Research ethics consultation is increasingly recognized as a potentially valuable mechanism for addressing the depth and breadth of ethical issues that arise in research related to human health and well-being. However, fundamental questions remain, including: What is “research ethics consultation”? And what is its justification beyond the purposes already served by existing entities? We examine how a research ethics consultation service may differ from or complement the role of an institutional review board by offering a definition of research ethics consultation (...) and by exploring the potential scope of a consultation service in terms of types of clients served, questions addressed, and advice provided at various stages of the research process. We then consider the relationship between research ethics consultation services and IRBs, as well as the issues that may arise between them, including possible conflicts of interest. (shrink)

Online education has become an essential component of education. Thus, several factors, such as the student’s learning strategy and motivation, generally contribute to their academic success. This study investigates the relationship between learning strategies, motivation, and online learning environment among 150 first-year college students. Employing correlational design, the statistical findings of the study reveal that the r coefficient of 0.59 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision (...) to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between learning strategies, motivation, and the online learning environment. (shrink)

Drawing from Goffman’s original observations on stigma and the consequences of interactions between the stigmatized and supportive or stigmatizing audiences, we conduct a 20-year review of the diverse literature on stigma to revisit the collective nature of stigmatization processes. We find that studies on stigma’s origins, responses, processes, and outcomes have diverged from Goffman’s relational view of stigma as they have overlooked important relational mechanisms explaining the processes of (de)stigmatization. We draw from those conclusions to justify the need to study (...) stigma as a collective phenomenon. We develop a relational perspective on stigma based on understanding how attributes are stigmatized (or not) by audiences in their interactions. We argue that to advance stigma research, it is necessary to build on Goffman’s theory to include the stigmatizers (i.e., the normal) and supporters (i.e., the wise); how they create, sustain, or remove stigma; and how they relate to the stigmatized (i.e., the targets). Accordingly, we provide a research agenda on stigma as a collective phenomenon that theorizes a relational perspective, proposes a typology of how audiences relate to stigmatization, and identifies patterns of relations between audiences. We thus offer a missing piece to existing accounts of stigma by focusing on the key role of audiences (i.e., stigmatizers or supporters of the stigmatized) rather than on the targets of stigma (i.e., the own). (shrink)

Vardanyan’s Theorems [36, 37] state that $\mathsf {QPL}(\mathsf {PA})$ —the quantified provability logic of Peano Arithmetic—is $\Pi ^0_2$ complete, and in particular that this already holds when the language is restricted to a single unary predicate. Moreover, Visser and de Jonge [38] generalized this result to conclude that it is impossible to computably axiomatize the quantified provability logic of a wide class of theories. However, the proof of this fact cannot be performed in a strictly positive signature. The system $\mathsf (...) {QRC_1}$ was previously introduced by the authors [1] as a candidate first-order provability logic. Here we generalize the previously available Kripke soundness and completeness proofs, obtaining constant domain completeness. Then we show that $\mathsf {QRC_1}$ is indeed complete with respect to arithmetical semantics. This is achieved via a Solovay-type construction applied to constant domain Kripke models. As corollaries, we see that $\mathsf {QRC_1}$ is the strictly positive fragment of $\mathsf {QGL}$ and a fragment of $\mathsf {QPL}(\mathsf {PA})$. (shrink)

In 2020, the European Union announced the award of the contract for the biometric part of the new database for border control, the Entry Exit System, to two companies: IDEMIA and Sopra Steria. Both companies had been previously involved in the development of databases for border and migration management. While there has been a growing amount of publicly available documents that show what kind of technologies are being implemented, for how much money, and by whom, there has been limited engagement (...) with digital methods in this field. Moreover, critical border and security scholarship has largely focused on qualitative and ethnographic methods. Building on a data feminist approach, we propose a transdisciplinary methodology that goes beyond binaries of qualitative/quantitative and opacity/transparency, examines power asymmetries and makes the labour of coding visible. Empirically, we build and analyse a dataset of the contracts awarded by two European Union agencies key to its border management policies – the European Agency for Large-Scale Information Systems (eu-LISA) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). We supplement the digital analysis and visualisation of networks of companies with close reading of tender documents. In so doing, we show how a transdisciplinary methodology can be a device for making datafication ‘intelligible’ at the European Union borders. (shrink)

Margaret Archer plays a leading role in the sociological analysis of the relation between structure and agency, and particularly in the study of reflexivity. The main aim of this article is to discuss her approach, focusing on the main contributions and limitations of Archer’s theory of reflexivity. It is argued that even though her research is a pioneering one, proposing an operationalization of the concept of reflexivity in view of its empirical implementation, it also minimizes crucial social factors and the (...) dimensions necessary for a more complex and multi-dimensional study of the concept, such as social origins, family socialization, processes of internalization of exteriority, the role of other structure–agency mediation mechanisms and the persistence of social reproduction. (shrink)

Spin is a fundamental and distinctive property of the electron, having far-reaching implications. Yet its purely formal treatment often blurs the physical content and meaning of the spin operator and associated observables. In this work we propose to advance in disclosing the meaning behind the formalism, by first recalling some basic facts about the one-particle spin operator. Consistently informed by and in line with the quantum formalism, we then proceed to analyse in detail the spin projection operator correlation function \=\left\langle (...) \left \left \right\rangle \) for the bipartite singlet state, and show it to be amenable to an unequivocal probabilistic reading. In particular, the calculation of \\) entails a partitioning of the probability space, which is dependent on the directions \.\) The derivation of the CHSH- or other Bell-type inequalities, on the other hand, does not consider such partitioning. This observation puts into question the applicability of Bell-type inequalities to the bipartite singlet spin state. (shrink)

We explore the distinctive characteristics of Mexico's society, politics and history that impacted the establishment of genetics in Mexico, as a new disciplinary field that began in the early 20th century and was consolidated and institutionalized in the second half. We identify about three stages in the institutionalization of genetics in Mexico. The first stage can be characterized by Edmundo Taboada, who was the leader of a research program initiated during the Cárdenas government (1934-1940), which was primarily directed towards improving (...) the condition of small Mexican farmers. Taboada is the first Mexican post-graduate investigator in phytotechnology and phytopathology, trained at Cornell University and the University of Minnesota, in 1932 and 1933, respectively. He was the first investigator to teach plant genetics at the National School of Agriculture and wrote the first textbook of general genetics, Genetics Notes, in 1938. Taboada's most important single genetics contribution was the production of "stabilized" corn varieties. The extensive exile of Spanish intellectuals to Mexico, after the end of Spain's Civil War (1936-1939), had a major influence in Mexican science and characterizes the second stage. The three main personalities contributing to Mexican genetics are Federico Bonet de Marco and Bibiano Fernández Osorio Tafall, at the National School of Biological Sciences, and José Luis de la Loma y Oteyza, at the Chapingo Agriculture School. The main contribution of the Spanish exiles to the introduction of genetics in Mexico concerned teaching. They introduced in several universities genetics as a distinctive discipline within the biology curriculum and wrote genetics text books and manuals. The third stage is identified with Alfonso León de Garay, who founded the Genetics and Radiobiology Program in 1960 within the National Commission of Nuclear Energy, which had been founded in 1956. The Genetics and Radiobiology Program rapidly became a disciplinary program, for it embraced research, teaching, and training of academics and technicians. The Mexican Genetics Society, created by de Garay in 1966, and the development of strains and cultures for genetics research were important activities. One of de Garay's key requirements was the compulsory training of the Program's scientists for at least one or two years in the best universities of the United States and Europe. De Garay's role in the development of Mexican genetics was fundamental. His broad vision encompassed the practice of genetics in all its manifestations. (shrink)

The somatic mutation theory (SMT) of cancer has been and remains the prevalent theory attempting to explain how neoplasms arise and progress. This theory proposes that cancer is a clonal, cell‐based disease, and implicitly assumes that quiescence is the default state of cells in multicellular organisms. The SMT has not been rigorously tested, and several lines of evidence raise questions that are not addressed by this theory. Herein, we propose experimental strategies that may validate the SMT. We also call attention (...) to an alternative theory of carcinogenesis, the tissue organization field theory (TOFT), which posits that cancer is a tissue‐based disease and that proliferation is the default state of all cells. Based on epistemological and experimental evidence, we argue that the TOFT compellingly explains carcinogenesis, while placing it within an evolutionarily relevant context.magnified imagemagnified imageAna Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein are at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. (shrink)

How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation between one’s own and another person’s face has been used to evoke changes in self-identification . We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other’s face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses of the identified common factor structure (...) revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on self-identification and perceived similarity with the other’s face. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face’s unique role as a marker of selfhood. (shrink)

Croatia is a transitional society in that it is a country emerging from a socialist command economy toward a market-based economy with ensuing structural changes of a social and political nature—some extending into the healthcare system. A legacy from our past is that, until now, Croatian healthcare institutions have had no real experience with clinical ethics support services. When clinical cases arise presenting complex ethical dilemmas in treatment options, the challenges presented to the medical team are substantial. The case described (...) below recently occurred on a ward in a university hospital in Croatia. An unexpected request from the patient’s parents created a number of issues that needed to be addressed by the medical team, which was made more difficult by the lack of clinical ethics support services. Such cases press the question currently being debated as to what type of ethics support services would be suitable for Croatia and why. (shrink)

How can we feel at home in this world without clinging to false certainties? This book offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its potentials for a worldview that relies only on human resources. Thinking along with authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller, it highlights a fundamentally humanist strand of pragmatism aimed at fostering human creativity and transformative action. It is grounded in everyday experience and underlines our responsibility to strive for the better. Ana Honnacker traces perspectives (...) on science, religion, and ethics in the light of a pragmatic understanding of humanism. Furthermore, she suggests how to address the existential challenges we face today. Thus, pragmatic humanism is explored not only as a philosophy for critical minds, but also as a way of life. (shrink)

The theory of mental models postulates that meaning and knowledge can modulate the interpretation of conditionals. The theory's computer implementation implied that certain conditionals should be true or false without the need for evidence. Three experiments corroborated this prediction. In Experiment 1, nearly 500 participants evaluated 24 conditionals as true or false, and they justified their judgments by completing sentences of the form, It is impossible that A and ___ appropriately. In Experiment 2, participants evaluated 16 conditionals and provided their (...) own justifications, which tended to be explanations rather than logical justifications. In Experiment 3, the participants also evaluated as possible or impossible each of the four cases in the partitions of 16 conditionals: A and C, A and not-C, not-A and C, not-A and not-C. These evaluations corroborated the model theory. We consider the implications of these results for theories of reasoning based on logic, probabilistic logic, and suppositions. (shrink)

Humanism is charged with fostering a harmful anthropocentrism that has led to the exploitation of non-human beings and the environment. Posthumanist and transhumanist ideas prominently aim at rethinking our self-understanding and human-nature relations. Yet these approaches turn out to be flawed when it comes to addressing the challenges of the “age of the humanity”, the Anthropocene. Whereas posthumanism fails in acknowledging the exceptional role of human beings with regard to political agency and responsibility, transhumanism overemphasizes human capabilities of controlling nature (...) and only deepens the human-nature dualism. Therefore, a critical and humble version of humanism is suggested as a viable alternative. Drawing on pragmatist thinkers William James and F.C.S. Schiller, a resource for de-centering the human being is provided that critically reflects our role in the larger ecosystem and underlines human potentials as well as human responsibilities. (shrink)

Lack of vaccine confidence can contribute to drops in vaccination coverage and subsequent outbreaks of diseases like measles and polio. Low trust in vaccines is attributed to a combination of factors, including lack of understanding, vaccine scares, flawed policies, social media and mistrust of vaccine manufacturers, scientists and decision-makers. The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare societies’ vulnerability to new pathogens and the critical role of vaccines in containing this and future pandemics. It has also put science at the forefront of (...) the response, with several governments relying on academics to help shape policy and communicate with the public. Against this backdrop, protecting public trust in scientists and scientific output is arguably more important than ever. Yet, conflicts of interest in biomedical research remain ubiquitous and harmful, and measures to curb them have had limited success. There is also evidence of bias in industry-sponsored vaccine studies and academics are voicing concerns about the risks of working in a CoI prevalent research area. Here, we set out to challenge established thinking with regard to vaccine confidence, by shifting the gaze from a deficit in public understanding towards probity in research relationships and suggesting an alternative and perhaps complementary strategy for addressing vaccine mistrust. We argue that a concerted effort needs to be made to revisit the norms that undergird contemporary vaccine research, coupled with a willingness of all stakeholders to reimagine those relationships with an emphasis on demonstrating trustworthiness and probity. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to investigate human spatiality and perception in general, with the experience of adventure sports as its background. These activities highlight especially our strong relationship with the world when we consider the specific way in which the environment participates in the development of human potential. We first analyse the notions of risk and instability as important elements in adventure sports. Then we explore the notion of experience and spatiality, considering the way in which we establish (...) our relationship with the world. The theoretical background is found in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Bachelard’s phenomenology of imagination to investigate perspectives of space among adventurers. We hold that more than a different range of corporeal techniques, adventure sports can teach us a way of interrogating and looking at the world. They require a peculiar sensibility that allows our body to experience the environment in favour of a corporeal wisdom. Alternative sports indicate the possibility that we have to build up different ways of inhabiting the world and comprehending it. (shrink)

Flexibility in conceptual projection constitutes one of the most challenging issues in the embodiment and conceptual metaphor literatures. We sketch a theoretical proposal that places the burden of the explanation on attentional dynamics in interaction with mental models in working memory that are constrained to be maximally coherent. A test of this theory is provided in the context of the conceptual projection of time onto the domain of space. Participants categorized words presented at different spatial locations (back–front, left–right) as referring (...) to the past or to the future. Responses were faster when the irrelevant word location was congruent with the back–past, front–future metaphoric mapping. Moreover, when a new highly task-relevant spatial frame of reference was introduced, it changed the projection of past and future onto space in a way that was congruent with the new frame (past was now projected to left space and future to right space), as predicted by the theory. This study shows that there is substantial flexibility in conceptual projection and opens a venue to study metaphoric variation across tasks, individuals, and cultures as the result of attentional dynamics. (shrink)

Despite its potential implications for the objectivity of scientific knowledge, the claim that “scientific instruments are perspectival” has received little critical attention. I show that this claim is best understood as highlighting the dependence of instruments on different perspectives. When closely analyzed, instead of constituting a novel epistemic challenge, this dependence can be exploited to mount novel strategies for resolving two old epistemic problems: conceptual relativism and theory-ladeness. The novel content of this article consists in articulating and developing these strategies (...) by introducing two fine-grained notions of perspectives as the key units of analysis: “broad perspectives” and “narrow perspectives.”. (shrink)

This paper investigates some aspects of the semantics of deontic should-conditionals. The main objective is to understand which actual world facts make deontic statements true. The starting point for the investigation is a famous puzzle known as Chisholm’s Paradox. It is important because making sense of the data in Chisholm-style examples involves arriving at some conclusion regarding the interaction between what we consider ideal and what is actually true. I give an account of how facts affect the evaluation of should (...) formulated in a way that does not predict that the divergence between ideals and facts leads to contradictions. The proposed semantics for should and should-conditionals allows for factual detachment without giving rise to paradoxes. The proposal has several parts: a situation-based semantics for the modal should, a view of the propositions embedded under should that allows aspect to play a crucial role in anchoring propositions to the context set, and a proposal for if-clauses that distinguishes between epistemic if-clauses and if-clauses in the scope of should, treating the latter as restrictors on the quantificational domain of the modal. (shrink)

The somatic mutation theory has been the prevailing paradigm in cancer research for the last 50 years. Its premises are: (1) cancer is derived from a single somatic cell that has accumulated multiple DNA mutations, (2) the default state of cell proliferation in metazoa is quiescence, and (3) cancer is a disease of cell proliferation caused by mutations in genes that control proliferation and the cell cycle. From this compelling simplicity, an increasingly complicated picture has emerged as more than 100 (...) oncogenes and 30 tumor suppressor genes have been identified. To accommodate this complexity, additional ad hoc explanations have been postulated. After a critical review of the data gathered from this perspective, an alternative research program has been proposed. It is based on the tissue organization field theory, the premises of which are that carcinogenesis represents a problem of tissue organization, comparable to organogenesis, and that proliferation is the default state of all cells. The merits of these competing theories are evaluated herein. BioEssays 26:1097–1107, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Authentic leadership has become increasingly important in the literature, attracting the attention of many scholars in the last decade. This study adopted an employee-centered perspective to guide its examination of the relationship between authentic leadership and individual performance and investigation of the sequential mediation of employees’ affective commitment and individual creativity. An analysis was conducted of data collected from 214 employees working in different business sectors. The results reveal a statistically significant positive relationship between authentic leadership and employees’ workplace performance, (...) which are both directly connected and indirectly linked through the two proposed psychosocial mechanisms. The findings thus indicate that authentic leadership reinforces workers’ emotional connection with their organizations, thereby increasing their individual creativity and, subsequently, promoting better on-the-job performance. This study presents new and significant results since, on the one hand, it relied on a sequential mediation analysis of variables and, on the other hand, integrated the four main constructs into a single model. The proposed model displays the chain of effects between authentic leadership, affective commitment, individual creativity, and employee workplace performance. Implications for organizational management are discussed. (shrink)

Chronic pain affects a large part of the population causing functional disability, being often associated with coexisting psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety, besides cognitive deficits, and sleep disturbance. The world elderly population has been growing over the last decades and the negative consequences of chronic pain for these individuals represent a current clinical challenge. The main painful complaints in the elderly are related to neurodegenerative and musculoskeletal conditions, peripheral vascular diseases, arthritis, and osteoarthritis, contributing toward poorly life quality, (...) social isolation, impaired physical activity, and dependence to carry out daily activities. Organ dysfunction and other existing diseases can significantly affect the perception and responses to chronic pain in this group. It has been proposed that elderly people have an altered pain experience, with changes in pain processing mechanisms, which might be associated with the degeneration of circuits that modulate the descending inhibitory pathways of pain. Aging has also been linked to an increase in the pain threshold, a decline of painful sensations, and a decrease in pain tolerance. Still, elderly patients with chronic pain show an increased risk for dementia and cognitive impairment. The present review article is aimed to provide the state-of-art of pre-clinical and clinical research about chronic pain in elderly, emphasizing the altered mechanisms, comorbidities, challenges, and potential therapeutic alternatives. (shrink)

Citizenship is no longer an exclusive relationship. Many people today are citizens of multiple countries, whether by birth, naturalization, or even through monetary means, with schemes fast-tracking citizenship applications from foreigners making large investments in the state. Moral problems surround each of those ways of acquiring a second citizenship, while retaining one's original citizenship. Multiple citizenship can also have morally problematic consequences for the coherence of collective decisions, for the constitution of the demos, and for global inequality. The phenomenon of (...) multiple citizenship and its ramifications remains understudied, despite its magnitude and political importance. In this innovative book, Ana Tanasoca explores these issues and shows how they could be avoided by unbundling the rights that currently come with citizenship and allocating them separately. It will appeal to scholars and students of normative political theory, citizenship, global justice, and migration in political science, law, and sociology. (shrink)

From the beginning of history sounds have played a fundamentally important role in humanity’s development as ways of expression and of communication. However in contemporary western society, and indeed globally, we are experiencing an excess of speech and a relentless encouragement to expression. Such excess indicates a misunderstanding about what expression and dialogue should be. This condition encourages us to think about silence, solitude and contemplation and the role they might play in restoring the realm of personal understanding of the (...) Self and of one’s authentic experience of the Other. The purpose of this article is to explore the potency of a silence that arises from our participation in the world. We present first some ideas about silence as a human phenomenon. This is followed by an examination of silence and language, an investigation of silence in dialogue, and of its educational implications. The article concludes by emphasising the value of silence as potency in itself, assisting in recovering the expressive powers of language. We argue that it is important to understand the positive status of silence in order to recognise and avoid repressive speech and to introduce its potential for reflective learning. (shrink)

In her recent book Gillian Brock argues that states’ legitimacy depends on their being part of a just state system that protects human rights. Here I discuss some practical limitations raised by Brock’s legitimacy framework: mainly, (1) the problematic real-world implications of such an account, and (2) the epistemic challenges that judgements inspired by this account would have to face, were we to proceed solely on the basis of it.

Human life in contemporary society is extremely complex and there are various external factors that directly affect the realization in the individual ends. In this work I analyze the effects of the global market economy, manifested by a mode of production and distribution of goods and services in the form of a global network of economic relations, which involve people, transnational corporations and political and social institutions in moral sphere of people, affecting their choices and the realization of these choices. (...) Individual freedom can be understand as a freedom to realize our choices in the environment of a global economic market, but it is still problematic in the sense that the choices of goods and services available in this market do not reflect individual choices, but a set of preferences standardized according to the market itself. In this paper I will reflect about the individual freedom in economic globalization pointing from the debate between Pettit and Berlin that social freedom advocated by Republican Petit can be satisfactory for a start. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 335-358 [Access article in PDF] Between East and West: Hegel and the Origins of the Russian Dilemma Ana Siljak Nikolai Berdiaev, the eminent twentieth-century Russian philosopher, wrote that the "problem of East and West" was an "eternal" one for Russia. 1 Attempting to make sense of the violent upheavals that shook Russia in 1917, Berdiaev believed that the source of Russian (...) troubles lay in the "inconsistency of the Russian spirit" due to the "conflict of the Eastern and Western elements in her." 2 Russia, he argued, always contained within its wide territory an invisible and shifting border between two continents, and thus Russian society was forever torn between two cultures. Berdiaev insisted that Russia could not discover its true calling or its place in the world until it resolved its internal conflict between East and West. 3Berdiaev was contemplating the course of the nineteenth century, when Russia's geographical destiny had deeply troubled Russian intellectuals. In the late 1830s Russian thinkers began their minute analyses of cultural and historical sources, hoping to determine the essential character of their nation and believing that their research would enable them to predict Russia's future. Often, diverse questions of progress and stagnation, tradition and innovation, and the individual and society were all framed within this overarching problem of East versus West.It is tempting to see this Russian dilemma as longstanding and natural, given Russia's position between two continents. Indeed, many recent scholars have argued that Russian encounters with Asia, taking place within the framework of Russia's territorial expansion eastward, forced Russians to examine their relationships [End Page 335] with the Eastern, Asian world. 4 It is true that European geographers and historians have debated the location of the border between Asia and Europe since the Middle Ages. But before the nineteenth century this ambiguity hardly troubled Russian minds. The Muscovite state of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for example, was well acquainted with cultures and lands to its East, engaging in trade and diplomatic relations with Muslim Tatars and others. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Muscovy was concerned about its position between Eastern and Western countries. 5 Even Peter the Great, whom historians have credited for bringing European customs into Russia, was little concerned with the European/Asian divide in Russian culture. For him the most important geographical question was Russia's place among the northern states, and he was particularly obsessed with Sweden as Russia's primary military rival. 6After Peter's reign, educated Russians, as they became increasingly acquainted with Western European culture, experienced their first pangs of envy and self-doubt in the face of perceived European superiority. Nonetheless, throughout the eighteenth century few cultured Russians had trouble embracing a diverse historical legacy and national character--German, Slavic, Asian. After all, Europeans themselves were proud of their barbarian past. Peter the Great's chief historian, V. N. Tatishchev, wrote with full confidence and little concern that the Russian empire was located "in both Europe and Asia," noting that though more Russian people lived in Europe, Russia had more territory in Asia. In passing he mentioned that "where the border between these two large and most important cultures is located, no one has as yet determined for certain." 7 According to him, the Slavic people as a whole could be divided into Asian and European branches, thus both cultures were of importance in Russian history. 8The first of the great nineteenth-century Russian historians, Nikolai Karamzin, was proud of Russia's diverse heritage. Russia, he wrote, [End Page 336] raising its head between the Asiatic and European kingdoms, represented within its civic life the characteristics of these two parts of the world: a mixture of old Eastern customs, brought by the Slavs into Europe and renewed, so to speak, by our long connection with the Mongols; Byzantine customs borrowed by the Russians along with the Christian religion, and some German customs imparted by the Varangians.... 9This cultural "mixture... (shrink)

Philosophical pragmatism takes human experience as the touchstone of any theorizing. Authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller suggested to transform philosophy into a critical and emancipatory project, turning the quest for truth into a project of creative and responsible world-making. Their basic insight that man is the measure of all things demands for being actively engaged in building a better world. As pragmatism denies objective criteria for critique, listening to a plurality of voices and their experiences becomes crucial. This (...) chapter offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its challenges and prospects. With pointing out problematic assumptions in the work of James and Schiller, the unfinished agenda of their pragmatic humanism becomes visible. (shrink)

The problem sketched here in a non-conformist phenomenological manner concerns the transition from the theory of the self-sufficient individual to the theories of the social character of human being, and to the theoretical possibility to control the social asymmetries opposing to its fulfilment.

Resumo: O estudo objetivou analisar os efeitos de uma proposta de intervenção da área da Psicologia Escolar e Educacional, voltada para a inclusão social e educacional de estudantes com deficiência no contexto universitário. Participaram quatro estudantes (três com deficiência física e um com transtorno do espectro autista), matriculados numa universidade pública brasileira. A coleta de dados ocorreu em três etapas: 1) entrevistas abertas individuais e aplicação de instrumentos; 2) intervenção grupal; 3) entrevistas individuais e reaplicação dos instrumentos. Neste texto, serão (...) destacados os procedimentos qualitativos e suas respectivas análises, iluminando as atuações do profissional da Psicologia como mediador e facilitador, por meio de uma análise crítica dos encontros e análise pelo núcleo de significação dos relatos obtidos nas entrevistas. Pode-se dizer que o programa de intervenção de apoio psicológico se configurou como um local de escuta, acolhimento e voz de estudantes com deficiência na instituição. Conclui-se que a Psicologia Escolar e Educacional pode contribuir para favorecer o empoderamento de estudantes com deficiência, seu desenvolvimento pessoal, social e acadêmico, possibilitando uma participação mais ativa desses sujeitos no Ensino Superior. Palavras-chave: Ensino Superior; Educação Inclusiva. Pessoas com deficiência; Inclusão Social; Psicologia. Psychology and Inclusion: Intervention proposition of students with disability in Higher Education Abstract: This study’s goal was to analyze the effects of an intervention proposition in the area of School and Educational Psychology, aimed at the social and educational inclusion of students with disability in the University context. Four students have participated (three of them with physical disabilities and one with Autistic Spectrum Disorders), enrolled in a Brazilian public university. Data collection occurred in three stages: 1) individual and open interviews and application of instruments; 2) group intervention; 3) individual interviews and reapplication of instruments. In this text, the qualitative procedures are highlighted along with their analysis, elucidating practices from Psychology professionals as mediators and facilitators, by means of critical analysis of the encounters and by the analysis of meaning cores of the accounts obtained during the interviews. It can be said that the intervention program for psychological support became a safe place for sharing, understanding, and as a platform for disabled students to make their voices heard throughout the institution. It was concluded that School and Educational Psychology can contribute to promote the empowerment of disabled students, as well as their personal, social, and academic development, enabling a more active participation of these students in Higher Education. Keywords: Higher Education; Inclusive Education; People with disabilities; Social Inclusion; Psychology. Psicología e Inclusión: Una propuesta de intervención a estudiantes con discapacidad en Educación Superior Resumen: El estudio tuvo como objetivo analizar los efectos de una propuesta de intervención en el área de Psicología Escolar y Educativa, orientada a la inclusión social y educativa de estudiantes con discapacidad en el contexto universitario. Participaron cuatro estudiantes (tres con discapacidad física y uno con trastorno del espectro autista), matriculados en una universidad pública brasileña. La recolección de datos se llevó a cabo en tres etapas: 1) entrevistas abiertas individuales y aplicación de instrumentos; 2) intervención grupal; 3) entrevistas individuales y reaplicación de los instrumentos. En este texto se destacarán los procedimientos cualitativos y sus respectivos análisis, destacando el trabajo del profesional de la psicología como mediador y facilitador, a través de un análisis crítico de los encuentros y análisis por el núcleo de significado de los relatos obtenidos en las entrevistas. Se puede decir que el programa de intervención de apoyo psicológico se configuró como un lugar para escuchar, acoger y hablar a los estudiantes con discapacidad de la institución. Se concluye que la Psicología Escolar y Educativa puede contribuir a favorecer el empoderamiento de los estudiantes con discapacidad, su desarrollo personal, social y académico, posibilitando una participación más activa de estas materias en la Educación Superior. Palabras clave: Educación superior; Educación inclusive; Personas con deficiencia; Inclusión social; Psicología. Data de registro: 30/04/2021 Data de aceite: 16/02/2022. (shrink)

Here is a discussion that deals with storytelling by the teacher for the children, considering their contributions to the development of languages in the early years of lementary school. We assumed as the fact that a recovery of the first contact of children with the texts, which are normally through the oral narratives, potentiates the development of oral, reading and writing in an integrated manner. Therefore, we work with oral language and its importance is often overlooked by most schools. Understand, (...) according to Barthes, Echeverría, Sholles and Kellog, that the narratives are grown in different social groups, especially through the spoken, and is what makes the narrative form is the way to fundamentally discursive for humans formation. Furthermore, we believe, as Andaló, that work with oral narratives allow children, even before being literate, playing the stories and understand them, telling yourself with them and with the world. Most of the experiences we have in working with this approach in the public schools who teach in the towns of Candelaria and Vera Cruz , or in theoretical discussions with students in the Courses of Pedagogy -UNISC, shows that the creation of adequate space in school to playing oral stories is like a trigger mechanism for integrated learning – under the gaze of the multidimensional complexity – of speaking, reading and writing capabilities to understand how action and reflection in the world . That is, supported by authors such as Kaufman and Rodríguez, Gil Neto, Bettelheim, Busatto, Abramovich, Amarilha and Saraiva, we defended the thesis that storytelling enhances the development of oral, to training children as readers and texts producers, inserting them into living a socially desirable.Apresentamos aqui uma discussão que trata da contação de histórias pela professora e pelas crianças, considerando suas contribuições para o desenvolvimento das linguagens nas séries iniciais do Ensino Fundamental. Adotamos como pressuposto o fato de que uma valorização do primeiro contato das crianças com os textos, que normalmente se dá por meio de narrativas orais, potencializa o desenvolvimento da oralidade, leitura e escrita de forma integrada. Por isso, debatemos o trabalho com a linguagem oral e sua importância, muitas vezes negligenciada pela maioria das escolas. Compreendemos, de acordo com Barthes, Echeverría, Sholles e Kellog, que as narrativas são cultivadas nos diversos grupos sociais, specialmente através da oralidade, e é isso que faz com que a narração se constitua em uma forma discursiva básica para a formação dos seres humanos. Além disso, pensamos, conforme Andaló, que o trabalho com narrativas orais permite que as crianças, ainda antes de estarem alfabetizadas, contem e compreendam as histórias e a si mesmas, narrando-se com elas e com o mundo. A maioria das vivências que temos no trabalho com essa abordagem, seja nas escolas públicas em que lecionamos, nos municípios de Candelária e Vera Cruz , seja nos debates teóricos com alunas nos cursos de Pedagogia da Unisc, dão conta de que a criação de espaços adequados na escola para a contação de histórias constitui-se em um mecanismo desencadeador das aprendizagens integradas – sob o olhar multidimensional da complexidade – da expressão oral, da leitura e da escrita, que compreendemos como capacidades de ação e reflexão no mundo . Ou seja, respaldados em autores como Kaufman e Rodríguez, Gil Neto, Bettelheim, Busatto, Abramovich, Amarilha e Saraiva, defendemos a tese de que contar histórias potencializa tanto o desenvolvimento da oralidade quanto a formação das crianças como leitoras e produtoras de textos, inserindo-as em uma convivência social desejável. (shrink)

The author examines the possibility for a rapprochement between Luc Boltanski?s sociology of critique and Bourdieu?s critical sociology of domination by analyzing three subjects within the theoretical opus of Luc Boltanski: the place given to tests in the critical agency of actors, the relation between critique and institutions, and the role the collective plays in the appropriation and distribution of critique. In Boltanski?s works the question of the sense of justice and the critical capacities of actors, that is injustice and (...) its critique, is approached with full respect for the perspectives of the social actors. In his book On Critique the French sociologist writes about domination, or more precisely, the process of domination, but he doesn?t fully answer the question wether and how the capacities of social actors for critique can be realized and elevated to the level of a full-fledged critique of domination. This is considered to be the main condition of the possibility for connecting critical sociology and sociology of critique, so the analysis of the three mentioned topics should 76 determine whether the social actors within the theoretical world of Luc Boltanski are relatively close to the stage of a critique of domination. (shrink)

The paper explores Latour?s conception of political ecology and its theoretical and political implications. The first part of the paper shows Latour?s critique of theoretical frameworks of scientific and political practices, which, in his opinion, constrain a true discussion on ecological crises by simplifying them and putting them into readymade interpretative models. The second part of the paper examines the notions - the collective, representation, propositions, articulation, and parliament of things - central to understanding Latour?s idea of involvement of humans (...) and non-humans in politics. Finally, the paper explores the potentials and constraints of Latour?s idea of political community of new political subjects, which is constituted in controversies and through controversies. (shrink)

This article aims to discuss the contemporary activities and roles that scientific associations play in science and society. It is based on a comprehensive study of scientific associations in Portugal, relying on a multi-method, quantitative and qualitative approach. After a brief review of the literature on associations in the social studies of science, we provide an outline of the expanding field of scientific associations in Portugal. We then proceed to present and discuss the five main roles of associations identified through (...) the research: communication among peers, promotion of research, science dissemination, representation of professional interests and policy advice. We conclude that the external roles of associations have become more important than the internal ones. Whereas the internationalisation of science has moved the communication, collaboration and competition between researchers into the transnational sphere, the links that associations forge between science and other social spheres are still deeply rooted in national settings and much dependant on specific configurations and practices by government, business and other social actors. (shrink)

This paper raises the possibility of a female authorship for the anonymous 14th century work The Cloud of Unknowing, which academics always attribute to a man. It points out four premises: firstly the error of sexual attribution of the authorship of The Mirror of Simple Souls, maintained until 20th century; secondly, the conception of woman by the English mystical male writers Rolle and Hilton, which is not found in the writings attributed to the author of The Cloud; thirdly, the literary, (...) theological and mystical greatness of a English woman writer of 14th century, Julian of Norwich; and, finally, the scholars' considerations about the author (man for them) of The Cloud and its related treatises, which, notwithstanding, could perfectly be attributed to a woman of the fourteenth century in England. So, the conclusion invites to question the male authorship of this masterpiece, perhaps, for the first time. (shrink)

This article deals with the relationship between argumentation and persuasion. It defends the idea that these two concepts are not as opposed as all too often said. If it is important to recognize their differences (there are argumentative discourses without persuasion and persuasive discourses without argumentation), there is nevertheless an overlap, in which characteristics are taken from both. We propose to call this overlap “persuasive argumentation”. In order to bridge argumentation and persuasion, we will first distinguish the latter from manipulation. (...) In the second part of this article, we will analyze four cases of persuasive argumentation: the enthymeme, a few rhetorical figures, narration and visual argumentation. (shrink)

This book advances a 'naturalized' normative theory of deliberative democracy; one that is informed by an empirically-grounded analysis of public deliberation in naturalistic settings and in unadulterated form, and goes on to provide institutional design proposals for how to improve it.

This review essay explores recent historical and anthropological literature on the emergence and development of transcultural psychiatry in the second half of the twentieth century. It examines how postcolonial psychiatry attempted to remove itself from its erstwhile colonial frameworks and strove to introduce new concepts and paradigms to make itself relevant in the context of decolonization and postwar reconstruction. The essay looks at both continuities and discontinuities between colonial and post-colonial transcultural psychiatry, asking how the recent surge of scholarly literature (...) in this field engaged with these issues. It also aims to identify the most important avenues for future research. (shrink)

Classifications are useful and efficient. We group things into kinds to facilitate the acquisition and transmission of important, often tacit, information about a particular entity qua member of some kind. Whilst it is universally acknowledged that classifications are useful, some scientific classifications (e.g. chemical elements) are held to higher epistemic standards than folk classifications (e.g. bugs). Scientific classifications in terms of ‘natural kinds’ are considered to be more reliable and successful because they are highly projectible and support law-like and inductive (...) generalisations. What counts as a natural kind is, however, controversial: according to essentialists (e.g. Putnam, Kripke, Ellis) natural kinds are mind-independent and possess essential characteristics; according to promiscuous realists (e.g. Dupre ) there are ‘countless legitimate, objectively grounded ways of classifying objects in the world’; and according to scientific realists (e.g. Boyd, Psillos) natural kinds are grounded in the ‘causal structure of the world’. More specifically, realism about kinds can be understood as a commitment to the existence of natural divisions (kinds) in the world that we come to know as a result of mature scientific investigation into the nature of such kinds. Realism about natural kinds is supported and articulated in terms of three main arguments, metaphysical, semantical, and epistemological. In the first part of my thesis I offer a sustained and systematic investigation of these three main arguments, with their respective promises and prospects for the viability of realism about kinds and I find them wanting, whilst in the second part of the thesis I pursue an unexplored line of inquiry regarding natural kinds and propose a mild realism about natural kinds via the ontology of real patterns. (shrink)

The ability to use and make technical artifacts has been considered exclusive to human beings. However, recent findings in ethology in light of observations made in nature and in laboratory show the opposite. In the area of philosophy of technology there are few exceptions that take into account the ability of some non-human animals to manufacture and use tools. In this paper I want to show some reasons to reconsider other possibilities. It seems that capacities such as intentionality, culture or (...) even the complexity of the structures of manufactured object are not exclusive to human beings. I will suggest a different way of analyzing objects created by non-human animals, one that tries to explain the gradualness of the structure, but also the plasticity of the behavior exhibited by non-human animals. These two elements allow a deeper understanding of the great variety of objects that other animals also manufacture and use. (shrink)

The ability to use and make technical artifacts has been considered exclusive to human beings. However, recent findings in ethology in light of observations made in nature and in laboratory show the opposite. In the area of philosophy of technology there are few exceptions that take into account the ability of some non-human animals to manufacture and use tools. In this paper I want to show some reasons to reconsider other possibilities. It seems that capacities such as intentionality, culture or (...) even the complexity of the structures of manufactured object are not exclusive to human beings. I will suggest a different way of analyzing objects created by non-human animals, one that tries to explain the gradualness of the structure, but also the plasticity of the behavior exhibited by non-human animals. These two elements allow a deeper understanding of the great variety of objects that other animals also manufacture and use. (shrink)

The 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico included innovative practices and technological knowledge of human biology. The first time that cytogenetic techniques had been applied to athletes was in the 1966 European Athletics Championship in Budapest and used on Olympic athletes for the first time in Mexico in 1968. The Genetics and Human Biology Program was created for this purpose in 1966 in close collaboration with the Local Organizing Committee, by Mexican geneticists Alfonso León de Garay and Rodolfo Félix Estrada who (...) led the project. The main objective was to study the genetic and anthropological components which determine an Olympic athlete’s abilities. This investigation studied 1,265 game participants and included family studies, cytological analyses, research on single genes, and the study of sex determination. In terms of influence beyond Mexico, this Program was significant as a site of transnational collaboration. It mobilized cognitive and financial resources, scientific practices, and material culture to set up a clinical laboratory in the Olympic Village. The Program also hosted three international seminars in Mexico City, two before the games, to calibrate clinical trials and anthropological tests. One in 1969 to analyze the results and proceed to their publication in 1974. This manuscript will focus on the PGBH to show how its work fits in the larger tapestry of post-1945 human biological studies. Also, to explore how the Olympic athlete populations studied can be considered laboratories of knowledge production or sites of cognition conceived as specific entities for scientific inquiry, standardization of medical practices, and the production or application of medicines. Finally, through the narrative of the different trajectories and collaborations of the leaders of the PGBH, this manuscript will show how contact between their scientific practices brought cytogenetics and sports together. (shrink)

The technological solutions adopted during the current pandemic will have a lasting impact on our societies. Currently, COVID-19 health status certificates are being deployed around the world, including in Europe, the United States and China. When combined with identity verification, these digital and paper-based certificates allow individuals to prove their health status by showing recent COVID-19 tests results, full vaccination records or evidence of recovery from COVID-19. Most countries in the Global South, where vaccination rates are low, have not yet (...) fully implemented such certificates, although several initiatives are currently underway. That is, for instance, the case in the African Union. Yet, it is not sufficient to develop technical solutions for the verification of COVID-19 health status. Because technologies do not evolve in a legal vacuum, the existing laws and regulations must be respected. The risks of implementing such technologies must be anticipated and mitigated as much as possible before any large-scale deployment. Risk mitigation should also underpin strategies throughout the deployment of these certificates. This article evaluates the key legal implications of COVID-19 health status certificates for data privacy and human rights. In doing so, it contributes to the current debates, thus informing policymakers in this area of vital national and international interest. (shrink)

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON IMMIGRATION HAVE LARGELY FOCUSED ON mandates to love the stranger and protect human rights. The U.S. and Mexican bishops' pastoral letter "Strangers No Longer" is no different. However, this ethical focus leaves Christians without sufficient theological guidance when seeking to balance concern for immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. This essay examines undocumented immigration to the United States through the lens of the common good, using a contemporary Catholic feminist understanding of the common good. It examines the impact (...) of immigration on this country and makes policy recommendations that are consistent with the common good. Many of the recommendations are consonant with the bishops' recommendations, but one important recommendation missed by the bishops is that efforts to promote a liberal immigration policy must be accompanied by efforts to promote just wages and working conditions for all low-wage U.S. workers. (shrink)

This volume explores the linguistic expression of modality in natural language from a cross-linguistic perspective. Modal expressions provide the basic tools that allow us to dissociate what we say from what is actually going on, allowing us to talk about what might happen or might have happened, as well as what is required, desirable, or permitted. Chapters in the book demonstrate that modality involves many more syntactic categories and levels of syntactic structure than traditionally assumed. The volume distinguishes between three (...) types of modality: 'low modality', which concerns modal interpretations associated with the verbal and nominal cartographies in syntax; 'middle modality', or modal interpretation associated to the syntactic cartography internal to the clause; and 'high modality', relating to the left periphery. It combines cross-linguistic discussions of the more widely-studied sources of modality with analyses of novel or unexpected sources, and shows how the meanings associated with the three types of modality are realized across a wide range of languages. (shrink)

It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine…. The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable.At the turn of the new millennium, concomitant with the development of the evo-devo and eco-devo disciplines (...) within developmental biology, critical appraisals of the reductionist stance of the molecular biology revolution became more numerous and noticeable. Several books and papers address the problems posed by this reductionist agenda and suggest... (shrink)

From an early age, exposure to a spoken language has allowed us to implicitly capture the structure underlying the succession of speech sounds in that language and to segment it into meaningful units. Statistical learning, the ability to pick up patterns in the sensory environment without intention or reinforcement, is thus assumed to play a central role in the acquisition of the rule-governed aspects of language, including the discovery of word boundaries in the continuous acoustic stream. Although extensive evidence has (...) been gathered from artificial languages experiments showing that children and adults are able to track the regularities embedded in the auditory input, as the probability of one syllable to follow another syllable in the speech stream, the developmental trajectory of this ability remains controversial. In this work, we have collected Event-Related Potentials while 5-year-old children and young adults were exposed to a speech stream made of the repetition of eight three-syllable nonsense words presenting different levels of predictability to mimic closely what occurs in natural languages and to get new insights into the changes that the mechanisms underlying auditory statistical learning might undergo through the development. The participants performed the aSL task first under implicit and, subsequently, under explicit conditions to further analyze if children take advantage of previous knowledge of the to-be-learned regularities to enhance SL, as observed with the adult participants. These findings would also contribute to extend our knowledge of the mechanisms available to assist SL at each developmental stage. Although behavioral signs of learning, even under explicit conditions, were only observed for the adult participants, ERP data showed evidence of online segmentation in the brain in both groups, as indexed by modulations in the N100 and N400 components. A detailed analysis of the neural data suggests, however, that adults and children rely on different mechanisms to assist the extraction of word-like units from the continuous speech stream, hence supporting the view that SL with auditory linguistic materials changes through development. (shrink)

Recently, the pandemic context in which the world finds itself has inspired studies that sought to evaluate to mental health and the way people are relating to the purpose of understanding and promoting improvements psychological health. The epidemiological and public health literature shows that social connection protects and promotes mental health, being an important clinical tool for reducing anxiety, depression, and stress. Thinking in the broad sense of connection, that is, feeling and perceiving oneself connected with the environment, applied to (...) the context of sport, it is suggested that social connection could be related to the interactions in the practice of sport. Although playing sports can promote mental health, there are few findings on the topic in the context of a pandemic and with physical sports and electronic sports players. In this sense, the present study aims to assess the extent to which social connection and mental health indicators are correlated in a sample of sports and e-sports players. The participants were 401 Brazilian physical sports and e-sports players, mostly male and single, who filled in the Social Connectedness Scale, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale, and demographic questions. The results indicated that social connection was negatively correlated and also predict the anxiety, depression, and stress. When comparing sports and e-sports players, a statistically significant difference was identified in the levels of social connection [t = −3.41; sportsmean = 4.53 ; e-sportsmean = 4.14 ] and depression [t = 2.90; sportsmean = 1.10 ; e-sportsmean = 0.85 ]. These findings can serve as a theoretical basis for the development of intervention programs and promoting discussions that focus on the analysis of aspects promoting psychological health in sports context. (shrink)

Evidence-based policy-making (EBP) is widely seen as a key instrument for good policy-making. Yet in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the debate on the relation of science and policy-making gained new momentum. The premises of EBP, its narrow understanding of what kind of knowledge counts and how to make decisions, appeared inapt to provide a sound foundation for policy-making under conditions of high complexity and uncertainty. This paper addresses the major shortcomings of EBP and argues for revising its evidentialist (...) framework. First, the idea of evidence itself has to be extended and pluralized by including alternative forms of knowledge. Second, uncertainty has to be taken seriously as a fundamental epistemic condition. To arrive at a more apt model of policy-making, this paper suggests to adopt a pragmatist perspective on the relation of politics, science and the public. This leads to an experimentalist account in the meliorist spirit. Such an account highlights the role of experience, participatory processes and collective learning. Furthermore, and in contrast to scientistic models, it underlines political responsibility and demands to cultivate sensitivity for possible failures and tragic constellations. Finally, a non-evidentialist model of policy advice is outlined. (shrink)