Embodiment theories have proposed a reciprocal relationship between emotional state and bodily reactions. Besides large body postures, recent studies have found emotions to affect rather subtle bodily expressions, such as slumped or upright sitting posture. This study investigated back muscle activity as an indication of an effect of positive and negative emotions on the sitting position. The electromyography activity of six back muscles was recorded in 31 healthy subjects during exposure to positive and negative affective pictures. A resting period was (...) used as a control condition. Increased muscle activity patterns in the back were found during the exposure to negative emotional stimuli, which was mainly measured in the lumbar and thorax regions. The positive emotion condition caused no elevated activity. The findings show that negative emotions lead to increased differential muscle activity in the back and thus corroborate those of previous research that emotion affects subtle bodily expressions. (shrink)

Patients with psychotic disorders experience a range of reality distortions. These often include auditory-verbal hallucinations, and thought insertion to a lesser degree; however, their mechanisms and relationships between each other remain largely elusive. Here we attempt to establish a integrative model drawing from the phenomenology of both AVHs and TI and argue that they in fact can be seen as ‘spectra’ of experiences with varying degrees of agency and ownership, with ‘silent and internal own thoughts’ on one extreme and ‘fully (...) external and clearly audible voices’ in the absence of a speaker on the other. We believe a spectral model will add emphasis to the continuity of experience and help to better understand how one type of psychotic symptom may interact with another, and put forward the argument that the experience of TI itself is not sufficient to classify as a delusion. In addition we aim to discuss some of the conceptual issues surrounding AVHs and TI with first-person accounts and current philosophical and neuropsychological theories in mind. We propose that the mechanisms behind AVHs and TI are more complex than source-monitoring deficits; indeed, to understand such phenomena one must appreciate that their very ‘existence’ and ‘reality’ as experienced by the individual have much deeper implications and meaning, both philosophically and clinically. (shrink)

Schizophrenia as a pathology of self-awareness has attracted much attention from philosophical theorists and empirical scientists alike. I view schizophrenia as a basic self-disturbance leading to a lifeworld of solipsism adopted by the sufferer and explain how this adoption takes place, which then manifests in ways such as first-rank psychotic symptoms. I then discuss the relationships between these symptoms, not as isolated mental events, but as end-products of a loss of agency and ownership, and argue that symptoms like thought insertion (...) and other ego-boundary disorders are by nature a multitude of paradoxes created by a fragmented awareness. I argue that such fragmentation does not always require or lead to a delusional elaboration as the definitive feature of its phenomenology, and present reasons for the role of the first-person pronoun as a mere metaphor used to represent the patient’s bizarre experiences where sensory perception and thinking processes converge. Further, I discuss the initi... (shrink)

In this article, I give a counterexample to a claim made in that empirically equivalent theories can often be regarded as theoretically equivalent by treating one as having surplus structure, thereby overcoming the problem of underdetermination of theory choice. The case I present is that of Lorentz's ether theory and Einstein's theory of special relativity. I argue that Norton's suggestion that surplus structure is present in Lorentz's theory in the form of the ether state of rest is based on a (...) misunderstanding of the role that the ether plays in Lorentz's theory, and that in general, consideration of the conceptual framework in which a theory is embedded is vital to understanding the relationship between different theories. (shrink)

We address a recent proposal concerning ‘surplus structure’ due to Nguyen et al.. We argue that the sense of ‘surplus structure’ captured by their formal criterion is importantly different from—and in a sense, opposite to—another sense of ‘surplus structure’ used by philosophers. We argue that minimizing structure in one sense is generally incompatible with minimizing structure in the other sense. We then show how these distinctions bear on Nguyen et al.’s arguments about Yang-Mills theory and on the hole argument.

Organisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic, productivity perceptions during home-based (...) teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic. (shrink)

We argue that several apparently distinct responses to the hole argument, all invoking formal or mathematical considerations, should be viewed as a unified “mathematical response.” We then consider and rebut two prominent critiques of the mathematical response before reflecting on what is ultimately at issue in this literature.

Feminist-Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition, which draws upon the insights of both feminist and pragmatist theory and practice. It is fundamentally concerned with enlarging philosophical thought through activism and lived experience, and assumes feminist and pragmatist ideas to be mutually beneficial for liberatory causes. Feminist-pragmatism emphasises the need to redress false distinctions, or dualisms, as these usually result in a denigration of one oppositional by another. Thus, feminist-pragmatists critique such bifurcations as thought/action, mind/body, universal/particular, and they show how the skewed (...) favouring of one over the other results in philosophical theories which are incapable of explaining our gendered existences, positions in society, understandings of knowledge, or learning experiences. Feminist-pragmatists contribute to current debates in epistemology, social and political philosophy, philosophy of education, ethics, and metaphysics. Their work reflects the theoretical advances made by feminist theorists especially over the course of the latter part of the twentieth century, while being rooted in the principles and criticisms of the classical pragmatists. (shrink)

This is the first book to bring a philosophical lens to issues of socio-political and cultural importance in twenty-first century Ireland. While the social, political, and economic landscape of contemporary Ireland has inspired extensive scholarly debate both within and well beyond the field of Irish Studies, there is a distinct lack of philosophical voices in these discussions. The aim of this volume is to enrich the fields of Philosophy and Irish Studies by encouraging a manifestly philosophical exploration of contemporary issues (...) and concerns. -/- The essays in this volume collectively address diverse philosophical questions on contemporary Ireland by exploring a variety of themes, including: diaspora, exile, return; women’s bodies and autonomy; historic injustices and national healing; remembering and commemoration; institutionalisation and containment; colonialism and Ireland as "home"; conflict and violence; Northern Ireland and the peace process; nationalism, patriotism, and masculinities; ethnicity, immigration, and identity; and translation, art and culture. -/- Philosophical Perspectives on Contemporary Ireland marks a significant contribution to contemporary theorizations of Ireland by incorporating both Irish and transatlantic perspectives. It will appeal to a broad audience of scholars and advanced students working in philosophy, Irish Studies, feminist theory, history, legal studies, and literary theory. Beyond academia, it will also engage those interested in contemporary Ireland from policy and civil society perspectives. (shrink)

Educar implica, en gran medida, transgredir la flecha del tiempo y actuar a modo de contratiempo. Los profesores saben bien que, en numerosas ocasiones, para asegurar el éxito de su acción, deben a menudo "perder tiempo" dejándose paradójicamente llevar por él. El conocimiento del tiempo educativo nos introduce en el estudio de este peculiar contratiempo que, a diferencia del tiempo objetivo, predecible y cronométrico que sirve para racionalizar las actividades pedagógicas, permite a los educadores impedir que en educación el tiempo (...) pase, se consuma sin más, fluya o simplemente suceda. De ahí que la autora plantee las relaciones tiempo y educación desde una perspectiva más integradora, incorporando para ello los múltiples tiempos que confluyen en la realidad educativa junto aquéllos que confieren legitimidad al proyecto educativo. La escuela ha venido recreando un modelo no normativo tiempo -básicamente predictivo y probabilístico- y ha aplicado una racionalidad ahistórica que dificulta la emergencia del sujeto al que se dirige y el modelo de sociedad hacia la que se proyecta. En la actualidad se plantea la necesidad de educar desde una nueva perspectiva ética que integre el tiempo como categoría normativa de acción. Educar hoy para mañana exigirá, en este sentido, atender a dos lógicas temporales: impregnar de historicidad la dimensión de sentido de todo proyecto educativo y planificar las acciones pedagógicas de acuerdo con una nueva tecnología temporal que incorpore la incertidumbre, la complejidad, la interdependencia y la sostenibilidad temporal. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 100 Heft: 2 Seiten: 523-527.

Does it follow from Wittgenstein's views about indeterminism that irregularities of nature could take place? Did he believe that chairs could simply disappear and reappear, that water could behave differently than it has, and that a man throwing a fair die might throw ones for a week? Or are these things only imaginable? Is his view simply that if we adopted an indeterministic point of view we would no longer look for causes, or would not always look for causes, because (...) we would no longer assume that there must be a cause of each event? (shrink)

If one thinks of intentions as entities of some sort, states or dispositions, for example, it should eventually strike him that there are peculiar difficulties with the idea. For example, he will have trouble counting his intentions. In a particular situation, we ask someone, ‘What are you going to do about that? And this?’ And his answer might be, ‘My intention is to pay that, and, as for this, my intention is to ignore it.’ But of course he may have (...) said, ‘My intention is to pay this and ignore that.’ For this reason and, as we will see, others, there is no such thing as a complete list of intentions that a person has. If someone told us, ‘I have just eight intentions at present’, we would think he was joking, even though he intends to do eight things—grade papers, meet a class at nine, and so on. And if we ask; ‘What are you going to do today?’, he may answer that he has a class at nine, office hours at two, and lunch already scheduled. But even though he has more to do today than yesterday, he would hardly tell us, ‘I am afraid I have more intentions today than I did yesterday.’. (shrink)

In the field of clinical practice, there does not seem to be too much contention about what schizophrenia is, at least from a high level. After all, there are various diagnostic systems and guidelines, all of which point toward schizophrenia as a psychotic syndrome which likely forms a continuum with other psychotic disorders. It may sound obvious that, according to the current definitions, the major commonality between schizophrenia and all other psychoses is psychotic symptoms; more precisely, delusions and hallucinations. Any (...) description, or ‘phenomenology’ as most clinicians view it, can be found in these diagnostic manuals. However, is there anything at all that sets schizophrenia apart from the other... (shrink)

En este artículo buscamos mostrar que, tanto en la filosofía de Schopenhauer como también en la de Bergson, la experiencia estética se constituye como el paradigma del conocimiento intuitivo. A diferencia de lo que establece la teoría kantiana, para Schopenhauer y Bergson la intuición no sólo es la única forma de conocimiento inmediato, sino que no necesita de conceptos para aprehender aquello dado en la sensibilidad. Asimismo, puesto que actualmente no encontramos demasiada literatura sobre la influencia de Schopenhauer en la (...) filosofía de Bergson, dicho análisis pretende contribuir al establecimiento de los posibles vínculos entre ambas teorías. (shrink)

While the list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations’ Open Working Group comprises a catalog of highly important post-2015 development priorities, one of the key issue that has not received the attention it deserves is the need to safeguard the Earth's life-support system. Over the course of the past decades, we have concentrated much more on socioeconomic development rather than on environmental sustainability while putting a number of the Earth's systems at risk, and with it poverty (...) eradication and sustainable development. There is thus a need to put the spotlight on global environmental change and to take account of the insights from the latest Earth system science and its implications for the future of global development and global ethics. The ongoing debate on the post-2015 SDGs offers an important occasion for this endeavor. Going beyond the current proposal of the Open Working Group and building on the planetary boundaries or guard rails framework, the SDGs.. (shrink)

In recent decades, psychological research on the effects of mindfulness-based interventions has greatly developed and demonstrated a range of beneficial outcomes in a variety of populations and contexts. Yet, the question of how to foster subjective well-being and happiness remains open. Here, we assessed the effectiveness of an integrated mental training program The Art of Happiness on psychological well-being in a general population. The mental training program was designed to help practitioners develop new ways to nurture their own happiness. This (...) was achieved by seven modules aimed at cultivating positive cognition strategies and behaviors using both formal and informal practices. The program was conducted over a period of 9 months, also comprising two retreats, one in the middle and one at the end of the course. By using a set of established psychometric tools, we assessed the effects of such a mental training program on several psychological well-being dimensions, taking into account both the longitudinal effects of the course and the short-term effects arising from the intensive retreat experiences. The results showed that several psychological well-being measures gradually increased within participants from the beginning to the end of the course. This was especially true for life satisfaction, self-awareness, and emotional regulation, highlighting both short-term and longitudinal effects of the program. In conclusion, these findings suggest the potential of the mental training program, such as The Art of Happiness, for psychological well-being. (shrink)

This article presents a meta-disciplinary and institutional framework of practices used by nurses and doctors to manage the indeterminacy of knowing in emergency departments (EDs) in Australia. We draw on Schatzkian perspectives of how practices prevail and reflect particular site ontologies. We posit that nurses and doctors draw on a repertoire of practices to finesse their knowing at patients’ bedsides: they practise knowing. Drawing on existing practice knowledges (old learnings) they tailor them in the ED (new workplace learnings). This suggests (...) that learning (practices) in the ED is teleological and emergent. This alerts us to new ways of thinking about attachments to practice knowledges, or ‘the teleological–affective structuring’ of practices (Schatzki, 2006, Organization Studies, 27, 1864), and its implications for organizational learning. (shrink)

COVID-19 is compromising all aspects of society, with devastating impacts on health, political, social, economic and educational spheres. A premium is being placed on scientific research as the source of possible solutions, with a situational imperative to carry out investigations at an accelerated rate. There is a major challenge not to neglect ethical standards, in a context where doing so may mean the difference between life and death. In this paper we offer a rubric for considering the ethical challenges in (...) COVID-19 related research, in the form of an ethics toolkit for global research developed at the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with more than 200 global researchers from around the world. This toolkit provides a framework to support confrontation of ethical conflicts through the integrated and iterative analysis of Place, People, Principles and Precedents, throughout the research journey. Two case analyses are offered to exemplify the utility of the toolkit as a flexible and dynamic tool to promote ethical research in the context of COVID-19. (shrink)

Three perspectives on international trade are present in current debates. From the first perspective, trade is regarded as a set of individual transactions among consenting parties and considerations of fairness and justice barely feature, if at all. The second perspective underlines the importance of background structures for trade, maintained by states, which gives rise considerations of fairness and justice. One prominent version of this perspective, for example as defended by Aaron James, views all trading states as having in principle equal (...) claims to the gains from trade. A third perspective puts the focus on exploitation. In this special issue, Mathias Risse and Gabriel Wollner claim that the first perspective should be abandoned and that the type of approach that is instantiated by James fails. This article does not follow them in dismissing the second perspective in its entirety. It suggests that there is a different version of this perspective that is defensible and develops key elements of that version. In a second step, the article seeks to show that, even if there were no plausible account of fairly dividing gains from trade among states, fairness in trade would still generate demanding normative requirements – that can be and should be integrated into a theory of global justice. (shrink)

The term “emotional practices” is gaining currency in the historical study of emotions. This essay discusses the theoretical and methodological implications of this concept. A definition of emotion informed by practice theory promises to bridge persistent dichotomies with which historians of emotion grapple, such as body and mind, structure and agency, as well as expression and experience. Practice theory emphasizes the importance of habituation and social context and is thus consistent with, and could enrich, psychological models of situated, distributed, and (...) embodied cognition and their approaches to the study of emotion.It is suggested here that practices not only generate emotions, but that emotions themselves can be viewed as a practical engagement with the world. Conceiving of emotions as practices means understanding them as emerging from bodily dispositions conditioned by a social context, which always has cultural and historical specificity. Emotion-as-practice is bound up with and dependent on “emotional practices,” defined here as practices involving the self , language, material artifacts, the environment, and other people. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus, the essay emphasizes that the body is not a static, timeless, universal foundation that produces ahistorical emotional arousal, but is itself socially situated, adaptive, trained, plastic, and thus historical. Four kinds of emotional practices that make use of the capacities of a body trained by specific social settings and power relations are sketched out—mobilizing, naming, communicating, and regulating emotion—as are consequences for method in historical research. (shrink)

The social dimension of purchase seems particularly important when it comes to food, since it can contribute to foster “consumers’ embeddedness” in the local food system. The discussion on this topic is growing after the emergence of alternative food networks , which are thought to have potentials to re-connect the different actors of local food systems, and/or to strengthen the existing social ties among them. This study focuses on the evaluation of the degree of sociality in different food shopping environments. (...) The research is focused on the structure and the features of the interactions, with the aim to provide an assessment of the degree of sociality of AFNs compared to other food chain networks. More specifically, a farmers’ market, a greengrocer and a supermarket have been compared. The three shopping environments show remarkable differences: in the supermarket perfunctory interactions are most often observed, unless shoppers already know each other, whereas the farmers’ market environment is likely to foster quite intense relations among strangers; the greengrocer, on the contrary, shows a completely different pattern of relations, typically involving customers who already know each other. Results support the common argument that farmers’ markets may enhance sociality among people, although some interesting relations patterns are observed in the other food stores as well. Issues for further research in the field emerge, which might be useful to improve the understanding of the social dimension of food shopping as well as to more deeply analyse the elements of attractiveness of AFNs. (shrink)

Universities increasingly play an important role in entrepreneurship, which has contributed to gender equality in the business world. The aim of this study is to establish a causal model of entrepreneurial intentions and explore it by gender, based on the dimensions of the Theory of Planned Behavior, and how these are mediated by the individuals’ resilience and psychological well-being. The previous work experience was considered as one of the control variables, in order to analyze whether this influence the entrepreneurial intention. (...) With a convenience sample of 644 Portuguese students, Structural Equation Modeling was used. For a better understanding, multivariate analyses were performed and each one was individually reported, and for appropriate comparisons by gender, the t-student test was used. The comparison of means, between genders, showed that there are differences only between perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, and entrepreneurial intention, with women scoring the highest values, and psychological well-being, with men scoring the higher. A serial mediation path was performed, and psychological resilience was found to mediate a significant effect between perceived behavioral control and intention in females, but not in males. It also mediates a significant effect between attitude and intention in females, but not in males. These results show that attitude is a determining factor for females to become entrepreneurs. Finally, after discussing the results, theoretical and practical contributions are analyzed, with regard to the field of entrepreneurship in Portugal, and alternatives are pointed out for a more entrepreneurial future, reinforcing the role of higher education institutions. (shrink)

Biomedical research policy in recent years has often tried to make such research more ‘translational’, aiming to facilitate the transfer of insights from research and development to health care for the benefit of future users. Involving patients in deliberations about and design of biomedical research may increase the quality of R&D and of resulting innovations and thus contribute to translation. However, patient involvement in biomedical research is not an easy feat. This paper discusses the development of a method for involving (...) patients in biomedical research aiming to address its main challenges.After reviewing the potential challenges of patient involvement, we formulate three requirements for any method to meaningfully involve patients in biomedical research. It should enable patients to put forward their experiential knowledge, to develop a rich view of what an envisioned innovation might look like and do, and to connect their experiential knowledge with the envisioned innovation. We then describe how we developed the card-based discussion method ‘Voice of patients’, and discuss to what extent the method, when used in four focus groups, satisfied these requirements. We conclude that the method is quite successful in mobilising patients’ experiential knowledge, in stimulating their imaginaries of the innovation under discussion and to some extent also in connecting these two. More work is needed to translate patients’ considerations into recommendations relevant to researchers’ activities. It also seems wise to broaden the audience for patients’ considerations to other actors working on a specific innovation. (shrink)

Individuals with populist radical-right (PRR) attitudes seem particularly inclined to spread disinformation. However, it is unclear whether this is due to the large amount of disinformation with a PRR bias or a general tendency to perceive disinformation as credible and/or spread it further. This study explores (1) effects of a PRR bias on perceived message credibility and likelihood of spreading disinformation, (2) the extent to which perceived message credibility mediates the spread of disinformation, (3) effects of PRR attitudes on the (...) perceived message credibility of biased disinformation, and (4) whether a PRR bias of disinformation explains the spread of disinformation by individuals with PRR attitudes despite a lack of credibility. An online experimental study (N = 572) in Germany showed that the spread of disinformation is mediated by perceived message credibility of disinformation. PRR attitudes positively predict perceived message credibility regardless of whether it is biased or unbiased disinformation. (shrink)

This paper examines the nexus between climate change and trade governance from a normative perspective. Only little research attention has been paid to assessing the interactions between empirical and normative approaches to climate change in the context of potential trade measures. To this end, the paper focuses on currently discussed border carbon adjustment measures. The paper assesses these trade measures from a normative perspective: it explores whether they are compatible or in conflict with development ethics on the one hand and (...) with climate ethics on the other. The paper finds that border adjustment measures are both a potential threat to development, as well as to a workable climate agreement. It argues that they are therefore both in conflict with development as well as climate ethics concerns. From a development ethics perspective, border adjustment measures are objectionable for two reasons. First, they hurt developing countries and above all the ones that are vulnerable in terms of relying only on few export goods. Second, border adjustment measures restrict market access for developing countries and thereby undermine the potential of trade to foster development. From a climate ethics perspective, border adjustment measures are objectionable for three reasons. First, border adjustment measures amount to unilaterally changing whatever global burden-sharing deal has been agreed to—thereby undermining procedural justice. Second, border adjustment measures disregard the consumption-dimension: it might be questioned whether it is fair to focus exclusively on making producers pay for emissions rather than also holding those responsible that import and consume the goods that incorporate these emissions. Third, even if border adjustment measures and countries with low emissions are exempted from border adjustment measures, they still burden countries that bear no historic responsibility for current high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, thereby undermining distributive justice by being in conflict with the polluter pays principle. (shrink)

En este trabajo se analizan ciertos aspectos de la sociedad nazarí de finales del siglo XV. Para hacerlo, se emplean las informaciones contenidas en un pleito de hidalguía de principios del siglo XVI. Este pleito afectó a los descendientes de un converso granadino hijo de un alcaide de Iznalloz. La particular perspectiva que proporcionan estos testimonios, que realizan una equiparación entre hidalguía castellana y parte de la oligarquía granadina, plantean numerosas preguntas sobre la sociedad del Reino de Granada a finales (...) de la Edad Media. (shrink)