It has been claimed that the ability to remember the past and the ability to project oneself into the future are intimately related. We sought support for this proposition by examining whether individual differences in dimensions that have been shown to affect memory for past events similarly influence the experience of projecting oneself into the future. We found that individuals with a higher capacity for visual imagery experienced more visual and other sensory details both when remembering past events and when (...) imagining future events. In addition, individuals who habitually use suppression to regulate their emotions experienced fewer sensory, contextual, and emotional details when representing both past and future events, while the use of reappraisal had no effect on either kind of events. These findings are consistent with the view that mental time travel into the past and into the future relies on similar mechanisms. (shrink)

Recent findings suggest that multiple event properties contribute to shape the phenomenology of episodic future thoughts, but the specific role of each property is not yet fully understood. This study shows that different phenomenological features are predicted by distinct event properties. The vividness of an episodic future thought largely depends on the familiarity of its constitutive elements , while the visual perspective adopted is instead related to the temporal distance of the imagined event. Cognitive feelings such as the sense of (...) pre-experiencing the future depend on sensory–perceptual qualities, and are further modulated by the personal importance attributed to the event. These findings suggest that the essence of episodic future thought—the sensation of mentally visiting one’s personal future—lies, in part, in the relevance of imagined events with respect to personal goals. (shrink)

We consider three possible reasons why humans might accord a privileged status to emotional information when mentally traveling backward or forward in time. First, mental simulation of emotional situations helps one to make adaptive decisions. Second, it can serve an emotion regulation function. Third, it helps people to construct and maintain a positive view of the self.

Research suggests that states of the body, such as postures, facial expressions, and arm movements, play central roles in social information processing. This study investigated the effects of approach/avoidance movements on memory for facial information. Faces displaying a happy or a sad expression were presented and participants were induced to perform either an approach (arm flexion) or an avoidance (arm extension) movement. States of awareness associated with memory for facial identity and memory for facial expression were then assessed with the (...) Remember/Know/Guess paradigm. The results showed that performing avoidance movements increased Know responses for the identity, and Know/Guess responses for the expression, of valence-compatible stimuli (i.e., sad faces as compared to happy faces), whereas this was not the case for approach movements. Based on these findings, it is suggested that approach/avoidance motor actions influence memory encoding by increasing the ease of processing for valence-compatible information. (shrink)

This study examined narrative identity in a group of 81 patients with schizophrenia and 50 healthy controls through the recall of self-defining memories. The results indicated that patients’ narratives were less coherent and elaborate than those of controls. Schizophrenia patients were severely impaired in the ability to make connections with the self and extract meaning from their memories, which significantly correlated with illness duration. In agreement with earlier research, patients exhibited an early reminiscence bump. Moreover, the period of the reminiscence (...) bump, which is highly relevant for identity development, was characterized by fewer achievements and more life-threatening event experiences, compared with controls. A negative correlation was found between negative symptoms, number of self-event connections and specificity of narratives. Our results suggest that schizophrenia patients have difficulties to organize and extract meaning from their past experiences in order to create coherent personal narratives. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that the content and frequency of mind-wandering episodes—the occurrence of thoughts that are both stimulus-independent and task-unrelated—are closely related to an individual’s future-related concerns. Whether this relationship is shaped by the affective changes that are usually associated with future-related concerns still remains unclear, however. In this study, we induced the anticipation of a negatively valenced event and examined whether the ensuing affective changes were related to the occurrence and content of mind-wandering during an unrelated attentional task. (...) We found that the increase in negative affect following concern induction predicted the general frequency of mind-wandering episodes. Furthermore, mind-wandering episodes specifically directed at the induced concern were related to a lower decrease in negative affect during the attentional task. These results suggest that the negative emotional impact of future-related concerns is an important factor to be taken into consideration for the subsequent occurrence of mind-wandering episodes, which might in turn be involved in the maintenance of negative affect over time. (shrink)

Franz Brentano’s works are not just full of deep and innovative insights into mind, world and values. His views also turned out to be highly influential upon several generations of students, who made them the basis of their own philosophical investigations, giving rise to what is known as the Brentano School (Albertazzi et al. 1996; Fisette & Fréchette 2007). In this chapter, I give a bird’s eye view of the Brentano School from a rather historical perspective. My leading hypothesis is (...) that one crucial factor explaining the rise of the school is Brentano’s unique strategy, within the academic context of the time, to promote the revival of philosophy as a rigorous science. After a brief introduction, I reconstruct the three main phases in the school’s development, namely Brentano’s teaching in Würzburg (1866-73), his teaching in Vienna (1874-95), and Anton Marty’s teaching in Prague (1880-1913). (shrink)

As humans, we frequently engage in mental time travel, reliving past experiences and imagining possible future events. This study examined whether similar factors affect the subjective experience associated with remembering the past and imagining the future. Participants mentally “re-experienced” or “pre-experienced” positive and negative events that differed in their temporal distance from the present , and then rated the phenomenal characteristics associated with their representations. For both past and future, representations of positive events were associated with a greater feeling of (...) re-experiencing than representations of negative events. In addition, representations of temporally close events contained more sensorial and contextual details, and generated a stronger feeling of re-experiencing than representations of temporally distant events. It is suggested that the way we both remember our past and imagine our future is constrained by our current goals. (shrink)

This paper explores an adverbial account of introspection that contrasts with both acquaintance and rationality theories of introspection. The bulk of the account consists of the following claim: for any subject S, mental state M, and object O, S introspects M if S is aware of O through M with a view to determining the character of M. This claim is fleshed out by drawing on considerations offered by early analytic British philosophers (namely: Alexander, Stout, Hicks).

It seems uncontroversial that perceptual experiences provide us with some “normative support” for beliefs or judgments about our surroundings. Provided that the normative force of perceptual justification is something that manifests itself in consciousness or something we commonly experience, what are its phenomenal features? To put it differently: What is it to experience the normative force of perceptual justification? In the first section I will briefly comment on the demand of a unified theory of perceptual experiences, viz. a theory which (...) is capable of integrating relevant epistemological and phenomenological aspects of perceptual experiences. In section two I will argue for a way of connecting the epistemological problem and the phenomenological problem by appealing to a compare-and-contrast strategy. Eventually, in section three, I will try to draw some lessons for our understanding of the normative force of perceptual justification. (shrink)

Résumé À première vue, les idées morales de l’abbé de Condillac (1714-1780) – et contrairement à celles de son frère Mably – ne doivent pas être comptées au rang de ses succès. Sans postérité apparente, elles ont surtout souffert d’un étonnant manque de notoriété dès le siècle des Lumières et ce jusqu’à nos jours. Aucun des grands commentateurs, contemporains ou plus anciens, de la pensée du philosophe ne s’y est arrêté avant que deux thèses de doctorat récentes ne viennent remettre (...) en cause cet état de fait. Leurs interprétations des idées morales de Condillac sont cependant assez divergentes. La première s’appuie principalement sur l’ Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines (1746) et conclut à une forme particulière de morale déontologique. Celle-ci s’appuierait sur la connaissance du principe de conservation de soi, limitatif de la volonté et créateur de devoirs, au travers du langage articulé des êtres humains. La seconde, s’appuyant sur le rôle des besoins et le « calcul des plaisirs et des peines », tente d’inscrire la morale condillacienne dans une optique plutôt utilitariste. Cet article s’inscrit clairement dans cette seconde perspective. Il s’attachera d’abord à présenter en quoi les principes de l’association humaine (de « l’état de nature » au « contrat ») et de la morale sont chez Condillac le résultat de la nécessité de « se conserver », cette dernière notion devant être entendu au sens large de la satisfaction de tous les besoins de l’homme social. Nous verrons ensuite comment Condillac propose un véritable « calcul moral » qui conduit les individus à agir vertueusement tout en n’ayant pour objet que leur intérêt propre. Enfin, la conclusion inscrira cette théorie morale au carrefour des conceptions de Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui et celles des utilitaristes français de la seconde moitié du xviii e siècle, les idées de Condillac constituant finalement un pas supplémentaire, par rapport au droit naturel, vers une morale conséquentialiste. (shrink)

The interventionist account of causation offers a criterion to distinguish causes from non-causes. It also aims at defining various desirable properties of causal relationships, such as specificity, proportionality and stability. Here we apply an information-theoretic approach to these properties. We show that the interventionist criterion of causation is formally equivalent to non-zero specificity, and that there are natural, information-theoretic ways to explicate the distinction between potential and actual causal influence. We explicate the idea that the description of causes should be (...) proportional to that of their effects. Then we draw a distinction between two ideas in the existing literature, the range of invariance of a causal relationship and its stability. The range of invariance is related to specificity and range of causal values. Stability concerns the effect of additional variables on the relationship between some focal pair of cause and effect variables. We show how to distinguish and measure the direct influence of background variables on the effect variable, and their influence on the relationship between the focal cause and the effect variable. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the information-theoretic approach, and offer prospects for complementary approaches. (shrink)

La reunión de los textos que componen esta obra les confiere un significado propio que contribuye a permitir una mejor comprensión de la globalización gracias a la realización de una serie de aproximaciones críticas que competen a formaciones disciplinarias diversas y complementarias como la historia, la filosofía y la sociología. El profesor Arnaud insite aquí en la revolución que la globalización engendra en la producción y en la implementación de la norma jurídica, siendo ésta última la razón principal por (...) la cual no puede ni debe ignorarla el jurista. (shrink)

Les philosophes ne rient pas, ou pas souvent. Le sage ne rit qu'en tremblant, dit le proverbe. Non ridere, sed intelligere ; il ne faut pas rire, mais comprendre, écrivait Spinoza. Les rares moments où les philosophes «lâchent prise» et se laissent aller à la plaisanterie sont d'autant plus intéressants. En voici quelques-uns. Ce livre ne vise pas à l'exhaustivité. Il n'a qu'une ambition : celle d'instruire en amusant.

En expliquant comment les forces de l’ordre se dotent d’uniformes spécifiques au cours du xixe siècle, il s’agit de comprendre la signification de cet objet. Au-delà de l’utilité pratique du costume, qui peut faire débat, policiers et gendarmes affichent une prestance militaire qui renforce leur prestige. Mais ils montrent aussi qu’ils travaillent en toute transparence, en assumant leurs actes et en se plaçant au service du public. Ils prouvent enfin leur valeur en engageant des dépenses vestimentaires qui deviennent un gage (...) de respectabilité. S’il constitue un enjeu symbolique fort, l’uniforme évolue dans le sens d’une plus grande simplicité fonctionnelle au cours du xixe siècle, s’adaptant dans une certaine mesure à la mode masculine. (shrink)

Le " troisième homme " de la primaire socialiste compte bien peser dans le sprint final à l'élection présidentielle. Il n'a pas fini de faire parler de lui... Mais à quoi peut bien encore servir la politique? Jamais la démocratie n'a été aussi solidement installée et, en même temps, jamais elle n'a été autant menacée par le vide, l'impuissance ou l'abus de pouvoir. Le politique a-t-il encore la main? Le rouleau-compresseur des marchés a-t-il eu raison de sa superbe? L'archaïsme des (...) institutions n'a-t-il pas réduit la démocratie française à un théâtre d'ombres? Les multiples filtres qui s'intercalent entre la sphère politique et le peuple ont-ils vidé le fait politique de son sens, laissant derrière lui des résignés et une société en forme de cocotte-minute? Et pourtant, si notre démocratie ne cesse de se dévorer elle-même, elle se régénère toujours. En effet, le politique est là, comme une braise sous les cendres, prêt à renaître, prêt à écrire encore quelques belles pages de l'histoire de France. C'est comme une étincelle à côté d'un baril de poudre, car il suffit de peu. Quand le voisin de classe de votre enfant est arrêté sans ménagement à la sortie de l'école, avec ses parents parce qu'ils sont sans-papier, voilà que vous vous mobilisez dans des comités de soutien, que vous faites le tour des élus, que vous interpellez le préfet et que vous organisez des manifs! Vous, parent d'élève tranquille qui n'avez jamais eu le moindre intérêt pour la cause des sans-papier! Là est le paradoxe du politique, à la fois décevant, incontournable et enthousiasmant quand la cause s'y prête. Alors, dans ce contexte, comment faire pour changer la vie? Comment débusquer le prêt-à penser politique? A qui s'adresse aujourd'hui la politique? Comment réenchanter ceux qui ne le sont plus? Où mener le combat politique qui est aussi un combat culturel? Quelles vieilles certitudes faut-il déboulonner? Qu'est-ce que l'on a encore à se dire dans notre société et comment la faire tenir ensemble? Toutes ces questions sont au coeur de cet antimanuel politique qui entend prendre à contrepied les stratèges cyniques, les barons inamovibles, les communicants qui pensent le politique comme une publicité, les ambitieux qui veulent la place à tous prix, les résignés qui méprisent tout... Et pourtant, la stratégie, la communication ou l'ambition sont nécessaires à tout projet politique. Arnaud Montebourg ne décerne ni les bons ni les mauvais points comme le maître d'école, mais prend une distance critique sur la politique, sublime et misérable, et sur le politique, omniprésent et invisible. (shrink)

Despite epistemological and ideological obstacles, the reasons of which are briefly recalled in this article, the relationship between law and religion in the medieval West has been extensively explored, notably through studies devoted to canon law, ecclesiastical procedures and legal qualifications. Yet the boundaries, contact zones and connections between these two “regimes of normativity” and “veridiction” have been left in the dark. This paper does not claim to encompass all the aspects of such a titanic investigation. Instead, it intends to (...) point out some of the problems that arise as soon as one approaches (as a historian) the relations that the Catholic Church – that established the Christian religion – has maintained with the law, and to indicate the paths currently explored in this direction. (shrink)

If European metropolises witnessed the development, throughout the 19th century, of various forms of concentrationary assistance and radical isolation through penal colonies, colonial space was the site of an even more explicit formulation and experimentation with the creation and the exclusion of of an undesirable human surplus, notably in South Asia, where the social system of castes could provide powerful ideological foundations for the colonial thinking on exclusion. This article seeks to illustrate this by examining the creation of the category (...) of « criminal tribes » in India, during the last third of the 19th century. (shrink)

The canonists’ determination of the sphere of sanction provides an insight into the foundations of ecclesiastical tolerance. There is indeed an ecclesiastical tolerance that leads the magisterium to limit the scope of penal normativity for theological and pastoral reasons. The distinction between sin and crime, well known to canonists, is justified less by recourse to decretals or decisions of councils than by a return to the discourses of the Church Fathers. The definition of the notion of crime in canon law (...) and beyond owes a debt to Augustine’s meditation on the Donatist quarrel: according to this approach, it is a question of tolerating the tares. (shrink)

According to some authors, emotions can be unconscious when they are unfelt or unnoticed. According to others, emotions are always conscious because they always have a phenomenology. The aim of this paper is to resolve the ongoing debate about the possibility for emotions to be unfelt. To do so, I focus on the notion of “unconscious emotions”. While this notion appears paradoxical, by way of a distinction between two meanings of emotional consciousness I show that it is not so. These (...) meanings are both compatible with the leading views of consciousness and they do not require one to distinguish different senses of “emotions” or “consciousness”. This distinction is helpful to define how emotions can be unconscious. (shrink)

In this paper, we apply the perspective of intra-organismal ecology by investigating a family of ecological models suitable to describe a gene therapy to a particular metabolic disorder, the adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA-SCID). The gene therapy is modeled as the prospective ecological invasion of an organ (here, bone marrow) by genetically modified stem cells, which then operate niche construction in the cellular environment by releasing an enzyme they synthesize. We show that depending on the chosen order (a choice that cannot (...) be made on \textit{a priori} assumptions), different kinds of dynamics are expected, possibly leading to different therapeutic strategies. This drives us to discuss several features of the extension of ecology to intra-organismal ecology. (shrink)

Unleashed expressions for cooperation are mainly based on the expected perceptual effects of behaviours and not the behaviours themselves. From an evolutionary viewpoint, this goal-directed mechanism allows for a comprehensive story for the theory proposed by Heintz & Scott-Phillips. Over the past 2 million years, this situated mechanism has been reused for tool use and the language development for hominids.

Au tout début des années 1990, Annie Sprinkle présente, à l’Harmony Theater de New York, sa performance la plus célèbre A Public Cervix Announcement dans laquelle elle invite le public à observer son col de l’utérus. Prônant la réappropriation féministe du sexe féminin, cette performance subvertit les codes andro et hétérocentrés de l’iconographie pornographique. Cet article montre de quelle manière les images de sexualité mises en scène dans cette performance contribuent, dans le sillage des démarches pro-sexe et post-porn, à élaborer (...) de nouvelles monstrations des corps et des sexualités minorisés. (shrink)

In this commentary, I propose that horizontal and vertical dimensions of space are represented together inside a common metrics mechanism located in the parietal cortex. Importantly, this network is also involved in the processing of number magnitudes and environment-directed actions. Altogether, the evidence suggests that different magnitude dimensions could be intertwined with the horizontality and verticality of our world representation.

The Corporate Social Performance (CSP) model (Wood, Acad Manag Rev 164:691–718, 1991) assesses a firm’s social responsibility at three levels of analysis—institutional, organizational and individual—and measures the resulting social outcomes. In this paper, we focus on the individual level of CSP, manifested in the managerial discretion of a firm’s principles, processes, and policies regarding social responsibilities. Specifically, we address the human resources management of employees as a way of promoting CSR values and producing socially minded outcomes. We show that applying (...) the humanist philosophy to the managerial discretion of a business organization leads to the creation of an “autonomy supportive work environment”—as defined by the self-determination theory—which in turn, facilitates the internalization of social values, citizenship behaviors, and cooperation. The objective of promoting self-determination at work (i.e., the core of a humanist management) fits well with the ontology of social responsibility since autonomy and consideration of individuals as moral actors are central tenets. Furthermore, we show that applying humanistic management philosophy to the discretion of managers can lead to socially responsible outcomes. First, intra-organizational stakeholders (e.g., employees) are treated with respect and focus is put on their well-being, satisfaction, and self-actualization at work. Second, as employees’ need of self-determination is addressed by managers, it is likely that pro-social behaviors toward other stakeholders of the organization will be adopted, leading to socially responsible outcomes for extra-organizational stakeholders (Gagné, Motiv Emot 77:58–75, 2003). Thus, this paper ultimately posits that humanistic management applied to the HRM can be a solution for developing and maintaining socially responsible outcomes as determined at the individual level of the CSP model, through managerial discretion. (shrink)

Several authors have argued that causes differ in the degree to which they are ‘specific’ to their effects. Woodward has used this idea to enrich his influential interventionist theory of causal explanation. Here we propose a way to measure causal specificity using tools from information theory. We show that the specificity of a causal variable is not well-defined without a probability distribution over the states of that variable. We demonstrate the tractability and interest of our proposed measure by measuring the (...) specificity of coding DNA and other factors in a simple model of the production of mRNA. (shrink)