La Thyréatide, entre l'Argolide et la Laconie, à l'Est de la Tégéatide est un territoire convoité par tous ses voisins. La description de Pausanias est sans doute mutilée, rendant ainsi pendant longtemps la topographie de la région incompréhensible. Les découvertes archéologiques permettent cependant peu à peu d'en connaître l'occupation et de commencer à cerner les problèmes historiques. Il semble que l'on doive placer Anthana au Nord du Tanos et Eua à Hélleniko, à 600 m au-dessus de la plaine. Le troisième (...) site fortifié, au Sud de la plaine et au bord de la mer, serait alors la Méthana du Pseudo-Skylax, dont la mention aurait disparu du texte de Pausanias en même temps que celle de Thyréa. On suit encore mal l'histoire de la région au vie s. et au début du ve s. av. J.-G. Fortifiée durant la guerre du Péloponnèse, la région est donnée à Argos par Philippe de Macédoine. Renforcée à cette date, la cité d'Eua semble cependant connaître encore des jours mouvementés au ine et au 11e s. av. J.-G. malgré le silence des textes. Les tombes de l'époque romaine nous indiquent qu'elle était encore habitée au temps de Pausanias. (shrink)

Feminist philosophical writing on sexuality is both concentrated in specific areas and dispersed throughout feminist philosophy. This is because feminist philosophers usually incorporate in their writing some notion of what sexuality is and its relevance to women's social oppression and liberatory projects. Feminist thinking on sexuality can also be found in many writings on sexual violence, reproductive and erotic rights, sexual ethics, sexual politics, sexual law, sexual harassment, sexual deviance, sexual practices, sexual commerce, sexual identity, and sexual pleasure. Additionally, feminist (...) thinking on sexuality appears in the critical rethinking of biological and social sciences and in a variety of new discourses seeking their interdisciplinary homes in women's studies, gender studies, queer theory, and cultural studies. To carve out from all of this a domain of feminist philosophical work on sexuality seems difficult if not perilous. (shrink)

As reproductive genetic technologies advance, families have more options to choose what sort of child they want to have. Using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), for example, allows parents to evaluate several existing embryos before selecting which to implant via in vitro fertilization (IVF). One of the traits PGD can identify is genetic deafness, and hearing embryos are now preferentially selected around the globe using this method. Importantly, some Deaf families desire a deaf child, and PGD–IVF is also an option for (...) them. Selection for genetic deafness, however, encounters widespread disapproval in the hearing community, including mainstream philosophy and bioethics. In this paper I apply Elizabeth Barnes’ value-neutral model of disability as mere-difference to the case of selecting for deafness. I draw on evidence from Deaf Studies and Disability Studies to build an understanding of deafness, the Deaf community, and the circumstances relevant to reproductive choices that may obtain for some Deaf families. Selection for deafness, with deafness understood as mere-difference and valued for its cultural identity, need not necessitate impermissible moral harms. I thus advocate that it is sometimes morally permissible to select for deafness in one’s child. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to assess whether the construct of neural representations plays an explanatory role under the variational free-energy principle and its corollary process theory, active inference; and (2) if so, to assess which philosophical stance - in relation to the ontological and epistemological status of representations - is most appropriate. We focus on non-realist (deflationary and fictionalist-instrumentalist) approaches. We consider a deflationary account of mental representation, according to which the explanatorily relevant contents of neural (...) representations are mathematical, rather than cognitive, and a fictionalist or instrumentalist account, according to which representations are scientifically useful fictions that serve explanatory (and other) aims. After reviewing the free-energy principle and active inference, we argue that the model of adaptive phenotypes under the free-energy principle can be used to furnish a formal semantics, enabling us to assign semantic content to specific phenotypic states (the internal states of a Markovian system that exists far from equilibrium). We propose a modified fictionalist account: an organism-centered fictionalism or instrumentalism. We argue that, under the free-energy principle, pursuing even a deflationary account of the content of neural representations licenses the appeal to the kind of semantic content involved in the aboutness or intentionality of cognitive systems; our position is thus coherent with, but rests on distinct assumptions from, the realist position. We argue that the free-energy principle thereby explains the aboutness or intentionality in living systems and hence their capacity to parse their sensory stream using an ontology or set of semantic factors. (shrink)

Despite its centrality in the philosophy of cognitive science, there has been little prior philosophical work engaging with the notion of representation in contemporary NLP practice. This paper attempts to fill that lacuna: drawing on ideas from cognitive science, I introduce a framework for evaluating the representational claims made about components of neural NLP models, proposing three criteria with which to evaluate whether a component of a model represents a property and operationalising these criteria using probing classifiers, a popular analysis (...) technique in NLP (and deep learning more broadly). The project of operationalising a philosophically-informed notion of representation should be of interest to both philosophers of science and NLP practitioners. It affords philosophers a novel testing-ground for claims about the nature of representation, and helps NLPers organise the large literature on probing experiments, suggesting novel avenues for empirical research. (shrink)

In a recent letter, Dillion et. al (2023) make various suggestions regarding the idea of artificially intelligent systems, such as large language models, replacing human subjects in empirical moral psychology. We argue that human subjects are in various ways indispensable.

Based on the theoretical reconstruction of neglected post-WWI writings and political action of W. E. B. Du Bois, this volume offers a normative account of transnational cosmopolitanism. Pointing out the limitations of Kant's cosmopolitanism through a novel contextual account of Perpetual Peace, Transnational Cosmopolitanism shows how these limits remain in neo-Kantian scholarship. Inés Valdez's framework overcomes these limitations in a methodologically unique way, taking Du Bois's writings and his coalitional political action both as text that should inform our theorization and (...) normative insights. The cosmopolitanism proposed in this work is an original contribution that questions the contemporary currency of Kant's canonical approach and enlists overlooked resources to radicalize, democratize, and transnationalize cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

In 2020, the University of Pennsylvania instituted a graduate certificate in public philosophy. In many ways, this certificate formalized and recognized the public engagement work that graduate students in the philosophy department and beyond had been involved with for some years. One element of the certificate, however, was pivotal in moving our work in public philosophy forward in important ways. This element is the research seminar in public philosophy. In this paper, we recount the motivation for the creation of the (...) certificate and especially the motivation for the inclusion of the research seminar. We also explore ways in which such a certificate, along with the deliberately self-reflective work of the research seminar, might help us reimagine the nature and value of philosophy and its connection with human life and flourishing. We focus on metaphilosophical themes such as the very nature of philosophy and the philosopher as well as the importance of cultivating a new generation of academic philosophers committed to transcending the distinction between the academy and the public and, relatedly, between academic philosophy and public philosophy. (shrink)

This edited book deepens the engagement between 21st century philosophy of mind and the emerging technologies which are transforming our environment. Many new technologies appear to have important implications for the human mind, the nature of our cognition, our sense of identity and even perhaps what we think human beings are. They prompt questions such as: Would an uploaded mind be 'me'? Does our reliance on smart phones, or wearable gadgets enhance or diminish the human mind? and: How does our (...) deep reliance upon ambient artificial intelligence change the shape of the human mind? Readers will discover the best philosophical analysis of what current and near future 21st technology means for the metaphysics of mind. Important questions are addressed on matters relating to the extended mind and the distributed self. Expert authors explore the role that the ubiquitous smart phone might have in creating new forms of self-knowledge. They consider machine consciousness, brain enhancement and smart ambient technology, and what they can tell us about phenomenal consciousness. While ideas of artificial general intelligence, cognitive enhancements and the smart environment are widely commented on, serious analysis of their philosophical implications is only getting started. These contributions from top scholars are therefore very timely, and are of particular relevance to students and scholars of the philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, computer science and psychology. (shrink)

In European science and technology policy, various styles have been developed and institutionalised to govern the ethical challenges of science and technology innovations. In this paper, we give an account of the most dominant styles of the past 30 years, particularly in Europe, seeking to show their specific merits and problems. We focus on three styles of governance: a technocratic style, an applied ethics style, and a public participation style. We discuss their merits and deficits, and use this analysis to (...) assess the potential of the recently established governance approach of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’. Based on this analysis, we reflect on the current shaping of RRI in terms of ‘doing governance’. (shrink)

The adoption of Big Data analytics in insurance has proved controversial but there has been little analysis specifying how insurance practices are changing. Is insurance passively subject to the forces of disruptive innovation, moving away from the pooling of risk towards its personalisation or individualisation, and what might that mean in practice? This special theme situates disruptive innovations, particularly the experimental practices of behaviour-based personalisation, in the context of the practice and regulation of contemporary insurance. Our contributors argue that behaviour-based (...) personalisation in insurance has different and broader implications than have yet been appreciated. BDAs are changing how insurance governs risk; how it knows, classifies, manages, prices and sells it, in ways that are more opaque and more extensive than the black boxes of in-car telematics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article addresses the growing literature in critical race studies, which holds that racism is permanent or incurable, and that by adopting this pessimistic view of racism, we can enact improved and healthier racialized lives. I argue that the focus on curing anti-Black racism, and the failure to do so in the civil rights era and its aftermath has left people of all races, to varying degrees, stuck in pessimistic states of racialized anger, resentment, guilt, and shame. These pessimistic (...) states have brought about an additional level of oppression for targets of racialized oppression. I call it “meta-oppression,” and it is the oppression of being oppressed. I argue that this oppression has exacerbated the effects of the social disease of racism, and it has literally affected the physiologies of many African Americans. This article provides a diagnosis of these existential and physiological states of meta-oppression and a clarification of its characteristics. This diagnosis is an initial step in a larger project of formulating and enacting effective treatments for it. I then argue that meta-oppression is a helpful diagnostic tool for clarifying the characteristics and ramifications on Blacks of US systemic racism during the post–civil rights movement period. I aim to establish meta-oppression as an existential and physiological condition that requires attention so as to expand the social imaginations of people of color and to allow us to engage in more systemic joyful affirmations of our racialized lives while still living within racist conditions. (shrink)

One of the criteria to a strong principle in natural sciences is simplicity. This paper claims that the Free Energy Principle (FEP), by virtue of unifying particles with mind, is the simplest. Motivated by Hilbert’s 24th problem of simplicity, the argument is made that the FEP takes a seemingly mathematical complex domain and reduces it to something simple. More specifically, it is attempted to show that every ‘thing’, from particles to mind, can be partitioned into systemic states by virtue of (...) self-organising symmetry break, i.e. self-entropy in terms of the balance between risk and ambiguity to achieve epistemic gain. By virtue of its explanatory reach, the FEP becomes the simplest principle under quantum, statistical and classical mechanics conditions. (shrink)

This article sits at a point of intersection between the philosophy of physics and the metaphysics of modality. There are clear similarities between Everettian quantum mechanics and various modal metaphysical theories, but there have hitherto been few attempts at exploring how the two topics relate. In this article, I build on a series of recent papers by Wilson ([2011], [2012], [2013]), who argues that Everettian quantum mechanics’ connections with traditional modal metaphysics are vital in defending it against objections. I show (...) that Wilson’s preferred version of Everettian quantum mechanics has two problems. First, it is unable to account for the contingency of various intuitively contingent modal claims. Second, it fails to yield intuitive truth values on modal claims about the number of branches in a given Everettian multiverse. Since modal claims about branch number are instrumental in decision-theoretic solutions to Everettian quantum mechanics’ problem(s) with probability, this second problem has wider dialectical implications. I suggest amendments to the underlying metaphysics that overcome these problems. The result is a more robust version of Everettian quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This aim of this paper is two-fold: it critically analyses and rejects accounts blending active inference as theory of mind and enactivism; and it advances an enactivist-dynamic understanding of social cognition that is compatible with active inference. While some social cognition theories seemingly take an enactive perspective on social cognition, they explain it as the attribution of mental states to other people, by assuming representational structures, in line with the classic Theory of Mind. Holding both enactivism and ToM, we argue, (...) entails contradiction and confusion due to two ToM assumptions widely known to be rejected by enactivism: that social cognition reduces to mental representation and social cognition is a hardwired contentful ‘toolkit’ or ‘starter pack’ that fuels the model-like theorising supposed in. The paper offers a positive alternative, one that avoids contradictions or confusion. After rejecting ToM-inspired theories of social cognition and clarifying the profile of social cognition under enactivism, that is without assumptions and, the last section advances an enactivist-dynamic model of cognition as dynamic, real-time, fluid, contextual social action, where we use the formalisms of dynamical systems theory to explain the origins of socio-cognitive novelty in developmental change and active inference as a tool to demonstrate social understanding as generalised synchronisation. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a pragmatic approach to the evolution of language based on analysis of a particular element of human communication: discourse coherence. We show that coherence is essential for effective communication. Through analysis of a collection of neuropsychological and neurolinguistic studies, we maintain that the proper functioning of executive processes responsible for planning and executing actions plays a key role in the construction of coherent discourses. Studies that tested the discursive and conversational abilities of bonobos have showed (...) that apes are unable to construct a flow of discourse governed by coherence, and therefore, apes’ conversational interactions are quite different from those of humans. We then propose that the emergence of coherence in communication occurred after the split between great apes’ and humans’ lines of descendants and that this emergence might have been the result of a specific gradual development in the course of hominin evolution of the executive functions. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to analyze the reasons behind users’ selection of news results on the news aggregator website, Google News, and the role that news factors play in this selection. We assume that user’s cognitive elaboration of users influences their news selection. In this study, a multi-method approach is used to obtain a complete picture of the users’ news selection reasoning: an open survey, a closed survey, and a content analysis of screen recording data. The results were (...) determined from online news selection of 90 news results from 47 users on Google News. Different news values could be identified as relevant for selection: time-referenced news factors and news factors of social significance were shown to be more important than the news factors of deviance. News cues (presence of a picture, position of a news result, source) were identified as selection reasons regardless of the level of cognitive elaboration during the online browsing process. (shrink)

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in (...) the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together. (shrink)

What can contemporary machine learning (ML) models do? Given the proliferation of ML models in society, answering this question matters to a variety of stakeholders, both public and private. The evaluation of models' capabilities is rapidly emerging as a key subfield of modern ML, buoyed by regulatory attention and government grants. Despite this, the notion of an ML model possessing a capability has not been interrogated: what are we saying when we say that a model is able to do something? (...) And what sorts of evidence bear upon this question? -/- In this paper, we aim to answer these questions, using the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) as a running example. Drawing on the large philosophical literature on abilities, we develop an account of ML models' capabilities which can be usefully applied to the nascent science of model evaluation. Our core proposal is a conditional analysis of model abilities (CAMA): crudely, a machine learning model has a capability to X just when it would reliably succeed at doing X if it 'tried'. The main contribution of the paper is making this proposal precise in the context of ML, resulting in an operationalisation of CAMA applicable to LLMs. We then put CAMA to work, showing that it can help make sense of various features of ML model evaluation practice, as well as suggest procedures for performing fair inter-model comparisons. (shrink)

Advancing a radically enactive account of cognition, we provide arguments in favour of the possibility that cultural factors permeate rather than penetrate cognition, such that cognition extensively and transactionally incorporates cultural factors rather than there being any question of cultural factors having to break into the restricted confines of cognition. The paper reviews the limitations of two classical cognitivist, modularist accounts of cognition and a revisionary, new order variant of cognitivism – a Predictive Processing account of Cognition, or PPC. It (...) argues that the cognitivist interpretation of PPC is conservatively and problematically attached to the idea of inner models and stored knowledge. In abandoning that way of understanding PPC, it offers a radically enactive alternative account of how cultural factors matter to cognition – one that abandons all vestiges of the idea that cultural factors might contentfully communicate with basic forms of cognition. In place of that idea, the possibility that culture permeates cognition is promoted. (shrink)

When someone masters a skill, their performance looks to us like second nature: it looks as if their actions are smoothly performed without explicit, knowledge-driven, online monitoring of their performance. Contemporary computational models in motor control theory, however, are instructionist: that is, they cast skillful performance as a knowledge-driven process. Optimal motor control theory, as representative par excellence of such approaches, casts skillful performance as an instruction, instantiated in the brain, that needs to be executed—a motor command. This paper aims (...) to show the limitations of such instructionist approaches to skillful performance. We specifically address the question of whether the assumption of control-theoretic models is warranted. The first section of this paper examines the instructionist assumption, according to which skillful performance consists of the execution of theoretical instructions harnessed in motor representations. The second and third sections characterize the implementation of motor representations as motor commands, with a special focus on formulations from OMCT. The final sections of this paper examine predictive coding and active inference—behavioral modeling frameworks that descend, but are distinct, from OMCT—and argue that the instructionist, control-theoretic assumptions are ill-motivated in light of new developments in active inference. (shrink)

Background: Personal genomic testing (PGT) offers individuals genetic information about relationships, wellness, sporting ability, and health. PGT is increasingly accessible online, including in emerging markets such as Australia. Little is known about what consumers expect from these tests and whether their reflections on testing resonate with bioethics concepts such as autonomy. Methods: We report findings from focus groups and semi-structured interviews that explored attitudes to and experiences of PGT. Focus group participants had little experience with PGT, while interview participants had (...) undergone testing. Recordings were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings were critically interpreted with reference to bioethics scholarship on autonomy. Results: Fifty-six members of the public participated in seven focus groups, and 40 individuals were interviewed separately. Both groups valued the choice of PGT, and believed that it could motivate relevant actions. Focus group themes centered on the perceived value of choices, knowledge enabling action and knowledge about the self. Interview themes suggest that participants reflexively engage with their PGT information to make meaning, and that some appreciate its shortcomings. Critical interpretation of findings shows that while consumers of PGT are able to exercise a degree of autonomy in choosing, they may not be able to achieve a substantive conceptualization of autonomy, one that promotes alignment with higher-order desires. Conclusions: PGT consumers can critically reason about testing. However, they may uncritically accept test results, may not appreciate drawbacks of increased choice, or may overestimate the potential for information to motivate behavioral change. While consumers appear to be capable of substantive autonomy, they do so without ongoing support from companies. PGT companies promote a problematic (“default”) account of autonomy, reliant on empowerment rhetoric. This leaves consumers vulnerable to making decisions inconsistent with their higher-order desires. As PGT expands, claims about its power and value need to be carefully drawn. (shrink)

This study analyzes the relationship between CEO values, leadership style and ethical practices in organizations. The ethical practices of formal statement of ethics and diversity training are included in the study, as well as four categories of values based on Rokeach's (1973) typology including personal, social, competency-based and morality-based. Results indicate that all four types of values are positively and significantly related to transformational leadership, with transactional leadership positively related to morality-based and personal values, and laissez-faire leadership negatively related to (...) competency-based values. When size of company and values are controlled, transformational leadership explains a significant amount of change in formal statement of ethics, and transactional leadership explains a significant amount of change in diversity training. (shrink)

This essay brings together political theories of empire and racial capitalism to clarify the entanglements between socialist and imperial discourse at the turn of the twentieth century. I show that white labor activists and intellectuals in the United States and the British settler colonies borrowed from imperial scripts to mark non-white workers as a threat. This discourse was thus both imperial and popular, because it absorbed the white working class into settler projects and enlisted its support in defense of imperial (...) logics of labor control. While white workers’ demands of enfranchisement were part of a transnational imagination that was both imperial and narrowly emancipatory, this discourse reemerged as one of popular sovereignty and found channels and paths to institutionalization through national states. These institutional formations arose out of the encounter between capitalists interested in facilitating mobility of racialized laboring subjects around the globe, elite projects invested in sheltering settler spaces, and white workers concerned with protecting their own labor from competition by excluding exploitable non-white workers. White labor’s embrace of racial prejudice and the exclusion of workers of color created segregated labor spaces that fit neatly with both capitalist goals of labor control and the protection of the settler status of emerging polities. Bringing to the forefront the imperial genealogy of popular sovereignty and immigration control disrupts liberal political theory frameworks that condemn restrictions as well as those that find migration restrictions permissible. The analysis also illuminates contemporary immigration politics. (shrink)

Através de uma leitura densa das fontes hagiográficas jesuítas que celebraram a vida de um jesuíta napolitano, Marcelo Mastrilli (1603-1637), procuro mostrar que as visões e narrativas proféticas foram importantes lugares de comunicação social, memória colectiva e mobilização política. O reposicionamento profético foi uma linguagem específica da tecnologia do eu, a partir da qual o sujeito fabricava a sua própria identidade, dentro e contra os limites externos da autoridade e das instituições. Marcelo Mastrilli – que viajou pela Itália, Espanha, Portugal, (...) Goa, Malaca, Filipinas e Japão – construiu a sua própria subjectividade e acção através de uma visão profética de São Francisco Xavier. Logo que a sua experiência pessoal foi impressa, atingindo um público mais vasto, mobilizou outros actores a imitá-lo, citá-lo, ou a fazer uso dele nos seus percursos individuais e sociais. O que se podia transportar de um continente para outro não eram, claro, visões pessoais mas a sua corporização numa série de textos e imagens materiais. E a verdade é que mesmo depois da sua morte, em 1637, as suas visões foram retomadas pelo padre António Vieira e integradas no seu discurso legitimador da dinastia de Bragança e do papel que os jesuítas aí desempenhavam. (shrink)

This article explores the distinctions among European peoples’ character established in Kant’s anthropology and their connection with his politics. These aspects are neglected relative to the analysis of race between Europeans and non-Europeans, but Kant’s anthropological works portray the people of Mediterranean Europe as not capable of civilization because of the dominance of passion in their faculty of desire, which he ties to ‘Oriental’ influences in blood or government. Kant then superimposes this racialized anthropology over the historical geopolitics of Europe, (...) obscuring the indebtedness of Northern European trade dominance to Mediterranean historical tactics and financial wealth. By relegating the Mediterranean to the margins and dismissing contentious commercial exchange in the region as mere violence spearheaded by North African corsairs, Kant gives us an elitist cosmopolitanism unable to cope with hierarchy and inequality, diminishing its potential for egalitarian global projects today. (shrink)

This article investigates how companies make sense of CSR. It is based on an explorative comparative case study of 18 companies in the Netherlands using background information, interviews and annual reports. Initially, the sensemaking process of CSR is guided and coordinated by change agents who are specifically appointed to explore the implementation of CSR in their company. These change agents initiate the CSR process within their own organisations. The meaning they develop stems from their personal and organisational values and frames (...) of reference. By attuning the vocabulary of CSR to the language of their colleagues, they aim to gain support for this undertaking in their organisation. This sensemaking procedure can be divided into pragmatic, external, procedural, policy‐oriented and value‐driven processes. The capability of an organisation to embed CSR is the result of trial and error, personal preferences and the use of language by the change agent that fits the (dynamic) situation at hand. Thus, each organisation needs a tailor‐made approach to implement CSR successfully. (shrink)

This paper provides preliminary insights into the process of sense-making and developing meaning with regard to corporate social responsibility (CSR) within 18 Dutch companies. It is based upon a research project carried out within the framework of the Dutch National Research Programme on CSR. The paper questions how change agents promoting CSR within these companies made sense of the meaning of CSR. How did they use language (and other instruments) to stimulate and underpin the contextual essence of CSR? Why did (...) they do that in this particular way? What were the consequences of this approach for shaping the process of CSR in their company? Did their efforts contribute to a new way of thinking and acting or was it merely putting old wine in new barrels? A preliminary conclusion is that change agents use above all linguistic artefacts (words and notions) and carry out practical projects while constructing meaning. Still, the meaning of meaning itself remains highly intangible, situational and personality related. (shrink)

This paper proposes an account of neurocognitive activity without leveraging the notion of neural representation. Neural representation is a concept that results from assuming that the properties of the models used in computational cognitive neuroscience must literally exist the system being modelled. Computational models are important tools to test a theory about how the collected data has been generated. While the usefulness of computational models is unquestionable, it does not follow that neurocognitive activity should literally entail the properties construed in (...) the model. While this is an assumption present in computationalist accounts, it is not held across the board in neuroscience. In the last section, the paper offers a dynamical account of neurocognitive activity with Dynamical Causal Modelling that combines dynamical systems theory mathematical formalisms with the theoretical contextualisation provided by Embodied and Enactive Cognitive Science. (shrink)

Kate Stephenson’s book constitutes a rich and thorough analysis of the history of school uniform in English schools, which spans charity schools in the sixteenth century to twenty-first century dis...

This article investigates how companies make sense of CSR. It is based on an explorative comparative case study of 18 companies in the Netherlands using background information, interviews and annual reports. Initially, the sensemaking process of CSR is guided and coordinated by change agents who are specifically appointed to explore the implementation of CSR in their company. These change agents initiate the CSR process within their own organisations. The meaning they develop stems from their personal and organisational values and frames (...) of reference. By attuning the vocabulary of CSR to the language of their colleagues, they aim to gain support for this undertaking in their organisation. This sensemaking procedure can be divided into pragmatic, external, procedural, policy‐oriented and value‐driven processes. The capability of an organisation to embed CSR is the result of trial and error, personal preferences and the use of language by the change agent that fits the (dynamic) situation at hand. Thus, each organisation needs a tailor‐made approach to implement CSR successfully. (shrink)

How is admiration different from adoration? We provided one answer to this question by examining the pathways through which admiration and adoration linked to self-expansion in a questionnaire and an experimental (autobiographical recall of emotion episodes) study. Both emotions were associated with increased potential efficacy to accomplish goals (i.e., self-expansion), but different action tendencies accounted for these links. While our emotion inductions did not successfully distinguish between admiration and adoration, we could statistically disentangle their effects through mediator models. In both (...) studies, self-reported admiration linked to self-expansion through the tendency to emulate admired others. Adoration related to self-expansion through the tendency to affiliate with adored others. These findings were obtained after controlling for other emotions in response to the target person (awe, love, hope, benign envy) and mutuality of the relationship. Our findings also suggest that considering specific emotions (rather than undifferentiated positive affect) helps uncover different pathways to self-expansion. (shrink)

After committing the original sin in paradise, mankind was forced to work for a living. After that only lazy scoundrels like apes have gotten away without needing to work. Later, the rise of capitalism and the co-occurrence of slaves, workers and citizens demanded scientific theories of racial hierarchy. These taxonomies of racialized social structure were never abandoned: in 2011, the media still referred to the London rioters as ‘apes’.

In this article we propose that executive functions play a key role in the origin of language. Our proposal is based on the methodological assumption that some of the cognitive systems involved in language functioning are also involved in its phylogenetic origin. In this regard, we demonstrate that a key property of language functioning is discourse coherence. Such property is not dependent on grammatical elements but rather is processed by cognitive systems that are not specific for language, namely the executive (...) functions systems of action planning, control and organization. Data from cognitive archaeology on the making of stone tools show that the processes requested to produce Prehistoric tools imply action organization operations similar to those involved in the processing of coherence. Based on these considerations, we propose that executive functions represent the link between stone tool making and language origins and suggest that they allowed our ancestors to develop forms of proto-discourse governed by coherence. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to describe the new experiences that close female family members of disappeared persons have after the enforced disappearance. These relatives experience rupture with their pre-disappearance lives. Their everyday routines cease and the search for the disappeared person takes over. Some relatives experience impoverishment and many lose their children or spouse to emigration. Parts or all of their extended family cut off ties, friendships end, and some neighbors avoid them. A local humanitarian or human rights (...) organization and an association of relatives of disappeared persons come to occupy a central place in relatives’ lives and become “like a second family.” Focusing on enforced disappearance during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, this research is based on interviews with relatives of people who disappeared, on a year’s participant observation with a group of these relatives, and on the examination of relatives’ denunciatory art. (shrink)

First published in 1999, this book brings together the extensive modern evidence for innate imitation in babies. Modern research has shown imitation to be a natural mechanism of learning and communication which deserves to be at centre stage in developmental psychology. Yet the very possibility of imitation in newborn humans has had a controversial history. Defining imitation has proved to be far from straightforward and scientific evidence for its existence in neonates is only now becoming accepted, despite more than a (...) century of enquiry. In this book, some of the world's foremost researchers on imitation and intellectual development review evidence for imitation in newborn babies. They discuss the development of imitation in infancy, in both normal and atypical populations and in comparison with other primate species, stressing the fundamental importance of imitation in human development, as a foundation of communication and a precursor to symbolic processes. (shrink)

In this rich and detailed study of early modern women's thought, Jacqueline Broad explores the complexity of women's responses to Cartesian philosophy and its intellectual legacy in England and Europe. She examines the work of thinkers such as Mary Astell, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway and Damaris Masham, who were active participants in the intellectual life of their time and were also the respected colleagues of philosophers such as Descartes, Leibniz and Locke. She also illuminates the continuities (...) between early modern women's thought and the anti-dualism of more recent feminist thinkers. The result is a more gender-balanced account of early modern thought than has hitherto been available. Broad's clear and accessible exploration of this still-unfamiliar area will have a strong appeal to both students and scholars in the history of philosophy, women's studies and the history of ideas. (shrink)