As Macnamara (1978) once asked, how can we talk about what we see? We report on a study manipulating realistic dynamic scenes and sentences aiming to understand the interaction between linguistic and visual representations in real-world situations. Specifically, we monitored participants’ eye movements as they watched video clips of everyday scenes while listening to sentences describing these scenes. We manipulated two main variables. The first was the semantic class of the verb in the sentence and the second was the action/motion (...) of the agent in the unfolding event. The sentences employed two verb classes—causatives (e.g., break) and perception/psychological (e.g., notice)—which impose different constraints on the nouns that serve as their grammatical complements. The scenes depicted events in which agents either moved towards a target object (always the referent of the verb-complement noun), away from it, or remained neutral performing a given activity (such as cooking). Scenes and sentences were synchronized such that the verb onset corresponded to the first video frame of the agent motion towards or away from the object. Results show effects of agent motion but weak verb-semantic restrictions: causatives draw more attention to potential referents of their grammatical complements than perception verbs only when the agent moves towards the target object. Crucially, we found no anticipatory verb-driven eye movements toward the target object, contrary to studies using non-naturalistic and static scenes. We propose a model in which linguistic and visual computations in real-world situations occur largely independent of each other during the early moments of perceptual input, but rapidly interact at a central, conceptual system using a common, propositional code. Implications for language use in real world contexts are discussed. (shrink)

This issue of Business & Society contains the transcripts of 12 oral history interviews with founders of and early contributors to the business and society/social issues in management field. The publication of these interviews is the culmination of a very long-term project, with the first interview having been conducted in 1993 with Lee Preston and the most recent interview having been conducted in 2011 with Jim Post. This project has been very much of a team effort with Sandra Waddock, John (...) Steiner, Mary Mallott, Ariane Berthoin Antal, and, of course, our interviewees all playing important roles. (shrink)

Growing concern has been expressed that we have entered a “post-truth” era in which each of us willfully believes whatever we choose, aided and abetted by alternative and social media that spin alternative realities for boutique consumption. A prime example of the belief in alternative realities is said to be acceptance of “conspiracy theories”—a term that is often used as a pejorative to indict claims of conspiracy that are so obviously absurd that only the unhinged could believe them. The epistemological (...) standard often involved in this indictment, however—the standard of “obvious” falsity—invites subjectivity in its application, because what is obviously false to one person can be common sense to another. This is not just a truism; considerable research suggests that people’s political beliefs, in general, and their acceptance or rejection of conspiracy theories in particular, tends in large part to be determined by partisan, ideological, and other priors. (shrink)

It is now possible to have a child without sexual intercourse. The history of this apparently new statement has been breefly synthetised.The new perspectives open ethical problems for the scientific community and a new social context for single women.

Argues that there can be interaction without breaking physical laws: e.g. by basic psychic forces, or by varying physical constants, or especially by arranging fractal trees of physical causation leading to behavior.

Le christianisme est, au-delà de la philosophie, une religion philosophique où l'homme tout entier se retrouve. Écartelés entre l'idée du Dieu vivant, qui est constitutive de la pensée et l'agonie de Dieu qui se laisse déchiffrer dans ce mélange de sens et de non-sens qu'on appelle l'expérience, se trouvent cette passion et ce devoir dont nous avons assez dit qu'ils étaient l'homme même. Lorsque la philosophie tente de résoudre le problème du mal en acceptant le risque de l'échec absolu, elle (...) ne trouve pas de solution mais elle rencontre l'homme, l'homme nu au-delà du mythe, l'homme seul en deçà de Dieu, l'homme naturellement prométhéen et chrétien, à qui il n'est pas interdit de trouver dans l'espérance le sens de son existence, c'est-à-dire de sa passion. (shrink)

The thought that empathy plays an important role in moral motivation is almost a platitude of contemporary folk psychology. Parallel themes were mooted in German moral philosophy and aesthetics in the 1700s, and versions of the empathy construct remained prominent in continental accounts of moral motivation through the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. This chapter elucidates the Empathic Motivation Hypothesis (EMH) and sets out some of the conceptual and empirical challenges it faces. It distinguishes empathic concern from other dimensions (...) of empathy (e.g., resonance, attunement, distress, and non-empathic concern) and examines the merits of EMH as a developmental thesis, focusing on evidence from psychopathology and attachment theory. (shrink)

This original and lively book explores Greek ideas about health and disease and their influence on Greek thought. Fundamental issues such as causation and responsibility, purification and pollution, mind-body relations and gender differences, authority and the expert and who can challenge them, reality and appearances, good government, happiness, and good and evil themselves are deeply implicated. Using the evidence not just from Greek medical theory and practice but also from epic, lyric, tragedy, historiography, philosophy, and religion, G. E. R. Lloyd (...) offers the first comprehensive account of the influence of Greek thought about health and disease on the Greek imagination. (shrink)

The main scientific problems of chemical bonding were solved half a century ago, but adequate philosophical understanding of chemical combination is yet to be achieved. Chemists routinely use important terms ("element," "atom," "molecule," "substance") with more than one meaning. This can lead to misunderstandings. Eliminativists claim that what seems to be a baseball breaking a window is merely the action of "atoms, acting in concert." They argue that statues, baseballs, and similar macroscopic things "do not exist." When macroscopic objects like (...) baseballs move, exceedingly large numbers (1025) of microscopic components coordinate their activities. Understanding how this happens requires attention to the interactions that link parts into larger units. Eliminativists say that everything that truly exists has causal relationships in addition to those of its components—"nonredundant causality." This paper holds that if a number of entities interact in such a way that the effect of that collection on test objects is different than it would have been in the absence of the interaction, then identification of that collection as a single composite agent is warranted, for purposes to which that difference is relevant. Ordinary "chemical substances" (both elementary materials such as dihydrogen and compounds such as water) fulfill this version of the requirement of nonredundant causality. Other sorts of chemical coherences, including chemical dissipative structures (e.g., flames), also fulfill that criterion. All these types of coherences qualify as "substances" (as that term is used in philosophy) even though they are not all "chemical substances.". (shrink)

This review shows the various tools used to implemente the food quality system in food establishments. Presenting the various laws that subsidize this process, establishing criteria and instrumentes for a correct implementation of the quality system in order to offer adequate hygiene processes in the production of safe food, in addition to favoring the maintenance of companies in the consumer market. The implementation of food safety management systems such as Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) e Hazard Analysis (...) and Critical Control Points (HACCP), in order to guarantee the safety of the food served and portray the organization of the company. It is essential to implement these systems ensuring the quality of the servisse (planning, control and improvement). In order to achieve healthy criteria related to foodstuffs, it is necessary to implement quality programs as prerequisites of the Hazard Analysis System and Critical Control Points in food services. Regulating and inspecting are just a few points that guarantee food security, since food that does not pose a health hazard to consumers is considered safe. (shrink)

The concept of corporate social responsibility is a relatively recent addition to the agenda in Germany, although the country has a long history of companies practicing social responsibilities. The expectations of society had remained stable for many years, encapsulated in laws, societal norms, and industrial relations agreements. But the past decade has seen significant changes in Germany, challenging established ways of treating the role of business in society. This contribution reviews and illustrates the development of diverse forms of social responsibility (...) in German corporations and analyzes how actors in business and society can build on traditional strengths to find new institutional arrangements for sharing tasks and responsibilities in the interests of achieving a better balance between societal, economic, and environmental needs. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to explore how nurses perceive patient participations of patients over 75 years old undergoing hemodialysis treatment in dialysis units, and of their next of kin. Ten nurses told stories about what happened in the dialysis units. These stories were analyzed with critical discourse analysis. Three discursive practices are found: (1) the nurses’ power and control; (2) sharing power with the patient; and (3) transferring power to the next of kin. The first and the predominant (...) discursive practice can be explained with an ideology of paternalism, in which the nurses used biomedical explanations and the ethical principle of benefice to justify their actions. The second can be explained with an ideology of participation, in which the nurses used ethical narratives as a way to let the patients participate in the treatment. The third seemed to involve autonomous decision-making and the ethical principle of autonomy for the next of kin in the difficult end-of-life decisions. (shrink)