoning about both disputed questions of fact and disputed questions of law. Second, with a view to solving these problems, it proposes a coherence model of legal reasoning. The main tenet of this coherence model is that a belief about the law and the facts under dispute is justified if it is “optimally coherent,” that is, if (...) it is such that an epistemically responsible legal decision-maker would have accepted it as justified by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. Last, looking beyond the coherence theory, the paper explores the implications of the version of legal coherentism proposed for a general theory of legal reasoning and rationality. (shrink)

Science activism is often seen as a threat to scientific credibility. Yet, an increasing number of scientists participate in climate activism and challenge the morality of remaining passive when urgent action is needed. Science activism for climate action (SACA) raises intriguing questions about the source of scientific credibility and the boundaries of a scientist’s professional role responsibility. This contribution informs discussions over (the appropriateness of) SACA by explicating different conceptualizations of this phenomenon. Arguments for SACA are used to formulate three (...) conceptual configurations that assume different relations between the role of the scientist and the role of the activist: the scientist activist as a citizen; the scientist activist as a privileged citizen; the scientist activist as a professional. To better situate these configurations, we consider the perspectives of scientists with a direct or indirect involvement in climate action. Secondary sources of empirical nature (interviews with scientist activists; proceedings of a workshop with early-career researchers) enrich our analysis with the practitioners’ reasoning over science activism, its relation to their profession, and its relation to scientific credibility. Eventually, we reflect on the implications of each configuration for the embedding of science activism in scientific conduct. (shrink)

This paper argues that formal models of coherence are useful for constructing a legal epistemology. Two main formal approaches to coherence are examined: coherence-based models of belief revision and the theory of coherence as constraint satisfaction. It is shown that these approaches shed light on central aspects of a coherentist legal epistemology, such as the concept of coherence, the dynamics of coherentist justification in law, and the mechanisms whereby coherence may be built in the course of legal decision-making.

The science of the microbiome is exciting and disrupting, with far-reaching consequences for our health and well-being. It is also rapidly commercialised by providers of direct-to-consumer microbiome testing (DTC- MT). Food and diet feature prominently in these services, with microbiome-tailored dietary interventions being marketed as the pathway to a healthier gut, and, subsequently, a healthier self. The practices of DTC-MT both fuel and are fuelled by a narrative of self-management as empowerment; upon closer inspection, however, this promise proves hollow and (...) problematic. In this work, we seek ways to engage citizens with the technology of microbiome testing while resisting the dominant narrative that accompanies it. Our efforts materialised in “Food stories for the microbiome”, a public engagement initiative about the dynamic nature of the gut microbiome and its strong connections to food and culture. The innovative aspects of this initiative are both methodological and thematic. Methodologically, we employ a distinctive hands-on (i.e. embodied and emotional) approach to public engagement. Thematically, we introduce a deliberate cultural frame to the citizens’ initial encounter with microbiome testing. As a first exercise towards a more critical encounter with microbiome testing, “Food stories for the microbiome” shows that it is possible to engage citizens with an emerging scientific topic of societal relevance on equalitarian terms. Clinical trial number: not applicable. (shrink)

Previous studies show that medical students in clinical training face ethical problems that are not often discussed in the literature. In order to make teaching timely and relevant for them, it is important to understand what medical students perceive as ethical problems, as various factors may influence their perception, including cultural differences and working environment. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore students’ perceptions of what an ethical problem is, during their clinical training in the hospital, and compare (...) the results from two different countries. We observed a total of eighteen ethics group discussions and interviewed fifteen medical students at two medical schools, in Indonesia and the Netherlands. Data were interpreted and analyzed using content analysis. We found that students in both settings encounter problems which are closer to their daily work and responsibilities as medical students and perceive these problems as ethical problems. Indonesian students perceived substandard care and inequity in healthcare as ethical problems, while Dutch students perceived that cases which are not matters of life and death are less worthy to discuss. Our study suggests that there might be a gap between ethical problems that are discussed in class with teachers, and problems that students actually encounter in practice. Teachers should be aware of the everyday situations in clinical training which may be perceived by students as ethically problematic and should acknowledge and discuss these ethical problems with students as part of the learning processes in ethics education. (shrink)

Smart apps creator (SAC) is a software utilized to create educational media through both computers and mobile phones to facilitate teaching learning process in school. It has several advantages for developing interactive learning between teachers and students with Canva application assistance. There are 11 teachers of elementary school in SDN Lau Kudus are trained to create their creative and innovative teaching materials equipped with games. Throughout the training, the approach used is hands-on practice conducted actively by participants in creating every (...) step of the process of making SAC. Group discussions are also an important part in allowing participants to exchange ideas and to experience in utilizing SAC features for various teaching materials. In addition, this training is project-based learning to encourage participants to complete relevant media projects. The result after conducting the project is found that through teachers as participants claimed having enlightened ideas, knowledge and skill improved increased 86,36% than pretest score of 38%. Besides, all participants were satisfied with the implementation of the training, both in terms of materials, instructors and infrastructure. They expect to conduct a sustaining training program as follow-up visits scheduled of community service. (shrink)

Argumentation, as a specific type of speech act, involves an exchange of meaning among its participants, yielding illocutionary effects consisting in the production of changes in participants’ dialectical entitlements and obligations. The production of these illocutionary effects hinges on the joint construction by the speaker and the interlocutor of the meaning of the speaker’s utterance. However, the speaker’s meaning does not always coincide with the interlocutor’s interpretation. This paper argues that this gap has crucial implications for the evaluation of argumentation. (...) Specifically, it explores the consequences of this gap in cases involving commitment attributions, taking the straw man fallacy as a case of study. (shrink)

The article aims to delve into Mario Dal Pra’s project for a history of critical thought, outlined in his studies on Greek scepticism, medieval thinkers who raised critical or sceptical issues (John of Salisbury and Nicholas of Autrécourt), and David Hume. After a section dedicated to the notion of critical thought in the monograph on Nicholas of Autrécourt, the article discusses the hypothesis of considering Edmund Husserl as part of an extension of Dal Pra’s history of critical thought, based on (...) his relevance in the editorial project of the Collana di Filosofia (Franco Angeli, 1981-1991), directed by Dal Pra. The critical need for a way of thinking capable of tracing the flow of experience and the world – without falling into metaphysical frameworks that hinder thought or scepticism that relinquishes any constitutive grasp on what can be known – thus seems to outline a common thread connecting thinkers so distant in time, a connection that Dal Pra captured both in his monographs and in the philosophical series. (shrink)

The digital revolution is rapid in time and global in space, characterised by a variety of technologies and a multidimensional and multilayered nature. It presents challenges for the legal frameworks designed for a pre-digital world and needs a forward-looking set of dynamic tools to be governed. Existing legal approaches differ by region and value system, struggling to keep pace with the AI’s pervasiveness and ubiquity. The chapter analyses how the EU, US, and China struggle to regulate the digital revolution. The (...) right to health is used as an example to highlight the different regional approaches to healthcare, and how these differences are reflected in the ways digital health is addressed. Current legal tools are showing their inadequacy in addressing power imbalances inherent in the first (algorithmic profiling) and second step (conversational agents) of HMI. Inspired by Digital Humanism, the paper proposes “digital vulnerability” as a key concept for regulating HMI. Declaring the ontological vulnerability of humans in any interaction with AI, making the concept of digital vulnerability a new macro-category in private law, and interpreting existing norms or drafting future ones on its basis could be the right legal tool to lay the foundation for a global digital law. (shrink)

In the 13th century, the availability of Aristotle’s treatises of natural philosophy encouraged forms of integration between libri naturales and sapientia biblica. Instead of diving into allegory and symbolism, several Dominican exegetes began to explore more realistic approaches. The foremost figure is Albert the Great. In his biblical commentaries, philosophy of nature and theology join forces as complementary forms of knowledge. By focusing on Albert’s De vegetabilibus, this paper is aimed at analyzing in which ways the Dominican master reuses his (...) naturalistic and, especially, botanical knowledge as an exegetical tool to deepen both the historical and the allegorical sense, realism and spiritual interpretation. (shrink)

„Ich hatte keine Begabung außer der Musik, die mir von Nutzen gewesen wäre“ („Je n’avais point de talent que la musique qui pût me tirer d’affaire“, ET, I, 3), schrieb der neunzehnjährige Jean-Jacques Rousseau im Juni 1731 an seinen Vater. Er befand sich in ernsten Schwierigkeiten, da er nach einem Abstecher nach Lyon seine Gönnerin, Madame de Warens, im Herrenhaus von Annecy nicht hatte antreffen können. Er hatte sich als Schüler, Lehrer und mit einer gewissen Unverfrorenheit sogar als Komponist betätigt, (...) als er bei einem Konzert in einem Privathaus in Lausanne ein von ihm selbst bearbeitetes Stück dirigierte, was ihm den Spott des Publikums und den berechtigten Vorwurf des Plagiats einbrachte. Wenig später, im September, improvisierte er in Lyon erneut als Kopist mit schlechtem Ergebnis. In Chambéry nahm er den Gesangsunterricht bei Madame de Warens und Abbé Palais wieder auf, einem Lehrer, der sich auch auf dem Gebiet der Theorie auskannte und für ihn, der inzwischen Jean-Philippe Rameaus berühmtes Traité de lʼHarmonie (1722) studiert hatte, zu einem nützlichen Gesprächspartner wurde. Zusammen mit Palais widmete er sich auch der Organisation kleiner Hauskonzerte, die er dirigieren durfte. Nach nur acht Monaten gab er seine Stelle im Katasteramt auf, um sich ausschließlich dem Musikunterricht zu widmen, der ihn in die angesehensten Häuser von Chambéry führte, wo er von den Schülern und ihren Müttern herzlich empfangen wurde (ET, I, 286–288). (shrink)

The Exceptionality of Solidarity In times of crisis, we witness exceptional expressions of solidarity. Why does solidarity spring in times of crisis when it wanes in normal times? An inquiry into what may explain the differences between the expression of solidarity in crisis vs. normalcy provides, as I will argue in this article, important insights into the conditions and nature of solidarity. Solidarity requires, I will contend, an egalitarian ethos and state action within and beyond the state. It is neither (...) a momentary political ideal, nor an exclusionary one, which depends for its sustainment on formal, legal, structures. Transient, sectarian, and informal conceptions of solidarity unduly curtail the demands of solidarity by restricting its reach to times of crisis, to in-group recipients, and to the social rather than the legal sphere. The article concludes by discussing some aspects of the dynamics of solidarity and its inherent risks that the analysis of the exceptionality of solidarity helps bring into focus. (shrink)

Im Februar 1743 veröffentlichte der Pariser Verleger G. F. Quillaut die Dissertation sur la musique moderne. Es war das erste Buch von Jean-Jacques Rousseau, das, wie es nie wieder bei einem Werk Rousseaus vorkommen sollte, die offizielle Genehmigung am 6. November 1742 und das königliche Privileg am 7. Dezember 1742 erhielt. Rousseau hatte sich zwei Monate lang in seinem Zimmer eingeschlossen, „mit unbeschreiblicher Leidenschaft“ (ET I, 395). Er war in der Tat enttäuscht und verletzt von dem Misserfolg, der seine Ankunft (...) in Paris begleitet hatte. Am 22. August des Vorjahres hatte er an der Académie Royale des Sciences seine neue Notationsmethode vorgestellt; und zwar den zu diesem Zweck ernannten Kommissaren, dem Mathematiker Dortous de Mairan, dem Chemiker Jean Hellot und dem Astronomen Jean-Paul de Fouchy, „alles Leute von sicherem Verdienst, von denen aber keiner die Musik verstand“ (ET, I, 393). In der Tat hatte er geglaubt, dass seine Erfindung eines neuen Notensystems, das einfacher und schneller zu erlernen und zu benutzen sei und die harmonische Struktur besser berücksichtigte als das bisherige, seinem Leben eine Wendung geben werde; dass er in Paris zu Ruhm und Reichtum gelangen könne; dass er Madame de Warens helfen werde, der er finanzielle und emotionale Unterstützung sowie eine intensive Beziehungen und sein bisheriges soziales Leben verdankte. Und nicht zuletzt hatte er erhoffte, dass er eine musikalische Ausbildung erhalten könne, die, wenn nicht regelmäßig, so doch in einem prominenten Umfeld anregend sein werde. Aber das „Projet concernant des nouveaux signes pour la musique“ – so der Titel eines der beiden überlieferten Manuskripte, das in den Œuvres posthumes von 1781 veröffentlicht wurde – wurde von den Kommissaren am 5. September als „weder neu noch nützlich“ eingestuft; Eigenschaften, die, wie sie sagten, für eine Anerkennung durch die Académie Royale des Sciences erforderlich waren („Extraits des Registres de lʼAcadémie des Sciences“ (1742); CC 45, I, 146–149). Daher der Eifer, mit dem Rousseau versuchte, eine populärere Version seines Manuskriptes für ein breiteres Publikum zu schreiben. (shrink)

La presente contribución recoge el diálogo mantenido entre distintos filósofos del Derecho a propósito de la última obra del Profesor Massimo La Torre “Il diritto contro se stesso. Saggio sul positivismo giuridico e la sua crisi”. Al hilo del trabajo del citado autor, los participantes reflexionan sobre preguntas centrales para la teoría y filosofía del Derecho contemporánea: ¿cuál es la naturaleza del Derecho? ¿es el razonamiento jurídico eminentemente moral? ¿qué lugar debe ocupar la práctica jurídica en su conceptualización? ¿qué lugar (...) ocupa la fuerza en el Derecho? (shrink)

The first studies that sought to establish two-way communication between humans and great apes led to important findings but were nevertheless heavily criticized for their training methods, testing procedures, and claims. More recently, hundreds of pet owners around the world have begun training domesticated animals to use Augmentative Interspecies Communication (AIC) soundboard devices, contributing to the first ever large-scale study on interspecies communication. Here, we introduce our scientific approach to our global citizen science project, where we will investigate how dogs (...) and cats use AIC devices, building an incremental research program starting from their associative learning of buttons to determining how AIC device use might impact their welfare and their capacity for symbolic representation. We discuss how our multi-faceted approach can alleviate many of the concerns regarding the original studies performed with apes, achieving larger sample sizes, ample documentation of training techniques, and testing animals’ performance in controlled experimental settings. (shrink)

This essay is devoted to Albert the Great’s theoretical treatment of fatherhood and motherhood, male and female genders, in the generation of the vegetabilia. While animals reproduce by the mating of female and male individuals, plants do not display a sexual distinction through a male and female configuration. Moreover, in the generation of plants, the maternal and paternal functions are not performed by individuals of the same species as what is generated. To fulfill the generative process, plants require the external (...) agency of the Sun and the ground, traditionally deemed as “pater et mater plantarum”. The question of the generation of plants is dealt with at length in Albert’s De vegetabilibus et plantis, where he gives an extensive treatment of plants’ life modeled after the epistemology of Aristotle’s works on animals. This theoretical approach is not confined to Albert’s natural philosophical works but extends also to his theological investigation. By adopting an interdisciplinary standpoint, this essay will show how Albert progressively develops an explicative model for plants generation that, through the comparison with animal generation, aims at identifying the respective domains of matter and form, fatherhood and motherhood, male and female genders, also in the generation of plants. (shrink)

Safe-by-Design (SbD) is a new concept that urges the developers of novel technologies to integrate safety early on in their design process. A SbD approach could—in theory—support the development of safer products and assist a responsible transition to the bioeconomy, via the deployment of safer bio-based and biotechnological alternatives. Despite its prominence in policy discourse, SbD is yet to gain traction in research and innovation practice. In this paper, we examine a frequently stated objection to the initiative of SbD, namely (...) the position that SbD is already common practice in research and industry. We draw upon observations from two case studies: one, a study on the applicability of SbD in the context of bio-based circular materials and, two, a study on stakeholder perceptions of SbD in biotechnology. Interviewed practitioners in both case studies make claims to a strong safety culture in their respective fields and have difficulties differentiating a SbD approach from existing safety practices. Two variations of this argument are discussed: early attentiveness to safety as a strictly formalised practice and early attentiveness as implicit practice. We analyse these perceptions using the theoretical lens of safety culture and contrast them to the aims of SbD. Our analysis indicates that professional identity and professional pride may explain some of the resistance to the initiative of SbD. Nevertheless, SbD could still be advantageous by a) emphasising multidisciplinary approaches to safety and b) offering a (reflective) frame via which implicit attentiveness to safety becomes explicit. (shrink)