This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

An active engagement with arts in general and visual arts in particular has been hypothesized to yield beneficial effects beyond arts itself. So-called cognitive and socio-emotional “transfer” effects into other domains have been claimed. However, the empirical basis of these hopes is limited. This is partly due to a lack of experimental comparisons, theory-based designs, and objective measurements in the literature on transfer effects of arts education. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to design and experimentally investigate a (...) theory-based visual-arts education program for adolescents aged between 12 and 19 years. The program was delivered in a museum context in three sessions and was expected to yield specific and objectively measurable transfer effects. To conduct a randomized field trial, three strictly parallelized and standardized art courses were developed, all of which addressed the topic of portrait drawing. The courses mainly differed regarding their instructional focus, which was either on periods of art history, on the facial expression of emotions, or on the self-perception of a person in the context of different social roles. In the first and more “traditional” course portrait drawing was used to better understand how portraits looked like in former centuries. The two other courses were designed in a way that the artistic engagement in portrait drawing was interwoven with practicing socio-emotional skills, namely empathy and emotion recognition in one course and understanding complex self-concept structures in the other. We expected positive socio-emotional transfer effects in the two “psychological” courses. We used an animated morph task to measure emotion recognition performance and a self-concept task to measure the self-complexity of participants before and after all three courses. Results indicate that an instructional focus on drawing the facial expressions of emotions yields specific improvements in emotion recognition, whereas drawing persons in different social roles yields a higher level of self-complexity in the self-concept task. In contrast, no significant effects on socio-emotional skills were found in the course focussing on art history. Therefore, our study provides causal evidence that visual-arts programs situated in an art-museum context can advance socio-emotional skills, when designed properly. (shrink)

According to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, the frequency of positive emotions is associated with the development of positive attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors in organizational contexts. However, positive and negative attitudes at work might also be influenced by different personal and job resources. While emotional intelligence has been significantly associated with positive job attitudes and personal well-being, no studies have yet examined the joint role of teacher happiness and emotional intelligence in key teacher job attitudes. The present study assesses (...) whether emotional intelligence interacts with levels of teacher happiness to jointly explain important teacher job attitudes. A total sample of 685 teaching professionals filled out a battery of scales including subjective happiness, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Our results revealed that subjective happiness was significantly associated with both higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention. Likewise, emotional intelligence was positively related to happiness and job satisfaction, and negatively related to turnover intention. Finally, interaction analysis showed the main effects of happiness and emotional intelligence in explaining teacher job attitudes. Beyond the main effects, the interaction effects of happiness and emotional intelligence were significant in predicting all teachers' job attitude indicators, even controlling for the effects of their sociodemographic variables. This work expands our knowledge about the role of teachers' positive emotions in the development of positive work attitudes, and also supports the inclusion of emotional skills in future teacher preparation programs as resources to facilitate work-related well-being. (shrink)

En 1895 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) escribe Las Reglas del Método Sociológico (RMS). No se trataría ya de metafísica social o de filosofía social sino de una sobria práctica epistemológica asentada en la Universidad y legitimada social y políticamente. Descartes y Durkheim pueden ser considerados..

Este artículo trata de inventariar y enjuiciar las críticas que desde la filosofía de la ciencia se han realizado al psicoanálisis freudiano desde hace 30 años atrás y que hasta la fecha aún gozan de buena salud entre algunos profesores de metodología de la ciencia y algunos psicólogos que quier..

La escuela de la Teoría Crítica de la sociedad tuvo como baluarte el texto "Dialéctica de la Ilustración" escrito por Max Horkheimer y Teodoro Adorno. En él, los autores se lamentan del deplorable estado de la tradición científica occidental, ya que los avances de la actividad científica modern.

Este ensayo aborda la relevancia de lo que se discute en la filosofía de la ciencia. La filosofía no se trata de hablar cosas complicadas usando un lenguaje difícilmente comprensible para tratar problemas que sólo los mismos filósofos consideran importantes. Preguntas como ¿Es real el mundo en q..

RESUMEN: En el presente artículo se intentará demostrar que la libertad de conciencia y religiosa conforman un único derecho que tienen como fin proteger las creencias e ideologías de las personas, independientemente de su carácter religioso o secular. Por ende, se sostendrá que la fórmula adoptada por el sistema jurídico colombiano de promover el fenómeno religioso es contraria al principio de igualdad porque privilegia una visión del mundo teísta frente a otras visiones, también válidas en un Estado constitucional y pluralista (...) como el colombiano.ABSTRACT: In this article we will try to demonstrate that the freedom of conscience and religion constitute a single right that have as a purpose to protect the beliefs and ideologies of people, regardless of their religious or secular character. Therefore, it will be argued that the formula adopted by the Colombian legal system to promote the religious phenomenon is contrary to the principle of equality because it privileges a view of the theist world against other visions, also valid in a constitutional and pluralist state like Colombia.PALABRAS CLAVES: libertad de conciencia, libertad religiosa, estado laico, neutralidad religiosa, separación KEYWORDS: freedom of conscience, religious freedom, secular state, religious neutrality, separation. (shrink)

Adaptive optics are techniques used for processing the spatial resolution of astronomical images taken from large ground-based telescopes. In this work, computational results are presented for a modified curvature sensor, the tomographic pupil image wavefront sensor, which measures the turbulence of the atmosphere, expressed in terms of an expansion over Zernike polynomials. Convolutional neural networks are presented as an alternative to the TPI-WFS reconstruction. This technique is a machine learning model of the family of artificial neural networks, which are widely (...) known for its performance as modeling and prediction technique in complex systems. Results obtained from the reconstruction of the networks are compared with the TPI-WFS reconstruction by estimating errors and optical measurements. The reconstructed wavefronts from both techniques are compared for wavefronts of 153 Zernike modes. For this case, a detailed comparison and grid search to find the most suitable neural network is performed, searching between multi-layer perceptron, CNN and recurrent networks topologies. In general, the best network was a CNN trained for TPI-WFS reconstruction, achieving better performance than the reconstruction software from TPI-WFS in most of the turbulent profiles, but the most significant improvements were found for higher turbulent profiles that have the lowest r0 values. (shrink)

Embodiment approaches to cognition and emotion have put forth the idea that the way we think and talk about affective events often recruits spatial information that stems, to some extent, from our bodily experiences. For example, metaphorical expressions such as “being someone’s right hand” or “leaving something bad behind” convey affectivity associated with the lateral and sagittal dimensions of space. Action tendencies associated with affect such as the directional fluency of hand movements (dominant right hand-side – positive; non-dominant left hand-side (...) – negative) and approach-avoidance behaviors (forward – positive; backwards – negative) might be mechanisms supporting such associations. Against this background, experimental research has investigated whether positive and negative words are freely allocated into space (e.g., close or far from one’s body) or resonate with congruent (vs. incongruent) predefined manual actions usually performed by joysticks or button presses (e.g., positive - right; negative - left, or vice versa). However, to date, it is unclear how the processing of affective concepts resonate with directional actions of the whole body that are performed freely within a context enabling lateral and sagittal movements simultaneously. Accordingly, 67 right-handed participants were to freely step on an 8-response pad (front, back, right, left, front-right, front-left, back-right, or back-left) after being presented in front of them valence-laden personal life-events submitted before the task (e.g., words or sentences such as “graduation” or “birth of a child”). The most revealing finding of this study indicates that approach-avoidance behaviors and space-valence associations across laterality are interwoven during whole body step actions: Positive events induced steps highly biased to front-right whereas negative events induced steps highly biased to back-left. (shrink)

Childhood obesity, linked to a sedentary lifestyle and an unbalanced diet, is one of the main problems in today’s Western societies. In this sense, the aim of the study was to analyze students’ perceived satisfaction in physical education classes with learning strategies and engagement in learning and critical thinking as determinants of healthy lifestyle habits. The study involved 2,439 high school students aged 12–18 years (M= 14.66,SD= 1.78). Structural equation modeling was conducted to analyze the predictive relationships between the study (...) variables. The results showed that teaching, teaching mastery, and cognitive development are precursors to deep thinking on the part of students, indicators of the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits. These results reflect the importance of the methodology adopted by the teacher in order to positively influence the students’ habits. (shrink)

BackgroundThe effectiveness of physical activity as an intervention against anxiety disorders and depression is undeniable in clinical psychology. Therefore, the question arose whether these effects also occur when a fear stimulus, like the COVID-19 pandemic, affects otherwise healthy adolescents. Boredom is closely linked to symptoms of fear and anxiety, but the connection between PA, boredom and fear is partly unclear.MethodsA cross-sectional online study was conducted that involved 122 students. Participants were 13–19 years old. The survey was available online from April (...) 27th to May 3rd, 2020. At this time, schools in Germany had already been closed for 6 weeks. A self-report questionnaire was used to measure physical activity, boredom, and fear of COVID-19. A multiple linear regression model was conducted.ResultsThe reported fear of COVID-19 significantly correlates with total PA, quantity of strenuous PA, and boredom. Furthermore, a significant regression equation was found. The variables boredom, PA, and age contribute significantly to predicting the fear of COVID-19 [R2 = 0.127, F = 6.876, p < 0.000], among adolescents.ConclusionOur results indicate that there is an association between PA, boredom and the quarantine experience of adolescents. Students who were physically more active, especially with strenuous intensity, did not feel bored and showed less fear of COVID-19. (shrink)

We propose a review of the theoretical assumptions of Social Policy as autonomous and normative science, in his history, doctrinal plurality and institutional diversity, especially on the current model of the Welfare State. Also, we discuss the impact on the same issue of a new social question, the integral human development, at the beginning of XXI century, in relation with the “social Europe”, the welfare society and the globalization.

Worldwide, vulnerable neighbourhoods of large cities are often the scene of collective violent conflicts linked with migration and ethnic minorities’ struggles for social justice. However, urban conflicts of this kind have not taken place in Spanish cities with high immigration rates, even though the country has been deeply affected by two recent socioeconomic crises (2009 and 2020). This article reports findings of a study aimed at understanding what lies behind this apparent social peace. The research methodology was based on an (...) analysis of secondary socio-economic and socio-relational data from the Spanish Institute of Statistics and from key national surveys and reports. Results confirmed that immigrant population living in the country are strongly segregated in the lower strata of the labour and socioeconomic structure and have been disproportionately affected by the crises. However, research findings also pointed to the existence of strong closed support networks where social capital has been effective at palliating members’ disadvantage and unrest. Drawing on the Theory of Rupture Frames, we argue that this is a fragile and unsustainable social peace, rooted in social injustice, and anticipate that unless actively prevented, uncontrolled conflict will eventually emerge in main cities’ neighbourhoods in Spain. (shrink)

Health professionals are especially exposed to stress, with consequences on professionals’ health and wellbeing. However, palliative care professionals’ wellbeing has been the subject of very little research. The aim of this work is to study the Personal Wellbeing Index in a sample of Spanish palliative care professionals, as well as to study their levels of wellbeing and the relationships of wellbeing with variables such as gender, age, marital status, profession, and professional quality of life. A cross-sectional survey of Spanish palliative (...) care professionals was conducted. The Spanish version of the PWI and the Short version of the Professional Quality of Life Scale were used. Here, 296 palliative care professionals attending patients at the end of life participated in the study. They showed medium to high levels of wellbeing. The PWI showed an adequate internal structure [χ2 = 116.130 ]; Comparative Fit Index = 0.970; standardized root mean square residual = 0.041; root mean square error of approximation = 0.140 ] and excellent estimates of reliability [α = 0.879 and Composite Reliability Index = 0.923]. Wellbeing was higher for married compared to single and showed no relation with age, gender, and profession. Additionally, a structural equation model was estimated, in which a positive relation was found between wellbeing and compassion satisfaction and a negative one with burnout. The PWI is adequate to measure personal wellbeing in Spanish palliative care professionals. (shrink)

The study investigated the influence of resilience and dispositional optimism on, first, emotional distress and, second, the intention to self-isolate, experienced by people with a lower and higher illness risk, during the lockdown imposed in Spain during the first COVID-19 wave. These effects were investigated against the background of the Health Belief Model. A convenience sample of N = 325 participants completed an online survey including an ad-hoc questionnaire measuring the HBM core factors: Perceived health threat, and perceived quarantine benefits (...) and costs. Self-efficacy and perceived social pressure were also measured. Based on reviews regarding pandemic outbreaks, quarantine benefits were conceptualized as the perceived effectiveness and solidary contribution of self-isolating in line with the quarantine protocols. Quarantine “psychosocial” costs were conceptualized as a composite of perceived boredom, loneliness, and economic concerns. Findings revealed an asymmetrical pattern of results so that people at higher risk were more distressed by the perceived severity of getting infected whereas people at lower risk were more distressed by the psychosocial costs. Moreover, resilience and optimism were more “protective” against distress within the lower and higher risk groups, respectively. In addition, quarantine benefits and self-efficacy promoted the intention to self-isolate within both groups. However, optimism hindered such intention. This finding is discussed in the light of links between dispositional optimism and optimistic bias; the underestimation of experiencing negative events, which can relax the perceived health risk. Based on these findings, communication campaigns should prioritize information about the effectiveness of the implemented preventive behaviors rather than the costs of not implementing them, and be cautionary in encouraging excessive optimism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper we explore the role of Digital Grassroots Innovation in the construction of a more participatory smart city. 18 DGIs from four Spanish cities (Santander, Valencia, Bilba...

El coaching ejecutivo ha dado lugar a numerosos desarrollos de orientación básicamente prescriptiva. Una perspectiva crítica y con base empírica puede permitir ir más allá de la retórica del coaching e identificar las tensiones y las contradicciones de los procesos de coaching en un contexto organizacional, como entorno relacional y cultural. El objetivo de este trabajo es acercarnos críticamente al coaching ejecutivo individual en la práctica, estableciendo las diferencias entre lo preconizado por las teorías y los expertos del coaching y (...) lo que se hace en las empresas. Mediante 50 entrevistas en profundidad a coaches y coachees, identificamos cuatro grandes discursos sobre el coaching ejecutivo: a) herramienta de crecimiento personal; b) relación diádica; c) resolución de problemas en equipos de trabajo; y d) mecanismo de cambio organizacional. El análisis muestra las tensiones y las contradicciones ad intra y entre los discursos y, con ello, la importancia de considerar el contexto organizacional. (shrink)

There has been a growing interest within analytic philosophy in addressing political and social issues, which has been referred to as the “political turn” in the discipline. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses the very characterization of the political turn. In particular, it introduces the definition proposed by Bordonaba-Plou, Fernández-Castro, and Torices, suggests that we should not consider the turn a form of activism, and explores an additional benefit of the ideal/nonideal distinction for characterizing the (...) turn. Second, it addresses the concern of what attitude we should take in the face of the different sensitivities we might have with respect to what constitutes an injustice. Which philosophical works should count as part of the political turn? The paper explores three different attitudes toward this dilemma, and favors what it calls the revisionist attitude, which emphasizes the fact that our perception of injustice is subject to error. (shrink)

Recent research on algebraic models of _quasi-Nelson logic_ has brought new attention to a number of classes of algebras which result from enriching (subreducts of) Heyting algebras with a special modal operator, known in the literature as a _nucleus_. Among these various algebraic structures, for which we employ the umbrella term _intuitionistic modal algebras_, some have been studied since at least the 1970s, usually within the framework of topology and sheaf theory. Others may seem more exotic, for their primitive operations (...) arise from algebraic terms of the intuitionistic modal language which have not been previously considered. We shall for instance investigate the variety of _weak implicative semilattices_, whose members are (non-necessarily distributive) meet semilattices endowed with a nucleus and an implication operation which is not a relative pseudo-complement but satisfies the postulates of Celani and Jansana’s strict implication. For each of these new classes of algebras we establish a representation and a topological duality which generalize the known ones for Heyting algebras enriched with a nucleus. (shrink)

Social robotics attempts to build robots able to interact with humans and other robots. Philosophical and scientific research in social cognition can provide social robotics research with models of social cognition to implement those models in mechanic agents. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, I present and defend a framework in social cognition known as mindshaping. According to it, human beings are biologically predisposed to learn and teach cultural and rational norms and complex cultural patterns of behavior that (...) enhance social cognition. Secondly, I will highlight how this framework can open new research perspectives in the area of social robotics. (shrink)

Ethical concerns of Internet users continue to rise. Accordingly, several scholars have called for systematic empirical research to address these issues. This study examines the conceptualization and measurement of consumers' perceptions regarding the ethics of online retailers. Also, this research represents a first step into the analysis of the relationship between CPEOR, consumers' general Internet expertise and reported positive word of mouth. Results, from a convenience sample of 357 online shoppers, suggest that CPEOR can be operationalized as a second-order construct (...) composed of four dimensions: security, privacy, fulfillment, and non-deception. Our findings also indicate that consumers' general Internet expertise significantly improves CPEOR and CPEOR are strongly predictive of consumers' WOM. Managerial and research implications are offered. (shrink)

A critical and notoriously elusive issue in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) research is the impact of Corporate Social Performance (CSP) on the bottom line. Instead of looking for direct correlations between social and financial performance, we hypothesize that the first result of CSR activities is the creation of trust among the stakeholders. A survey conducted on consumers of organic products provided support for our hypothesis, showing that CSP influences consumer trust and that that trust in turn influences consumers' subsequent actions. (...) The findings further suggest that intermediate variables between CSP and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) may best support a business case for CSR. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to account for privileged access or, more precisely, the special kind of epistemic right that we have to some beliefs about our own mental states. My account will have the following two main virtues. First of all, it will only appeal to those conceptual elements that, arguably, we already use in order to account for perceptual knowledge. Secondly, it will constitute a naturalizing account of privileged access in that it does not posit any mysterious (...) faculty of introspection or "inner perception" mechanism. (shrink)

In the last 30 years, the key issue in developmental Theory of Mind has been if and when children are capable of representing false beliefs. Moving away from this research question, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of attentional processes in false-belief tasks. We focused on the design of the test phase and investigated two factors that may be critical for 3-year-old children’s success: the form of the wh-question and the salience of the target object. The (...) results of two experiments confirmed that 3-year olds are able to explicitly choose the correct answer in a false-belief task provided that they are allowed to focus on the protagonist throughout the task. The salience of the target object, however, was a critical factor in the design of the test phase, as increasing it had a negative effect on children’s performance. These results suggest that the experimental record of the last 30 years may be skewed since standard false-belief tasks do not control for the relative salience of the wrong response, potentially hindering the performance of children under 4. We conclude that a careful investigation of performance factors in false-belief tasks has the potential to reveal deep insights into the development of Theory of Mind skills, even if not directly focused on children’s representation of beliefs. (shrink)

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the primary architect of the neuron doctrine and the law of dynamic polarization, is considered to be the founder of modern neuroscience. At the same time, many philosophers, historians, and neuroscientists agree that modern neuroscience embodies a mechanistic perspective on the explanation of the nervous system. In this paper, I review the extant mechanistic interpretation of Cajal’s contribution to modern neuroscience. Then, I argue that the extant mechanistic interpretation fails to capture the explanatory import of Cajal’s (...) law of dynamic polarization. My claim is that the definitive formulation of Cajal’s law of dynamic polarization, despite its mechanistic inaccuracies, embodies a non-mechanistic pattern of reasoning (i.e., design explanation) that is an integral component of modern neuroscience. (shrink)