Resumo O artigo trata da análise crítica de Jürgen Habermas a respeito das consequências do modelo neoliberal de integração global via mercado, em especial o desequilíbrio entre política e mercado, o fim do compromisso com o Estado social e o déficit democrático no nível transnacional. Para o filósofo alemão, a concepção neoliberal de sociedade desestatizada do capitalismo global atinge o nexo entre Estado nacional, democracia e justiça social, marginalizando o Estado e a política, em favor da privatização dos serviços públicos (...) e sendo insensível às questões de justiça social, aos custos sociais do crescente aumento da pobreza, desigualdade e exclusão social, mesmo em países abastados da Europa e América do Norte. Ao deslocar o fiador da integração social para além das fronteiras nacionais, o capitalismo global foge ao controle estatal e esvazia o poder dos Estados nacionais, em termos de substância democrática e de política social, e gera um déficit de legitimação, ao transferir competências nacionais para agências ou organismos transnacionais, cuja legitimação não deriva da sociedade civil ou de uma esfera pública politicamente constituída. Em contrapartida, Habermas defende um poder democrático capaz de domesticar politicamente o mercado globalizado, reconstruir a democracia estatal-social num nível transnacional, em vista de uma ordem socialmente mais equilibrada, e compensar o déficit social e de legitimação democrática, no âmbito transnacional. Depois de recapitular alguns problemas que se solucionaram nas formas de Estado nacional, o artigo descreve como a globalização econômica afeta a soberania cultural, econômica, administrativa e jurídica, política, social e trabalhista dos Estados nacionais, e quais as possibilidades de reenquadrar politicamente os mercados, estendendo a democracia estatal para além das fronteiras nacionais. Com isso, quer-se mostrar que a obra de Habermas não é cega para a relação democracia-capitalismo, para os efeitos colaterais da “colonização da política pela economia”, para a influência corrosiva da economia capitalista na despolitização da esfera pública e da política.The article presents Jürgen Habermas critical analysis of the consequences of the neoliberal model of global market integration, in particular the imbalance between politics and market, the end of the commitment to the welfare state and the democratic deficit at the transnational level. For the German philosopher, the neoliberal conception of the privatized society of global capitalism undermine the nexus between national state, democracy and social justice, marginalizing the state and politics in favour of privatization of public services and being insensitive to questions of social justice, the costs increasing poverty, inequality and social exclusion, even in wealthy countries in Europe and North America. Moving the guarantor of social integration across national borders, global capitalism is beyond the state control and exhaust the power of national states in terms of democratic substance and social policy and creates a legitimacy deficit by transferring national powers to agencies or transnational corporations whose legitimacy does not derive from civil society or from a politically constituted public sphere. In contrast, Habermas advocates a democratic power able to politically neutralize the global market, rebuild the welfare-state democracy in a transnational level in view of a more socially balanced order, and compensate the social deficit and democratic legitimacy in the transnational order. After reviewing some problems that have been solved in national state forms, the article describes how economic globalization affects the cultural, economic, administrative, juridical, political, social and labor sovereignty of the national states, and what are the possibilities of politically reframing markets, extending welfare-estate democracy beyond national borders. In this way, we want to show that Habermas’ work is not blind to the relation between democracy and capitalism, to the collateral effects of the “colonization of politics by the economy”, to the corrosive influence of the capitalist economy on the depoliticization of the public sphere and politics. (shrink)

Os argumentos a favor da concepção deliberativa de esfera pública e democracia têm sido alvos de muitas críticas. Muitos teóricos que se ocupam com teorias democráticas têm questionado as assunções básicas da teoria política deliberativa que resulta da obra sobre Faktizität und Geltung, apontando pontos frágeis, sobre as implicações práticas, possibilidades de efetividade, entre outros. Embora não seja possível acompanhar em toda sua amplitude a bibliografia crítica sobre o tema, para nossos propósitos, vamos aqui nos limitar a apresentar alguns comentários (...) acerca das controvérsias envolvendo as concepções de esfera pública e democracia deliberativa que resultam da obra sobre direito e democracia; questões que se tornaram problemáticas para a literatura e que poderiam ser melhor investigadas.The arguments about the deliberative conception of democracy and public sphere have been largely criticized. Many theorists who deal with democratic theories have questioned the basic assumptions of the deliberative policy theory, which results from Habermas' work Faktizität und Geltung, pointing some weakness of practical implications, opportunities of effectiveness, among others. Although it is almost impossible following the critical literature about the theme in its whole extent, for our purposes, we will just present a few comments about the controversies involving the conceptions of public sphere and deliberative democracy, which stem from works related to democracy and the law; issues that have become not just problematic for literature but that could also be better investigated. (shrink)

This paper aims to elucidate the negative understanding of politics (depoliticization) that results from the classic work of Jürgen Habermas about communicative action. The political potential of communicative action that results from political public sphere and the institutionalization of practical and political discourse constitute the leitmotiv of Habermas’s political philosophy. However, the understanding of politics that results from the communicative action presents the problem of limited capacity of realization of a discursive social practice in institutional contexts. The social-integrative power (social (...) integration) of communicative action and the communicative power (power of influence) do not refer directly to the democratic procedures into political-institutional level. The political public sphere, as it defends the lifeworld in relation to systemic imperatives of power and money, it is not directly linked to institutional complexes and, therefore, it can only “besiege them”. This deficit of institutionalization undermines the political public sphere model (the potential political discourse in a communicative public sphere) that results from the theoretical framework of Theorie. Consequently, the “defensive” vision of politics undermines Habermas’ emancipatory project, because it does not expand the areas submitted to social and communicative rationality and does not open communicative channels for inflows in the political-administrative system. From the perspective of the theory addressed to emancipation (as is Habermas’ theory) these defensive movements, although they are important, are not sufficient, because defending it only does not expand the social areas in which the communicative understanding predominates. This is the reason for critical discourses and posterior need of reformulations. (shrink)

This paper makes reading a key theme explored by Jürgen Habermas – The depoliticization of the public sphere – in the epistemological perspective. In this way, the depoliticization is characterized by conducting scientific practice policy with the use of technical knowledge to influence the public sphere in its political practice; the idea that positivist knowledge, reduce to a mere instrument of science and technology, incorporates in the public sphere. This is an analysis of the process of modernization and rationalization, revealing (...) the false personification of reason in modern science and bourgeois political institutions. The progressive rationalization of modern society did penetrate the criteria of instrumental action, inevitably, also in the public sphere, in a progressive influence of technical systems on the institutional framework of society, reducing the practical problems to a solution of technical rationality. In the public sphere, political praxis dissolves into political technique. Whit the scientific conduct of practical politics, there is the emptying of the practical activity and the political discussions fall outside the scope of public discussion. The substitutions of practical for technical reasons to exclude these practical issues of the discussion from the public sphere. Thus politics, when to convert into technical task, excludes any possibility of a communicative sphere linguistically sanctioned. The paper is divided into three sections: the resumption of the transition from classical to modern political doctrine of political science (1); the scientific aspect of the policy, the political implications of scientific rationality in practical life, excluding practical issues from the public sphere (2); and the relationship between technical progress and social lifeworld (3). (shrink)

Este artigo trata da crítica habermasiana ao projeto kantiano de constitucionalização do direito internacional, reconstruído da perspectiva procedimental do direito e da democracia deliberativa. Embora Kant tenha dado um passo importante modificando a compreensão do direito internacional de um direito de Estados para um direito cosmopolita, e esse se institucionalizado em organizações e instituições internacionais, a simples extensão da constitucionalização do direito para o âmbito das relações interestatais não seria mais suficiente para reequacionar a atual relação assimétrica entre poder e (...) direito na esfera internacional que resulta da política de poder unilateral e militar norte-americana e que em nome de uma moralização etnocentrista substitui o direito pelo ethos. Para Habermas, a constitucionalização do direito internacional apenas teria alguma chance nas circunstâncias históricas atuais através da reformulação dos conceitos kantianos de república mundial, soberania nacional, direito estatal, nação e cidadão, bem como das modificações na estrutura da sociedade mundial, por exemplo, a reforma das Nações Unidas. Em contrapartida, a proposta habermasiana de democracia constitucional transnacional teria a vantagem de definir melhor o curso da constitucionalização do direito internacional e ser uma ordem constitucional global mais justa e democrática. (shrink)

Este artigo visa elucidar o problema-chave inscrito no contexto da publicidade burguesa: a subversão do princípio da publicidade. Este é analisado sob o ponto de vista histórico na obra Mudança Estrutural da Esfera Pública, e está inserido no contexto onde se desenvolve a noção de esfera pública: a instância em que se forma a opinião pública. Opinião esta que tinha no início funções críticas com relação ao poder e que mais tarde foi refuncionalizada para canalizar o assentimento dos governados. Para (...) tal, cabe esclarecer como Habermas aborda as funções críticas e manipulativas da publicidade. Nesse sentido, o objetivo é esclarecer e identificar o que vem a ser o princípio de publicidade e porque o mesmo é subvertido. O texto é dividido em três partes: a relação da esfera pública literária com a esfera pública política ; a publicidade como princípio de mediação entre a política e a moral ; e, por fim, a subversão do princípio da publicidade. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo é elucidar os argumentos centrais da teoria da modernidade de Habermas. Em vez de abandoná-lo, Habermas procura reconstruir o projeto de emancipação moderno através da reconstrução dos fundamentos da racionalidade da ação e da racionalização social moderna a partir: da reconstrução da explicação e superação crítica das interpretações unilaterais e funcionalistas de Max Weber e Talcott Parsons, e da fundamentação de uma teoria da racionalidade comunicativa capaz de se desvencilhar dos pressupostos subjetivistas e individualistas teoria social (...) moderna. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta os argumentos centrais da política deliberativa de Jürgen Habermas (1), e as perspectivas críticas de Axel Honneth (2) e Nancy Fraser (3) de forma a conferir à política habermasiana uma dimensão mais realista, um conteúdo político de vínculo mais concreto com a orientação emancipatória da práxis, e capaz de lidar melhor com a diferença, a diversidade e o conflito.

O artigo sublinha o método do discurso prático na fundamentação da ética do discurso e as possíveis diferenças que traçam a separação da ética discursiva da ética kantiana. Mais do que investigação e demonstração, trata-se de uma exposição dos movimentos conceituais importantes sobre o método do discurso prático da ética habermasiana.

O texto trata da relação entre esfera pública e meios de comunicação de massa, no corpus bibliográfico de Jürgen Habermas, nestes 50 anos que nos separam de Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (1962). O objetivo do texto é mostrar que, diferente de alguns estudos críticos, não se trata de uma lacuna investigativa – ausência, abandono ou não exploração do tema –, mas de uma abordagem secundária, implícita; que a abordagem secundária do tema está relacionada com a posição pessimista original de Habermas acerca (...) da influência negativa dos meios de comunicação de massa, na despolitização da esfera pública; que o pessimismo de Habermas sobre os efeitos negativos dos meios de comunicação de massa mantém uma conexão interna com a orientação original da crítica da cultura de massa de Adorno. Isso significa que, apesar das reformulações e novos diagnósticos, a posição cética de Habermas quanto ao potencial democrático dos meios de comunicação de massa na repolitização da esfera pública parece não ter mudado em seus fundamentos, nestes 50 anos. (shrink)

LUBENOW, Jorge A. A categoria de esfera pública em Jürgen Habermas: para uma reconstrução da autocrítica. João Pessoa: Editora Manufatura, 2012. 158 p. Resumo: Jorge Lubenow trabalha atualmente na Universidade Federal da Paraíba e é um dos representantes da nova e confiante geração de estudiosos da obra de Habermas, que perfaz em pouco tempo uma carreira acadêmica bem sucedida. Este livro foi sua tese de doutorado, defendida na Unicamp em 2007, após período de pesquisa na Alemanha, sob orientação (...) de dois importantes intelectuais nos dois países. O livro é dedicado ao próprio Habermas, o que se justifica pela imperdível efeméride: em 2012, ano da publicação do livro aqui resenhado, completa 50 anos a tese de Habermas que foi o objeto de estudo de Lubenow: Mudança estrutural da esfera pública. Eis um jovem filósofo brasileiro a retomar, de maneira cuidadosa e segura, a obra determinante daquele alemão, que cuidou de reconstruir a história (e um pouco da sociologia) da formação e da decadência da esfera pública burguesa. Habermas tinha 32 anos quando defendeu em Marburg uma tese antes recusada em Frankfurt. Data de registro: 22/11/2012 Data de aceite: 19/06/2013. (shrink)

The present paper analyses the topic of scientific discovery and the problem of the existence of a logical framework involved in such endeavour. We inquire how several non-monotonic logic frameworks and other formalisms can account for such a task. In the same vein, we analyse some key aspects of the historical and theoretical debate surrounding scientific discovery, in particular, the context of discovery and context of justification context distinction. We present an argument concerning the weakening of the discovery/justification context dichotomy (...) based on the descriptive accent contained in the non-monotonic logic perspective together with its epistemological concerns. (shrink)

Bobbio, N. Hacia una teoría funcional del derecho.--Bulygin, E. Sobre la regla de reconocimiento.--Gargaglione de Yaryura Tobías, E.L. El conocimiento y su validación.--Gómez, A.C. Acerca de la vinculación de la regla de reconocimiento con las restantes reglas secundarias.--Grün, E. y Farrel, M.D. Problemas de verificación en el derecho. Guibourg, R.A. La nulidad y su definición.--Klug, U. Consideraciones sobre las definiciones semánticas en derecho.--Miró Quesada, F. Sobre el derecho justo.--Nino, C.S. El concepto de validez y el problema del conflicto entre normas (...) de diferente jerarquía en la teoría pura del derecho.--Raggio, A.R. La refexión.--Ross, A. La finalidad del castigo.--Soler, S. La idea de "bien común."--Spolansky, N.E. El castigo del acto anterior al hecho prohibido.--Vernengo, R.J. Norma jurídica y esquema referencial.--Wright, G.H. von. Reencuentro con la lógica deóntica. (shrink)

In the 10 years after the launch of the United Nations Global Compact (GC), there have been very few empirical assessments of the initiative in the academic literature. In this study, drawing from institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, we examine motivations of business participants to adopt the GC principles in the Spanish context. Using survey data from Spain – the country reporting the highest volume of business participants in the GC – we find that external institutional (...) forces as well as internal organisational resources shape motivations for adopting GC principles. In particular, we find that early and late adopters are motivated similarly by the perceived opportunity of achieving image gains, while late adopters are motivated more by economic gains than early adopters. We further find that regardless of the extent of internal intangible resources possessed, firms are similarly motivated by economic gains. The results also show that companies with more intangible resources are motivated more by image gains than those with fewer resources. Our findings indicate that contrary to its earlier days, economic gains have emerged as an important motivator for the adopters of the GC principles with image gains still being an important motivator. (shrink)

In the 10 years after the launch of the United Nations Global Compact (GC), there have been very few empirical assessments of the initiative in the academic literature. In this study, drawing from institutional theory and the resource‐based view of the firm, we examine motivations of business participants to adopt the GC principles in the Spanish context. Using survey data from Spain – the country reporting the highest volume of business participants in the GC – we find that external institutional (...) forces as well as internal organisational resources shape motivations for adopting GC principles. In particular, we find that early and late adopters are motivated similarly by the perceived opportunity of achieving image gains, while late adopters are motivated more by economic gains than early adopters. We further find that regardless of the extent of internal intangible resources possessed, firms are similarly motivated by economic gains. The results also show that companies with more intangible resources are motivated more by image gains than those with fewer resources. Our findings indicate that contrary to its earlier days, economic gains have emerged as an important motivator for the adopters of the GC principles with image gains still being an important motivator. (shrink)

The Possible Universe explores a hypothetical philosophical synthesis based on the largest conceivable domain—the realm of the possible. This book suggests a final and ultimate in the notion of the possible, by which all necessary and contingent entities coalesce into the universe as possibility.

Which and how much of our current drives –individually and as a global community– are driven by ancestral, inherited traits or imprinted on our animal condition? An attempt to approximate this intriguing query is explored here. It pertains to our identity, social constructions, and our ecological interaction. The origin of our species has its roots in ancestral habits, behaviors and a survival drive, transformed from changing environmental conditions. We were not born in a mother-of-pearl cradle nor were protected by magical (...) agents. We grew on the thread of time within the complex nature of bio-ecological interactions. They carved our identity, our genetic expression and the possible origin of our beliefs, resulting in an arch of various behaviors and cultural phenotypes. The biological nature of our construction dragged through millennia through species trials with variable rates of survival times provided traces of inconstant and multiple evolutive chains. Our modern cultural contexts –norms, priorities, values– appear as newly born. Yet, socio-cultural ecology upon which our brain organization and behavioral constructs derive include shared basic behavioral drives with non-human primates. The emergence of humans with a sophisticated language allowed the development of complex virtual constructs based on symbolism and the instruments of culture. This has enhanced cognitive capacity and emotional interaction supported by processes anchored in neural networks distributed within cortical and subcortical levels. Basic, essential neural connectivities were preserved during the evolutionary development of the species. The biological matrix and inheritance are usually segregated from the social and cultural construction. Sophistication of our cultural development tends to set up a divisive fault from primitive foundations of non-human animal behavior (survival, territory, reproduction, prevalence, access to nutrients). These are basic templates and underlie essential individual and group basic drives, and cultural constructs. Humans have not ceased from being territorial (whether applied to virtual or material dimensions). Various forms of social inequities have been expressed in our time and through human history. On evolutive terms, the notion of individual social status within the social structure of a gregarious community generated the probability of an individual ascending or descending that hierarchy. Thus, becoming a potential figure of leadership, or the subordinate or the marginalized. Is there an evolutive antecedent for human social inequities? How do we construct a different future? Post-industrial societies became increasingly dependent on material consumerism and technological cultures, to the point of embraining them; conceptually becoming technological hybrids. Are these a developmental must, or an uncontrolled spin-off of human inventiveness affecting our future? Construction of supernatural agents played a significant role in the socialization/domestication processes. Agents’ intentionality flourished through altered states of conscience, or under fear of natural phenomena attributed to supposed inhabitants of the Natural Kingdom or virtual beings. This imaginary universe, reinforced by ritual behaviors, contributed to control personal/collective distress of various possible origins and conditioned our degrees of emotional and cognitive freedom. (shrink)

Se plantea LA NECESIDAD DE REVISAR CONCEPTOS BÁSICOS DE LA EDUCACIÓN FORMAL Y SU RELACIÓN CON EL POTENCIAL DE COMPORTAMIENTOS CREATIVOS. ¿SE PLANTEA, ACASO, COMO DISYUNTIVA DE HIERRO CREATIVIDAD O SOCIALIZACIÓN (CON RIESGO DE DOMESTICACIÓN)? HABRÁ QUE RECURRIR A LA CREATIVIDAD PARA RESOLVERLA Y A CONSTRUCTOS SOCIALES CAPACES DE CONTENERLA Y PROMOVERLA. Las políticas públicas educativas que propugnen el conocimiento, el ejercicio de la imaginación y el pensamiento divergente o la expansión conceptual sólo pueden ser eficaces si son integradas a (...) la equidad en la construcción social y a la optimización de la libertad individual. La indigencia, la pobreza, el privilegio y el prejuicio de clase son sus poderosos contrincantes. (shrink)

Se analizan parámetros de la sociedad humana moderna, que indican profundas diferencias sociales, económicas, culturales. Se cuestiona el concepto de "globalización" y se construye el de "segmentación global" por niveles de acceso al conocimiento.

En este libro se cuestiona el concepto corriente de libertad o "free will" y se analizan los factores que la condicionan (neurobiológicos e históricos personales). Autonomía no es sinónimo de libertad. Se analiza el concepto de altruismo. Se propone que el comportamiento en última instancia es producto de una tendencia intrínseca hacia la resolución del estado de tensión.

Un análisis de la evolución de la macrodominancia de nuestra especie, de los excesos corporativos, de la generación de poblaciones de marginados de la calidad de vida posible y del acceso al conocimiento crítico. La responsabilidad de nuestra especie en la degradación cultural de vastos sectores de la población mundial y de las condiciones para una biodiversidad sustentable.

En este artículo damos a conocer ciertos documentos que nos aportan nuevos indicios para conocer cuál ha sido la trayectoria seguida por un cuadro atribuido a Zurbarán que perteneció a la Congregación del Oratorio de San Felipe Neri de Sevilla y que, con el tiempo, pasó amanos diferentes. Tal circunstancia nos sirve de pretexto para trazar, bien que someramente, un breve relato acerca de las vicisitudes en las que se vieron inmersos los patrimonios artísticos de los dos templos que sirvieron (...) de marco a las celebraciones religiosas de los oratorianos sevillanos, a saber, la desaparecida iglesia de San Felipe Neri y el templo del antiguo colegio carmelitano de San Alberto. (shrink)

Although existing research evaluates the growth and motivations behind global corporate social responsibility activity, there is little understanding whether these growing commitments generate strategic benefits to their adherents. In this article, we analyze the organizational attributes that underlie the firm’s ability to generate competitive advantage from the adoption of a global CSR framework. We develop hypotheses on economic and reputational benefits and test whether firm performance, organizational resources, and access to business and CSR networks determine these benefits in CSR frameworks. (...) Results from a survey of 213 Spanish global compact business participants strongly support our arguments. (shrink)

We show that Miller partition forcing preserves selective independent families and P-points, which implies the consistency of $\mbox {cof}(\mathcal {N})=\mathfrak {a}=\mathfrak {u}=\mathfrak {i}<\mathfrak {a}_T=\omega _2$. In addition, we show that Shelah’s poset for destroying the maximality of a given maximal ideal preserves tight mad families and so we establish the consistency of $\mbox {cof}(\mathcal {N})=\mathfrak {a}=\mathfrak {i}=\omega _1<\mathfrak {u}=\mathfrak {a}_T=\omega _2$.

The nineteenth century was a time of great economic, social, and political change. The population of a modernizing Europe began demanding more freedom, which in turn propelled the ongoing discussion on the philosophy of nature. This spurred on Central European sheep breeders to debate the deepest secrets of nature: the transmission of traits from one generation to another. Scholarly questions of heredity were profoundly entwined with philosophy and politics when particular awareness of “the genetic laws of nature” claimed natural equality. (...) The realization that the same rules of inheritance may apply to all living beings frightened both the absolutist political power and the divided society of the day. Many were not prepared to separate religious questions from novel natural phenomena. Open-minded breeders put their knowledge into practice right away to create sheep with better wool traits through inbreeding and artificial selection. This was viewed, however, as the artificial modification of nature operating against the cultural and religious norms of the day. Liberal attempts caught the attention of the secret police and, consequently, the aspirations of scholars were suppressed by political will during approximately 1820–1850. (shrink)

As a rapidly growing field of study, social entrepreneurship is increasingly receiving attention from scholars and practitioners because social ventures have the potential to contribute to economic growth and social innovation. Surprisingly, the role of leadership in social venture growth has received very limited attention. One reason for this omission may be that entrepreneurship and leadership evolved as separate domains. Applying leadership theory to social ventures can help scholars and managers understand how social entrepreneurs can manage the environmental risks, dual (...) mission, and legitimacy issues of social ventures. Our goal for this conceptual paper is to describe how social entrepreneurs can align employees with the seemingly inconsistent goals of social and economic value creation to improve venture performance. We do so by concentrating on a leadership style applicable to their dual mission—servant leadership. Drawing from theoretical underpinnings and examples from single case studies, we offer a research framework and related propositions that delineate how servant leadership style affects social venture performance through the perception of work meaningfulness, well-being, and job engagement. We contribute to theory building by uncovering how social entrepreneurs can share their personal passions, values, and obligations with their employees and inspire them to meet their dual mission, paying attention to the context of social ventures and the attributes of the employees they attract. We also discuss theoretical and practical implications for social entrepreneurship and offer future research directions. (shrink)

Although eye tracking has been used extensively to assess cognitions for static stimuli, recent research suggests that the link between gaze and cognition may be more tenuous for dynamic stimuli such as videos. Part of the difficulty in convincingly linking gaze with cognition is that in dynamic stimuli, gaze position is strongly influenced by exogenous cues such as object motion. However, tests of the gaze‐cognition link in dynamic stimuli have been done on only a limited range of stimuli often characterized (...) by highly organized motion. Also, analyses of cognitive contrasts between participants have been mostly been limited to categorical contrasts among small numbers of participants that may have limited the power to observe more subtle influences. We, therefore, tested for cognitive influences on gaze for screen‐captured instructional videos, the contents of which participants were tested on. Between‐participant scanpath similarity predicted between‐participant similarity in responses on test questions, but with imperfect consistency across videos. We also observed that basic gaze parameters and measures of attention to centers of interest only inconsistently predicted learning, and that correlations between gaze and centers of interest defined by other‐participant gaze and cursor movement did not predict learning. It, therefore, appears that the search for eye movement indices of cognition during dynamic naturalistic stimuli may be fruitful, but we also agree that the tyranny of dynamic stimuli is real, and that links between eye movements and cognition are highly dependent on task and stimulus properties. (shrink)

The upheavals of late eighteenth century Europe encouraged people to demand greater liberties, including the freedom to explore the natural world, individually or as part of investigative associations. The Moravian Agricultural and Natural Science Society, organized by Christian Carl André, was one such group of keen practitioners of theoretical and applied scientific disciplines. Headquartered in the “Moravian Manchester” Brünn, the centre of the textile industry, society members debated the improvement of sheep wool to fulfil the needs of the Habsburg armies (...) fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Wool, as the raw material of soldiers' clothing, could influence the war’s outcome. During the early nineteenth century, wool united politics, economics, and science in Brno, where breeders and natural scientists investigated the possibilities of increasing wool production. They regularly discussed how “climate” or “seed” characteristics influenced wool quality and quantity. Breeders and academics put their knowledge into immediate practice to create sheep with better wool traits through consanguineous matching of animals and artificial selection. This apparent disregard for the incest taboo, however, was viewed as violating natural laws and cultural norms. The debate intensified between 1817 and 1820, when a Hungarian veteran soldier, sheep breeder, and self-taught natural scientist, Imre Festetics, displayed his inbred Mimush sheep, which yielded wool extremely well suited for the fabrication of light but strong garments. Members of the Society questioned whether such “bastard sheep” would be prone to climatic degeneration, should be regarded as freaks of nature, or could be explained by natural laws. The exploration of inbreeding in sheep began to be distilled into hereditary principles that culminated in 1819 with Festetics’s “laws of organic functions” and “genetic laws of nature,” four decades before Gregor Johann Mendel’s seminal work on heredity in peas. (shrink)