Background: Individuals with psychopathic traits demonstrate an attenuated emotional response to aversive stimuli. However, recent evidence suggests heterogeneity in emotional reactivity among individuals with psychopathic or callous-unemotional (CU) traits, the emotional detachment dimension of psychopathy. We hypothesize that primary variants of psychopathy will respond with blunted affect to negatively valenced stimuli, whereas individuals marked with histories of childhood trauma/maltreatment exposure, known as secondary variants, will display heightened emotional reactivity. To test this hypothesis, the present study examined fear-potentiated startle between psychopathy (...) variants while viewing aversive, pleasant, and neutral scenes. Method: 238 incarcerated adolescent (M age = 16.8, SD = 1.11 years) boys completed a picture-startle paradigm and self-report questionnaires assessing CU traits, antisocial-aggressive behavior, and maltreatment. Results: Latent profile analyses identified four classes; primary variants (high CU traits, high aggression, low maltreatment; n = 46), secondary variants (high CU traits, high aggression, high maltreatment; n = 42), and two nonpsychopathic groups differentiated on maltreatment experience (n = 148). Findings from an ANOVA comparing identified groups on startle amplitude difference scores (i.e., aversive-neutral) suggested a main effect for group, F(3,196)=8.91, p<.001, η2 = .12. Primary variants of juvenile psychopathy displayed reduced startle potentiation to aversive images (threat and victim scenes), whereas secondary variants distinguished by high levels of childhood maltreatment did not. Conclusions: Findings add to a rapidly growing body of literature supporting the possibility of multiple developmental pathways to psychopathy (i.e., equifinality), and extend it by finding support for divergent potential biomarkers between primary and secondary psychopathy variants. (shrink)

Callous unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., a lack of empathy/remorse and poverty of emotion) that co-occur with childhood antisocial behaviour are believed to be the developmental precursor to psychopathy in adulthood. An increasing volume of evidence supports two distinct variants of CU traits/psychopathy, known as primary and secondary. Primary variants are thought to show core deficits in emotional reactivity (e.g., attenuated autonomic activity), whereas secondary variants present with high levels of anxiety and this may be reflected in increased emotional sensitivity to (...) negative stimuli. -/- Aims: The current study is the first of its kind to examine the role of anxiety in modulating emotional processing as indexed by heart rate (HR) in incarcerated boys with CU traits. -/- Methods: HR was recorded continuously while 205 adolescents (aged 14 to 18 years) completed an emotional pictures dot-probe task. The task consisted of four blocks of 18 trials, beginning with a 500 ms central fixation cross, a 250 ms picture pair presentation (i.e., neutral, positive, negative valence), followed by a probe appearing in either the top or bottom picture location until response, and lastly a 2000 ms inter-trial interval recovery period. Four groups were formed on the basis of median-split scores on the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Inventory of Callous Unemotional Traits, reflecting a primary variant (high CU/low anxiety), secondary variant (high CU/high anxiety), and two nonpsychopathic groups (low CU/high anxiety and low CU/low anxiety). -/- Results: The HR data indicated relative HR deceleration during the picture-probe period, regardless of group. Additionally, compared to all other groups, HR deceleration was greatest for the high CU/high anxiety secondary group and smallest for the high CU/low anxiety primary group during negative stimuli. Conclusions: This result is thought to reflect differences between CU/psychopathy variants in attentional orienting to distressing stimuli, consistent with theory. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to examine the contribution of evaluative conditioning (EC) to attitude formation theory in social psychology. This aim is pursued on two fronts. First, evaluative conditioning is analysed for its relevance to social psychological research. We show that conditioned attitudes can be acquired through simple co‐occurrences of a neutral and a valenced stimulus. Moreover, we argue that conditioned attitudes are not confined to direct contact with a valenced stimulus, but can be formed and dynamically (...) reformed indirectly, through association chains. Second, social research is examined in an effort to identify evaluative learning mechanisms. We suggest that several important phenomena in social psychology (e.g., ingroup favouritism, prejudice, name letter effect) are at least partly due to simple mechanisms of evaluative learning. The implications for attitude formation theory and for applied settings are discussed. (shrink)

This article examines the idea that “human dignity” means that humans as such are valuable. It does so not from a perspective of normative or metaethics but from the perspective of the practice of valuing that consists in manifested dispositions of actions and emotions. From this point of view a commonly neglected problem becomes evident: How can we value a concrete person non-instrumentally without any reference to her individual properties or achievements and without having any relationship with this person? The (...) suggestion for an answer to this question coincidences with an answer to another question concerning the idea of human dignity, namely the question regarding the relation between the ideas of value on the one hand and dignity on the other hand: to be able to explain what it means to value humans as such, we have to assume that “dignity” is not just the indication of a certain value, but is also a condition that humans can be in. (shrink)

Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution -- four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic. These systems, they argue, can all (...) provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.After discussing each of the four inheritance systems in detail, Jablonka and Lamb "put Humpty Dumpty together again" by showing how all of these systems interact. They consider how each may have originated and guided evolutionary history and they discuss the social and philosophical implications of the four-dimensional view of evolution. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors engage the contrarieties of the fictional "I.M.," or Ifcha Mistabra -- Aramaic for "the opposite conjecture" -- refining their arguments against I.M.'s vigorous counterarguments. The lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points. (shrink)

This article historicizes a single stage in how the contemporary obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) category was built. Starting from the position that the two central components which make up OCD are ‘obsessions’ and ‘compulsions’, it illustrates how these concepts were taken apart by a small group of clinical psychologists working at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Maudsley psychiatric hospital in south London in the early 1970s, and why compulsions were investigated whilst obsessions were ignored. The decision to distinguish the previously (...) undifferentiated symptoms is attributed to the commitment amongst psychologists at the Maudsley, most notably Stanley Rachman, to an empirical conception of science which emphasized observability. Two aspects of this are discussed. First, compulsions were deemed ‘visible’ through their correspondence with animal behaviour. Second, the symptom was seen as open to an experimental modification procedure which privileged visible outcomes. Ultimately, the article concludes that the historical division between ‘obsessions’ and ‘compulsions’, and the extensive investigation of the latter, has had substantial implications for the development of OCD as a category centred on visible behaviours and treated through behavioural means. (shrink)

Telepsychiatry has long been discussed as a supplement to or substitute for face-to-face therapeutic consultations. The current pandemic crisis has fueled the development in an unprecedented way. More and more psychiatric consultations are now carried out online as video-based consultations. Treatment results appear to be comparable with those of face-to-face care in terms of clinical outcome, acceptance, adherence and patient satisfaction. However, evidence on videoconferencing in a variety of different fields indicates that there are extensive changes in the communication behaviour (...) in online conversations. We hypothesise that this might impact ethically relevant aspects of the therapeutic relationship, which plays a prominent role in psychiatry. In this paper, we review effects of video-based consultations on communication between therapists and patients in psychiatry. Based on a common understanding of video-based consultations as changing the lived experience of communication, we categorise these effects according to sensory, spatial and technical aspects. Departing from a power-based model of therapeutic relationships, we then discuss the ethical significance of this changed communication situation, based on dimensions of respect for autonomy, lucidity, fidelity, justice and humanity. We conclude that there is evidence for ethically relevant changes of the therapeutic relationship in video-based telepsychiatric consultations. These changes need to be more carefully considered in psychiatric practice and future studies. (shrink)

According to the Bayesian paradigm in the psychology of reasoning, the norms by which everyday human cognition is best evaluated are probabilistic rather than logical in character. Recently, the Bayesian paradigm has been applied to the domain of argumentation, where the fundamental norms are traditionally assumed to be logical. Here, we present a major generalisation of extant Bayesian approaches to argumentation that utilizes a new class of Bayesian learning methods that are better suited to modelling dynamic and conditional inferences than (...) standard Bayesian conditionalization, is able to characterise the special value of logically valid argument schemes in uncertain reasoning contexts, greatly extends the range of inferences and argumentative phenomena that can be adequately described in a Bayesian framework, and undermines some influential theoretical motivations for dual function models of human cognition. We conclude that the probabilistic norms given by the Bayesian approach to rationality are not necessarily at odds with the norms given by classical logic. Rather, the Bayesian theory of argumentation can be seen as justifying and enriching the argumentative norms of classical logic. (shrink)

Socially responsible business and ethical behaviour of companies have been of interest to academia and practice for decades. But the focus has almost exclusively been on large corporations while small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have not received as much attention. Thus, this paper focuses on socially responsible business practices of SME entrepreneurs or owner–managers in Germany. Based on the assumption that decision-makers in SMEs are the central point where all business activities start, members of a German entrepreneurs association were approached (...) in the course of a qualitative and quantitative survey. They were asked to assess in what way their social responsibility is expressed in specific management practices towards selected stakeholder groups. These practices in turn were assumed to result in perceived positive reactions of the respective stakeholders and subsequently to positively influence the firm's financial performance, i.e. cost reductions and increase in profits. In the paper, a research model is presented that elaborates the relationship between an SME executive's social responsibility and the value creation of a firm, i.e. whether (personal) values create (economic) value. It was found that socially responsible management practices towards employees, customers and to a lesser extent society have a positive impact on the firm and its performance. As such, values can create additional value. (shrink)

Socially responsible business and ethical behaviour of companies have been of interest to academia and practice for decades. But the focus has almost exclusively been on large corporations while small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have not received as much attention. Thus, this paper focuses on socially responsible business practices of SME entrepreneurs or owner–managers in Germany. Based on the assumption that decision-makers in SMEs are the central point where all business activities start, members of a German entrepreneurs association were approached (...) in the course of a qualitative and quantitative survey. They were asked to assess in what way their social responsibility is expressed in specific management practices towards selected stakeholder groups. These practices in turn were assumed to result in perceived positive reactions of the respective stakeholders and subsequently to positively influence the firm's financial performance, i.e. cost reductions and increase in profits. In the paper, a research model is presented that elaborates the relationship between an SME executive's social responsibility and the value creation of a firm, i.e. whether (personal) values create (economic) value. It was found that socially responsible management practices towards employees, customers and to a lesser extent society have a positive impact on the firm and its performance. As such, values can create additional value. (shrink)

'...a challenging and useful book, both because it provokes a careful scrutiny of one's own basic ideas regarding evolutionary theory, and because it cuts across so many biological disciplines.' -The Quarterly Review of Biology 'In my view, this work exemplifies Theoretical Biology at its best...here is rampant speculation that is consistently based on cautious reasoning from the available data. Even more refreshing is the absence of sloganeering, grandstanding, and 'isms'.' -Biology and Philosophy 'Epigenetics is fundamental to understanding both development and (...) gene expression, and not surprisingly, evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated with its proper place in evolutionary theory...Enter Jablonka and Lamb, who provide a thoughtful review of the recent molecular literature and suggest a number of potential consequences.' -EvolutionSince first publication of this controversial book, much of the initial opposition to the ideas it contained has been replaced by a general, although often grudging, acceptance of them. Advances in knowledge, especially at the molecular level, have enhanced general awareness and interest in epigenetics and the evolution of systems that store and transmit information and put any of the authors' speculations on a more solid basis. This paperback edition contains a new Preface that sets out the major changes in the scientific world and in the authors' own thinking that have occurred since the book was published. A new Appendix provides a selected bibliography of the many books and articles about epigenetic inheritance and its role in evolution that have appeared since first publication. (shrink)

Contingent valuation surveys generally elicit stated preferences by asking how much a respondent would be willing to pay for an environmental improvement. By drawing on linguistic theory, we propose that the modal phrasing of this question establishes a particular type of commitment towards a hypothetical payment, namely a subjective want or desire. Based on the idea that beyond subjective desires, considerations about what is morally adequate may guide expressed values and that elicitation of these can be linguistically facilitated, we employ (...) an experimental framework to investigate the effects of different modals ( willing, should and appropriate) in the elicitation question on stated preferences. We find that elicited amounts with appropriate are higher than those elicited with willing and should for environmental improvements more associated with use values, while differences are non-significant for environmental improvements more associated with non-use values. We discuss the implications of our findings for stated preference studies, as well as the potential broader theoretical implications that our study entails regarding linguistic representations of the moral entrenchment of environmental values. (shrink)

Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 239-266, Spring 2022.

A caring approach to knowledge production has been portrayed as epistemologically radical, ethically vital and as fostering continuous responsibility between researchers and research-subjects. This article examines these arguments through focusing on the ambivalent role of care within the first large-scale experimental beagle colony, a self-professed ‘beagle utopia’ at the University of California, Davis. We argue that care was at the core of the beagle colony; the lived environment was re-shaped in response to animals ‘speaking back’ to researchers, and ‘love’ and (...) ‘kindness’ were important considerations during staff recruitment. Ultimately, however, we show that care relations were used to manufacture compliancy, preventing the predetermined ends of the experiment from being troubled. Rather than suggesting Davis would have been less ethically troubling, or more epistemologically radical, with ‘better’ care, however, we suggest the case troubles existing care theory and argue that greater attention needs to be paid to histories, contexts, and exclusions. (shrink)

The author investigates the notion of linguistic meaning in gender research. She approaches this basic problem by drawing upon two very different conceptions of language and meaning: that of the logician Gottlob Frege and that of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Motivated by the controversial response the Anglo-American sex/gender debate received within the German context, the author focuses on the connection between this epistemological controversy among feminists and two discursive traditions of linguistic meaning , to show how philosophy of language (...) can contribute to current feminist debates. (shrink)

This qualitative study describes midwives’ experiences in relation to termination of pregnancy for fetal abnormalities, and their corresponding professional and ethical position. Thirteen midwives working in a university clinic were interviewed about their problems in this respect. The information gathered was evaluated by using qualitative content analysis. The study focused on the emotional experience of the midwives, their professional position, and ethical conflict. In this situation, midwives are faced with a conflict between the woman’s right to self-determination on one hand (...) and the right to life of the child on the other. This conflict causes a high level of emotional stress and, subsequently, professional identity problems. Although questions concerning the child’s right to life are generally suppressed, the ethical principle of the woman’s right to self-determination is rationalized. Although this process of rationalization seems to present a false ethical decision, it enables midwives to continue with their daily professional duties. As far as orientating midwives to the value of these women’s right to self-determination is concerned, it must be assumed that they have made an ethical decision to which they have given insufficient thought. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that midwives are largely excluded from the decision-making process of the parents in question. They cannot therefore help in this process in a valuable and responsible way by providing clear information and proposing objective criteria. In relation to the tasks they are expected to fulfil, these midwives revealed that they were in a state of professional confusion. (shrink)

On 11 September 2019, the verdict was read in the first prosecution of a doctor for euthanasia since the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act of 2002 was installed in the Netherlands. The case concerned euthanasia on the basis of an advance euthanasia directive for a patient with severe dementia. In this paper we describe the review process for euthanasia cases in the Netherlands. Then we describe the case in detail, the judgement of the Regional Review Committees (...) for Termination of Life on Request and Euthanasia and the judgement of the medical disciplinary court. Both the review committees and the disciplinary court came to the conclusion there were concerns with this case, which mainly hinged on the wording of the AED. They also addressed the lack of communication with the patient, the absence of oral confirmation of the wish to die and the fact that the euthanasia was performed without the patient being aware of this. However, the doctor was acquitted by the criminal court as the court found she had in fact met all due care criteria laid down in the act. We then describe what this judgement means for euthanasia in the Netherlands. It clarifies the power and reach of AEDs, it allows taking conversations with physicians and the testimony of the family into account when interpreting the AED. However, as a practical consequence the prosecution of this physician has led to fear among doctors about prosecution after euthanasia. (shrink)

In 1809--the year of Charles Darwin's birth--Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published Philosophie zoologique, the first comprehensive and systematic theory of biological evolution. The Lamarckian approach emphasizes the generation of developmental variations; Darwinism stresses selection. Lamarck's ideas were eventually eclipsed by Darwinian concepts, especially after the emergence of the Modern Synthesis in the twentieth century. The different approaches--which can be seen as complementary rather than mutually exclusive--have important implications for the kinds of questions biologists ask and for the type of research they conduct. (...) Lamarckism has been evolving--or, in Lamarckian terminology, transforming--since Philosophie zoologique's description of biological processes mediated by "subtle fluids." Essays in this book focus on new developments in biology that make Lamarck's ideas relevant not only to modern empirical and theoretical research but also to problems in the philosophy of biology. Contributors discuss the historical transformations of Lamarckism from the 1820s to the 1940s, and the different understandings of Lamarck and Lamarckism; the Modern Synthesis and its emphasis on Mendelian genetics; theoretical and experimental research on such "Lamarckian" topics as plasticity, soft (epigenetic) inheritance, and individuality; and the importance of a developmental approach to evolution in the philosophy of biology. The book shows the advantages of a "Lamarckian" perspective on evolution. Indeed, the development-oriented approach it presents is becoming central to current evolutionary studies--as can be seen in the burgeoning field of Evo-Devo. Transformations of Lamarckism makes a unique contribution to this research. (shrink)

: The author investigates the notion of linguistic meaning in gender research. She approaches this basic problem by drawing upon two very different conceptions of language and meaning: (1) that of the logician Gottlob Frege and (2) that of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Motivated by the controversial response the Anglo-American sex/gender debate received within the German context, the author focuses on the connection between this epistemological controversy among feminists and two discursive traditions of linguistic meaning (analytic philosophy and poststructuralism), (...) to show how philosophy of language can contribute to current feminist debates. (shrink)

A key feature of facial behavior is its dynamic quality. However, most previous research has been limited to the use of static images of prototypical expressive patterns. This article explores the role of facial dynamics in the perception of emotions, reviewing relevant empirical evidence demonstrating that dynamic information improves coherence in the identification of affect (particularly for degraded and subtle stimuli), leads to higher emotion judgments (i.e., intensity and arousal), and helps to differentiate between genuine and fake expressions. The findings (...) underline that using static expressions not only poses problems of ecological validity, but also limits our understanding of what facial activity does. Implications for future research on facial activity, particularly for social neuroscience and affective computing, are discussed. (shrink)

It is a consequence of the theory of imprecise credences that there exist situations in which rational agents inevitably become less opinionated toward some propositions as they gather more evidence. The fact that an agent's imprecise credal state can dilate in this way is often treated as a strike against the imprecise approach to inductive inference. Here, we show that dilation is not a mere artifact of this approach by demonstrating that opinion loss is countenanced as rational by a substantially (...) broader class of normative theories than has been previously recognised. Specifically, we show that dilation-like phenomena arise even when one abandons the basic assumption that agents have (precise or imprecise) credences of any kind, and follows directly from bedrock norms for rational comparative confidence judgements of the form `I am at least as confident in p as I am in q'. We then use the comparative confidence framework to develop a novel understanding of what exactly gives rise to dilation-like phenomena. By considering opinion loss in this more general setting, we are able to provide a novel assessment of the prospects for an account of inductive inference that is not saddled with the inevitability of rational opinion loss. (shrink)

Conscientious objection has spurred impassioned debate in many Western countries. Some Norwegian general practitioners (GPs) refuse to refer for abortion. Little is know about how the GPs carry out their refusals in practice, how they perceive their refusal to fit with their role as professionals, and how refusals impact patients. Empirical data can inform subsequent normative analysis.

The rediscovery in the mid-1970s of Ludwik Fleck's initially neglected monograph, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Wissenschaftlichen Tatsache, published in 1935 and translated in 1979 as Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, has resulted in extensive, still ongoing, secondary writings, mainly within the humanities. Fleck has been interpreted as furthering a relativistic conception of science. Nowadays, he is often viewed as an important contributor to contemporary sociology of science and a forerunner to Thomas Kuhn. Fleck's account of the Wassermann reaction, (...) which forms the basis of his epistemology, has been praised as developed by a scientist well acquainted with the field in question. Because of the scarcity of available material on Fleck, however, the question of his sources has remained an unsolved issue. In the present article, an alternative reading is suggested. By focusing on the scientific content of the monograph, mainly neglected in the modern interpretations of Fleck, and on the so far overlooked sources of his writings traced back to their German origin, a better understanding of Fleck's account of the Wassermann reaction can be given. The consequences of this alternative reading for the conception of Fleck's monograph and for the impetus of his mission are discussed. (shrink)

This essay focuses on some important concepts in Beauvoir's philosophy: ambiguity, desire, and appeal (appel). Ambiguity and appeal, concepts originating in Beauvoir's moral philosophy, are in The Second Sex connected to the female body and feminine desire. This indicates the complexity of Beauvoir's image of femininity. This essay also proposes a comparative reading of Beauvoir's and Sartre's concepts of appeal, a reading that indicates differences in their views of the relationship among ethics, desire, and gender.

Schupbach and Sprenger introduce a novel probabilistic approach to measuring the explanatory power that a given explanans exerts over a corresponding explanandum. Though we are sympathetic to their general approach, we argue that it does not adequately capture the way in which the causal explanatory power that c exerts on e varies with background knowledge. We then amend their approach so that it does capture this variance. Though our account of explanatory power is less ambitious than Schupbach and Sprenger’s in (...) the sense that it is limited to causal explanatory power, it is also more ambitious because we do not limit its domain to cases where c genuinely explains e. Instead, we claim that c causally explains e if and only if our account says that c explains e with some positive amount of causal explanatory power. 1Introduction 2The Logic of Explanatory Power 3Subjective and Nomic Distributions 3.1Actual degrees of belief 3.2The causal distribution 4Background Knowledge 4.1Conditionalization and colliders 4.2A helpful intervention 5Causal Explanatory Power 5.1The applicability of explanatory power 5.2Statistical relevance ≠ causal explanatory power 5.3Interventionist explanatory power 5.4E illustrated 6Conclusion. (shrink)

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to inter-act with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots (...) were able to adequately demonstrate this, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), or functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) embedded in interactive human-robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive mechanisms involved in human-human interactions, and high-light the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human-robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human-robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under which attribution of intentionality to robot agents might be disadvantageous, and discuss challenges associated with designing social robots that are inspired by neuroscientific principles. (shrink)

The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate that construals of our emotional responses to fictions as irrational or merely pseudo-emotional are not the only explanations available to us, and that necessary and sufficient conditions for an emotional response to a fiction can be established without abandoning either its intentionality or the assignment of a causal role to our beliefs. ;Colin Radford's claim that our emotional responses to fictions are irrational and inconsistent is challenged in two ways. First, distinctions can (...) be drawn between our reactions to fiction and indisputably irrational emotional reactions which preclude arriving at Radford's conclusion via an argument from analogy. Further, the conditions for rationality put forward in several analyses of emotion, ranging from that of David Hume to that of Ronald de Sousa, are not violated by our emotional responses to fictions. ;Kendall Walton's contention that such affective reactions are merely quasi-emotions is contested on the ground that the absence of the existentially committed beliefs which Walton allies with all genuine emotional responses does not demonstrate an absence of cognitive content. Existentially uncommitted evaluative beliefs, thoughts, and even beliefs about the world can be linked to our emotional experience of fictions, and can serve a function necessary to the identification of the emotion, a function which Walton assigns to the existentially committed belief. ;In our experience of fictions, the objects of our emotion are various. However, a direct response to a fictional entity or event is characterized in terms of Peter Lamarque's account: as a response to the content of a thought, a response to what has been thought or imagined rather than to the thought itself. The roles played both by evaluative beliefs and beliefs about what can occur in the world are investigated and found to constitute necessary conditions for an emotional response to a fiction. An account of the role of the imagination, which borrows from Boruah, David Novitz, and Susan Feagin, provides another condition which, together with the two preceding, appears sufficient for such a response. (shrink)

In 2009, Tennie et al. proposed the theory of the Zone of Latent Solutions, defined as the range of behaviors an individual of a species can invent independently, i.e., which it can acquire without any form of social learning. By definition, species limited to their ZLS are unable to innovate and/or transmit behavioral traits outside their ZLS, i.e., they lack traits which go beyond the level of the individual—traits resulting from a gradual cultural evolution over successive transmission events [“cumulative culture”, (...) Boyd and Richerson ]. However, this does not exclude an influence of social learning on the population frequency of these behaviors: social learning can facilitate the acquisition of latent solutions and thus speed up and consolidate their spread within a population. Cultures—defined as behaviors at least influenced by social learning—are therefore still possible. Here, we elaborate on the ZLS account and relate it to the theories of Vygotsky who studied the role of social learning in human culture. We argue that the ZLS is a missing phylogenetic “baseline” of Vygotsky’s Zone of Actual Development. Vygotsky’s neglect of a need for a human “baseline ZAD” may have been due to his interpretation of Köhler’s work on great ape behaviors: Köhler used his observations on individual chimpanzees to draw conclusions about the chimpanzee species as a whole, stating that chimpanzees can only copy what they could have invented themselves, thus coming close to the ZLS concept. Vygotsky—studying the range of behaviors individuals could achieve independently—seemingly did not see that Köhler was suggesting a species “baseline”, upon which Vygotsky’s idea of an individual’s ZAD could develop. As a result, Vygotsky also did not see the need for a ZLS for his own study subjects: humans. Yet, there is no reason to assume that humans lack a ZLS, and in fact we present evidence for a human ZLS for tool-use behaviors. (shrink)

Este trabajo aborda el nuevo paradigma de la Open Science o ciencia en abierto desde la perspectiva europea, pero destacando su necesario alcance global. Se analiza el concepto, origen y evolución de la Open Science y se discuten sus retos y la demora de su completa implementación. Se parte de la hipótesis de que la Open Science debería de ser el paradigma de comunicación científico por defecto en el siglo XXI. En primer lugar, se revisa el concepto y alcance de (...) Open Science frente a Open Access y en su interacción con Open Knowledge, así como la necesidad de mantener la denominación como «marca». En segundo lugar, se recogen los requisitos, reflexiones y parámetros para hacer de la ciencia un bien común y se describen los retos de la Open Science en Europa, que se han convertido en los principales pilares y/o elementos constitutivos de la ciencia en abierto. Se reflexiona sobre su puesta en práctica, detallando dos aproximaciones: 1) la creación de políticas y estrategias formales a nivel Estados miembros, y 2) la implementación bottom-up a través de Compromisos Prácticos de Implementación. Asimismo, se destacan los problemas reales que alejan a los agentes implicados de protagonizar el cambio sistémico hacia la Open Science. Finalmente se reflexiona sobre el efecto de la COVID-19 que ha corroborado la necesidad urgente de la ciencia en abierto. Este artículo recoge, a modo de ensayo, la experiencia y el trabajo realizado en los últimos cuatro años en la European Open Science Policy Platform, donde la autora ha presidido el segundo mandato desde 2018 a 2020. La autora expone algunas de sus principales teorías en torno a la Open Science y defiende su tesis de los compromisos prácticos de implementación y la confluencia de aproximaciones de prácticas de los agentes implicados y políticas de ciencia abierta, así como su categórica aproximación a la Open Science como marca, actitud y derecho. (shrink)

The value and training needs of the future research workforce is under the spotlight. In this article, I take up Ulrich and Dash's (2013) somewhat provocative invitation to engage in discussion and debate about current and future research. In my three-tiered response, I first discuss Ulrich and Dash's article, followed by my own observations about the APEC/Deloitte (2010) research report: "Skills and Competencies Needed in the Research Field: Objectives 2020," and finally, I explore, in some detail, challenges of building a (...) twentyfirst-century research workforce. (shrink)