The negative emotions generated following stressful life events can increase one’s risk of depressive symptoms and promote higher levels of perceived stress. The process model of emotion regulation can help distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies to determine who may be at the greatest risk of worse psychological health across the lifespan. Heart rate variability may affect these relationships as it indexes aspects of self-regulation, including emotion and behavioral regulation, that enable an individual to dynamically adapt to the (...) changing demands of both internal and external environments. In this study, we expected individual differences in resting vagally mediated HRV to moderate the influence of emotion regulatory strategies among our sample of 267 adults. We found support for the hypothesis that higher vagally mediated HRV buffers against the typical adverse effects of expressive suppression when evaluating depressive symptoms and found weak support when considering perceived stress. There was no evidence for an interaction between cognitive reappraisal and vagally mediated HRV but there was a significant, negative association between cognitive reappraisal and depressive symptoms and perceived stress. Future work may determine if intervening on either emotion regulation strategies or HRV may change these within-persons over time. (shrink)

Cet article vise à montrer l’extrême proximité entre ces deux mathématiciens-philosophes que furent Gian-Carlo Rota et Gilles Châtelet disparus la même année. Au moins quatre points communs les relient : une philosophie romantique radicale ; une rigueur intellectuelle exemplaire ; une vision affine de la recherche mathématique ; une révolte intérieure exécrant tout sensus communis.This text shows the great proximity between two mathematicianphilosophers, Gilles Châtelet and Gian-Carlo Rota who both died in the same year 1999. There are at least four (...) common points amongst themselves: a radical romantic philosophy; an exemplary intellectual rigor; a great affinity in their vision of mathematical research; an inmost rebellion against all common sense. Quest’articolo tende a mostrare l’estrema prossimità tra due matematici-filosofi che furono Gian-Carlo Rota e Gilles Châtelet che ci hanno lasciato lo stesso anno. Ci sono almeno quattro punti comuni che le legano: una radicale filosofia romantica; un rigore intellettuale esemplare; una visione affine della ricerca matematica; una rivolta intima che esecra ogni senso comune.This article is in French. (shrink)

Résumé L’usage du nombre par les élites constitue un mode de gestion systémique qui exploite le facteur de désintégration de chaque composante singulière. Son contre-modèle mathématique renvoie à la véritable concrétude géométrique développée par Alexandre Grothendieck. La victoire de l’homme moyen qui accompagne celle du techno-populisme, entraîne un manque de différenciation, une disparition des marges au profit de l’index des comportements sociaux visant à un équilibre, à une communication, à une sorte de pseudo-chuchotement où tout le monde serait d’accord par (...) simple utilisation de la moyenne statistique pour constituer l’idéal-type de l’homme contemporain qui résulte du fantasme de l’auto-organisation. (shrink)

In questo articolo, prendo in considerazione i vantaggi e i problemi connessi all’accettazione del pluralismo ontologico di J. Turner e K. Mcdaniel, vale a dire, della tesi secondo la quale vi sarebbero diversi modi di essere (o di esistere) che sono più fondamentali rispetto dall’essere (o all’esistenza) in generale. Nella prima sezione, esamino due problemi per gli attualisti, cioè quei filosofi che affermano che non ci sono entità che non esistono. Nella seconda sezione, valuto i vantaggi del pluralismo ontologico attualista (...) nell’affrontare tali problemi. Tuttavia, nella terza sezione, presento una serie di problemi che invece affliggono il pluralismo ontologico. Infine, nella quarta sezione, difendo l’idea che i pluralisti ontologici non-attualisti (e cioè i meinonghiani) possono meglio far fronte ad alcuni (ma non tutti) di questi problemi. La mia conclusione è che chi intende difendere il pluralismo ontologico, dovrebbe farlo da una prospettiva non attualista. (shrink)

Du site de l'éd.: Parmi les pères fondateurs de la sociologie, Durkheim est le seul à se considérer comme sociologue, alors même qu'il est issu d'une formation philosophique. Au fil des ans, il donne à la discipline de ses premières études différentes significations, parfois péjoratives ou polémiques. Malgré cela, l'autonomie épistémologique de la science sociale n'implique jamais pour lui une séparation avec le discours philosophique. L'histoire de la relation complexe de Durkheim à la philosophie est l'objet de cet ouvrage.

Alvin Plantinga è uno dei più importanti metafisici e filosofi della religione viventi. In questo profilo, dopo aver brevemente narrato la sua formazione intellettuale, considererò alcuni aspetti del suo pensiero: la teoria di Plantinga dei mondi possibili; la sua teoria della garanzia epistemica delle credenze, fondata sul concetto di funzione propria; la versione di Plantinga dell’argomento ontologico per provare l’esistenza di Dio; la sua critica dell’argomento del male per provare l'inesistenza di Dio; l’argomento di Plantinga contro il naturalismo.

A recently published volume – edited by Walter Tega and Luigi Turco – celebrates the Italian historian of philosophy Antonio Santucci. One of the founders of the neoilluminismo (new-Enlightenment), Santucci blended strong civil commitment with rigorous textual analysis and contributed to the popularisation of British and American philosophy in Italy. The book describes Santucci's contribution to the historical research on empiricism and stimulates a reappraisal of the heated cultural debate which flourished in Italy after the Second World War.

L'intérêt de Durkheim pour Fhistoire de la philosophie a ete generalement sousestime. Son opinion longtemps négative sur cette discipline céda la place à une attention grandissante, au fur et à mesure qu'il développait sa sociologie de la religion. Philosophie et religion firent ainsi leur entree dans le nouvel espace épistémologique qu'il consacra, sous le signe de l' histoire, à l'etude des systèmes de représentation. L'approche de Durkheim à l' histoire de la philosophie est largement redevable à l'historiographie de son époque. (...) Son originalité consiste surtout dans l'application à la production des idées philosophiques d'un modèle d'explication sociologique ambitieux et complexe, élaboré notamment dans L'évolution pédagogique en France. Ce modèle permet á Durkheim de prendre position dans quelques débats historiographiques majeurs de l'époque, tels que la querelle médiévale des universaux ou l'interprétation du cartésianisme. Durkheim 's interest for the history of philosophy was widely underestimated. His opinion, which had been for quite a long while rather a negative one about the latter discipline, gradually turned into a growing attention all along he was turning towards developing his sociology of religion. Thus philosophy and religion entered the new epistemological field he devoted, with reference to history, to the study of systems of representation. Durkheim 's approach for the history of philosophy is widely influenced by the historiography of his time. Its originality rests mainly on the application to the production of philosophical ideas of a model of sociological explanation which is both ambitious and complex, to be seen mainly in his book L'evolution pedagogique en France. Such a model enables Durkheim to hold a position in some of the major historiographical debates of his time, such as the Middle Age quarrel over the universals or the interpretation of cartesianism. (shrink)

When making decisions, humans can observe many kinds of information about others' activities, but their effects on performance are not well understood. We investigated social learning strategies using a simple problem-solving task in which participants search a complex space, and each can view and imitate others' solutions. Results showed that participants combined multiple sources of information to guide learning, including payoffs of peers' solutions, popularity of solution elements among peers, similarity of peers' solutions to their own, and relative payoffs from (...) individual exploration. Furthermore, performance was positively associated with imitation rates at both the individual and group levels. When peers' payoffs were hidden, popularity and similarity biases reversed, participants searched more broadly and randomly, and both quality and equity of exploration suffered. We conclude that when peers' solutions can be effectively compared, imitation does not simply permit scrounging, but it can also facilitate propagation of good solutions for further cumulative exploration. (shrink)

In this timely book L.W. Sumner addresses these issues within the wider context of palliative care for patients in the dying process.

This provocative study revives a classical idea about rationality by developing analogies between the structure of personality and the structure of society in the context of contemporary work in the philosophy of mind, ehtics, decision theory, and social choice theory.

Transcript of speeches by a Hindu philosopher, chiefly on Hindu philosophy and Hinduism.

This book presents three of the works of Abdu'l-Bahá, son of the founder of the Bahá'i Faith, dealing with social and political issues.00In 'The Secret of Divine Civilization' (1875) Abdu'l-Bahá supports the administrative and broader social reforms of Mirzá Hosayn Khán, but looks mainly for organic reform through the efforts of Iranian intellectuals to waken and educate the masses. In this work, Abdu'l-Bahá gives virtuous and progressive Islamic clerics a leading role among these intellectuals, indeed most of his appeals are (...) directed specifically to them. 'A Traveller's Narrative' (1889/90) is an authoritative statement of the broad lines of Bahá'i social and political thinking. 'The Art of Governance' (1892/93) was written as Iran entered a pre-revolutionary phase, and ideas that we recognise today as the precursors of political Islam were spreading. It sets out the principles underlying the ideal relationship between religion and politics and between the government and the people.00In addition to presenting the first parallel text translations of these works, the Persian texts incorporate notes on variants in the early published sources. An introduction outlines the intellectual and political landscape from which Abdu'l-Bahá wrote, and in which his expected readers lived. (shrink)

Sur la toile de fond de la theologie negative, tissee par la discussion des apories que soulevent les notions de l'ineffable et de l'un, Damascius, le dernier diadoque de l'Ecole d'Athenes, elaboreson systeme metaphysique, sans se departir de la rigueur de sa methode aporetique, qui est une critique radicale du langage a l'interieur des coordonnees fixees par le Parmenide de Platon et par les Oracles Chaldaiques. Damascius, dans une enquete unique par son ampleur et son originalite questionne tour a tour (...) Porphyre, Jamblique, Syrianus et Proclus sur les principes; il examine les problemes que pose, en derivation de l'un, la formation de la trinite; de l'un-tout (la limite), du tout-un (l'infini) et de l'unifie (le mixte ou l'etre). Lien a priori entre l'un-tout et le tout-un, l'unifie est le principe de constitution de tout ordre et de toute realite. Damascius etudie sa nature de mixte originaire et autoconstituant, d'etre exemplaire et de premier intelligible. Cette notion lui permet de pas au crible, pour la mieux fonder, la problematique neoplatonicienne de la manence, de la procession et de la conversion. Les divers niveaux d'unification de la pluralite intelligible l'amenent a construire une theorie generale des elements, des parties et des formes Au passage, de nombreux textes, capitaux du point de vue de l'ontologie et de la doctrine de la connaissance, font regretter qu'ils aient ete inconnus du Moyen Age et qu'ils le demeurent pour beaucoup de nos contemporains. (shrink)

In this paper I shall “draw” a sketch of a version of Meinongian Presentism. After having briefly presented some data that presentists need to explain and three problems that typically affect presentism (the triviality objection, the problem of the reference of true propositions’ constituents that seem to involve merely past and merely future objects, the truthmaking problem), I shall clarify the bases of my theory. First, I shall reject the actualist presentist assumption, according to which there are no things that (...) do not exist now. Secondly, I shall introduce some notions (e.g., the ones of tensed properties and of temporal existence) that will be useful in order to clarify the contrast between eternalist and non-eternalist metaphysical theories of time. Thirdly, I shall define Meinongian Presentism. Finally, I shall try to demonstrate that this version can deal with the aforementioned problems and with the presentist data in a serious and perspicuous way. (shrink)

I shall defend in this paper the thesis that, if there are irreducible powers such as the power to produce a certain object (generative powers), then there are objects that do not exist and they are part of the fundamental level of the universe. Thus, generative powers come together with Meinongianism. After having clarified my argument, I shall examine and criticize Armstrong (1997)’s attempt to reduce powers to other sorts of entities. Finally, I shall deal with five accounts of generative (...) powers that are somehow alternative to Meinongianism and with some (more general) miscellaneous concerns about the truth of this doctrine. (shrink)

John Pollock aims to construct a theory of rational decision making for real agents--not ideal agents. Pollock argues that theories of ideal rationality are largely irrelevant to the decision making of real agents. Thinking about Acting aims to provide a theory of "real rationality.".

Pucelle tries to show how the idea of personal liberty is central to Green's ethics. Green's criticisms of other philosophers and the historical context of his philosophy are especially well handled. --W. L. M.

The publication of the article “Recent Models of the African Iron Age and the Cattle-Related Evidence” by Hromnik in a journal sponsored by Unesco raises a number of serious issues which we, as members of the International Scientific Committee charged with the responsibility of preparing an up-to-date and scientific history of Africa purged of its mists of racist propaganda, unfounded assertions and misleading and dangerous misinterpretations, cannot ignore. These issues include the scientific accuracy or authenticity of the article.

Three of the four commentators endorse our concerns about intervention by the Roman Catholic church as anamicus curiaein civil litigation, with few reservations. One commentary rejects our arguments in toto. We deal first with the three commentaries that support our arguments; secondly, with the reservations and qualifications in those commentaries, and thirdly, with the commentary that totally rejects our arguments.

The purpose of the article is distinguishing between "internal" and "external" public human through comprehending the phenomenon of Self in its virtual-digital essence as a popular demonstrative-project space "BETWEEN" aggression and harmony. Theoretical basis of the work is based on the study of the phenomenon of modern human aggression in the virtual-digital space and the "project space" of the living environment through understanding the nature of the human "I". The penetration limits of the Self of the public human into the (...) "project space" are comprehended and the nature of the self-realization and self-search models of human through the "transcendent ego" is revealed. Originality is demonstrated through comprehending the Self phenomenon of the public human, which forms new anthropological research direction and represents a conceptual paradigm of relationship of "human I – publicity – human We – the living space of the Other". Conclusions. The Self of the public human as the space "BETWEEN" does not completely "dissolve" in a separate ontological basis, but is the basis for the formation of his/her "I", while only participation in the existence of others reveals the meaning of his/her own existence. Such interaction requires significant human efforts – skills and competencies of public communication, which are able to create a successful self-identification of a public human without aggression and conflict. (shrink)

In the Nouveaux Essais, Leibniz famously declared that he once had “begun to lean towards” Spinozist necessitarianism. In this article, I argue that this remark refers to his modal philosophy anterior to 1677. Leibniz’s mature refutation of Spinoza’s necessitarianism relies on the notion that pure possibility has some sort of reality in God’s mind, because only this allows for a strong notion of divine choice. But I believe that Leibniz only developed this ontology of possibility after 1677. Before this date, (...) he inclined towards the view that non existing possibilities are mere logical abstractions that God never actually conceives. In order to show this, I analyze a series of early texts written between 1668 and 1676. Next, I consider a series of texts from 1677-1678, where Leibniz developed his ontology of possibility and put it to use against Spinozist necessitarianism for the first time. (shrink)

Our purpose in this article is to identify and suggest resolution for two core problematics of grounded theory. First, while grounded theory provides transparency to one part of the conceptualization process, where codes emerge directly from the data, it provides no such systematic or transparent way for gaining insight into the conceptual relationships between discovered codes. Producing a grounded theory depends not only on the definition of conceptual pieces, but the delineation of a relationship between at least two of those (...) pieces. Second, the conceptualization process of grounded theory is done in hierarchical fashion, where individual codes emerge from the data but then are used to generate insight into more general concepts and thematic statements. But various works on grounded theory have failed to provide any systematic way of using data specific levels of scale (the codes) to gain insight into more macro levels of scale (concepts and themes). We offer fractal concept analysis as a means of resolving both of these issues. By using a logic structure generator, fractal concept analysis delineates self-similar conceptual frameworks at various levels of abstraction, yielding a method for linking concepts together within and between levels of scale encountered in the grounded theory coding and categorization process. We conclude that this fractal analytic technique can bolster the aims of grounded theory as a formalized and systematic process for generating theory from empirical data. (shrink)