COVID-19 added a new dimension to the relationship between school professionals and students’ families: a virtual one. To explore this shift and the associated challenges, we performed a bibliometric analysis of research literature published on the topic to the end of 2021. Our guiding question was: what kind of themes are emerging in literature on the school-family relationship in association with COVID-19? Our search of Scopus, Web of Sciences and ERIC retrieved 286 articles. Using VOSviewer, we conducted a bibliometric analysis (...) based on article keywords to map the field, producing a visual representation of networks of themes. Four clusters emerged: “educational players”, “distance learning”, “partnership” and “social context”. Unsurprisingly, the analysis suggests a shift in the roles of parents and teachers, with the digital sphere becoming central to their relationship. Beyond this, the crisis has cast light on both existing problems and the potential of a partnership based on a genuine sharing of responsibility. (shrink)

I Introduction In recent years there have arisen from several quarters, even within analytic philosophy itself, various challenges to the "positivist" ...

Livings things are so very strange -- The quest for a theory of life -- Understanding 'understanding' -- Stability and instability -- The knotty origin of life problem -- Biology's crisis of identity -- Biology is chemistry -- What is life?

A central debate in philosophy and neuroscience pertains to whether PFC activity plays an essential role in the neural basis of consciousness. Neuroimaging and electrophysiology studies have revealed that the contents of conscious perceptual experience can be successfully decoded from PFC activity, but these findings might be confounded by post- perceptual cognitive processes, such as thinking, reasoning, and decision-making, that are not necessary for con- sciousness. To clarify the involvement of the PFC in consciousness, we present a synthesis of research (...) that has used intracranial electrical stimulation (iES) for the causal modulation of neural activity in the human PFC. This research provides compelling evidence that iES of only certain prefrontal regions (i.e., orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingu- late cortex) reliably perturbs conscious experience. Conversely, stimulation of anterolateral prefrontal sites, often con- sidered crucial in higher-order and global workspace theories of consciousness, seldom elicits any reportable alterations in consciousness. Furthermore, the wide variety of iES-elicited effects in the PFC (e.g., emotions, thoughts, and olfactory and visual hallucinations) exhibits no clear relation to the immediate environment. Therefore, there is no evidence for the kinds of alterations in ongoing perceptual experience that would be predicted by higher-order or global workspace theories. Nevertheless, effects in the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortices suggest a specific role for these PFC subregions in supporting emotional aspects of conscious experience. Overall, this evidence presents a challenge for higher-order and global workspace theories, which commonly point to the PFC as the basis for con- scious perception based on correlative and possibly confounded information. (shrink)

In this article, we present a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the online discussion board posts of a group of elementary educators as they discussed their interpretations of four historical timelines that presented different – sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory – information about the goals of the Lewis & Clark expedition and its effects on Native populations. This activity was one part of a virtual professional development course on anti-racist critical literacy pedagogy for K-8 teachers, which was structured around three (...) key concepts: 1) considering multiple perspectives can disrupt common understandings of texts; 2) issues of power determine what is present and absent in the stories authors tell; and 3) texts are social constructions that can be deconstructed and reconstructed. The teachers featured in this article worked in the same urban district and throughout their discussion, we found that they perpetuated discourses of Whiteness while simultaneously attempting to disrupt them. However, we also found discursive reconstructive potential in the ways one teacher responded to her assumptions being interrupted by a course facilitator, as well as the value of using CDA to examine teacher language. Our findings point to further directions for teacher educators working to foster racial and critical literacy. (shrink)

This paper provides an account of mid-level models, which calibrate highly theoretical agent-based models of scientific communities by incorporating empirical information from real-world systems. As a result, these models more closely correspond with real-world communities, and are better suited for informing policy decisions than extant how-possibly models. I provide an exemplar of a mid-level model of science funding allocation that incorporates bibliometric data from scientific publications and data generated from empirical studies of peer review into an epistemic landscape model. The (...) results of my model show that on a dynamic epistemic landscape, allocating funding by modified and pure lottery strategies performs comparably to a perfect selection funding allocation strategy. These results support the idea that introducing randomness into a funding allocation process may be a tractable policy worth exploring further through pilot studies. My exemplar shows that agent-based models need not be restricted to the abstract and the a-priori; they can also be informed by real empirical data. (shrink)

Karen Neander’s (1991a, b) Selected Effects (SE) theory of biological proper functions argues that the function of a trait is the action for which it was “caused” to be selected by natural selection. Her life’s work has already left a lasting impact, however SE theory has yet to be more properly formalized as a conceptual analysis of biological functions. Although other SE theories have sought to build upon Neander’s work (e.g., Garson, 2017), there remains an ambiguity in the theory’s use (...) of causal descriptors. For the success of her successors, delineating the function of causality for SE theory is of utmost importance. Here, I systematize Neander’s theory according to the different senses of causation inherent to it. I argue that structuring SE theory in terms of causal transitivity and intransitivity reveals that Neander’s analysis not only supersedes her detractors but likely exposes areas of vulnerability in others’ SE theory derivatives. (shrink)

Cet article d'histoire éditoriale fait le point sur les neuf éditions de l'anthologie titrée Cantiques de Maisonfleur, de 1580 à 1613, son expansion et ses recompositions, et sur son éclatement dans d'autres recueils de 1591 à 1621. La coprésence de poèmes dus à des auteurs de cour connus comme catholiques et à des poèmes de spiritualité réformée ou écrits par des poètes réformés (pasteurs) fait l'objet d'un examen sous l'angle de la construction éditoriale. Selon notre hypothèse, le recueil essaie moins (...) d'unir les deux confessions qu'il ne tente de concilier le statut de sujet du roi de France, attaché à la monarchie des Valois, et de fidèle réformé. Poètes présents dans l'anthologie : Jérôme de Maisonfleur, Valagre, T. de Sautemont, Marin Le Saulx, Yves Rouspeau, A. de La Roche-Chandieu, Belleau, Du Bellay, Ronsard, Desportes, Malherbe, Bertaud, Du Perron, Pibrac, A. Favre, et autres. (shrink)

Recognizing the links between childhood trauma and delinquency, many juvenile delinquency systems now emphasize trauma-informed care. This commentary examines established and emerging research on childhood trauma among American Indian and Alaska Native children and contrasts the development and implementation of “trauma-informed” approaches in state and tribal juvenile systems. It identifies three key innovations present in tribal models and calls for further research to identify best practices that work for Native children and tribal communities.

Open Access: This paper will connect literature on epistemic injustice with literature on victims and perpetrators, to argue that in addition to considering the credibility deficit suffered by many victims, we should also consider the credibility excess accorded to many perpetrators. Epistemic injustice, as discussed by Miranda Fricker, considers ways in which someone might be wronged in their capacity as a knower. Testimonial injustice occurs when there is a credibility deficit as a result of identity-prejudicial stereotypes. However, criticisms of Fricker (...) have pointed out that credibility is part of a more complex system that includes both deficits and excesses. I will use these points to argue that we should look closer at sources of credibility excess in cases of sexual assault. This means that in addition to considering sources of victim blaming by looking at ways in which “ideal” victims are constructed, we also need to consider ways in which “ideal” perpetrators are constructed. (shrink)

Criticism can sometimes provoke defensive reactions, particularly when it implicates identities people hold dear. For instance, feminists told they are upholding rape culture might become angry or upset, since the criticism conflicts with an identity that is important to them. These kinds of defensive reactions are a primary focus of this paper. What is it to be defensive in this way, and why do some kinds of criticism, or implied criticism, tend to provoke this kind of response? What are the (...) connections between defensiveness, identity, and active ignorance? What are the social, political, and epistemic consequences of the tendency to defensiveness? Are there ways to improve the situation? (shrink)

This paper discusses the epistemological and methodological bases of a scientific theory of meaning and proposes a detailed version of a formal theory of argumentation based on Anscombre and Ducrot's conception. Argumentation is shown to be a concept which is not exclusively pragmatic, as it is usually believed, but has an important semantic body. The bridge between the semantic and pragmatic aspects of argumentation consists in a set of gradual inference rules, called topoi, on which the argumentative movement is based. (...) The content of each topos is determined at the pragmatic level, while the constraints on the forms of the topoi attached to a sentence are determined at the semantic level. Applications and possible applications toartificial intelligence and to cognitive sciences are discussed. In particular, the gradual models used to account for argumentation are shown to be extremely promising for Knowledge management, a discipline which includes knowledge acquisition, knowledge representation, transmission of knowledge (communication, interfaces, etc.), knowledge production (decision help, reasoning, etc.). A first formal model is presented and discussed: it is shown in details how it accounts for most of the argumentative features of sentences containing but, little and a little, and how it can be extended to describe sentences containing other argumentative connectives. However, this model is shown to be too simple and to violate the compositionality principle, which is shown, in the first section, to bean important methodological principle for any scientific theory. After a detailed analysis of the possible reasons for this violation, an improved model is proposed and its adequacy is discussed. (shrink)

The difficulties about other minds are deep and of central philosophical importance. This text explores attempts to apply Wittgenstein's concept of criteria in explaining how we can know other minds and their properties. It is shown that the use of criteria for this purpose is misguided.

At the beginning of the pandemic, many music ensembles had to stop their activities due to the confinement. While some found creative ways to start making music again with the help of technologies, the transition from “real” rehearsals to “online” rehearsals was challenging, especially among older amateur musicians. The aim of this case study was to examine the effects of this transition on three community band conductors and three older amateur musicians. Specific objectives were to explore intergenerational relationships to support (...) online group music-making; digital literacy and access in later life; and online music-making in a COVID-19 context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and theoretical thematic analysis was undertaken. Results were analyzed from the conductors’ and older musicians’ perspectives, and common trends were combined to facilitate interpretation. The first theme showed that being part of an intergenerational ensemble contributed positively to the learning experience online. The second theme demonstrated that because both conductors and musicians were new to the online rehearsals, it contributed to attenuate the age-related digital divide that may have been observed in other studies. Regarding access in later-life, older musicians reported benefits associated with rehearsing online, specifically in terms of distance/commute, time, energy, and cost. However, for those who did not already have internet and electronic devices, the cost of acquiring all the necessary equipment to make music online could have been too high. Finally, the third theme revealed that musicians appreciated the opportunity to make music online and indicated that it was definitely better than having nothing, especially for its social aspects. In conclusion, while participants noted several challenges associated with online music-making, they were also appreciative of the opportunity to continue making music at a time when in-person rehearsals were not possible. Pedagogical implications are discussed, specifically the importance of the support network, of meeting people where they are, of learning to adapt, and of collaborative teaching. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study explored the proportion of variance in depressive symptoms explained by processes targeted by BA, and processes targeted by cognitive control training.MethodsFive hundred and twenty adults were recruited. They completed a spatial cueing task as a measure of attentional biases and a cognitive task as a measure of cognitive control and completed self-report measures of activation, behavioral avoidance, anticipatory pleasure, brooding, and depressive symptoms. With path analysis models, we explored the relationships between these predictors and depressive symptoms.ResultsBA processes were (...) significant predictors of depressive symptoms, and activation partially predicted anticipatory pleasure, which in turn predicted depressive symptoms. However, cognitive control and attentional biases predicted neither brooding nor depressive symptoms. A comprehensive model including all processes fit the data but did not explain more of the variance in brooding or depressive symptoms than a model including only BA processes.LimitationsThe spatial cueing task was associated with low reliability and the use of a non-clinical sample limited the generalizability of the conclusions.ConclusionActivation, behavioral avoidance, brooding, and anticipatory pleasure are relevant processes to target in order to reduce depressive symptoms, while cognitive control and attentional biases are not. (shrink)

In 2000, the publication of ten texts marked the completion of a two-year project entitled Le Devoir de mémoire, which had brought together ten writers from across Africa to write in response to the Rwandan genocide. This article looks at how the project was posited from the outset as a specifically African response, setting this in the context of older problems of voice, selfrepresentation and the renegotiation of miswritten histories in the postcolonial context. This aspect of the project is made (...) all the more urgent by the actuality of the genocide, and the period of residence the writers spent in Rwanda in 1998. This article argues that the project succeeded in creating a space in which Africa as a whole is made part of the genocide, and vice versa, by raising complex questions of responsibility and by drawing on familiar themes in modern African writing, namely history, memory and identity; exile and dislocation. (shrink)

Erratum to: Int J Semiot Law DOI 10.1007/s11196-014-9376-7Dans la publication originale de cet article, l’auteur n’a pas cité le titre correct de la thèse de philosophie de Stefan Goltzberg.A la dernière phrase du premier paragraphe, il ne faut pas lire «il a écrit une thèse de philosophie intitulé Théorie et histoire de la philosophie du droit, philosophie du droit de Chaïm Perelman, de Theodor Viehweg, de Roscoe Pound» mais bien «il a écrit une thèse de philosophie intitulée Théorie bidimensionnelle de (...) l’argumentation. Définition, Présomption, Argument A fortiori». (shrink)

This paper argues that Rwanda’s decision to abolish the death penalty should be viewed in a wider context rather than as a mere result of top–down pressure from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Part I traces the creation of the ICTR and the breakdown of negotiations as a result of the exclusion of the death penalty from the ICTR’s jurisdiction. It then outlines Rwanda’s efforts to prosecute the hundreds of thousands of individuals accused of committing genocide-related crimes and (...) notes the limited and steadily decreasing role the death penalty actually played within Rwanda. Part II discusses Rwanda’s legislation abolishing the death penalty and argues that both international pressure and local historical and political forces influenced the decision. Part III situates Rwanda’s story within a growing paradox of excluding the death penalty from international criminal tribunals for the most serious crimes while national jurisdictions maintain it. It concludes that as in Rwanda, any perceived or potential impact of international criminal law in national jurisdictions must be measured in light of local circumstances. (shrink)

Nous proposons quelques remarques concernant la philosophie et son enseignement, en nous appuyant sur une conférence prononcée en 1975 par le philosophe tchèque Jan Patočka intitulée « L’homme spirituel et l’intellectuel », et dans laquelle Patočka décrit le genre de vie propre au philosophe par opposition à celui qu’il nomme « l’intellectuel » reprenant par là, et lui donnant toutefois un souffle nouveau, l’opposition platonicienne entre le philosophe et le sophiste. Nous approfondissons cette lecture par l’analyse d’un essai antérieur datant (...) de 1934, extrait du volume Liberté et sacrifice et intitulé « Remarques sur la position de la philosophie dans et en dehors du monde ». Nous souhaiterions montrer que dans ces deux textes, Patočka expose, partant de la figure de Socrate, le genre de vie du philosophe, faisant ainsi apparaître une figure de l’enseignement moins grecque que johannique. (shrink)

Feminist epistemologies consider ways in which gender influences knowledge. In this article, I want to consider a particular kind of feminist empiricism that has been called feminist radical empiricism. I am particularly interested in this view's treatment of values as empirical, and consequently up for revision on the basis of empirical evidence. Proponents of this view cite the fact that it allows us to talk about certain things such as racial and gender equality as objective facts: not just whether we (...) have achieved said equality in our society, but whether we are, in fact, all equal. I will raise the concern that the way in which they model the role of values in epistemology may be a problematic idealization of the open-mindedness of human agents. In some cases, resistance to value-change cannot be diagnosed as a failure to respond adequately to evidence. If so, the strategy of empirically testing our values that some feminist radical empiricists suggest may not be as useful a tool for social change as they think. (shrink)

An ad hominem fallacy is committed when an individual employs an irrelevant personal attack against an opponent instead of addressing that opponent’s argument. Many discussions of such fallacies discuss judgments of relevance about such personal attacks, and consider how we might distinguish those that are relevant from those that are not. This paper will argue that the literature on bias and testimony can helpfully contribute to that analysis. This will highlight ways in which biases, particularly unconscious biases, can make ad (...) hominem fallacies seem effective, even when the irrelevance is recognized. (shrink)

Mental time travel is defined as projecting the self into the past and the future. Despite growing evidence of the similarities of remembering past and imagining future events, dominant theories conceive of these as distinct capacities. I propose that memory and imagination are fundamentally the same process – constructive episodic simulation – and demonstrate that the ‘simulation system’ meets the three criteria of a neurocognitive system. Irrespective of whether one is remembering or imagining, the simulation system: acts on the same (...) information, drawing on elements of experience ranging from fine-grained perceptual details to coarser-grained conceptual information and schemas about the world; is governed by the same rules of operation, including associative processes that facilitate construction of a schematic scaffold, the event representation itself, and the dynamic interplay between the two ; and is subserved by the same brain system. I also propose that by forming associations between schemas, the simulation system constructs multi-dimensional cognitive spaces, within which any given simulation is mapped by the hippocampus. Finally, I suggest that simulation is a general capacity that underpins other domains of cognition, such as the perception of ongoing experience. This proposal has some important implications for the construct of ‘MTT’, suggesting that ‘time’ and ‘travel’ may not be defining, or even essential, features. Rather, it is the ‘mental’ rendering of experience that is the most fundamental function of this domain-general simulation system enabling humans to re-experience the past, pre-experience the future, and also comprehend the complexities of the present. (shrink)

Do extreme, unethical governmental policies often produce results opposite to those intended? This book considers the ironic outcomes of recent global events and concludes that there is a 'rule of reverse results' at work. While not a hard and fast law, the rule points out the increased probability that a policy will backfire if it is immoral while ethical policies, even if extreme, are unlikely to produce reverse results. The issue here is that of increased likelihood but not of certainty. (...) Governments can never be sure as to the effects of their actions: to some extent they are always working in the dark. But if the motivation is right, moral and humane the policies will not often produce adverse results the opposite of those intended. Based on events in global history in the Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries the chapters can each be read individually, as well as being part of the argument. (shrink)