Background This manuscript explores the pervasive issue of moral distress among nurses and its impact on their well-being and professional satisfaction. Focusing on diverse factors contributing to moral distress, the review spans various experience levels and patient care settings. Method Utilizing integrative reviews and sourcing from PubMed, CINAHL, SCOPUS, PsycINFO, and ProQuest, the study synthesizes findings from studies worldwide. The conceptual framework by Whittemore & Knafl is employed to comprehensively analyze nurses’ experiences. Results Key factors were identified as contributing to (...) moral distress, including concerns about care quality, team dynamics, and insufficient support. Interventions range from light-touch approaches like mentorship programs to resource-intensive strategies such as staff wellness initiatives. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nurses’ moral distress is also explored. Conclusion Moral distress in nurses leads to burnout and, in some cases, prompts professionals to leave the field. The study emphasizes the need for organizational-level initiatives, support networks, and interventions to address moral distress. Identified gaps in the literature underscore opportunities for future research to better prepare clinicians and advance understanding across experience levels and settings. (shrink)

Artificial intelligenceAI (Artificial Intelligence) (AI) refers to computer systems that are designed to replicate aspects of human cognition, including learning, reasoning, and decision-making. These systems are created to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence (Russell & Norvig, 2020). Initially, discussions on AI’s potential primarily focused on its ability to enhance human productivity and performance by leveraging its powerful computational capabilities to reduce human workload. For example, AI has been widely adopted in automating data analysis in finance, optimising supply chains, (...) and even managing routine customer service tasks through AI-driven chatbotsChatbots (Damioli et al., 2021). (shrink)

According to the Interface Hypothesis in the field of bilingualism, the interface connecting a linguistic module with a language-external domain (e.g., syntax-discourse) will present prolonged difficulties for adult bilingual learners, as compared with the interface connecting language-internal modules (e.g., syntax-semantics). This study tested whether the Interface Hypothesis is applicable to the acquisition of Mandarin Chinese as a heritage language. An internet-based acceptability judgment task (AJT) was administered to 58 advanced and intermediate adult Chinese heritage speakers to collect data in accuracy (...) and reaction time to investigate the adult heritage speakers’ mastery of referential nominal expressions regulated at the syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse interfaces, respectively, in Mandarin Chinese. The target linguistic phenomena involved three nominal expressions (i.e., the bare N(oun), the [Cl(assifier)-N], and the [Num(eral)-Cl-N]) under four interface-regulated referential readings (i.e., type-denoting, quantity-denoting, indefinite individual-denoting, and definite individual-denoting). In terms of accuracy, the results showed that (i) for the N and the [Num-Cl-N], regardless of the interface type, the advanced group acquired the target phenomena to a nativelike level, who significantly outperformed the intermediate group; (ii) for the [Cl-N], the advanced group exhibited nativelike attainment at the syntax-discourse interface but not at the syntax-semantics interface, and performed significantly better than the intermediate group at both interfaces. Regarding reaction time, no significant differences were reported between the advanced group and the native group for the target structures at either the syntax-semantics or the syntax-discourse interface, while the advanced group performed significantly better than the intermediate group, regardless of the interface type and the structure type. The findings suggest that the nature of the language interface, i.e., whether it pertains to language-external domains (i.e., the external interface) or not (i.e., the internal interface), should not be a reliable factor for predicting the (im)possibility of nativelike attainment of bilingual grammar knowledge, contra the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis. The present study provides new empirical evidence to show that language-external interface properties are not necessarily destined for prolonged difficulties in heritage language acquisition, and that it is possible for adult heritage speakers to make developmental progress in both accuracy and processing efficiency at different types of interfaces. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the conditions under which generalisation from single case studies, in the sense of making inferences concerning a wider class of phenomena beyond a case, is reasonable. Two sets of conditions, in particular, provide the basis for our consideration of this issue. The first is an exploration of the impressive amount of empirical knowledge that is contained within the theories that are used to make observations, to classify phenomena, and to understand and interpret (...) cases. The second is recognition of the role of a pattern of inference known as abduction, or inference to the best explanation, in drawing conclusions from case studies. It is argued that these two conditions, when applied to the procedures for conducting case studies, can be used to defend, as reasonable, the making of certain provisional generalisations from single cases. An epistemological procedure for testing and further justifying these generalisations, with a particular emphasis on dealing with the problem of confirmation bias, is then discussed and recommended. (shrink)

Recent conversation has blurred two very different social epistemic phenomena: echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Members of epistemic bubbles merely lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined. It is crucial to keep these phenomena distinct. First, echo chambers can explain the post-truth phenomena in a way that epistemic (...) bubbles cannot. Second, each type of structure requires a distinct intervention. Mere exposure to evidence can shatter an epistemic bubble, but may actually reinforce an echo chamber. Finally, echo chambers are much harder to escape. Once in their grip, an agent may act with epistemic virtue, but social context will pervert those actions. Escape from an echo chamber may require a radical rebooting of one's belief system. (shrink)

Public support for responses to the coronavirus pandemic has sharply diverged on partisan lines in many countries, with conservatives tending to oppose lockdowns, social distancing, mask mandates and vaccines, and liberals far more supportive. This polarization may arise from the way in which the attitudes of each side is echoed back to them, especially on social media. In this paper, I argue that echo chambers are not to blame for this polarization, even if they are causally responsible for it. They (...) are not to blame, because belief calibration in an echo chamber is a rational process; moreover, the epistemically constitutive properties of echo chambers are not optional for epistemically social animals like us. There is no special problem of echo chambers; rather, there is a problem of misleading evidence (especially higher-order evidence). Accordingly, we ought to respond to misinformation about COVID neither by attempting to dismantle echo chambers nor by attempting to make people more rational, but rather by attempting to supplant unreliable higher-order evidence with better evidence. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that echo chambers pose a problem for moral progress because of their threat to moral reasoning. I argue for two theses about the epistemology of moral progress: (1) the practical utility thesis: moral reasoning plays an important role in improving moral judgments, and (2) the conflictive social reasoning thesis: the kind of moral reasoning that is important for moral progress involves social reasoning with disputants. Without some conflict, human beings will naturally reason in a biased (...) and otherwise poor manner. Thus, good reasoning must be social so that reasoners who disagree can keep each other in check. These two theses explain why echo chambers are a problem for moral progress. I argue that echo chambers isolate individuals from reasoning with those they disagree with. This is because echo chambers act as a mechanism for discrediting those outside the chamber. If this is true, then the members of an echo chamber will only reason with those who agree with them. The result is that echo chamber members won't reason according to the conflictive social reasoning thesis. Reasoning will only reinforce their existing echoed beliefs rather than improve them. (shrink)

This article is an exercise in the virtue epistemology of the internet, an area of applied virtue epistemology that investigates how online environments impact the development of intellectual virtues, and how intellectual virtues manifest within online environments. I examine online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles (Nguyen 2020, Episteme17(2), 141–61), exploring the conceptual relationship between these online environments and the virtue of open-mindedness (Battaly 2018b, Episteme15(3), 261–82). The article answers two key individual-level, virtue epistemic questions: (Q1) How does immersion in online (...) echo chambers and epistemic bubbles affect the cultivation and preservation of open-mindedness, and (Q2) Is it always intellectually virtuous to exhibit open-mindedness in the context of online echo chambers and epistemic bubbles? In response to Q1, I contend that both online echo chambers and online epistemic bubbles threaten to undermine the cultivation and preservation of open-mindedness, albeit via different mechanisms and to different degrees. In response to Q2, I affirm that both a deficiency and excess of open-mindedness can be virtuous in these online environments, depending on the epistemic orientation of the digital user. (shrink)

Following Cass Sunstein's popular treatment of the concept, echo chambers are often defined as environments which exclude contrary opinions through omission. C. Thi Nguyen contests the popular usage and defines echo chambers in terms of in-group trust and out-group distrust. In this paper, I argue for a more comprehensive treatment. While both exclusion by omission and out-group distrust help sustain echo chambers, neither defines the phenomenon. I develop a social network model of echo chambers which focuses on the role of (...) belief-reinforcing echoes. First, I argue that the model allows us to incorporate Nguyen's main point about distrust without construing other commentators as deeply mistaken about the nature of echo chambers. Second, I use the model to develop an account of collaborative resistance and use it to clarify the role echo chambers play in spreading misinformation. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to engage with C. Thi Nguyen’s characterization of the echo chamber and to propose two things. First, I argue that a proper reading of his concept of echo chamber should make use of the notion of ignorance in the form of a structural epistemic insensitivity. My main contention is that ignorance as a substantive structural practice accounts for the epistemically deleterious effects of echo chambers. Second, I propose that from the talk of ignorance we (...) should be able to see echo chambers in terms of their more harmful impacts in our daily lives. To do that, I argue that we should think of echo chambers as tools to promote hermeneutical domination. If my representation of Nguyen’s concept is accurate, I believe we can see some important theoretical consequences stemming from the way Nguyen understands it. (shrink)

The US populace appears to be increasingly polarized on partisan lines. Political fissures bifurcate the country even on empirical matters like vaccine safety and anthropogenic climate change. There now exists an ever-expanding interdisciplinary research program in which theorists attempt to explain increases in political polarization and myriad other phenomena collected under the “post-truth” heading by appeal to social-epistemic structures, like echo chambers and epistemic bubbles, that affect the flow and uptake of information in various communities. In this paper, I critically (...) analyze C. Thi Nguyen’s important and popular analysis of echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. As I demonstrate, the explanatory mechanisms on which Nguyen focuses are, arguably, overly cognitive and obscure significant effects of social-epistemic structures on our affective lives. The broader lesson to draw from my discussion is the following: commonly used expressions intended to refer to social-epistemic problems, like “political polarization”, possess no univocal definition across theorists, and various ways of making the terms precise are differentially successful in characterizing verifiable phenomena. Theorizing about social-epistemic structures should be responsive to relevant empirical work on various phenomena that we have good reason to believe constitute real and substantive problems that result from the flow and uptake of information. (shrink)

Echo experiences are illusory experiences of ordinary primary sounds. Just as there is no new object that we see at the surface of a mirror, there is no new sound that we hear at a reflecting surface. The sound that we hear as an echo just is the original primary sound, though its perception involves illusions of place, time, and qualities. The case of echoes need not force us to adopt a conception according to which sounds are persisting object-like (...) particulars that travel through space. (shrink)

Are the members of echo chambers blameworthy for their beliefs? If we follow Sarah Stroud's account of friendship, we end up with the following conclusion: if echo chambers involve friendship, then the individuals have strong reasons not to live up to epistemic demands or ideals when the friendships are formed in the echo chambers they are members of. This result stands in striking contrast with the received view, according to which the members of echo chambers are blameworthy for their epistemic (...) vices and faulty beliefs. The received view uses individual epistemic vices to propose individualistic solutions for the problem of echo chambers. I argue that this is misleading, simply because the members of echo chambers are not blameworthy due to the friendships cultivated in the echo chambers. (shrink)

This paper argues that a central thread uniting much of 20th-century French philosophy is a reconfiguration of Kant’s transcendental dialectic as a response to the dominance of Hegel’s thought. After setting out Hegel and Kant’s accounts of dialectic, the paper explores how Merleau-Ponty uses Kant’s concept of antinomy and Derrida uses the concept of a transcendental ideal to develop a non-Hegelian account of thought. In contrast to Hegel’s sublation of contradiction into conceptual unity, these thinkers highlight how Kant’s transcendental dialectic (...) reveals the limits of conceptual thought and how, once resituated as operating between conceptual and non-conceptual aspects of the phenomenal world, it opens the way towards an understanding of pre-conceptual structures such as perception and différance. (shrink)

In this paper, I will analyze the concept of the echo chamber and the ways to escape from it. I will first introduce the concept of the echo chamber. Then, I will analyze the escape plan (i.e. the social epistemic reboot) proposed by Nguyen. The major argument in this paper is that a successful escape from the echo chamber is more of a collective epistemic conduct than an individual epistemic conduct, in which case the social environment plays a more significant (...) role in the escape than individual epistemic capacity. To support this argument, I will analyze a real-life example of escape to demonstrate the power of social influence and adopt a model of an idealized epistemic community to demonstrate the limitation of epistemic virtue. (shrink)

Echo phonology was originally proposed to account for obligatory coordination of manual and mouth articulations observed in several sign languages. However, previous research into the phenomenon lacks clear criteria for which components of movement can or must be copied when the articulators are so different. Nor is there discussion of which nonmanual articulators can echo manual movement. Given the prosodic properties of echoes (coordination of onset/offset and of dynamics such as speed) as well as general motoric coordination of various (...) articulators in the human body, we expect that the mouth is not the only nonmanual articulator involved in echo phonology. In this study, we look at a fixed set of lexical items across 36 sign languages and establish that the head can echo manual movement with respect to timing and to the axis/axes of manual movement. We propose that what matters in echo phonology is the visual percept of temporally coordinated movement that repeats a salient movement property in such a way as to give the visual impression of a copy. Our findings suggest that echoes are not obligatory motor couplings of two or more articulators but may enhance phonological distinctions that are otherwise difficult to see. (shrink)

This article builds on the recent discovery of the Perspectiva cum sit una (PCSU), a previously unknown early 14th-century optical treatise, and presents several new findings on its reception in late medieval manuscript sources from Paris, Germany, and Italy. The first of these sources is a Franciscan sermon from Thuringia, whose exact quotations from the PCSU, attributing the text to Thomas Bradwardine, provide further evidence of Bradwardine’s possible authorship. Second, the article identifies scattered borrowings from the PCSU in two sets (...) of glosses to John Peckham’s Perspectiva communis in the manuscripts Vat. lat. 3102 (probably Parisian) and Wien, ÖNB, Cod. 5447 (most likely Italian). Thirdly, it uncovers the crucial role the PCSU plays in Wigandus Durnheimer’s Perspectiva, completed in Paris in 1390. This comprehensive compilation of medieval optical knowledge incorporates nearly forty excerpts from the PCSU. Along the way, the article offers new insights into the manuscript and textual interplays surrounding late medieval optics, such as the reception of Blasius of Parma’s Questiones super Perspectiva communi within the glosses to Peckham, and the profound influence of Parisian authors – including Henry of Langenstein, Nicole Oresme, Themo Judaei, and Pierre d’Ailly – on Durnheimer’s treatise. The article is complemented by a synopsis of the PCSU’s propositions and structure, edited from the main manuscripts of the treatise. (shrink)

In Echoes, John Sallis mobilizes the figure of echo, used by Heidegger to characterize originary thinking, as the motif around which to organize a radical reading of Heidegger's most important texts.

C. Thi Nguyen's (2020) recent account of echo chambers as social epistemic structures that actively exclude outsiders’ voices has sparked debate on the connection between echo chambers and epistemic injustice (Santos 2021; Catala 2021; Elzinga 2021).In this paper I am mainly concerned with the connection between echo chambers and testimonial injustice, understood as an instance whereby a speaker receives less epistemic credibility than they deserve, due to a prejudice in the hearer (Fricker 2007). In her reconstruction of the types of (...) testimonial injustice, Catala implicitly equates incidental testimonial injustice as resulting from epistemic prejudice and systematic testimonial injustice as resulting from identity prejudice. As I will argue, there as certain cases that fall in between these interpretations, namely instances of incidental testimonial injustice, whereby the impact on the speaker is localized, but where the credibility deficit nevertheless results from identity prejudice. One example of how this can manifest is the structural distrust against health-care experts in anti-vaccination echo-chambers, wherein said experts’ testimony is dismissed due to unwarranted assumptions regarding their motives qua their social type. To understand the importance and severity of the testimonial injustices in echo chambers, we need to look beyond the specific harms that are done to the targeted speakers and the immediate loss of knowledge, but also take into account the consequences for fairness in public deliberation—the latter being a fundamental condition for procedural democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

Belief polarization (BP) is widely seen to threaten havoc on our shared political lives. It is often assumed that BP is the product of epistemically irrational behaviors at the individual level. After distinguishing between BP as it occurs in intra-group and inter-group settings, this paper argues that neither process necessarily reflects individual epistemic irrationality. It is true that these processes can work in tandem to produce so-called “echo chambers.” But while echo chambers are often problematic from the point of view (...) of collective rationality, it doesn't follow that individuals are doing anything wrong, epistemically speaking, in seeking them out. In non-ideal socio-epistemic contexts, echo chamber construction might provide one's best defense against systematic misinformation and deception. (shrink)

Noh (1998a, b) analyzes echo questions in terms of metarepresentation and pragmatic enrichment within the framework of Relevance Theory. This paper argues that while the basic idea of metarepresentational analysis seems correct, it is better implemented differently. The alternative analysis proposed in this paper consists of three claims: first, echo questions are metarepresentational with rising intonation, with the rise alone conferring the question status; second, echo questions question the pragmatically enriched attribution; third, the focus of metarepresentation is to be distinguished (...) from the rest of the metarepresentation. This version of metarepresentational analysis reveals why echo questions behave the way they do, both syntactically and semantically/pragmatically. At the same time, this analysis captures not only similarities but also differences between echo questions and interrogatives on a principled basis. (shrink)

This article investigates the potential influence of Draco’s homicide laws on Plato’s Phaedo (113d-114c). Athenian law gave the family of the victim or the φράτορες the choice of pardoning the killer through the process of αἴδεσις, but only if everyone unanimously agreed on the pardon. In Phaedo the transcendent trial of the soul is organised in a similar manner. Those who committed homicide in the heat of passion and immediately repented for their action are punished to reside for one year (...) in the rivers of the underworld. After that one year elapses, if the victim(s) agree on pardoning the killer, the latter is absolved. By employing this close similarity to the process of αἴδεσις and the use of seemingly forensic vocabulary in the passage (ἀνδροφόνος, δικασταί, ἐκβάλλω and δεσμωτήριον) Plato creates a veiled image of 5th-4th century Athens. Finally, relevant evidence in Plato’s Laws 865a-874b makes clear that Plato considered homicides committed in passion and followed by repentance more akin to involuntary rather than voluntary homicides, further showing the influence of Draco’s homicide law. (shrink)

I propose to study one problem for epistemic dependence on experts: how to locate experts on what I will call cognitive islands. Cognitive islands are those domains for knowledge in which expertise is required to evaluate other experts. They exist under two conditions: first, that there is no test for expertise available to the inexpert; and second, that the domain is not linked to another domain with such a test. Cognitive islands are the places where we have the fewest resources (...) for evaluating experts, which makes our expert dependences particularly risky. -/- Some have argued that cognitive islands lead to the complete unusability of expert testimony: that anybody who needs expert advice on a cognitive island will be entirely unable to find it. I argue against this radical form of pessimism, but propose a more moderate alternative. I demonstrate that we have some resources for finding experts on cognitive islands, but that cognitive islands leave us vulnerable to an epistemic trap which I will call runaway echo chambers. In a runaway echo chamber, our inexpertise may lead us to pick out bad experts, which will simply reinforce our mistaken beliefs and sensibilities. (shrink)

Disembodied voices, heard without a human body present, have become a familiar presence in everyday life through digital voice assistants (DVAs) such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. These voices are not neutral technological tools but fetishized artifacts that appear natural and emotionally responsive while concealing the social and ideological labor embedded in their design. This paper offers a critical sociophonetic analysis of two German-language DVAs to investigate how their vocal profiles index distinct forms of femininity. Drawing on theories of (...) gender as performative and the concept of fetishization (Butler 1990 ; Marx et al., 1922 : 35–47), I argue that DVA voice design operates as a site of ideological mediation, where social beliefs about gender and gendered voices are transformed into sonic form and naturalized through interaction. Acoustic analyses reveal that Alexa’s breathy voice indexes a traditional domestic femininity, whereas Siri’s lower pitch and creaky voice align with a professional, authoritative femininity, mirroring their respective roles as a home assistant and a mobile assistant. These vocal features are not incidental but reflect language ideologies about what voices should sound like, beliefs that link vocal traits to social personae and gender norms. Embedded in everyday routines, such voices become domesticated (Berker et al. 2006 ), rendering the ideological work of design inaudible. This study illustrates how gendered language ideologies are materially encoded in voice technologies and invites a rethinking of the synthetic voice itself, as an unstable intersection of embodiment, mediation, and market ideology. (shrink)

ExcerptModifying Liberalism: Pre-, Anti-, or Post-?Those in attendance at last winter’s postliberalism conference at the University of Cambridge1 witnessed one of that quirky confab’s more disturbing moments, when a distinguished speaker, Wolfgang Streeck—the prominent German political economist and career critic of American hegemony—went overtime while outlining his vision of a new world order.

This paper explores the philosophical relationship between Immanuel Kant's transcendental idealism and Ludwig Wittgenstein's linguistic philosophy, particularly focusing on the echoes of Kant's ideas in Wittgenstein's work. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason argues that human cognition is shaped by a priori categories, which structure our experience of phenomena but leave the noumenal realm unknowable. Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, similarly examines the limits of what can be known; suggesting that language mirrors reality but also has its limits in expressing (...) what lies beyond logic. In his later work, Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein emphasizes the social and contextual nature of meaning, developed through "language games" and "forms of life". This paper argues that while Wittgenstein shifts from Kant’s universal transcendental structures to a more pragmatic view of language, both philosophers share a concern with the limits of human knowledge and expression. Furthermore, both thinkers acknowledge the ineffable about Kant’s noumenal world and Wittgenstein’s mystical realm as crucial yet unreachable domains. This comparative analysis contributes to contemporary discussions in epistemology and philosophy of language, demonstrating the enduring relevance of Kant’s transcendental insights in Wittgenstein’s linguistic turn. (shrink)

In “Regulating social media as a public good: Limiting epistemic segregation” (2022), Toby Handfield tackles a well-known problematic aspect of widespread social media use: the formation of ideologically monotone and insulated social networks. Handfield argues that we can take some cues from economics to reduce the extent to which echo chambers grow up around individual users. Specifically, he argues that tax incentives to encourage network heterophily may be levied at any of three different groups: individual social media users, social media (...) sites/companies, or advertisers who use social media to promote their products and material. In this response, I examine the plausibility of using such incentives on each of the these groups. I argue, first, that using tax incentives on either (1) social media companies or (2) advertisers would be ineffective as these incentives could not feasibly be made strong enough to override the enormous financial gain of the standard social media algorithms. Next, I argue that levying the incentives/penalties on individual users would be a hazard, due to the risk of what is called the epistemic “backfire effect”. Finally, I argue that the problem lies in relying on incentives and disincentives—rather than direct regulation—to increase network heterophily. (shrink)

While exploring Teofilo Folengo’s Baldus (Venice, 1517) my paper draws on the Lipsian view that the practice of reading and travelling during the Renaissance were closely interwoven. In the same way the traveler walks through strange and foreign landscapes, the movement of the reader’s eye explores the text as it slowly merges into a map. In the present paper, I will first examine how Folengo uses cartographic metaphors and conventions in his Liber Macaronicus, to create a world in which geographical (...) reality and fiction are meshed. I will then try to uncover the textual sources which are embedded in this palimpsestic work. Like the Renaissance cartographers and cosmographers (Münster, Mercator, Ortelius and Cuningham), Folengo draws on various ancient sources (Homer’s Odysseus, Lucian’s A True Story and Charron: or, A Survey of the Follies of Mankind, Julius Solinus’s Polyhistor and Navigatio Sancti Brendani) as well as on contemporary geographical knowledge. Finally, I will seek to show how the text hinges on the speculum motif as it questions social, political and religious issues in early modern Italy. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. The article examines the appearance, essence and formation of the concept of "echo chamber" in the field of philosophy. The main interpretations and practical aspects of the application of this concept by representatives of the philosophical community are considered. Considering the lack of an established version of the concept of "echo chamber", an attempt was made to define its meaning by analogy with the already established interpretation of a physical analogue, (...) namely, a resonator. The appropriateness of such an analogy is justified. The specifics of the operation of echo chambers are considered by analogy with the operation of the resonator and its associated phenomena. The phenomenon of "intellectual inbreeding" ("geistiger Inzucht") described by H. Franke is considered. M e t h o d s. The theoretical and methodological foundations of the research are based on the principles of scientific objectivity, impartiality and systematicity. During the research, general scientific, philosophical, and special methods of studying social and political phenomena were used, including general methods of analysis, synthesis, and comparative methods. R e s u l t s. The author's understanding of the meaning of the concept of "echo chamber" and the prerequisites for its stability, which are determined by the properties of human consciousness, namely: "comfort zone", "clipping of thinking" and the principle of "own-foreign" are offered. The appropriateness of consideration and the main properties of the echo chamber as a technology of effective communication influence are substantiated. Among the methods of destroying echo chambers, the development of critical thinking skills and digital literacy, compliance with the principles of diversification of information sources and "range of reasonable alternatives", the occurrence of cognitive dissonance, as well as the phenomenon of emotional resonance are considered. C o n c l u s i o n s. Echo chambers pose a significant threat both to the harmonious development of the human personality and to the stable existence of civilized societies. Methods of countering echo chambers require further development and dissemination in society. (shrink)

In this chapter I trace a number of thematic connections between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Notebooks on the one hand, and his ‘Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough’ on the other. Pointing to this continuity will, I hope, bring out how the dimension of significance, central to the ‘Remarks on Frazer’, plays a role in the progress of the Tractatus, as well as elucidate how metaphysics is an expression and a distortion of the spiritual, similar to the one we find in magic (...) and mythology. It would explain, as Wittgenstein puts it, “metaphysics as a kind of magic”. (shrink)

By moving on from the findings of literature concerning the connections between the Leviathan and the Hobbesian translations of the Homeric poems, this article aims to problematize these relationships further with regard to the Behemoth. Three principal issues will be taken into account – the prophecy, the ruling over the Militia, and the mixed monarchy – given that, although themes typical of the philosopher’s political thought, their peculiarities in the Behemoth enable us to draw attention to possible significant political connections (...) between Hobbes’s translations of the Iliad and Odyssey and his narrative of the English Civil War. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze those passages of the Black Notebooks where Heidegger mentions Søren Kierkegaard and to see how Heidegger interprets Kierkegaard’s impact on his own philosophical thought. The paper intends to clarify whether, and to what extent, Heidegger’s rejection of an existentialist reading of his early thought is plausible and justified. The conclusions reached will be twofold. First, Heidegger tries to reinterpret his existential analytic by using the approach he has developed in his work after (...) Being and Time. In so doing, Heidegger tries to understate or diminish the Kierkegaardian background of his analytic of existence. Second, Heidegger’s retrospective self-interpretation argues for a continuity between the approach he develops in Being and Time and that which he calls the question of ‘the truth of beyng’. In so doing, he does not recognize the inconsistencies and mismatches that characterize his thought during the transition from the existential analytic to the philosophy of the event. The passages dealing with Kierkegaard in the Black Notebooks are important sources that allow us to note how problematic Heidegger’s self-interpretation is. (shrink)

Resumen En su recepción del Concilio Vaticano II la Iglesia latinoamericana -focalizada en el problema de la pobreza-, tomó distancia de la teología del desarrollo planteada en Gaudium et spes y de la antropología subyacente, sea soslayando este concepto como expresión de la ideología “desarrollista”, sea neutralizando su relevancia a través de la expansión indefinida de su significado, y en todos los casos subordinándolo a la idea y el objetivo de la liberación. Pero su visión unilateral de la pobreza, que (...) interpreta como consecuencia virtualmente exclusiva de las “estructuras de pecado”, lleva inevitablemente a una visión maniquea de la vida social entendida en términos de antagonismo de clases, y empuja por su propia lógica a la acción revolucionaria. Al mismo tiempo, pasa por alto el desafío decisivo para derrotar la pobreza, que no es únicamente la mejor distribución de la riqueza sino también y ante todo su creación. En esto consiste el desarrollo económico, fenómeno moderno pero posibilitado por la capacidad de iniciativa e invención característica del ser humano como imagen de Dios. Mientras los caminos de liberación preconizados por la teología de la liberación y la teología del pueblo han fracasado de modo inapelable, el sistema económico, político y cultural que Michael Novak denominara “capitalismo democrático” es el único que ha demostrado y sigue demostrando capacidad efectiva para liberar las energías creadoras de la sociedad, permitiendo a los pobres prosperar y convertirse en artífices de su propio destino.After the Second Vanean Council, the theology of “development” presented by Gaudium et spes was overlooked in the Latín American Church in favor of the concept of "Uberalion”. Under-lying this option lay a unilateral vision of povery, conceived exclusively as the outcome of the “structures o/sin”. This diagnosis fostered class struggle and revolutionary action, while providing no clue as to how to overcome poverty through the creation of wealth. A more adequate approach should seek for institutional arrangements that provide conditions for both Beration and development. The social system of “democratic capitalism” is the only one capable of generating true economic development, making it possible for its citizens to display their creative energy and become protagonists of their own destiny. (shrink)