Petit philosophy is an experimental project, conducted in the private elementary school Nova in Zadar, Croatia, aimed at introducing philosophy to children in the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. In this program we make use of children’s stories and games, but the program itself does not differ essentially from other philosophy programs for children in so far as it makes use of discussions, questions, arguments and counterarguments. This article offers the complete syllabus of our program for one school year, (...) together with an example of a preparation for one specific school hour. (shrink)

Au cours des quatre derniers siècles, les projets de pacification permanente de l’Europe, ou du monde entier, ont constitué un véritable genre littéraire. À un premier niveau, le plus superficiel, le livre offre une vue panoramique de ces projets, depuis le « Grand Dessein » attribué à Henri IV jusqu’à la Charte de l’ONU, en passant par les propositions de William Penn, de l’abbé de Saint-Pierre, d’Emmanuel Kant, du comte de Saint-Simon et de tant d’autres, célèbres, moins connus ou oubliés. (...) De règle, ces auteurs sont qualifiés, non sans condescendance, d’utopistes : à un deuxième niveau, le livre est une critique de cet usage paresseux, et les traite comme membres de la famille des réformateurs radicaux. Ayant dressé, chacun à son époque, un réquisitoire sans indulgence contre l’état existant des rapports entre les nations, ils en proposent une réorganisation profonde. Ennemis de l’ordre international établi - un désordre intolérable à leurs yeux -, ils se font les architectes d’un monde nouveau, le meilleur des mondes possibles, dont ils précisent le mode de construction. Si différents soient-ils, leurs écrits se prêtent à être classifiés en un petit nombre de catégories : à un troisième niveau, le livre est un essai typologique. Il suggère une conceptualisation du « système international parfait » qui comporte cinq grands modèles et permet donc de répartir l’ensemble des auteurs passés en revue dans cinq traditions intellectuelles, dont la plus récente est longue de deux siècles et la plus ancienne de sept. (shrink)

Le premier tractatus du commentaire d'Albert le Grand à l'Isagoge de Porphyre consiste en une manière de proème ou d'introduction à l'ensemble de la logique. Comme la plupart des textes d'Albert le Grand, ce traité est d'une très grande richesse, qu'atténuent toutefois son manque d'ordre et son obscurité d'expression. Étant donné que les aspects fondamentaux de la logique y sont touchés—son statut scientifique et philosophique, son utilité, son sujet, sa division, sa relation aux sciences du langage, etc.—, ce petit (...) ouvrage est du plus haut intérêt pour quiconque cherche à mieux comprendre la logique et la philosophie de la logique du XIIIe siècle. L'auteur présente ici une traduction annotée et expliquée de ce texte difficile, faite d'après la version provisoire de la nouvelle édition de Cologne. Le relevé des sources principales de l'ouvrage révèle, sur un fond aristotélicien permanent, une forte influence des traités logiques arabes nouvellement arrivés en Occident. Pour des exemples de ces auteurs contemporains, voir Lafleur ( 1988, p. 182, l.37–44, p. 321, l.284–294). The first tractatus of Albert the Great's commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge consists of a kind of proem or introduction to the whole of logic. As most of Albert the Great's texts, this tract is of great richness, though it lacks order and is sometimes obscure. Since the fundamental themes of logic are addressed therein—its scientific and philosophical status, its utility, its subject, its division, its relation to the linguistic arts, etc.—, this small work is of high interest for anyone trying to better understand thirteenth-century logic and philosophy of logic. The author presents a translation of this difficult text, made after a preliminary version of the new critical edition and enriched with an introduction and explanatory notes. The survey of the main sources of the tract reveals, apart from a permanent artistotelian background, the strong influence of the Arabic logical treatises which were then coming in the Western world. (shrink)

Le premier tractatus du commentaire d'Albert le Grand à l'Isagoge de Porphyre consiste en une manière de proème ou d'introduction à l'ensemble de la logique. Comme la plupart des textes d'Albert le Grand, ce traité est d'une très grande richesse, qu'atténuent toutefois son manque d'ordre et son obscurité d'expression. Étant donné que les aspects fondamentaux de la logique y sont touchés—son statut scientifique et philosophique, son utilité, son sujet, sa division, sa relation aux sciences du langage, etc.—, ce petit (...) ouvrage est du plus haut intérêt pour quiconque cherche à mieux comprendre la logique et la philosophie de la logique du XIIIe siècle. L'auteur présente ici une traduction annotée et expliquée de ce texte difficile, faite d'après la version provisoire de la nouvelle édition de Cologne. Le relevé des sources principales de l'ouvrage révèle, sur un fond aristotélicien permanent, une forte influence des traités logiques arabes nouvellement arrivés en Occident. The first tractatus of Albert the Great's commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge consists of a kind of proem or introduction to the whole of logic. As most of Albert the Great's texts, this tract is of great richness, though it lacks order and is sometimes obscure. Since the fundamental themes of logic are addressed therein—its scientific and philosophical status, its utility, its subject, its division, its relation to the linguistic arts, etc.—, this small work is of high interest for anyone trying to better understand thirteenth-century logic and philosophy of logic. The author presents a translation of this difficult text, made after a preliminary version of the new critical edition and enriched with an introduction and explanatory notes. The survey of the main sources of the tract reveals, apart from a permanent artistotelian background, the strong influence of the Arabic logical treatises which were then coming in the Western world. (shrink)

Through the Erasmus+ Program, in Key Activity 2 – “Strategic Partnerships in Education and Training” – association for promotion of non-formal education, critical thinking and philosophy in practice “Petit Philosophy” has implemented or is implementing seven projects closely related to ethical education. The characteristics of these projects are that they are directed to ethical education in kindergartens and primary and secondary schools. Partners of “Petit Philosophy” in these projects were/are universities, primary and secondary schools, kindergartens, associations and institutions (...) from thirteen countries. Project “ETHOS: Ethical Education in Primary and Pre-primary Schools for a Sustainable and Dialogic Future” is one of the first of these projects. ETHOS was successfully implemented under the Comenius Program from 2012–2014, and afterwards, projects under the Erasmus+ KA2 followed: ETHIKA – Ethics and Values Education in Schools and Kindergartens, LITTLE – Learning Together to Live Together: Teachers Leading Ethical Education for an Inclusive Society, AVAL – Added Value Learning for Preschool Teachers & Pedagogical Coordinators, COMET – A Community of Ethics Teachers in Europe, Integrating Ethics of Sport in Secondary School Curriculum, BEAGLE – Bioethical Education and Attitude Guidance for Living Environment and TRACE – Traditional Children’s Stories for a Common Future. In this article, we will briefly present the projects’ activities, with particular emphasis on materials created for educators, teachers, and students. Kroz program Erasmus+, u Ključnoj aktivnosti 2 – “Strateška partnerstva u području obrazovanja i osposobljavanja ” – Udruga “Mala filozofija” provela je ili upravo provodi ukupno sedam projekata koji su usko vezani uz etičko obrazovanje. Tu valja pridodati i projekt “ETHOS: Ethical Education in Primary and Pre-Primary Schools for a Sustainable and Dialogic Future”, koji je uspješno proveden pod programom Comenius od 2012. do 2014. godine. Karakteristika je ovih projekata usmjerenost na obrazovanje u vrtićima te osnovnim i srednjim školama. Uz “Malu filozofiju”, u projektima sudjeluju sveučilišta, osnovne i srednje škole, vrtići, udruge i institucije iz trinaest zemalja. Navedeni Erasmus+ KA2 projekti su: ETHIKA – Ethics and Values Education in Schools and Kindergartens, LITTLE – Learning Together to Live Together: Teachers Leading Ethical Education for an Inclusive Society, AVAL – Added Value Learning for Preschool Teachers & Pedagogical Coordinators, COMET – A Community of Ethics Teachers in Europe, Integrating Ethics of Sport in Secondary School Curriculum, BEAGLE – Bioethical Education and Attitude Guidance for Living Environment, TRACE – Traditional Children’s Stories for a Common Future. U članku ćemo ukratko prikazati projektne aktivnosti u navedenim projektima, s posebnim naglaskom na materijale koji su namijenjeni odgajateljima, nastavnicima i učenicima. (shrink)

Udruga Mala filozofija kreirala je i provela projekt »Tko se boji korupcije još?!« u dvanaest škola i dvije knjižnice, s ukupno 122 učenika u školskoj godini 2010./2011. Projekt se sastojao od pet radionica u kojima se s učenicima raspravljalo o korupciji. Cilj je bio prvenstveno razjašnjenje pojma korupcije, ali i ukazivanje na razne načine na koje korupcija uništava neke temeljne vrijednosti poput dostojanstva, ljubavi, prijateljstva, obitelji i društva. Članak donosi evaluacijske rezultate u kojima se pokazuje koliko su učenici 3. i (...) 4. razreda osnovne škole razumjeli pojam korupcije te koliko su promijenili svoje stavove tijekom provođenja projekta.Society Petit Philosophy has created and implemented a project “Who’s Afraid of Corruption?!” in twelve elementary schools and two libraries, with a total of 122 students in the school year 2010/2011. The project consists of five workshops in which students primarily clarified the concept of corruption, but also the ways in which corruption is destroying the society, dignity, love, friendship, and family. Article presents the results of the evaluation, which show how 3rd and 4th graders understood the concept of corruption, and how they changed their views about corruption in the course of the project. (shrink)

Le constat d’une justice civile encombrée, associé à la volonté politique de moderniser la justice, donne aujourd’hui un nouvel élan à la médiation. Cette volonté d’encourager le justiciable à régler ses litiges à l’ombre du juge n’est pourtant pas nouvelle. Ce qui l’est en revanche, c’est son caractère obligatoire pour les litiges qualifiés de « petits » mais aussi sa mise en œuvre par des plateformes en ligne. Dans ce contexte, l’analyse économique de la médiation permet d’apporter un éclairage original, (...) parfois surprenant, à la fois sur l’apport du médiateur dans la négociation (en termes de correction des biais cognitifs, de tempérance, de transmission d’information, de partialité) et sur la pertinence pour un Etat d’encourager ce mode de résolution alternatif des litiges (capacité à pouvoir refuser, coût effectif, timing optimal, contraindre ou encourager). Les quelques statistiques disponibles confortent l’efficacité de ce dispositif, tant en termes de taux de résolution amiable que d’économie de coûts réalisée. (shrink)

El antropocentrismo determina nuestra percepción sobre el mundo y nuestra relación con él, teniendo un efecto material en tanto que impregna nuestros discursos, pensamiento, sensibilidades y prácticas. Este artículo trata de explorar cómo una reformulación ontológica que busque salir de los presupuestos antropocéntricos puede suponer un cambio material efectivo en nuestra percepción, generando cambios en nuestras sensibilidades y disponibilidades. Comprender los límites ontológicos desde el dinamismo y como zona de contacto nos permite acceder o materializar otro tipo de realidades aún (...) por conocer. Poniendo en juego algunas ideas de Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Karen Barad y Alfred Whitehead se busca un desarrollo conceptual y una reformulación ontológica como un intento de comprendernos en un mundo más-que-humano. (shrink)

Decae la subjetividad, se ha afirmado, pero, en tanto este en entredicho, es tambien tiempo de esta. Hablar de tiempo de subjetividad, como se propone aqui, es situarse en un territorio entrecruzado por muchos senderos. Desde el lugar escogido, lo que se divisa es una filigrana de rutas, una trama de caminos por recorrer, que pronto abandona su inicial apariencia de abanico de opciones entre las que escoger, para mostrar su autentica condicion de red teorica o atmosfera intelectual en cuyo (...) interior se encuentra atrapado el hombre contemporaneo. A lo largo del texto, esta percepcion mutara en convencimiento, modesto pero firme. El convencimiento de que, mas alla de criticas y dificultades, la categoria de subjetividad representa, como reza el titulo de la tercera parte, una dificultad necesaria, un ambito teorico fecundo a la hora de intentar arrojar algun tipo de luz sobre lo que nos ocurre. El origen del presente volumen se encuentra en los trabajos de investigacion que una parte de los colaboradores del mismo Antonio Aguilera, Fina Birules, Roman G. Cuartango, Santiago Lopez Petit y el compilador, Manuel Cruz viene desarrollando en el Departamento de Historia de la Filosofia de la Universidad de Barcelona. Ademas, Carlos Moya, Jose Luis Pardo, Nicolas Sanchez Dura, Antonio Valdecantos, Gerard Vilar y Antoni Vicens. (shrink)

Tout : vague et imposant petit mot. Présent à tout bout de champ, dans tant d'expressions, de toute éternité et en toute modestie. Ce mot-là, ce n'est pas rien. Les articles qui suivent explorent les rapports de tout et de rien, et les valeurs que prend le tout à différentes époques : comment il est représenté – personnifié? – et comment il est présupposé dans la démarche même d'écriture. Car l'ambition de la littérature est peut-être bien de dire tout (...) : dire la totalité du monde, d'une société, d'une époque, dire le rapport – forcément spirituel? – au tout qui ne se laisse saisir, tout dire de soi, ou encore utiliser tous les mots du dictionnaire. Quelle que soit la forme ou le genre emprunté, de façon totalisante ou fragmentaire, l'œuvre littéraire se donne comme un tout en relation avec le tout. [Source : 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

Les relations entre les travaux de Latour et la sémiotique de Greimas ont été explicites depuis les années 1970. Le présent article est consacré à la manière dont Latour reprend et fait évoluer la théorie sémiotique de l’énonciation, depuis « A Relativistic Account of Einstein’s Relativity » et « Petite philosophie de l’énonciation » jusqu’à l’Enquête sur les modes d’existence, où il utilise la théorie de l’énonciation pour fonder sa théorie des modes d’existence. Sera ainsi retracée l’évolution de la théorie (...) de l’énonciation, tant chez Latour qu’en sémiotique. Nous montrerons que dans les deux cas, on peut décrire cette évolution comme un mouvement de l’énonciation énoncée vers l’énonciation pratique.Since the late 1970s, Latour’s work has had close ties with Greimas’ semiotics. This article is devoted to Latour's further consideration and development of the semiotic theory of enunciation, beginning with « A Relativistic Account of Einstein’s Relativity » and « Petite philosophie de l’énonciation » all the way up to the Inquiry Into Modes of Existence, where he uses the theory of enunciation to establish his theory of modes of existence. The evolution of the theory of enunciation is charted through both Latour’s work and semiotic theory. We argue that in both cases this evolution can be described as a movement from uttered enunciation to practical enunciation. (shrink)

Kant’s critique/doctrine distinction tracks the difference between a canon for the understanding’s proper use and an organon for its dialectical misuse. The latter reflects the dogmatic use of reason to attain a doctrine of knowledge with no antecedent critique. In the 1790s, Fichte collapses Kant’s distinction and redefines dogmatism. He argues that deriving a canon is essentially dialectical and thus yields an organon: critical idealism is properly a doctrine of science or Wissenschaftslehre. Criticism is furthermore said to refute dogmatism, by (...) which Fichte means Spinozism. Schelling repudiates Fichte’s position in his Philosophical Letters by reviving Kant’s distinction. First, ‘critique’ for Schelling names a canon that is valid for all systems—including Spinozism—and thus favours none—not even the Wissenschaftslehre. Second, Schelling coins ‘dogmaticism’ to refer to what Kant calls ‘dogmatism’: reason’s uncritical claim to doctrine. Hence, he says all systems—even Fichte’s—are susceptible to the ‘enthusiasm’ of mistaking themselves for doctrines or ‘objects of knowledge’, instead of subjectively valid ‘objects of freedom’. I reconstruct Schelling’s argument for reviving Kant’s distinction, while noting two consequences for German idealism. First, if criticism favours no system, a system’s origin cannot be an act of knowledge, e.g., intellectual intuition, but only an act of endorsement. Second, if dogmaticism entails enthusiasm, a system’s goal cannot be absolute knowledge, but only infinite striving. Hence, by retrieving Schelling’s notion of dogmaticism, we can both gain a better understanding of the Letters and register the impact of a core Kantian distinction on the German idealist project. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to argue that all—or almost all—logical rules have exceptions. In particular, it is argued that this is a moral that we should draw from the semantic paradoxes. The idea that we should respond to the paradoxes by revising logic in some way is familiar. But previous proposals advocate the replacement of classical logic with some alternative logic. That is, some alternative system of rules, where it is taken for granted that these hold without exception. (...) The present proposal is quite different. According to this, there is no such alternative logic. Rather, classical logic retains the status of the ‘one true logic’, but this status must be reconceived so as to be compatible with (almost) all of its rules admitting of exceptions. This would seem to have significant repercussions for a range of widely held views about logic: e.g. that it is a priori, or that it is necessary. Indeed, if the arguments of the paper succeed, then such views must be given up. (shrink)

European thought begins with the Greeks. Scientific and philosophic thinking--the pursuit of truth and the grasping of unchanging principles of life--is a historical development, an achievement; and, as Bruno Snell writes in The Discovery of the Mind, nothing less than a revolution. The Greeks did not take mental resources already at their disposal and merely map out new subjects for discussion and investigation. In poetry, drama, and philosophy they in fact discovered the human mind. The stages in man's gradual (...) understanding of himself are revealed in the course of ancient literature from Homer to Virgil. A rational view of the nature of man slowly established itself in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, tragedy and literary criticism, pre-Socratic thought, and early Greek ethics all the way to the discovery of humanitas and the spiritual landscape of Virgil's Arcadia. The Discovery of the Mind is a landmark work in tracing this evolution of consciousness--one of the distinguishing characteristics of the history of man. (shrink)

Meillassoux seeks knowledge of transcendental reality, blaming Kant for the ‘correlationist’ proscription of independent access to either thought or being. For Meillassoux, correlationism blocks an account of the meaning of ‘ancestral statements’ regarding reality prior to humans. I examine three charges on which Meillassoux’s argument depends: (1) Kant distorts ancestral statements’ meaning; (2) Kant fallaciously infers causality’s necessity; (3) Kant’s transcendental idealism cannot grasp ‘the great outdoors’. I reject these charges: (1) imposes a Cartesian misreading, hence Meillassoux’s false assumption that, (...) for Kant, objects don’t exist without subjects; (2) misreads Kant, who infers causality’s necessity from the possibility of experience; (3) casts Kant’s idealism as subjective, ignoring his perspectival portrayal of it. (shrink)

Denommer, c'est appeler les etres et les choses par le nom qui leur a ete institue dans et par la langue. Assurant l'intercomprehension entre les locuteurs, la denomination constitue une propriete fondamentale du lexique et des terminologies. Si epistemologiquement, la denomination fait partie integrante des appareils conceptuel et methodologique de la Linguistique et de la Terminologie, dans l'une et l'autre discipline elle connait une situation paradoxale. D'une part elle souffre d'un deficit important de conceptualisation; de l'autre elle se revele etre (...) un puissant moteur pour la description semantique et referentielle du lexique et des terminologies. L'objet du present ouvrage est de proposer un reexamen systematique et explicite de cette notion et de lui assurer un positionnement valide dans l'appareil theorique de la Linguistique. Refusant une caracterisation monolithique, l'analyse opte pour une conception modulaire, articulee sur les differents parametres combinables et superposables qui definissent cette propriete: ontologiques, sociolinguistiques, juridiques et linguistiques. L'objectif de ce travail est egalement heuristique: envisager la denomination comme un levier en vue du reexamen du concept de polysemie, qui lui est consubstantiellement lie. Appliquee aux modeles categoriels et non categoriels, la denomination permet de distinguer entre emplois relevant effectivement d'une polysemie lexicale de ceux procedant d'effet impartis aux instanciations de vocables. (shrink)

Psychological evidence suggests that laypeople understand the world around them in terms of intuitive ontologies which describe broad categories of objects in the world, such as ‘person’, ‘artefact’ and ‘animal’. However, because intuitive ontologies are the result of natural selection, they only need to be adaptive; this does not guarantee that the knowledge they provide is a genuine reflection of causal mechanisms in the world. As a result, science has parted ways with intuitive ontologies. Nevertheless, since the brain is evolved (...) to understand objects in the world according to these categories, we can expect that they continue to play a role in scientific understanding. Taking the case of human evolution, we explore relationships between intuitive ontological and scientific understanding. We show that intuitive ontologies not only shape intuitions on human evolution, but also guide the direction and topics of interest in its research programmes. Elucidating the relationships between intuitive ontologies and science may help us gain a clearer insight into scientific understanding. (shrink)

Psychological evidence suggests that laypeople understand the world around them in terms of intuitive ontologies which describe broad categories of objects in the world, such as ‘person’, ‘artefact’ and ‘animal’. However, because intuitive ontologies are the result of natural selection, they only need to be adaptive; this does not guarantee that the knowledge they provide is a genuine reflection of causal mechanisms in the world. As a result, science has parted ways with intuitive ontologies. Nevertheless, since the brain is evolved (...) to understand objects in the world according to these categories, we can expect that they continue to play a role in scientific understanding. Taking the case of human evolution, we explore relationships between intuitive ontological and scientific understanding. We show that intuitive ontologies not only shape intuitions on human evolution, but also guide the direction and topics of interest in its research programmes. Elucidating the relationships between intuitive ontologies and science may help us gain a clearer insight into scientific understanding. (shrink)

In the past decades, recent paradigm shifts in ethology, psychology, and the social sciences have given rise to various new disciplines like cognitive ethology and evolutionary psychology. These disciplines use concepts and theories of evolutionary biology to understand and explain the design, function and origin of the brain. I shall argue that there are several good reasons why this approach could also apply to human mathematical abilities. I will review evidence from various disciplines (cognitive ethology, cognitive psychology, cognitive archaeology and (...) neuropsychology) that suggests that the human capacity for mathematics is a category-specific domain of knowledge, hard-wired in the brain, which can be explained as the result of natural selection. (shrink)

Data do not speak for themselves. Data must be narrated—put to work in particular contexts, sunk into narratives that give them shape and meaning, and mobilized as part of broader processes of interpretation and meaning-making. We examine these processes through the lens of ethnographic practice and, in particular, ethnography’s attention to narrative processes. We draw on a particular case in which digital data must be animated and narrated by different groups in order to examine broader questions of how we might (...) come to understand data ethnographically. (shrink)

A la fin du XVIIIe siècle, Emmanuel Kant pouvait encore voir dans les mathématiques le modèle même des jugements synthétiques a priori, c'est-à-dire dotés d'un contenu intuitif propre quoique non dérivé de l'expérience sensible. Des géométries non-euclidiennes à la théorie des transfinis de Cantor, les mathématiques du XIXe siècle vont cependant faire triompher des systèmes mathématiques résolument déductifs et non plus intuitifs. Sur fond d'interrogations quant à la légitimité de ces développements récents, interrogations renforcées par la découverte de paradoxes, d'âpres (...) débats vont alors opposer différentes écoles quant aux méthodes de preuve acceptables ainsi que quant à ce qui constitue le fondement même du savoir mathématique. Logicisme, formalisme et intuitionnisme ; ce sont, à l'époque, pas moins de trois conceptions des mathématiques (et trois programmes pour les mathématiques) qui s'affrontent, conceptions auxquelles il faut ajouter le psychologisme, qui se nourrit de l'essor des sciences humaines et de leurs prétentions épistémologiques. En collant au plus près des textes des principaux protagonistes, l'ouvrage présente de manière tout à la fois synthétique et précise les différentes positions en présence, en soulignant autant que possible leurs divergences, mais en montrant aussi les variations et inflexions qui ont marqué leur développement durant la période 1870-1930. (shrink)

The feeling of error (FOE) is the subjective experience that something went wrong during a reasoning or calculation task. The main goal of the present study was to assess the accuracy of the FOE in the context of mental mathematical calculation. We used the number bisection task (NBT) to evoke this metacognitive feeling and assessed it by asking participants if they felt they have committed an error after solving the task. In the NBT participants have to determine whether the number (...) presented in the middle of a triplet corresponds to the arithmetic mean of the two outer numbers (e.g., 07_16_25) with a Yes/No answer. Our results show that FOE reports were strongly correlated with arithmetic errors and numerical properties of the NBT, suggesting that the FOE accurately represents the error. This finding indicates that even very fast metacognitive feelings are reliable when it comes to evaluating one’s own mental performance. Moreover, our results suggest that the occurrence of FOEs is determined by the fluency with which each triplet was solved and the post-decision evaluation processes that occurred after the NBT was solved. Additionally, we asked participants to report their confidence in the given answer for the cases where they did not report FOEs. Participants reported less confidence for the (objectively) incorrect answers than for the (objectively) correct ones, suggesting that in cases where they did not have a conscious FOE they still were able to implicitly detect their errors. Remarkably, confidence was also determined by the fluency of the NBT. (shrink)

German classicist's monumental study of the origins of European thought in Greek literature and philosophy.

The debate between the theory-theory and simulation has largely ignored issues of cognitive architecture. In the philosophy of psychology, cognition as symbol manipulation is the orthodoxy. The challenge from connectionism, however, has attracted vigorous and renewed interest. In this paper I adopt connectionism as the antecedent of a conditional: If connectionism is the correct account of cognitive architecture, then the simulation theory should be preferred over the theory-theory. I use both developmental evidence and constraints on explanation in psychology to support (...) this claim. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the relations between psychology and politics that guide the action of the different political positions. The starting point will be an analysis of the proposal of the political scientist Mark Lilla to consider the "reactionary spirit" as a position structurally linked to an anti-progressivism, which allows also, by contrast, to discuss the progressive positions. This analysis is anchored in the articulation between politics and temporality, understood here as one of the elements that (...) outline a psychology of conservatism. It helps to redescribe significant features of contemporary political dilemmas, offering, for example, a distinction between the reactionary and the conservative position, as well as defining features of the worldview of the reactionary and, consequently, clues to understanding the rise of the extreme right. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the presence of psychoanalysis in Adorno’s ’Philosophy of the new music’. He draws on the Benjaminian scheme of understanding Baudelaire’s poetry (understood as an elaboration of the shock experiences in life in post-industrial Revolution capitalism), but uses it in music criticism. The works of Schönberg and Stravinsky, the mostimportant composers of two schools of the so-called “new or modern music”, deals with different compositional subjects and their ways of dealing with the shocks (...) of modern life. Both Benjamin and Adorno draw on Freudian theory for the understanding of this notion of shock, in particular his theory of anxiety and trauma. The works of these composers, understood as models of trauma elaboration, offer different ways of reacting to trauma: the identification with the aggressor and resistance. Therein lie elements that help to defend the hypothesis of the centrality of the notion of suffering in Adorno’swork. (shrink)

In the past decades, recent paradigm shifts in ethology, psychology, and the social sciences have given rise to various new disciplines like cognitive ethology and evolutionary psychology. These disciplines use concepts and theories of evolutionary biology to understand and explain the design, function and origin of the brain. I shall argue that there are several good reasons why this approach could also apply to human mathematical abilities. I will review evidence from various disciplines (cognitive ethology, cognitive psychology, cognitive archaeology and (...) neuropsychology) that suggests that the human capacity for mathematics is a category-specific domain of knowledge, hard-wired in the brain, which can be explained as the result of natural selection. (shrink)

The debate between the theory‐theory and simulation has largely ignored issues of cognitive architecture. In the philosophy of psychology, cognition as symbol manipulation is the orthodoxy. The challenge from connectionism, however, has attracted vigorous and renewed interest. In this paper I adopt connectionism as the antecedent of a conditional: If connectionism is the correct account of cognitive archi‐tecture, then the simulation theory should be preferred over the theory‐theory. I use both developmental evidence and constraints on explanation in psychology to support (...) this claim. (shrink)

The debate between the theory‐theory and simulation has largely ignored issues of cognitive architecture. In the philosophy of psychology, cognition as symbol manipulation is the orthodoxy. The challenge from connectionism, however, has attracted vigorous and renewed interest. In this paper I adopt connectionism as the antecedent of a conditional: If connectionism is the correct account of cognitive archi‐tecture, then the simulation theory should be preferred over the theory‐theory. I use both developmental evidence and constraints on explanation in psychology to support (...) this claim. (shrink)

This study examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) from the retail sector deal with four challenges they face when adopting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies: the challenge of developing well-performing CSR projects and programs, building competitive advantages based on CSR, responding to local stakeholder issues in the host countries and learning from different CSR experiences on a worldwide basis. Based on in-depth case studies of two globally leading retail MNCs (with strong operations in Latin America), the concept of Transverse CSR Management (...) emerged. Transverse CSR Management is defined as a distinctive form of organizational configuration that crosses different functional areas, country operations, and the boundaries of the firm. In particular, this article makes three main contributions: (1) we identify four central challenges faced by MNC managers when developing their CSR strategies; (2) we propose the concept of Transverse CSR Management to face these central challenges (together, at the same time) and identify its key elements (top management, external stakeholders, functional areas, and country subsidiaries); and (3) we propose four mechanisms (hierarchical, relational, cultural, and collaborative) through which the concept of Transverse CSR Management can be implemented by practicing managers. This study provides valuable insights for MNC managers in headquarters and subsidiaries on the issues they need to address in order to successfully deal with the four CSRrelated challenges. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should solve paradoxes for propositions (such as the Russell–Myhill paradox) in essentially the same way that we solve Russellian paradoxes for sets. That is, the standard, iterative approach to sets is extended to include properties, and then the resulting hierarchy of sets and properties is used to construct propositions. Propositions on this account are structured in the sense of mirroring the sentences that express them, and they would seem to serve the needs of philosophers of (...) language and metaphysicians who rely on such propositions. The resulting account has limitations, comparable to those faced by the iterative approach to sets, but it is argued to be in important ways preferable to others that have been proposed. (shrink)

I argue that dialetheists have a problem with the concept of logical consequence. The upshot of this problem is that dialetheists must appeal to a hierarchy of concepts of logical consequence. Since this hierarchy is akin to those invoked by more orthodox resolutions of the semantic paradoxes, its emergence would appear to seriously undermine the dialetheic treatments of these paradoxes. And since these are central to the case for dialetheism, this would represent a significant blow to the position itself.

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan (...) De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)