Cognitive gadgets are distinctively human cognitive mechanisms – such as imitation, mind reading, and language – that have been shaped by cultural rather than genetic evolution. New gadgets emerge, not by genetic mutation, but by innovations in cognitive development; they are specialised cognitive mechanisms built by general cognitive mechanisms using information from the sociocultural environment. Innovations are passed on to subsequent generations, not by DNA replication, but through social learning: People with new cognitive mechanisms pass them on to others through (...) social interaction. Some of the new mechanisms, like literacy, have spread through human populations, while others have died out, because the holders had more students, not just more babies. The cognitive gadgets hypothesis is developed through four case studies, drawing on evidence from comparative and developmental psychology, experimental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. The framework employed – cultural evolutionary psychology, a descendant of evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory – addresses parallel issues across the cognitive and behavioural sciences. In common with evolutionary developmental biology and the extended evolutionary synthesis, cultural evolutionary psychology underlines the importance of developmental processes and environmental factors in the emergence of human cognition. In common with computational approaches, it emphasises the power of general-purpose mechanisms of learning. Cultural evolutionary psychology, however, also challenges use of the behavioural gambit in economics and behavioural ecology, and rejects the view that human minds are composed of “innate modules” or “cognitive instincts.”. (shrink)

This volume deals with the reception of Aristotle's natural philosophy in Oxford between 1250 and 1270.

Albert Camus and Rachel Bespaloff had an undeniable influence on the existential thought of the twentieth century. The former, by claiming the world to be silent to our search for meaning, based the concept of happiness in the inherent value of life. The latter grounded her happiness in music and transcendence rather than in the acceptance of the absurd human condition, though the two thinkers seem to agree on the importance of subjective contemplation. In this article, I will offer a (...) reading of Camus’s works that emphasizes his view of happiness in awareness of the absurd. I will then argue for the ethical and political challenges that such happiness causes. Finally, by putting into dialogue the philosophies of Camus and Bespaloff, I wish to show that the two thinkers advocate for the possibility of happiness despite the suffering of the world, and show that this concept, understood as contemplation, can be rooted in the absurd as well as in transcendence. (shrink)

Cecilia Sjöholm reads Hannah Arendt as a philosopher of the senses, grappling with questions of vision, hearing, and touch even in her political work. Constructing an Arendtian theory of aesthetics from the philosopher's fragmentary writings on art and perception, Sjöholm begins a vibrant new chapter in Arendt scholarship that expands her relevance for contemporary philosophers. Arendt wrote thoughtfully about the role of sensibility and aesthetic judgment in political life and on the power of art to enrich human experience. Sjöholm (...) draws a clear line from Arendt's consideration of these subjects to her reflections on aesthetic encounters and works of art mentioned in her published writings and stored among her memorabilia. This delicate effort allows Sjöholm to revisit Arendt's political concepts of freedom, plurality, and judgment from an aesthetic point of view and incorporate Arendt's insight into current discussions of literature, music, theater, and visual art. Though Arendt did not explicitly outline an aesthetics, Sjöholm's work substantively incorporates her perspective into contemporary reckonings with radical politics and their relationship to art. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that gender is a primary cultural frame for coordinating behavior and organizing social relations. I describe the implications for understanding how gender shapes social behavior and organizational structures. By my analysis, gender typically acts as a background identity that biases, in gendered directions, the performance of behaviors undertaken in the name of organizational roles and identities. I develop an account of how the background effects of the gender frame on behavior vary by the context that (...) different organizational and institutional structures set but can also infuse gendered meanings into organizational practices. Next, I apply this account to two empirical illustrations to demonstrate that we cannot understand the shape that the structure of gender inequality and gender difference takes in particular institutional or societal contexts without taking into account the background effects of the gender frame on behavior in these contexts. (shrink)

The theories of language and society of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) are examined in this textual analysis of the full range of his theoretical writings, with special emphasis on his little-known early works. Vico's fundamental importance in the history of European ideas lies in his strong anti-Cartesian, anti-French and anti-Enlightenment views. In an age in which intellectuals adopted a rational approach, Vico stressed the nonrational element in man - in particular, imagination - as well as social and civil relationships, none of (...) them reducible to the scientific theories so popular in his time. (shrink)

1. Properties of mirror neurons in monkeys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...) . . . 000 1.1. Action types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 1.2. Context effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 2. Is there a human ‘mirror neuron system’? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 2.1. Monkeys versus humans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 2.2. Action understanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 3. The development of mirroring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 3.1. Imitation in newborns? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 3.2. Effects of experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 3.3. Effects of sensorimotor experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo, analiso um conjunto de seis cartões comerciais pertencentes a uma duradoura campanha de marketing da Liebig Extract of Meat Co. A análise crítica dos textos promocionais produzidos na virada do século XX oferece insights significativos sobre os mecanismos discursivos que contribuíram para a hegemonização do capitalismo burguês. Diferentemente de outras formas de publicidade, os cartões comerciais não são rapidamente descartados e esquecidos; pelo contrário, eles podem se distanciar dos produtos anunciados para se tornar parte dos discursos populares (...) de instrução em massa. Como produtos e produtores de ideologias capitalistas, os anúncios são um local privilegiado de inscrição do capitalismo e, portanto, se prestam a uma análise crítica. Minha análise mostra como os textos selecionados se baseiam e texturizam os discursos do progresso, impregnados como crenças colonialistas e desencadeando uma cadeia de ações pela qual, mesmo antes de realmente obterem os cartões, são promulgadas ações e crenças capitalistas. ABSTRACT In this paper, I analyze a set of six trading cards belonging to Liebig’s Extract of Meat Co. long-standing marketing campaign. The critical analysis of promotional texts produced at the turn of the 20th century offer meaningful insights on the discursive mechanisms that contributed to the hegemonization of bourgeois capitalism. Unlike other forms of advertising, trading cards are not rapidly discarded and forgotten; on the contrary, they can detach themselves from the advertised products to become part of popular discourses of mass instruction. As both products and producers of capitalist ideologies, ads are a privileged site of inscription of capitalism, and thus lend themselves to a critical analysis. My analysis shows how the selected texts draws on and textures the discourses of progress, inculcated as colonialist beliefs and triggering an actional chain whereby, even before they actually obtained the cards, capitalist actions and beliefs are enacted. (shrink)

Morality and the invention of feminine desire -- Sexuality versus recognition : feminine desire in the ethical order -- The purest poem : Heidegger's Antigone -- From Oedipus to Antigone : revisiting the question of feminine desire -- Family politics/family ethics : Butler, Lacan, and the thing beyond the object.

Background The ambulance service provides emergency care to meet the patient’s medical and nursing needs. Based on professional nursing values, this should be done within a caring relationship with a holistic approach as the opposite would risk suffering related to disengagement from the patient’s emotional and existential needs. However, knowledge is sparse on how ambulance personnel can meet caring needs and avoid suffering, particularly in conjunction with urgent and emergency situations. Aim The aim of the study was to explore ambulance (...) nurses’ experiences of relationships with patients in urgent and emergency situations. Methods Data collection was performed using individual open-ended interviews with six ambulance nurses. The data were analyzed using a thematic analysis. Results Relationships with patients during urgent and emergency assignments emerged as three themes: “ Ambiguous silence,” “ Professional competence” and “ Challenging inadequacy” comprising eight sub-themes in total. The result shows that the ambulance nurses found it difficult to prioritize between medical care and establishing a caring relationship with the patient. However, sometimes a wordless relationship was perceived sufficient and considered a first step towards a verbal relationship. Conclusions Ambulance nurses experience that a caring relationship cannot and does not need to be prioritized in the acute stage. This uncovers a dichotomy approach to medical care versus caring relationships that exclude a holistic approach. Thus, patients’ emotional, existential and physical needs are not considered as equally important. Clinical relevance: It is important to stimulate reflection on core ethical nursing values, in training and simulation exercises among clinically active ambulance nurses. (shrink)

This book investigates Hegel’s interpretation of the mystical philosophy of Jakob Böhme, considered in the context of the reception of Böhme in the 18th and 19th centuries, and of Hegel’s own understanding of mysticism as a philosophical approach. The three sections of this book present: the historical background of Hegel’s encounter with Böhme’s writings; the development of two different conceptions of mysticism in Hegel’s work; and finally Hegel’s approach to Böhme’s philosophy, discussing in detail the references to Böhme both in (...) published writings and manuscripts. According to Hegel, Böhme is “the first German philosopher”. The reason for placing Böhme at the very beginning of German philosophy is that Hegel considers him to be a profound thinker, despite his rudimentary education. Hegel’s fascination with Böhme mainly concerns the mystic’s understanding of the symbiotic relation between God and his opposite, the Devil: he considers this to be the true speculative core of Böhme’s thought. By interpreting Böhme, Hegel intends to free the speculative content of his thought from the limitations of the inadequate, barbarous form in which the mystic expressed it, and also to liberate Böhme from the prejudices surrounding his writings, placing him firmly in the territory of philosophy and detaching him from the obscurity of esotericism. Combining historical reconstructions and philosophical argumentation, this book guides the reader through an important phase in German philosophy, and ultimately into an inquiry about the relationship between mysticism and philosophy itself. (shrink)

Revisión de Actividad Que digan dónde están" Una historia de los derechos humanos en Argentina por L. Alonso.

La communication se rapporte à la richesse des interprétations temporelles par l’intermédiaire de Vintila Horia, l’une des personnalités du XX‐e siècle, qui l’applique à l’histoire du monde par ses personnages, leurs époques et les conceptions de vie correspondantes, phénomène exprimé à l’aide de l’art littéraire d’une complexité particulière, invitant à la méditation et aux réactions nécessaires. Le but de sa création est d’éclaircir la personnalité humaine dans sa variété expressive, modulée par le contexte philosophique dans lequel chacun réagit conformément à (...) sa raison et aux procès à caractère social, politique et culturel caractéristiques à la société décrite. (shrink)

The procedures for structuring clinical ethics case reflections in a childhood cancer care setting are presented, including an eight-step model. Four notable characteristics of the procedures are: members of the inter-professional health care team, not external experts, taking a leading role in the reflections; patients or relatives not being directly involved; the model explicitly addressing values and moral principles instead of focussing exclusively on the interests of involved parties; using a case-based rather than principle-based method. By discusing the advantages and (...) disadvantages of the proposed procedures, our paper aims to contribute to the literature on models and procedures for ethical analysis that can be used in clinical settings. It is suggested that our proposed procedures have some advantageous features when it comes to promoting health care staff’s learning to structure their thinking about ethical issues. (shrink)

Dennett, a philosopher, and Griffin, an ethologist, have recently presented influential arguments promoting the extended use of intentional language by students of animal behavior. This essay seeks to elucidate and to contrast the claims made by each of these authors, and to evaluate their proposals primarily from the perspective of a practicing comparative psychologist or ethologist. While Griffin regards intentional terms as explanatory, Dennett assigns them a descriptive function; the issue of animal consciousness is central to Griffin's program and only (...) tangentially related to Dennett's. The philosopher's arguments are founded upon a more coherent metaphysics, but Dennett neglects to substantiate his claim that animal competences can be most readily modelled by artificial intelligence specialists when they are described in intentional terms. Both authors assume that some examples of animal behavior should not be given an intentional characterization, but neither provides adequate guidelines for the identification of cases belonging to this negative set. (shrink)

What is the relationship between imitation and culture? This article charts how definitions of imitation have changed in the last century, distinguishes three senses of “culture” used by contemporary evolutionists (Culture1–Culture3), and summarises current disagreement about the relationship between imitation and culture. The disagreement arises from ambiguities in the distinction between imitation and emulation, and confusion between two explanatory projects—the anthropocentric project and the cultural selection project. I argue that imitation gives cultural evolution an inheritance mechanism for communicative and gestural (...) skills (but not technological skills), and cultural selection yields the cognitive mechanisms that make imitation possible. (shrink)

This compilation of around 20 texts presents an heterogeneous spectrum of topics by authors such as: Diamela Eltit, Elvira Hernndez and Guadalupe Santa Cruz, among others who from a philosophical point of view the writings of George ...

The Protein Ontology provides terms for and supports annotation of species-specific protein complexes in an ontology framework that relates them both to their components and to species-independent families of complexes. Comprehensive curation of experimentally known forms and annotations thereof is expected to expose discrepancies, differences, and gaps in our knowledge. We have annotated the early events of innate immune signaling mediated by Toll-Like Receptor 3 and 4 complexes in human, mouse, and chicken. The resulting ontology and annotation data set has (...) allowed us to identify species-specific gaps in experimental data and possible functional differences between species, and to employ inferred structural and functional relationships to suggest plausible resolutions of these discrepancies and gaps. (shrink)

This book investigates Hegel’s interpretation of the mystical philosophy of Jakob Böhme (1575-1624), considered in the context of the reception of Böhme in the 18th and 19th centuries, and of Hegel’s own understanding of mysticism as a philosophical approach. The three sections of this book present: the historical background of Hegel’s encounter with Böhme’s writings; the development of two different conceptions of mysticism in Hegel’s work; and finally Hegel’s approach to Böhme’s philosophy, discussing in detail the references to Böhme both (...) in published writings and manuscripts. According to Hegel, Böhme is “the first German philosopher”. The reason for placing Böhme at the very beginning of German philosophy is that Hegel considers him to be a profound thinker, despite his rudimentary education. Hegel’s fascination with Böhme mainly concerns the mystic’s understanding of the symbiotic relation between God and his opposite, the Devil: he considers this to be the true speculative core of Böhme’s thought. By interpreting Böhme, Hegel intends to free the speculative content of his thought from the limitations of the inadequate, barbarous form in which the mystic expressed it, and also to liberate Böhme from the prejudices surrounding his writings, placing him firmly in the territory of philosophy and detaching him from the obscurity of esotericism. Combining historical reconstructions and philosophical argumentation, this book guides the reader through an important phase in German philosophy, and ultimately into an inquiry about the relationship between mysticism and philosophy itself. (shrink)

Background: Previous studies have investigated the effects of dance interventions on Parkinson’s motor and non-motor symptoms in an effort to develop an integrated view of dance as a therapeutic intervention. This within-subject study questions whether dance can be simply considered a form of exercise by comparing a Dance for Parkinson’s class with a matched-intensity exercise session lacking dance elements like music, metaphorical language, and social reality of art-partaking.Methods: In this repeated-measure design, 7 adults with Parkinson’s were tested four times; before (...) and after a Dance for Parkinson’s class, as well as before and after a matched-intensity exercise session. Physiological measures included heart rate and electrodermal activity. Self-reported affect and body self-efficacy were collected. Gait symmetry and dual task cost were analyzed using the 6 min walking test and Timed-Up-and-Go test, respectively.Results: Average heart rate was the same for both conditions, while electrodermal activity was higher during Dance for Parkinson’s. Significant differences were found in body self-efficacy, beauty subscale, symmetry of gait, and dual task performance.Conclusion: Dance, compared to an exercise intervention of matched intensity, yields different outcomes through the means of intrinsic artistic elements, which may influence affective responses, the experience of beauty, self-efficacy, and gait performance. (shrink)

Responding to commentaries from psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and anthropologists, I clarify a central purpose of Cognitive Gadgets – to overcome “cognition blindness” in research on human evolution. I defend this purpose against Brunerian, extended mind, and niche construction critiques of computationalism – that is, views prioritising meaning over information, or asserting that behaviour and objects can be intrinsic parts of a thinking process. I argue that empirical evidence from cognitive science is needed to locate distinctively human cognitive mechanisms on the (...) continuum between gadgets and instincts. Focussing on that requirement, I also address specific challenges, and applaud extensions and refinements, of the evidence surveyed in my book. It has been said that “a writer's idea of sound criticism is ten thousand words of closely reasoned adulation.” I cannot disagree with this untraceable wag, but the 30 commentators on Cognitive Gadgets provided some 30,000 words of criticism that are of much greater scientific value than adulation. I am grateful to them all. The response that follows is V-shaped. It starts with the broadest conceptual and methodological issues and funnels down to matters arising from specific empirical studies. (shrink)

We develop an evidence-based theoretical account of how widely shared cultural beliefs about gender, race, and class intersect in interpersonal and other social relational contexts in the United States to create characteristic cultural “binds” and freedoms for actors in those contexts. We treat gender, race, and class as systems of inequality that are culturally constructed as distinct but implicitly overlap through their defining beliefs, which reflect the perspectives of dominant groups in society. We cite evidence for the contextually contingent interactional (...) “binds” and freedoms this creates for people such as Asian men, Black women, and poor whites who are not prototypical of images embedded in cultural gender, race, and class beliefs. All forms of unprototypicality create “binds,” but freedoms result from being unprototypical of disadvantaging rather than advantaging statuses. (shrink)

This article suggests an oblique reading of The Headless Woman, the latest film by Lucrecia Martel, a founder member of the so-called New Argentine Cinema and one of the major stylists of contemporary cinema. Unlike the many memorial films that surround the trauma of the dis- appeared in Argentina, The Headless Woman ‘countersigns’ the genre, proposing a hallucinatory experience of immersion within the affects of guilt, complicity and denial unleashed by the last dictatorship. By presenting the existentialist drama of an (...) upper-class woman involved in a seemingly minor car accident on a deserted provincial road, the film manages to stage a counter-narrative of the traumatic past that affected the whole of society beyond obvious sites of suffering. Through an engagement with Judith Butler’s account of mourning, this article argues that the film bears the traces of a collective mourning, an experience of grief that permeated the Argentine citizenry and challenged blood as the only form of kinship. The article contends that the affects explored in Martel’s film may be crucial in confronting the new faceless, that is, those whose social exclusion persists unnoticed during the current democratic regime, and whose lives are in a sense ‘ungrievable’. By proposing an entanglement of temporalities, the analysis suggests that the 30,000 lives made to disappear during dictatorial times cannot be grasped except in conjunction with the silence surrounding poverty, the new spectre of the present. In Martel’s film each viewer becomes a witness and also a survivor and is thereby subtlety compelled to respond. In this way, The Headless Woman also suggests an ethical key to future possibilities. (shrink)

This article describes Cosa Nostra bosses’ psychological characteristics starting from research data collected over almost twenty years. Through the use of fragments of interviews to justice collaborators and their wives, children, and sisters-in-law, we analyze the boss’ role and relational context. This article also reports the results of a recent research on the relationship between boss and white-collar workers, carried out through the analysis of environmental tapping recorded at a famous Sicilian Mafia boss’ house: Giuseppe Guttadauro. This research highlights the (...) psychological diversity the relationship between boss and white-collar worker is based on. The analysis of environmental tapping transcriptions has also allowed discovery of the main relational modalities used by the boss and white-collar worker in their conversations. (shrink)

Before the trains of thought have been firmly laid down, we ask in this article about the very nature and histories of the speculative of the speculative-materialist turn. We do this from the intertwined interfaces of curious feminist materialisms, foregrounding sexual difference, post-positivist critique and posthumanist performativity such as is being done in various strands of feminist theory today. The question of speculation plays a constitutive role in feminist critique and in several new or neo-materialist traditions. In fact, many interesting (...) materialisms—Marxism, French feminism—can be named ‘speculative’. We argue that in spite of what the recent ‘speculative turn’ professes, speculative materialisms have a complex genealogy. Speculation functions transversally in a materialist genealogy -connecting the archive of feminist approaches in particular. In order to be able to imagine a different world we need to think through a stifled and sexually differentiated present from which a qualitative shift and political breakthrough can be formulated, and hopefully achieved. However, in what is currently called ‘speculative realism’ or ‘object-oriented ontologies’ neither speculation nor the speculative are reflected upon as a heritage from and alliance with feminist and politically materialist positions. What are the onto-epistemological stakes of this body of work? And what ethico-political horizons are drawn here? We stand speculative before such turn. (shrink)

Starting with Houtkoop and Mazeland’s study of discourse units, and touching upon recent studies aimed at detailing unit projection in interaction, this article argues that the drive toward abstract and discrete models for units and unit projection is potentially misleading. While it has been established that to engage in talk-in-interaction, as it unfolds in real time, participants rely on projectable units, research aimed at defining units unintentionally backgrounds the contingency inherent in interaction. A central function of language for collaborative action (...) is the management of simultaneously unfolding facets of action, sound production, gesture, and grammar – produced by multiple participants. This article draws upon classic and current data analyses foregrounding linguistic/interactional practices designed to manage local contingencies. It is argued that attention to participants’ regular methods for managing and exploiting contingencies be incorporated from the outset in our descriptions of language and the nature of unit building in interaction. (shrink)

El presente trabajo es de carácter cualitativoy de alcance analítico. Desde una perspectivainterdisciplinaria, analiza la Propuesta deBases Curriculares para el Sector LenguaIndígena del Programa de EducaciónIntercultural Bilingüe (PEIB), sometido aconsulta ciudadana por el Ministerio deEducación del Gobierno de Chile (MINEDUC)el año 2012. El objetivo es plantear, por unaparte, una discusión teórica-crítica desdediversos aportes de las ciencias sociales, quepermiten interpretar el currículum de laasignatura ‘lengua indígena’ en Chile, a laluz de un conjunto de elementos históricos,sociales y pedagógicos; por otra parte,analizar la (...) “competencia comunicativa”implicada en esta propuesta pedagógica.Los resultados permiten observar que estapropuesta presenta una visión desfasada de lacultura originaria y una escasa preocupaciónpor la enseñanza de la lengua, en el contextode las demandas actuales en el marco de unprograma educacional intercultural bilingüe. (shrink)