All humans share a universal, evolutionarily ancient approximate number system (ANS) that estimates and combines the numbers of objects in sets with ratio-limited precision. Interindividual variability in the acuity of the ANS correlates with mathematical achievement, but the causes of this correlation have never been established. We acquired psychophysical measures of ANS acuity in child and adult members of an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucú, who have a very restricted numerical lexicon and highly variable access to mathematics education. (...) By comparing Mundurucú subjects with and without access to schooling, we found that education significantly enhances the acuity with which sets of concrete objects are estimated. These results indicate that culture and education have an important effect on basic number perception. We hypothesize that symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical thinking mutually enhance one another over the course of mathematics instruction. (shrink)

In this programmatic paper we renew the well-known question “What is a proof?”. Starting from the challenge of the mathematical community by computer assisted theorem provers we discuss in the first part how the experiences from examinations of proofs can help to sharpen the question. In the second part we have a look to the new challenge given by “big proofs”.

Although we are beginning to understand the neurocognitive processes that underlie the emergence of dreaming, what accounts for the bizarre phenomenology of dreams remains debated. I address this question by comparing dreaming with waking mind wandering and challenging previous accounts that utilize bizarreness to mark a sharp divide between conscious experiences in waking and sleeping. Instead, I propose that bizarreness is a common, non-deficient feature of spontaneous offline simulations occurring across the sleep-wake cycle and can be tied to the specific (...) characteristics of spontaneous thought as being dynamic, unconstrained, (hyper)associative and highly variable in content. Rather than misrepresenting waking reality, bizarreness can be employed to investigate the very building blocks of spontaneous cognition. The absence of bizarreness in thought processes is imposed by automatic and deliberate cognitive constraints. By contrast, thought and memory processes operating on their own without such constraints are inherently marked by different degrees and types of bizarreness. (shrink)

ExcerptThe French political theorist George Sorel repeatedly prophesied that Europe would provide the future soil of armed cataclysms.1 Furthermore, he claimed that the catalyzing factors for the conflicts of political power that lay behind such eruptions of violence and anarchy were myths, conceived not in the anthropological sense but as a series of images formed into a dramatic narrative capable of mobilizing social movements and inspiring violence to change the status quo. Thomas Mann lent weight to such an analysis when (...) he predicted that “in the era of the masses, parliamentary discussion would necessarily prove utterly inadequate as a means of shaping political will.” Thus, “in the future what was needed in its place were mythic fictions, which would be fed to the masses as the primitive battle cries necessary for unleashing and activating political energies.” Henceforth “popular myths, or better, myths trimmed for the masses, would be the vehicle of political action—fables, chimeras, phantasms that needed to have nothing whatever to do with truth, reason, or science in order to be productive nonetheless.”. (shrink)

Manuela Ivone P. da Cunha est professeur à l'Universidade do Minho, CRIA-UM et chercheur associé à l'IDEMEC. Nous la remercions de nous avoir autorisé à reproduire ce texte déjà paru dans S. Humbert, N. Derasse & J.-P. Royer, La prison, du temps passé au temps dépassé, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2012, p. 143-153. Nous avons souvent tendance, notamment dans les rencontres scientifiques qui font du temps leur protagoniste, à parler de différents types de temps – le temps de la - Anthropologie (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Background: Over the last several decades, scientists and social groups have frequently raised concerns about politicization or political interference in regulatory science. Public actors (environmentalists and industry advocates, politically aligned public figures, scientists and political commentators, in the United States as well as in other countries) across major political-regulatory controversies have expressed concerns about the inappropriate politicization of science. Although we share concerns about the politicization of science, they are frequently framed in terms of an ideal of value-free science, according (...) to which political and economic values have no legitimate role to play in science. For several decades, work in philosophy of science has identified serious conceptual and practical problems with the value-free ideal. -/- Objectives: Our objectives are to discuss the literature regarding the conceptual and practical problems with the value-free ideal and offer a constructive alternative to the value-free ideal. -/- Discussion: We first discuss the prevalence of the value-free ideal in regulatory science, then argue that this ideal is self-undermining and has been exploited to delay protective regulation. To offer a constructive alternative, we analyze the relationship between the goals of regulatory science and the standards of good scientific activity. This analysis raises questions about the relationship between methodological and practical standards for good science, tensions among various important social goods, and tensions among various social interests. We argue that the aims of regulatory science help to legitimize value-laden choices regarding research methods and study designs. Finally, we discuss how public deliberation, adaptive management, and community-based participatory research can be used to improve the legitimacy of scientists as representatives of the general public on issues of environmental knowledge. -/- Conclusions: Reflecting on the aims of regulatory science—such as protecting human health and the environment, informing democratic deliberation, and promoting the capacities of environmental justice and Indigenous communities—can clarify when values have legitimate roles in regulatory science. (shrink)

Desde los inicios del filosofar y de las ciencias, el ejercicio de controvertir ha estado presente para dinamizar la emergencia de ideas, el reconocimiento de hechos y la formulación de métodos que los seres humanos han articulado con el propósito de entender las realidades que los rodean. Sin embargo, el estudio sistemático del desacuerdo en las ciencias como problema en sí mismo es de muy reciente data. Incluso la dimensión histórica de las controversias fue eclipsada por otras cuestiones aparentemente más (...) relevantes en los procesos de transformación que ha tenido la filosofía de la ciencia en los últimos 150 años. (shrink)

In this article I analyse the structural and cultural conditions of low-caste women's political agency in urban north India. Whereas in Western feminist political theory, the sexual division of labour is considered to be a key constraint for women's political participation, I show how this has a secondary relevance in the context analysed. I argue that issues concerning the division of labour are intertwined with and subject to those of male consent and support for women's activities. I illustrate how it (...) is often the supposedly ‘oppressive’ household boundaries rather than alternative outer spaces that, under a series of enabling circumstances, initiate women's political activities. Against this backdrop, I show how Indian women activists’ political agency is shaped by men's role, and how agency's relational nature is embedded in women's lifecycles, everyday practices and cultural expectations; in essence, in overall gendered agency. Comparative analyses between Western and non-Western models of political participation and discourse have only just begun. In this respect, I contribute to this nascent field in the following directions: not only do the arguments I present in this article challenge the individualistic Western subject of political action, but they also complicate the idea of the resulting empowerment as a culturally constructed process whose understanding arises from the dialectics between insider and outsider values. (shrink)

Das Buch zeigt, in welcher Weise Heidegger und Wittgenstein die Grundlagen der traditionellen Philosophie sowie der Psychologie einer Kritik unterziehen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf dem jeweiligen Frühwerk und wie dort die Problemkreise Sprache, Ethik und Leben miteinander verbunden sind. Konvergenzen ihres Philosophierens liegen u.a. darin, dass sie jeweils eine semantische Bewegung ausmachen, die die Grenzen der individuellen Welt umschreibt, dass sich bei beiden ein Appell an das Ethos der Verschwiegenheit findet, der eine Verknüpfung zwischen Sprache und Ethik nahelegt, und (...) dass das Leben für beide Philosophen eine ethische Bedeutung gewinnt. (shrink)

In recent decades, philosophers of science have become increasingly concerned with the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. Philosophers such as Helen Longino, Philip Kitcher, Miriam Solomon, Heather Douglas, and Janet Kourany have sought to incorporate the social aspects of science, while retaining the normative commitments of philosophy of science. Some of the major theoretical approaches in social epistemology of science, however, tend to ignore or underestimate the role that the current state of science organization plays in the production of scientific (...) knowledge.1 The world has changed significantly in recent decades, and science has changed with it. The.. (shrink)

Motivated by Kalman residuated lattices, Nelson residuated lattices and Nelson paraconsistent residuated lattices, we provide a natural common generalization of them. Nelson conucleus algebras unify these examples and further extend them to the non-commutative setting. We study their structure, establish a representation theorem for them in terms of twist structures and conuclei that results in a categorical adjunction, and explore situations where the representation is actually an isomorphism. In the latter case, the adjunction is elevated to a categorical equivalence. By (...) applying this representation to the original motivating special cases we bring to the surface their underlying similarities. (shrink)

Observations on Two Mural Paintings from Early Medieval Rome. Fresco of St Agatha and an Unknown Painting with a Bust of the Saint Little is known about the two fragments of early medieval Roman paintings with female saints considered here. One was first exhibited in 2016; the other remained totally obscure until it came onto the antiquarian art market 2019. The goal of this study is to provide context for these two pieces by attempting to reconstruct their original art historical (...) environment. The study also aims, through archival and documentary research, to offer plausible dates by means of stylistic comparisons (e.g., frescoes in Santa Maria Antiqua, in the Catacombs of Generosa, in the narthex of Santa Sabina etc.) and to explore the fragments’ possible original provenance. For the painting with the bust of St Agatha, the study proposes a date around the late seventh-early eighth centuries; for the other, the first half of the eighth century. For both paintings, a Roman context is assumed. (shrink)

We argue that Cohen Kadosh & Walsh's (CK&W's) definitions of neural coding and of abstract representations are overly shallow, influenced by classical cognitive psychology views of modularity and seriality of information processing, and incompatible with the current knowledge on principles of neural coding. As they stand, the proposed dichotomies are not very useful heuristic tools to guide our research towards a better understanding of the neural computations underlying the processing of numerical quantity in the parietal cortex.

Die Medialisierung der Lebenswelt bedingt eine Veränderung der Erfahrung von Wirklichkeit, der Erkenntnisweisen und des gesellschaftlichen Miteinanders. Diese Veränderungen sind anthropologisch relevant, denn durch die Medien werden sie vorgeformt, und zugleich eröffnen die Medien einen Möglichkeitsraum für zukünftige Entwicklungsweisen. In diesem Kontext einer medialen Vorbedingung von Möglichkeiten des Menschseins und ihrer Ausgestaltung sind die Beiträge des Sammelbandes angesiedelt. „Wie realisiert sich Menschsein unter den Bedingungen der Medialität?“ ist die leitende Fragestellung.

We previously showed that owner personality and human-dog relationship predicted the performance of a human-dog dyad in a practical task. Based on the same data set we presently investigate the effects of individual and social factors on the social attraction of dogs to their owners. Twenty-two male and female owners and their intact male dogs were observed during a “picture viewing” test, where we diverted the owner's attention away from their dog whilst it was permitted to move freely around the (...) room. Owner personality axis “neuroticism” and dog personality axis “vocal and aggressive” were, respectively, positively and negatively related to the time the dog stayed in proximity to the owner. Quality of relationship and attachment also had significant effects on this proximity. We conclude that personality and the nature of the human-dog relationship may all influence dogs' social attraction to their owners. (shrink)

Gender bias is a recalcitrant problem in academia and society. However, dissent has been created on this issue. We focus on dissenting studies by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, arguing that they reach conclusions that are unwarranted on the basis of the available evidence and that they ignore fundamental objections to their methodological decisions. Drawing on discussions from other contexts, particularly on manufactured dissent concerning anthropogenic climate change, we conclude that dissent on gender bias substantially contributes to the (...) exacerbation of biases in society and an increasing number of attacks on researchers, making it both epistemically and socially problematic. (shrink)

Nous remercions chaleureusement Manuela Ivone Cunha et la revue Terrain. Revue d'ethnologie de l'Europe de nous avoir autorisés à reproduire ce texte. Celui-ci a déjà paru dans Terrain, N° 29, 1997, p. 59-68 et été mis en ligne ici. Résumé : Le temps est une référence omniprésente de la vie en prison, l'un et l'autre étant parfois assimilés. L'emprisonnement entraîne un changement du rapport à un temps qui devient plus objectivé. Multiforme, ce rapport varie selon les diverses périodisations mises (...) en œuvres - Anthropologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

In the present paper we give a description of the free algebra over an arbitrary set of generators in the variety of nilpotent minimum algebras. Such description is given in terms of a weak Boolean product of directly indecomposable algebras over the Boolean space corresponding to the Boolean subalgebra of the free NM-algebra.

We previously showed that owner personality and human–dog relationship predicted the performance of a human–dog dyad in a practical task. Based on the same data set we presently investigate the effects of individual and social factors on the social attraction of dogs to their owners. Twenty-two male and female owners and their intact male dogs were observed during a “picture viewing” test, where we diverted the owner’s attention away from their dog whilst it was permitted to move freely around the (...) room. Owner personality axis “neuroticism” and dog personality axis “vocal and aggressive” were, respectively, positively and negatively related to the time the dog stayed in proximity to the owner. Quality of relationship and attachment also had significant effects on this proximity. We conclude that personality and the nature of the human–dog relationship may all influence dogs’ social attraction to their owners. Keywords: companion animals; dog–human attachment; dyadic relationships; human-animal interactions; human–dog attachment; human–dog relationship; human–dog social interactions; personality; pets. (shrink)

Foreign language education in the twenty-first century still teaches vocabulary mainly through reading and listening activities. This is due to the link between teaching practice and traditional philosophy of language, where language is considered to be an abstract phenomenon of the mind. However, a number of studies have shown that accompanying words or phrases of a foreign language with gestures leads to better memory results. In this paper, I review behavioral research on the positive effects of gestures on memory. Then (...) I move to the factors that have been addressed as contributing to the effect, and I embed the reviewed evidence in the theoretical framework of embodiment. Finally, I argue that gestures accompanying foreign language vocabulary learning create embodied representations of those words. I conclude by advocating the use of gestures in future language education as a learning tool that enhances the mind. (shrink)

Annotation Die Studie behandelt die sprachliche Akkulturation der Hugenotten, die als franzAsische Protestanten am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts auch in Brandenburg Zuflucht fanden. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Rekonstruktion der sprachlichen Integration dieser Migranten, die im Laufe der Zeit ihre franzAsische Sprache aufgaben und zur deutschen Sprache A1/4bergingen. Die Analyse der sprachlichen Situation in drei verschiedenen Hugenottenkolonien zeigt, wie die Sprachwechselprozesse, je nach Ort und Kontext, einen sehr unterschiedlichen Verlauf nahmen.

El objeto de estudio de la presente investigación está constituido por las discriminaciones legales sufridas por las mujeres migrantes trabajadoras del hogar en España. Específicamente, aborda las discriminaciones que resultan de la intersección entre las diferentes relaciones de poder que afectan a este sector, con la finalidad de contribuir a la visibilización de las problemáticas existentes y de las demandas respectivas. Para ello, además de los estudios disponibles, se han tomado en consideración las voces de las propias trabajadoras a partir (...) de la observación participante en el sindicato de mujeres trabajadoras del hogar Sindihogar. (shrink)

El objetivo principal de este artículo es analizar los estudios que respaldan la aprobación y el uso del BiDil, el primer medicamento aprobado para uso exclusivo en población afroamericana en EE. UU., así como la controversia que surgió alrededor de este. En particular, mostraré que la controversia sobre el BiDil no debe entenderse como una controversia puramente epistémica, sino como una controversia compleja en la que convergen aspectos tanto epistémicos como ético-sociales y comerciales. Entender cómo están interrelacionados estos aspectos y (...) qué conocimiento podemos obtener dada la complejidad de estas interacciones resulta crucial para comprender la controversia sobre el BiDil, así como otras controversias científicas actuales. (shrink)