The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects (...) or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of “knowing” not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span. Key Words: cognitive development; dynamical systems theory; embodied cognition; infant development; motor control; motor planning; perception and action. (shrink)

Examination of infant spontaneous and goal-directed arm movements supports Feldman and Levin's hypothesis of a functional hierarchy. Early infant movements are dominated by biomechanical and dynamic factors without external frames of reference. Development involves not only learning to generate these frames of reference, but also protecting the higher-level goal of the movement from internal and external perturbations.

We argue that mentalistic constructs like the “object concept” are not substitutes for process explanations of cognition, and that it is impossible to prove the existence of such constructs with behavioral tasks. We defend the field theory as an appropriate level for modeling embodiment. Finally, we discuss the model's biological plausibility and its extensions to other tasks and other species.

We examine the embodiment of one foundational aspect of human cognition, language, through its bodily association with the gestures that accompany its expression in speech. Gesture is a universal feature of human communication. Gestures are produced by all speakers in every culture . They are tightly timed with speech . Gestures convey important communicative information to the listener, but even blind speakers gesture while talking to blind listeners , so the mutual co-occurrence of speech and gesture reflects a deep association (...) between the two modes that transcends the intentions of the speaker to communicate. Indeed, we believe that this linkage of the vocal expression of language and the arm movements produced with it are a manifestation of the embodiment of thought: that human mental activities arise through bodily interactions with the world and remain linked with them throughout the lifespan. In particular, we propose that speech and gesture have their developmental origins in early hand-mouth linkages, such that as oral activities become gradually used for meaningful speech, these linkages are maintained and strengthened. Both hand and mouth are tightly coupled in the mutual cognitive activity of language. In short, it is the initial sensorimotor linkages of these systems that form the bases for their later cognitive interdependence. (shrink)

The evolutionary scenario described in this target article parallels developmental patterns observed in human infants. Early vocalizations are largely expressive, manual control develops more rapidly than intentional vocal articulation, and vocal and manual activity are linked. In ontogenetic development, language is strongly rooted in bodily action and gesture.

This book focuses on showing how the ideas central to the new wave oj dynamic systems studies may also form the basis for a new and distinctive theory of human development where both global order and local variability in behaviour emerge together from the same organising dynamical interactions. This also sharpens our understanding of the weaknesses of the traditional formal, structuralist theories. Conversely, dynamical models have their own matching set of problems, many of which are consiously explored here. Less readily (...) acknowledged, the youthfulness of this field means that many of the studies presented here struggle to pass beyond speculative metaphor. Nonetheless, the field is shown to be one of vigour, intelligence and great promise. (shrink)

Reasoning about bedrock abstract concepts such as time, number, and valence relies on spatial metaphor and often on multiple spatial metaphors for a single concept. Previous research has documented, for instance, both future-in-front and future-to-right metaphors for time in English speakers. It is often assumed that these metaphors, which appear to have distinct experiential bases, remain distinct in online temporal reasoning. In two studies we demonstrate that, contra this assumption, people systematically combine these metaphors. Evidence for this combination was found (...) in both directly elicited and spontaneous co-speech gestures about time. These results provide first support for the hypothesis that the metaphorical representation of time, and perhaps other abstract domains as well, involves the continuous co-activation of multiple metaphors rather than the selection of only one. (shrink)

This article explores the changing nature of twenty-first-century capitalism with an emphasis on illuminating the political coalitions and institutional conditions that support and sustain it. Most of the existing literature attributes the changing nature of the firm to developments in markets and technology. By contrast, this article emphasizes the political forces that have driven the transformation of the twentieth-century consolidated firm through the firm as a “network of contracts” and toward the platform firm. Moreover, situating the United States in a (...) comparative perspective highlights the distinctive ways US political-economic institutions have facilitated that transformation and exacerbated the associated inequalities. (shrink)

"Human relations? Discovery learning? Community involvement? What would education be like if it were based on what we know about man, and the operation of society? In a major step toward bridging the gap between what we profess philosophically and what we do technically to advance the child's quest for knowledge, Herbert Thelen presents four learning experiences that he believes a child must have to become educated--personal inquiry, group investigation, reflective action, and skill development. He explores the ways in (...) which these experiences can be made educative--can do more, as Thelen says, than housebreak the child or make him clever. Upon publication of the clothbound edition in 1960, Education and the Human Quest was selected by the American Library Association as one of the most significant books of the year"--Cover. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

"Human relations? Discovery learning? Community involvement? What would education be like if it were based on what we know about man, and the operation of society? In a major step toward bridging the gap between what we profess philosophically and what we do technically to advance the child's quest for knowledge, Herbert Thelen presents four learning experiences that he believes a child must have to become educated--personal inquiry, group investigation, reflective action, and skill development. He explores the ways in (...) which these experiences can be made educative--can do more, as Thelen says, than housebreak the child or make him clever. Upon publication of the clothbound edition in 1960, Education and the Human Quest was selected by the American Library Association as one of the most significant books of the year"--Cover. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In this commentary, we point to guidelines for performing human neuroimaging studies and their reporting in microbiota-gut-brain articles. Moreover, we provide a view on interpretational issues in MGB studies, with a specific focus on gut microbiota–derived metabolites. Thus, extending the target article, we provide recommendations to the field to increase reproducibility and relevance of this type of MGB study.

This paper enquires into the politics of real-time in online media. It suggests that real-time cannot be accounted for as a universal temporal frame in which events happen, but explores the making of real-time from a device perspective focusing on the temporalities of platforms. Based on an empirical study exploring the pace at which various online media produce new content, we trace the different rhythms, patterns or tempos created by the interplay of devices, users’ web activities and issues. What emerges (...) are distinct forms of ‘realtimeness’ which are not external from but specific to devices, organized through socio-technical arrangements and practices of use. Realtimeness thus unflattens more general accounts of the real-time web and research, and draws attention to the agencies built into specific platform temporalities and the political economies of making real-time. (shrink)

This chapter surveys essentialist and anti-essentialist theories of sex and gender. It does so by engaging three approaches to sex and gender: externalism, internalism, and contextualism. The chapter also draws attention to two key debates about sex and gender in the feminist literature: the debate about the sex/gender distinction (the distinction debate) and the debate about whether sex and gender have essences (the essentialism/anti-essentialism debate). In addition, it describes three problems that theories of sex and gender tend to face: the (...) Inclusion Problem, the Definition Problem, and the Exclusion Problem. Lastly, the chapter highlights why the division between essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts of sex and gender is not clear. (shrink)

International business organizations are regularly addressed on their corporate social responsibility (CSR). As illustrated in this paper, it is not yet clear exactly what CSR means to organizations and how to deal with it. In this paper, the authors explore how a sensemaking approach helps to understand the business challenges of CSR within an organizational context. The theories of Karl Weick are applied to the experiences of CSR in Royal Dutch Shell. The authors argue that the key to CSR in (...) international business organizations is to engage stakeholders and start a process of joint sensemaking. Three main competencies are crucial in this: the competency to engage stakeholders through listening and understanding; the creation of an organizational language so that CSR makes sense to members of the organization; and recognizing the momentum of taking action. (shrink)

Interviews with female impersonators reveal the social, cultural, and economic aspects of their occupation and the subculture of the homosexual transvestite.

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag widmet sich der Einführung und Etablierung des Mädchenturnens mit Schwerpunkt auf den preußischen Schulen, wie es sich an der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg vollzogen hat. Die Frage richtet sich dabei auf die Art und Weise, wie dieser Prozess verlief, aber auch darauf, weshalb die Ausdehnung des Schulturnens auf die Mädchen mit einiger Verzögerung gegenüber dem Knabenturnen zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt schließlich stattgefunden hat. Als Grundlage der Untersuchung dienen normative Quellen ebenso wie (...) einschlägige Zeitschriftenliteratur, anhand derer sich der die Entwicklungen begleitende Diskurs rekonstruieren lässt. Ein besonderer Fokus richtet sich dabei auf die Rolle des sich wandelnden Körper- und Geschlechterwissens, wie es sich in zeitgenössischen wissenschaftlichen Texten und populären Büchern zum Thema Leibesübungen und Gesundheit manifestiert hat. (shrink)

Article published in Stance by Wolfe and Grosz.

The French and German political economies have been significantly reconfigured over the past two decades. Although the changes have often been more piecemeal than revolutionary, their cumulative effects are profound. The authors characterize the changes that have taken place as involving the institutionalization of new forms of dualism and argue that what gives contemporary developments a different character from the past is that dualism is now explicitly underwritten by state policy. They see this outcome as the culmination of a sequence (...) of developments, beginning in the field of industrial relations, moving into labor market dynamics, and finally finding institutional expression in welfare state reforms. Contrary to theoretical accounts that suggest that institutional complementarities support stability and institutional reproduction, the authors argue that the linkages across these realms have helped to translate employer strategies that originated in the realm of industrial relations into a stable, new, and less egalitarian model with state support. (shrink)

NoViolet Bulawayo’s recently published novel titled, Glory, fictionalises the tragic fall of Robert Mugabe from the helm of power. The removal of Mugabe from power through the 2017 “military coup” engendered a problematic narrative that depicted the former first lady, Grace Mugabe as the biblical Eve’s doppelganger. The purported resemblance of Eve, a character from sacrosanct text, and Grace of contemporary Zimbabwe is often based on mythical and misogynist (mis)interpretations of the former as an epitome of sin and the latter (...) as instrumental to Mugabe’s demise. Arguably, the construct of Eve in Zimbabwe and the personified allegory in the fictive society of Bulawayo is profoundly laden with semantics and tropes of power together interwoven with innuendoes that denigrate women. This article reflected upon the ‘blame Eve myth’ with interlocking discourses of toxic politics and religion that reinforce phallocentric attitudes and practices that denigrate the female gender in Zimbabwe. Ecofeminism enriches the discussions of the novel Glory as a satire that provides imperative fictional sites to chart these intricate discourses. Ecofeminist framework offers insights that enrich the discussions of Eve’s myth and other representations which disparage women in the novel, Glory. The study concludes that blaming Grace Mugabe in her fictional doppelganger Marvelous, symbolically illuminates how women and the feminised nature are both insulted and held accountable for woes that befall humanity in both the fictive nation of Jidada and its referent Zimbabwe. Contribution: Ecofeminist conceptual framework has rarely been used to examine the complex connection between gender, politics, religion and nature in Zimbabwean fictional writing. Thus, this study offered fresh insights that are significant in understanding these subjects from a multidisciplinary perspective because the analyses and readings of the novel were based on literary criticism, political discourse and theology. (shrink)

A large literature on urban politics documents the connection between metropolitan fragmentation and inequality. This article situates the United States comparatively to explore the structural features of local governance that underpin this connection. Examining five metropolitan areas in North America and Europe, the article identifies two distinct dimensions of fragmentation: fragmentation through jurisdictional proliferation and fragmentation through resource hoarding. This research reveals how distinctive the United States is in the ways it combines institutional arrangements that facilitate metropolitan fragmentation and those (...) that reward such fragmentation. Non-US cases furnish examples of policies that reduce jurisdictional proliferation or remove resource-hoarding opportunities. Mitigating the inequality-inducing effects of fragmentation is possible, but policies must be designed with an identification of the specific aspects of local governance structures that fuel inequality in the first place. (shrink)

This article echoes those voices that demand new approaches and ‹senses’ for management education and business programs. Much of the article is focused on showing that the polemic about the educative model of business schools has moral and epistemological foundations and opens up the debate over the type of knowledge that practitioners need to possess in order to manage organizations, and how this knowledge can be taught in management programs. The article attempts to highlight the moral dimension of management through (...) a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian concept of practical wisdom. I defend the ideas that management is never morally neutral and that Aristotelian practical wisdom allows the recovery of moral considerations in management practice. I analyze the impact and implications that the introduction of practical wisdom in business schools entails for the conception and objectives of management education. This view reconfigures management education in terms of attention to values, virtues and context. Therefore, management programmes should prepare students to critically evaluate what they hear and to make decisions coherent with their values and virtues. In the final section, I reflect on the pedagogical implications of this approach. I point out that an integrated model of ethics and practical wisdom promotes education of cognition and education of affect as well. I provide an example to illustrate my perspective and to support my conclusions. (shrink)

In several jurisdictions, irremediable suffering from a medical condition is a legal requirement for access to assisted dying. According to the expressivist objection, allowing assisted dying for a specific group of persons, such as those with irremediable medical conditions, expresses the judgment that their lives are not worth living. While the expressivist objection has often been used to argue that assisted dying should not be legalised, I show that there is an alternative solution available to its proponents. An autonomy-based approach (...) to assisted suicide regards the provision of assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) as justified when it is autonomously requested by a person, irrespective of whether this is in her best interests. Such an approach has been put forward by a recent judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court, which understands assisted suicide as an expression of the person’s right to a self-determined death. It does not allow for beneficence-based restrictions regarding the person’s suffering or medical diagnosis and therefore avoids the expressivist objection. I argue that on an autonomy-based approach, assisted suicide should not be understood as a medical procedure but rather as the person’s autonomous action. (shrink)

During the last decades, in different places and under different circumstances, some physicians and other health professionals have supported state violence. The Holocaust is a prime example for how doctors can cooperate with the state to plan, give ideological support to and implement violent policies. As a consequence of the Industrial Revolution, people gained access to health promotion and health protection, not as an achievement of the welfare state, but as a tool necessary to maintain healthy and more productive workers. (...) Gradually, all social strata, employees and their relatives gained access to health coverage. Physicians as a group increased in number and changed the structure of their profession by establishing a symbiotic relationship with the state. Between the state and the medical class, different models of cooperation can be distinguished. In general, we can affirm that with the implementation of a public health system, greater interdependence among the state and the medical class was established. In the case of authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, the support of the medical class for violent policies depends on the degree of previous cooperation. National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union are two striking examples of totalitarian states in which strong public health systems and subsequent close cooperation between the medical class and the state can be observed. In both countries, violent state policies were quickly accepted and integrated into medical practice. Practices such as forced sterilization, murder of patients or experimentation with prisoners were prevalent under National Socialism. The abuse of psychiatry as tool for exerting power was common in the Soviet Union. South American dictatorships constitute examples of totalitarian states with weak previous cooperation between the medical class and the state, as they did not have strong public health systems. In those countries, support for state violence can be found, such as participation of health care professionals in torture or abduction of babies, but cooperation was not as strong as in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. In other cases in which no strong previous relationship existed between medicine and the state, authoritarian regimes were not accompanied by medical support for violence, such as in the case of the Rwandan genocide or in Cambodia, where doctors were persecuted and murdered based on their membership of the bourgeois class. (shrink)

A number of authors now invoke the opposition between political philosophy and social philosophy, whether to account for the specific nature of Marx’s relation to philosophy or to reactualize the project of a critical theory of society. What, the article asks, is the meaning of this distinction? Can it fulfill the requisite conditions that will enable philosophers to address in a pertinent manner the social and political challenges of our time? These are the questions addressed here by Catherine Colliot-Thélène, whose (...) fear is that the distinction in question may lose sight of the crucial question of power, and by Franck Fischbach, who emphasizes the materialist orientation of an approach that seeks to address the political from the perspective of the social. (shrink)

En Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard defiende la conclusión de que el imperativo categórico rige la acción humana porque es el único principio que permite alcanzar la unidad psíquica plena, la cual, según Korsgaard, es un prerrequisito esencial para la acción efectiva. Para los agentes humanos, alcanzar esa unidad -que consiste en hacer coherentes distintos impulsos hacia la acción- es una actividad constante, denominada "autoconstitución". De acuerdo con Korsgaard, ésta es la fuente originaria de la normatividad y (...) de las identidades prácticas e incluso de la identidad personal. Después de exponer las ideas centrales del libro, presento dos objeciones: primero, critico la equiparación del imperativo categórico con la autoconstitución exitosa, pues no toda falla de auto-constitución es una falla moral. Segundo, argumento que la tesis de que la identidad personal es producto de la autoconstitución es problemática y que, al defenderla, Korsgaard confunde identidad práctica con identidad personal. In Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard argues that the categorical imperative rules human action because it is the sole principle that allows us to reach the complete psychic unity that, Korsgaard thinks, is an essential prerequisite for effective action. Reaching this unity -which consists in making cohere diverging impulses for action- is for human agents a constant activity called "self-constitution." According to Korsgaard, this activity is the source of normativity, of human practical identities and even of personal identity. After explaining the main ideas of the book, I present two objections. First, I criticize the linkage of the categorical imperative to successful self-constitution, for not every failure of the latter counts as a moral failure. Second, I argue that the thesis that personal identity is a product of self-constitution is problematic and that it betrays a confusion between practical identity and personal identity. (shrink)

La adolescencia es un periodo crítico de la vida para el desarrollo de depresión. Durante este periodo la prevalencia de adolescentes que sufren trastornos depresivos aumenta considerablemente, debido a múltiples factores biológicos, sociales y psicológicos. Además entre los 14 y 18 años emergen importantes diferencias de género en depresión, de forma que al final de este periodo las tasas de depresión en las chicas llegan a doblar las observadas en los chicos (Hankin et al., 1998). Estas diferencias tenderán a mantenerse (...) a lo largo del ciclo vital. De este modo las estadísticas indican que en la vida adulta las mujeres experimentan el Trastorno Depresivo Mayor dos veces más que los hombres, siendo las diferencias aún mayores para el Trastorno Distímico. (shrink)

This case study discusses the scope of responsibilities and the basis of legitimacy of multinational corporations in a complex operating environment. In January 2013 a precedent was set when Shell was held liable in The Hague for oil pollution in the Niger Delta. The landmark ruling climaxed the ongoing dispute over the scope of Shell’s responsibilities for both the company’s positive and negative impact. Shell’s was considered a forerunner in corporate social responsibility and had even assumed public responsibilities in a (...) context of a public responsibility void. However, the company remained a regular target of civil society activism and legal proceedings concerned with malpractice. The court case attracted international attention for its novelty and increasing media and civil society pressure required immediate action. How can Shell respond to this negative publicity to keep its license to operate? What is the scope of the company’s responsibilities in such a controversial human rights context? Students are expected to discuss these questions going beyond a simple moralistic or liability thinking. They are encouraged to take into account the complex structural processes that connect persons and institutions in very different social and geographical positions. The experiences of Shell are an excellent case in point since attention is drawn to the background conditions of globally operating companies, in which the isolation of perpetrators based on causality is not realistic. The case also reveals the particular challenges, which MNCs face in the context of increasing demands to take on public responsibilities while respecting their economic mandate. (shrink)

It is widely thought that knowledge is factive – only truths can be known. However, this view has been recently challenged. One challenge appeals to approximate truths. Wesley Buckwalter and John Turri argue that false-but-approximately-true propositions can be known. They provide experimental findings to show that their view enjoys intuitive support. In addition, they argue that we should reject the factive account of knowledge to avoid widespread skepticism. A second challenge, advanced by Nenad Popovic, appeals to multidimensional geometry to build (...) a case where it seems intuitive that a person knows p even though p is false. In addition, Popovic argues that we should reject the factive account of knowledge because most of us would not become widespread skeptics if we discovered that ordinary objects in our world are actually four-dimensional. In this paper, we defend the factive account of knowledge against these arguments by challenging the intuitive appeal of the cases and arguing that there is no real threat of widespread skepticism for the factive account of knowledge. (shrink)

While we often talk about time using spatial terms, experimental investigation of space-time associations has focused primarily on the space in front of the participant. This has had two consequences: the disregard of the space behind the participant and the creation of potential task demands produced by spatialized manual button-presses. We introduce and test a new paradigm that uses auditory stimuli and vocal responses to address these issues. Participants made temporal judgments about deictic or sequential relationships presented auditorily along a (...) body-centered sagittal or transversal axis. Results involving the transversal axis replicated previous work while sagittal axis results were surprising. Deictic judgments did not use the sagittal axis but sequential judgments did, in a previously undocumented way. Participants associated earlier judgments with the space in front of them and later judgments with the space behind them. These findings, using a new approach, p.. (shrink)