In this chapter, we discuss a selection of current views of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We focus on the different predictions they make, in particular with respect to the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) during visual experiences, which is an area of critical interest and some source of contention. Our discussion of these views focuses on the level of functional anatomy, rather than at the neuronal circuitry level. We take this approach because we currently understand more about experimental (...) evidence at this coarse level and because these results are appropriate for arbitrating between current theoretical frameworks. We discuss the Two-Visual-Systems Hypothesis (Milner & Goodale 1995; 2006), Local Recurrency (Lamme 2010; Lamme 2006), Higher Order (Lau 2008; Lau & Rosenthal 2011) and Global Workspace theories (Baars 1997; Baars 2005; Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Dehaene 2014). Despite the apparent stark differences between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing, available evidence suggests that their neural substrates must be largely shared. This indicates that the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing is likely to be subtle and highly specialized. We argue that current experimental evidence about the involvement of specific activity in prefrontal cortex supports the higher order neural theory of consciousness. In consequence, imaging techniques that focus only on marked differences between conscious and unconscious level of activity are likely to be insensitive to the relevant neural activity patterns that underlie conscious experiences. Finally, it follows from the evidence we discuss that the functional advantages of conscious over unconscious perceptual processing may be more limited than commonly thought. (shrink)

Arguably the most foundational principle in perception research is that our experience of the world goes beyond the retinal image; we perceive the distal environment itself, not the proximal stimulation it causes. Shape may be the paradigm case of such “unconscious inference”: When a coin is rotated in depth, we infer the circular object it truly is, discarding the perspectival ellipse projected on our eyes. But is this really the fate of such perspectival shapes? Or does a tilted coin retain (...) an elliptical appearance even when we know it’s circular? This question has generated heated debate from Locke and Hume to the present; but whereas extant arguments rely primarily on introspection, this problem is also open to empirical test. If tilted coins bear a representational similarity to elliptical objects, then a circular coin should, when rotated, impair search for a distal ellipse. Here, nine experiments demonstrate that this is so, suggesting that perspectival shapes persist in the mind far longer than traditionally assumed. Subjects saw search arrays of three-dimensional “coins,” and simply had to locate a distally elliptical coin. Surprisingly, rotated circular coins slowed search for elliptical targets, even when subjects clearly knew the rotated coins were circular. This pattern arose with static and dynamic cues, couldn’t be explained by strategic responding or unfamiliarity, generalized across shape classes, and occurred even with sustained viewing. Finally, these effects extended beyond artificial displays to real-world objects viewed in naturalistic, full-cue conditions. We conclude that objects have a remarkably persistent dual character: their objective shape “out there,” and their perspectival shape “from here.”. (shrink)

Uno de los acontecimientos teóricos más importantes, ocurridos en la filosofía política de las últimas décadas, es la reformulación del paradigma republicano. Este neorrepublicanismo pretende hacer frente a la profunda crisis de la democracia liberal (corrupción, insolidaridad, apatía ciudadana, etc.), en nuestra época de predominio neoliberal. En el presente artículo desarrollo principalmente su visión de la ética ciudadana; es decir, la importante idea de que la república necesita formular un cierto bien común y promover la virtud cívica de sus ciudadanos, (...) si aspiramos a una sociedad libre de dominación, más justa y solidaria. (shrink)

Introspection is a fundamental part of our mental lives. Nevertheless, its reliability and its underlying cognitive architecture have been widely disputed. Here, I propose a principled way to model introspection. By using time-tested principles from signal detection theory (SDT) and extrapolating them from perception to introspection, I offer a new framework for an introspective signal detection theory (iSDT). In SDT, the reliability of perceptual judgments is a function of the strength of an internal perceptual response (signal- to-noise ratio) which is, (...) to a large extent, driven by the intensity of the stimulus. In parallel to perception, iSDT models the reliability of introspective judgments as a function of the strength of an internal introspective response (signal-to-noise ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of conscious experiences. Thus, by modelling introspection after perception, iSDT can calibrate introspection’s reliability across a whole range of contexts. iSDT offers a novel, illuminating way of thinking about introspection and the cognitive processes that support it. (shrink)

Martin Buber believed that life's deepest truth lies in human relationships. In this classic work he puts this belief into practice, applying it to the concrete problems of contemporary society.

Metacognition is the capacity to evaluate the success of one's own cognitive processes in various domains; for example, memory and perception. It remains controversial whether metacognition relies on a domain-general resource that is applied to different tasks or if self-evaluative processes are domain specific. Here, we investigated this issue directly by examining the neural substrates engaged when metacognitive judgments were made by human participants of both sexes during perceptual and memory tasks matched for stimulus and performance characteristics. By comparing patterns (...) of fMRI activity while subjects evaluated their performance, we revealed both domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive representations. Multivoxel activity patterns in anterior prefrontal cortex predicted levels of confidence in a domain-specific fashion, whereas domain-general signals predicting confidence and accuracy were found in a widespread network in the frontal and posterior midline. The demonstration of domain-specific metacognitive representations suggests the presence of a content-rich mechanism available to introspection and cognitive control. (shrink)

Studying the neural correlates of conscious awareness depends on a reliable comparison between activations associated with awareness and unawareness. One particularly difficult confound to remove is task performance capacity, i.e. the difference in performance between the conditions of interest. While ideally task performance capacity should be matched across different conditions, this is difficult to achieve experimentally. However, differences in performance could theoretically be corrected for mathematically. One such proposal is found in a recent paper by Lamy, Salti and Bar-Haim [Lamy (...) D, Salti M, Bar-Haim Y. Neural correlates of subjective awareness and unconscious processing: an ERP study. J Cognitive Neurosci 2009,21:1435-46], who put forward a corrective method for an electroencephalography experiment. We argue that their analysis is essentially grounded in a version of High Threshold Theory, which has been shown to be inferior in general to Signal Detection Theory. We show through a series of computer simulations that their correction method only partially removes the influence of perfor- mance capacity, which can yield misleading results. We present a mathematical correction method based on Signal Detection Theory that is theoretically capable of removing performance capacity confounds. We discuss the limitations of mathemati- cally correcting for performance capacity confounds in imaging studies and its impact for theories about consciousness. (shrink)

Implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) in supply chains is not a trivial task. In fact, many firms in recent years have publicly proclaimed that in order to keep their CSR commitments, they had to reduce reliance on external suppliers by vertically integrating their operations. Our aim in this article is to examine whether there is truly a relationship between a firm’s CSR performance and its level of vertical integration. Drawing on a multi-industry sample of 2,715 firm-year observations, and after addressing (...) endogeneity concerns, we demonstrate that firms with higher CSR performance tend to vertically integrate more (or, outsource less). We also demonstrate that this tendency is weaker for firms that have higher degrees of asset specificity or international diversification. Our core conclusion is that CSR performance and outsourcing are at odds, but firms can reconcile this tension by deepening their collaborations with suppliers. (shrink)

Consciousness and confidence seem intimately related. Accordingly, some researchers use confidence ratings as a measure of, or proxy for, consciousness. Rosenthal discusses the potential connections between the two, and rejects confidence as a valid measure of consciousness. He argues that there are better alternatives to get at conscious experiences such as direct subjective reports of awareness (i.e. subjects’ reports of perceiving something or of the degree of visibility of a stimulus). In this chapter, we offer a different perspective. Confidence ratings (...) in general, and metacognitive measures in particular, may offer important advantages over subjective ratings. The arguments we offer here are supported by empirical, practical and socio-strategic considerations. However, we do not suggest consciousness and confidence are interchangeable. We recognize the limitations of confidence ratings in some experimental designs and for some research questions. Nevertheless, we also address a potential conceptual link between consciousness and confidence that stems from Rosenthal’s very own work on mental quality space theory. (shrink)

This is the first book-length study of Descartes's metaphysics to place it in its immediate historical context, the Late Scholastic philosophy of thinkers such as Suárez against which Descartes reacted. Jorge Secada views Cartesian philosophy as an 'essentialist' reply to the 'existentialism' of the School, and his discussion includes careful analyses and original interpretations of such central Cartesian themes as the role of scepticism, intentionality and the doctrine of the material falsity of ideas, universals and the relation between sense (...) and understanding, causation and the proofs of the existence of God, the theory of substance, and the dualism of mind and matter. His study offers a picture of Descartes's metaphysics that is both novel and philosophically illuminating. (shrink)

Inside the interdisciplinary field of Jurilinguistics, the main research has been carried out on state languages like English, French, German or Spanish. However, there is a new reality in today´s world, namely the existence of minority languages that have arisen to an official status as sub-state languages for the law and a limited range of branches of the law to be the own way to express themselves. The jurilinguistical point of view of this new reality requires a new approach to (...) it, mainly focused on both a general framework and the situation of each language. This is the reason for a first attempt to formulate a jurilinguistical general framework and a methodological approach to this new field in combination with the study of a particular case language, the Basque language, in order to describe its characters as a sub-state tool for expressing the Basque law and bijuralism, in accordance with its status as an official language in the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarrese Community, both in the Kingdom of Spain. (shrink)

Este trabajo exhibe tres niveles de lectura. En el primero se pretende elaborar algunas ideas relativas a la fragilidad de aquellas instituciones en las que interviene algún agente que, al estar relacionado con el Estado, no puede comprometerse irrevocablemente. Se arguye que esas instituciones son, en general, inestables a no ser que estén enraizadas en convenciones sociales que se expresen en un lenguaje inequívoco. En un segundo nivel estas ideas se aplican al estudio de un Banco Central Independiente cuya problemática (...) es, a su vez, el hilo conductor del trabajo. A lo largo de la exposición se plantean ciertos interrogantes que configuran un tercer nivel de lectura en el que se pretende acotar algunos problemas, comunes a filósofos, economistas y otros científicos sociales, tales como la racionalidad, la relevancia social de la falibilidad del conocimiento, la posibilidad de la acción comunicativa, o el contraste entre universalidad y diversidad. (shrink)

This article includes a study about the preface of Moreh ha-Moreh, a philosophical commentary on Guide for the Perplexed written by Sem Tob ibn Falaquera at the end of XIIIth century. In this introduction Sem Tob ibn Falaquera defends Maimonides and his works. In addition, he exposes his opinion about different subjects, like the nature, the determining factors and limits of philosophical labour or the harmony between reason and faith.

This paper tries to contribute to the elucidation of some intellectual conundrums and policy questions regarding scientific knowledge (SK). As for modelling , I have shown that the Solow model is independent of human agency, has rich and precise policy implications and captures some features of S(SK). As for policy I have obtained three results. First, the optimal path of scientific production can be reached through an attainable public intervention. Second, whether this public intervention ought to be implemented depends in (...) part on the relevant period of adjustment , a rather unconventional notion. Third, the analysis of this relevant period of adjustment may help to understand the development of science. Finally and in relation to epistemology I have been able to suggest that visual representation can be very misleading and that the proliferation I have uncovered forces a reconsideration of the desideratum of science. (shrink)

The starting point of the paper is the explicit recognition that the prevalent methodology among economists -namely popperian falsacionism- does not reconstruct as rational the central part of the work of the majority of them. The main thrust of the paper is doublefold. First, a new methodology -abstracted from the analysis of the core of Economic Theory- is proposed which enlarges the scope of rationality in Economics. Second, this new methodology -dubbed the Fix Point Methodology- is posited as a general (...) scientific one. As such it opens new vistas on Truth, specially the conjecture that Reality is a changing entity and the consequent call for professional honesty. (shrink)

El propósito de la investigación que hemos realizado es poner de relieve la figura de Cecilia G. de Guilarte, escritora y periodista. Comenzó siendo una militante anarquista de la CNT y única mujer corresponsal de guerra en el Frente Norte republicano durante la Guerra Civil española, defendiendo sus ideas políticas y trabajando, también, como articulista en revistas de Cataluña. Con la pérdida de la guerra y su salida de España, su evolución ideológica y cambio político hacia ideas republicanas quedó reflejado (...) en el carácter de su producción literaria durante los años de exilio en México. Fue destacada su labor profesional como corresponsal en un ambiente propio de los hombres durante unos años difíciles y mantuvo su actividad creativa durante toda su vida, representando una nueva imagen de mujer luchadora y defen-sora de unos ideales avanzados para la época. Como consecuencia de los cambios producidos en su trayectoria vital y profesional, la escritora logrará apartarse de un estilo con tintes políticos y emergerá la figura de una autora literaria plena. Para acceder a los datos hemos consultado archivos, documentos, periódicos y libros, tanto de la Guerra Civil como de la diáspora y hemos entrevistado a familiares de Cecilia G. de Guilarte. (shrink)

To find the neural substrates of consciousness, researchers compare subjects’ neural activity when they are aware of stimuli against neural activity when they are not aware. Ideally, to guarantee that the neural substrates of consciousness—and nothing but the neural substrates of consciousness—are isolated, the only difference between these two contrast conditions should be conscious awareness. Nevertheless, in practice, it is quite challenging to eliminate confounds and irrelevant differences between conscious and unconscious conditions. In particular, there is an often-neglected confound that (...) is crucial to eliminate from neuroimaging studies: task performance. Unless subjects’ task performance is matched (and hence perceptual signal processing is matched), researchers risk finding the neural correlates of perception, rather than conscious perception. Here, we discuss the theoretical motivations for the performance matching framework and review empirical demonstrations of, and theoretical inferences derived from, obtaining differences in consciousness while controlling for task performance. We summarize signal detection theoretic modeling frameworks that explain how it is that we can derive performance-matched differences in consciousness without the effect being trivially driven by differences in criterion setting, and also provide principles for designing experimental paradigms that yield performance-matched differences in awareness. Finally, we address potential technical and theoretical issues that stem from matching performance across conditions of awareness, and we introduce the notion of “triangulation” for designing comprehensive experimental sets that can better reveal the neural substrates of consciousness. (shrink)

La conferencia “Das Ge-Stell”, “Lo dis-puesto”, ha sido recogida en el volumen 79 de la Edición integral (Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe (GA), Bd. 79: Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M., 1994. Vorträge 1949 und 1957 herausgegeben von Petra Jaeger). Es una de las conferencias pronunciadas en Bremen el año 1949 (Einblick in das was is, Mirada en lo que es. Bremer Vorträge 1949). “Das Ge-Stell”, se halla entre las páginas 24 y 45. Las otras conferencias de esta parte (...) del libro — Mirada en lo que es—, son “Das Ding”, “La cosa” (pp. 5-23), “Die Gefahr”, “El peligro” (pp. 46-67) y “Die Kehre”, “La vuelta” (p. 68-77). La otra parte se titula Grundsätze des Denkens, Principios del pensamiento2. (shrink)

Se espera que una revista científica cumpla la función de dar a conocer resultados de investigación, difundir escritos y nuevas ideas y, ahora más que antes, abrir espacios para un fructífero intercambio entre instituciones, bajo el lema de “internacionalización del conocimiento”. En honor a su compromiso como revista académica de filosofía, el presente número de Aoristo - International Journal of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Metaphysics, cumple con las tres misiones antes mencionadas, haciendo énfasis en la última.

De uma revista científica espera-se que cumpra a função de divulgar resultados de pesquisas, difundir trabalhos e novas ideias e, agora mais do que antes, franquear espaço para o frutífero intercâmbio entre instituições, sob o lema da internacionalização dos saberes. Honrando seu compromisso de periódico acadêmico de filosofia, o presente número de Aoristo - International Journal of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Metaphysics, atende às três mencionadas missões, fazendo ênfase na última.

One can expect a scientific journal to fulfill the purpose of disseminating research results, spreading works and new ideas and, now more than ever, franking space for the fruitful exchange among institutions under the dictum of the knowledge’s internationalization. Honoring its commitment as an academical philosophy journal, the present issue of the Aoristo - International Journal of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Metaphysics assumes the three afore mentioned missions, with emphasis on the last one.