The article provides a conceptualization of self(-illness) ambiguity and investigates to what extent self(-illness) ambiguity is ‘special’. First, we draw on empirical findings to argue that self-ambiguity is a ubiquitous phenomenon. We suggest that these findings are best explained by a multidimensional account, according to which selves consist of various dimensions that mutually affect each other. On such an account, any change to any particular self-aspect may change other self-aspects and thereby alter the overall structural pattern of self-aspects, potentially leading (...) to self-ambiguity. Second, we propose that self-ambiguity comes in degrees and should be understood as a spectrum (as opposed to there being qualitative differences among instances of self-ambiguity). Third, we argue that complexity is the most useful dimension to organize cases of self-ambiguity, with mundane instances of self-ambiguity on the one end and self-illness ambiguity on the other end of the spectrum. Fourth, we address the promises and perils of narrativity with regard to self-ambiguity. Finally, we link our deflationary account of self(-illness) ambiguity to pattern theories of self. (shrink)

The article provides a conceptualization of self(-illness) ambiguity and investigates to what extent self(-illness) ambiguity is ‘special’. First, we draw on empirical findings to argue that self-ambiguity is a ubiquitous phenomenon. We suggest that these findings are best explained by a multidimensional account, according to which selves consist of various dimensions that mutually affect each other. On such an account, any change to any particular self-aspect may change other self-aspects and thereby alter the overall structural pattern of self-aspects, potentially leading (...) to self-ambiguity. Second, we propose that self-ambiguity comes in degrees and should be understood as a spectrum (as opposed to there being qualitative differences among instances of self-ambiguity). Third, we argue that complexity is the most useful dimension to organize cases of self-ambiguity, with mundane instances of self-ambiguity on the one end and self-illness ambiguity on the other end of the spectrum. Fourth, we address the promises and perils of narrativity with regard to self-ambiguity. Finally, we link our deflationary account of self(-illness) ambiguity to pattern theories of self. (shrink)

The article proposes a theoretical model to account for changes in self due to Deep Brain Stimulation. First, we argue that most existing models postulate a very narrow conception of self, and thus fail to capture the full range of potentially relevant DBS-induced changes. Second, building on previous work by Shaun Gallagher, we propose a modified ‘pattern-theory of self’, which provides a richer picture of the possible consequences of DBS treatment.

In their target article, Moore and colleagues offer a valuable overview of the various ambivalence-related phenomena that may impede swift clinical decision-making. They argue that patients...

Although the concept of self-illness ambiguity is relatively new, the phenomenon is not. It seems likely that people have struggled with the oftentimes ambiguous relation between themselves and the...

Mecacci and Haselager's (2014) proposal is to reduce maladaptation after DBS treatment by revising the patient's conceptual scheme of the self. We are sympathetic to such an approach, but we want t...

In Kierkegaard’s scheme of concepts, acts of piety and ascetic styles of living — however colorful and conspicuous their ostensible forms — do not eo ipso constitute the religious individual. There is more. According to the logic of this train of thought, no one can know who is a religious individual. To aggravate matters, this blessed ignorance pertains also to the very person who would in all sincerity arrogate such an identity. So, at least, run strains of a theory adumbrated, (...) for example, in Training in Christianity, The Concept of Anxiety and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Dans le schème des concepts chez Kierkegaard, les actes de piété et les styles de vie ascétiques si colorées et manifestes que soient leurs formes déclarées ne constituent pas d’eux-mêmes l’individu religieux. Il y a plus. Suivant la logique de cette ligne de pensée, nul ne peut savoir qui est un individu religieux. Bien plus, cette ignorance bénie s’applique également à la personne même qui, en toute sincérité, s’arrogerait une pareille identité. C’est bien là, à tout le moins, le sens d’une théorie qui s’esquisse, par exemple, dans L’École du christianisme, Le concept d’angoisse et le Postscriptum aux miettes philosophiques. (shrink)

We assessed how synchronous speech listening and lipreading affects speech recognition in acoustic noise. In simple audiovisual perceptual tasks, inverse effectiveness is often observed, which holds that the weaker the unimodal stimuli, or the poorer their signal-to-noise ratio, the stronger the audiovisual benefit. So far, however, inverse effectiveness has not been demonstrated for complex audiovisual speech stimuli. Here we assess whether this multisensory integration effect can also be observed for the recognizability of spoken words. To that end, we presented audiovisual (...) sentences to 18 native-Dutch normal-hearing participants, who had to identify the spoken words from a finite list. Speech-recognition performance was determined for auditory-only, visual-only (lipreading) and auditory-visual conditions. To modulate acoustic task difficulty, we systematically varied the auditory signal-to-noise ratio. In line with a commonly-observed multisensory enhancement on speech recognition, audiovisual words were more easily recognized than auditory-only words (recognition thresholds of -15 dB and -12 dB, respectively). We here show that the difficulty of recognizing a particular word, either acoustically or visually, determines the occurrence of inverse effectiveness in audiovisual word integration. Thus, words that are better heard or recognized through lipreading, benefit less from bimodal presentation. Audiovisual performance at the lowest acoustic signal-to-noise ratios (45%) fell below the visual recognition rates (60%), reflecting an actual deterioration of lipreading in the presence of excessive acoustic noise. This suggests that the brain may adopt a strategy in which attention has to be divided between listening and lipreading. (shrink)

Many studies claim to measure decision-making under risk by employing the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) scale, a self-report measure, or the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a behavioural task. However, these tasks do not measure decision-making under risk but decision-making under uncertainty, a related but distinct concept. The present commentary discusses both the theoretical and empirical basis of the distinction between uncertainty and risk from the viewpoint of several scientific disciplines and reports how many studies wrongfully employ the DOSPERT scale and (...) BART as risk-taking measures. Importantly, we call for proper distinguishing between (tasks measuring) decision-making under uncertainty and decision-making under risk in psychology and related fields. We believe this is vital as research has shown that people’s attitudes, behaviour, and brain activity differ between both concepts, indicating that confusing the concepts may lead researchers to erroneous conclusions. (shrink)

Cet article présente une revue des mouvements de justice environnementale en Inde, à partir d’une combinaison d’informations provenant de l’Atlas de la justice environnementale (EJAtlas), de travaux de terrain et d’une analyse de la littérature secondaire. L’auteur souligne ici l’intensité des conflits, les armes judiciaires qui confortent les manifestations et le changement des slogans avec le temps, ainsi que les synergies et les alliances anciennes et actuelles entre ces mouvements indiens. Pour l’analyse sont combinés l’utilisation de statistiques descriptives et quelques (...) exemples concrets. Enfin, il est proposé un débat sur la signification du terme « succès » appliqué à la justice environnementale, sujet sur lequel des recherches plus approfondies s’avèrent nécessaires. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 311-326, April 2022.

Sequential action makes up the bulk of human daily activity, and yet much remains unknown about how people learn such actions. In one motor learning paradigm, the serial reaction time (SRT) task, people are taught a consistent sequence of button presses by cueing them with the next target response. However, the SRT task only records keypress response times to a cued target, and thus it cannot reveal the full time‐course of motion, including predictive movements. This paper describes a mouse movement (...) trajectory SRT task in which the cursor must be moved to a cued location. We replicated keypress SRT results, but also found that predictive movement—before the next cue appears—increased during the experiment. Moreover, trajectory analyses revealed that people developed a centering strategy under uncertainty. In a second experiment, we made prediction explicit, no longer cueing targets. Thus, participants had to explore the response alternatives and learn via reinforcement, receiving rewards and penalties for correct and incorrect actions, respectively. Participants were not told whether the sequence of stimuli was deterministic, nor if it would repeat, nor how long it was. Given the difficulty of the task, it is unsurprising that some learners performed poorly. However, many learners performed remarkably well, and some acquired the full 10‐item sequence within 10 repetitions. Comparing the high‐ and low‐performers’ detailed results in this reinforcement learning (RL) task with the first experiment's cued trajectory SRT task, we found similarities between the two tasks, suggesting that the effects in Experiment 1 are due to predictive, rather than reactive processes. Finally, we found that two standard model‐free reinforcement learning models fit the high‐performing participants, while the four low‐performing participants provide better fit with a simple negative recency bias model. (shrink)

We investigate what distinguishes social entrepreneurial ecosystems (SEEs) from entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) through appreciation of the importance of context—the multiplex of intertwined social, spatial, temporal, historical, cultural, and political influences. Community is incorporated as a key variable and hitherto overlooked dimension of the structure and influence of SEEs. We draw on extant literature and examples of a variety of SEEs to support our propositions and demonstrate why considerations of both context and community are critical to advance understanding of SEEs. We (...) contribute to the study of SEEs by presenting a new conceptual framework and theorizing SEE as an evolving composite of interdependent actors who interact and collaborate across multiple levels to collectively generate positive externalities and drive sustainable solutions to social problems. (shrink)

— We prescnt here a comparative study on the decay of chlorophyll a fluorescence yield in thylakoid membranes and photosystem 11 ‐enriched samples, measured with multifrequency cross‐correlation phase fluorometry. These measurements confirm the general conclusions of Van Mieghem ef al., obtained with a flash method, on the effects of reduction of the primary quinone acceptor on ChI a fluorescence yield of PSI. Different states of the reaction centers of PSII were produced by: pretreatment with sodium dithionite and mcthyl viologen followed (...) by laser illumination: the doubly reduced QA centers: with laser illumination or pretreatment with diuron: QA‐ centers; and the addition of micromolar concentration of dichlorobenzoquinonc : oxidized QA centers. The data were analyzed with Lorentzian distribution as well as with multiexponential fluorescence decay functions. The analysis with Lorcntzian distribution function showed that upon formation of QA. the major lifetime distribution peak shifted to longer lifetimes: from 0.25 ns to 1.66 ns and from 0.24 ns to 1.31 ns. However, when QAHZ was formed, the lifetime distribution peaks shifted back to shorter lifetimes both in thylakoids and PSIl membranes. Multiexponential analysis showed three lifetime components: fast, middle and slow. When QA was formed in PS11 centers, the amplitude of the fast Component decreased, but both thc amplitude and the lifetime of the middle component increased severalfold. However, when QA was doubly reduccd, the amplitude of the fast component increased and the amplitude of the middle component decreased: in addition, the lifetime of the slow component increased. All of the above results are consistent with the conclusions that PS11 charge separation is decreased when QA is formed and increased when doubly reduced QA is formed. Copyright © 1993, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Our think tank tasked by the Dutch Health Council, consisting of Radboud University Nijmegen Honours Academy students with various backgrounds, investigated the implications of Deep Brain Stimulation for psychiatric patients. During this investigation, a number of methodological, ethical and societal difficulties were identified. We consider these difficulties to be a reflection of a still fragmented field of research that can be overcome with improved organization and communication. To this effect, we suggest that it would be useful to found a centralized (...) DBS organization. Such an organization makes it possible to 1) set up and maintain a repository, 2) facilitate DBS studies with a larger sample size, 3) improve communication amongst researchers, clinicians and ethical committees, and 4) improve communication between DBS experts and the public at large. (shrink)

In _Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom_ Roy Bhaskar sets out to develop a critique of the work of Richard Rorty, who must be one of the most influential authors of recent decades. In a brilliant tour de force, Bhaskar shows how Rorty falls victim to the very epistemological problematic Rorty himself describes. Roy Bhaskar argues that Rorty’s account of science and knowledge is based on a half-truth. He sees the historicity of knowledge, but cannot sustain its rationality or the (...) reality of the objects it describes. The author further argues that Rorty’s problem-field replicates the Kantian resolution of the third antinomy: we are determined as material bodies, but free as discursive subjects. Rorty’s actualism makes human agency impossible. Developing his own critical realism, Bhaskar shows just where Rorty’s system comes unstuck, and how the philosophical problems to which it gives rise can be rationally resolved and explained. In this process Bhaskar utilizes his critique of Rorty to begin to elaborate his own alternative interpretation and critique of the philosophical conversation of the West. (shrink)

_Der Mythos der religiösen Neutralität_ bietet eine radikale Neuinterpretation der allgemeinen Beziehungen zwischen Religion, Wissenschaft und Philosophie.

Durante la presencia española en el sudeste asiático se mantuvieron contactos con otros países de su entorno. Uno de ellos fue Japón. El archipiélago nipón cambió de dirigente tras la batalla de Sekigahara, estableciéndose tras ella una nueva dinastía que dirigiría al país hasta 1868, la familia Tokugawa. En los primeros años de este gobierno las relaciones con los españoles fueron cambiantes, pasando de una situación favorable a terminar rompiéndose. Es en esos primeros años se hallan Rodrigo de Vivero y (...) Sebastián Vizcaíno. Ambos personajes se entrevistaron tanto con Ieyasu como con Hidetada Tokuwaga. Vivero estuvo en Japón poco antes de que las relaciones entre ambas potencias se rompiesen; por su parte, Vizcaíno las vivió en primera persona. De sus estancias quedaron sus percepciones del país nipón recogidas en dos Relaciones manuscritas. El objetivo que aquí se persigue es analizar y exponer ordenadamente los datos extraídos de sus manuscritos acerca de las costumbres de los japoneses, su arte, su arquitectura, su estructura social, etc. desde el punto de vista de dos personajes que a diferencia de los misioneros no se involucraron en la sociedad japonesa. Palabras clave: Rodrigo de Vivero, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Japón, Tokugawa, Nueva España, Filipinas.During the Spanish presence in Southeaster Asia, contacts were maintained with other neighboring countries. One of them was Japan. The Japanese archipelago changed its leadership after the Battle of Sekigahara, establishing a new dynasty after it that would lead the country until 1868, the Tokugawa family. In the first years of this government relations with the Spanish were changing, going from a favourable situation to breaking up. It is in those early years that Rodrigo de Vivero and Sebastián Vizcaíno is found. Both characters interviewed both Ieyasu and Hidetada Tokuwaga. Vivero was in Japan shortly before relations between the two powers were broken; for his part, Vizcaíno lived that in the first person. From his stays remained his perceptions of the Japanese country collected in two manuscript Narrations. The objective pursued here is to analyze and orderly expose the data extracted from his manuscripts about the customs of the Japanese, their art, their architecture, their social structure, etc. from the point of view of two characters who, unlike the missionaries, were not involved in Japanese society. Key words: Rodrigo de Vivero, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Namban, Iberian century, Japan, Tokugawa, New Spain, Philippines. (shrink)

En retraçant le parcours du Père Samaan, figure centrale de la scène chrétienne égyptienne, cet article analyse les trajectoires mouvantes de la politisation des coptes charismatiques et chrétiens évangéliques en Égypte dans les dernières années – les deux mouvances étant étroitement liées l’une à l’autre. Outre des orientations relatives à des positions de classe, des manœuvres et tactiques vis-à-vis des institutions ecclésiales, des arènes politiques locale et nationale, comme des ONG internationales, le rapport au politique des chrétiens charismatiques et évangéliques (...) d’Égypte est également conditionné par leur perception du religieux majoritaire dans le pays, à savoir l’Islam. Loin de refléter une tendance théologico-politique globale et homogène en tous lieux, partir de ce cas donne à penser la manière dont, à travers l’œuvre d’acteurs situés comme celle du Père Samaan, le christianisme charismatique s’ancre toujours dans des logiques territorialisées et des enjeux locaux. (shrink)

The eighteenth century saw the publication of many scientific and technical dictionaries, particularly in France, one of the most important being P. J. Macquer's Dictionnaire de chymie. Both the original text of 1766 and the revised and enlarged version of 1778 were translated into several languages, sometimes with authoritative notes and additions by the translators. No mere list of definitions, Macquer's work contained long articles that made it a comprehensive treatise on chemistry, and it set the pattern for many subsequent (...) chemical dictionaries. We have endeavoured to give an account of the circumstances in which the various editions, reprints and translations were published, and we add detailed bibliographical descriptions of them. Bibliographical purists consider that all the copies of a book printed from the same setting of type constitute an ‘edition’, and that there is a new edition when all or most of the type has been reset. However, Macquer described his revised and expanded text of 1778 as the ‘second edition’ and this designation has been adopted by subsequent writers, even though the original text was reprinted several times from different settings of type before 1778. In order to avoid confusion we therefore refer to all versions of the 1766 and 1778 editions as ‘issues’, ‘printings’ or ‘reprints’ of the first and second edition respectively. (shrink)

It deals with the problems of the Latin text (taking account of Michael Winterbottom's new edition), it delineates the work's structure and sometimes elusive train of thought, clarifies the underlying Greek and Latin concepts, and provides starting points for approaching the philosophical and historical problems that De Officiis raises.

This essay asks: Is “culture” the subject of a communication among anthropologists, or are anthropologists subjects to a communication among cultures? Put more simply, is there only one culture, comprised of multiplex variations recovered from various parts of an ever-changing world, or are there a great many, all of them variations on a single theoretical insight, which anthropologists have made up in secret and carefully keep as a secret from themselves? (Why not? the author asks, adding that such is exactly (...) how the modern state operates.) Is it possible, he further asks, for a memory to have an independent existence, untroubled by the people who constantly keep occurring to it? It is of course absurd to ascribe agency to what amount to mere figures of speech, metaphors, or enigmatic perceptual cues, “but if a metaphor could not think, as an agency in and of itself, then neither could we.” (Memories would have to be metaphors; otherwise how could we forget them?) Finally, the essays asks: What is more natural than the agency of the one you see in the mirror, that steals your act of looking, but only to view itself? (shrink)

RésuméLa sémiotique a inventé ou utilisé plusieurs modèles logiques pour représenter la structure élémentaire de la signification. Le carré sémiotique est sans doute l’un des plus célèbres de ces modèles. Il faut se demander, devant l’importance des phénomènes triadiques, si les modèles dyadiques sont (toujours) adaptés à leur description ou s’il ne faudrait pas se tourner (aussi) vers des modèles triadiques. Or, les modèles triadiques de la structure élémentaire de la signification nous apparaissent bien moins nombreux. À notre connaissance, seule (...) la sémiotique de Peirce et le templum de Boudon occupent cet espace autrement laissé vacant. Nous voulons ici à la fois présenter et exemplifier le templum et le compléter, en nous inspirant du carré sémiotique, pour le faire évoluer vers un « prisme sémiotique ». Nous proposerons également d’autres modèles logiques, comme le pentalemme et le cube sémiotiques. Au passage, nous étudierons plusieurs questions et problèmes – dont la décidabilité – entourant les modèles logiques. Nous ferons quelques applications sommaires de certains modèles, sur le temps, l’espace et la transcendance principalement. (shrink)

The paper presents a dilemma for both epistemic and non-epistemic versions of conceivability-based accounts of modal knowledge. On the one horn, non-epistemic accounts do not elucidate the essentialist knowledge they would be committed to. On the other, epistemic accounts do not elucidate everyday life de re modal knowledge. In neither case, therefore, do conceivability accounts elucidate de re modal knowledge.