One of the most vigorously debated issues in attention labs concerns the nature of the coupling between the sensory-motor system and covert spatial attention. Proponents of the Premotor Theory of Attention (PToA) claim that attention should be accounted for in terms of motor preparation for goal-directed actions such as eye or hand movements. For others, it is a supramodal psychological entity that is independent of our sensorimotor machinery. Both parties also seek to articulate this controversy in terms of cognitive science (...) as a question of whether attention is embodied or disembodied cognition. The PToA is thought to advocate the embodiment of attention. We, however, are inclined to think that a more nuanced view of this conceptual framework is needed to yield some insights into how radical it actually is in terms of embodied cognition (EC). We argue that PToA still seems to bear some features of weak embodiment. Yet we suggest that it has the potential to build a stronger concept of attention as EC, but somewhat paradoxically this would require giving attention deflationary treatment and reconstructing it in other terms. We propose that the notion of pre-reflective intentionality might serve as an inspiration to this end. (shrink)

Since the very dawn of its history, modern philosophical anthropology has been addressing the issue of the human body. As a result of those efforts, Descartes, de Biran, Husserl, Sartre, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty and others have brought forward a variety of conceptions concerning various aspects of human corporeality. Anthropological explorations concerning the question of the human body, appear in a particularly interesting way, when they are considered in the context of those points of view which, in an essential way, refer to (...) the subjective character of the human being. It is a matter of reconstructing and analyzing how the subject's corporeality is given to the subject, originarily, according to the phenomenological rule zu den Sachen selbst. The aim of this paper is thus to put into some order the concerns of a variety of anthropologists with regard to the question of the human body, as it is given to, or experienced by, the subject. A metatheoretical analysis of this field proves it is possible to do so with the use of a tool, which is called here, a dimension of corporeality. (shrink)

Since the very dawn of its history, modern philosophical anthropology has been addressing the issue of the human body. As a result of those efforts, Descartes, de Biran, Husserl, Sartre, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty and others have brought forward a variety of conceptions concerning various aspects of human corporeality. Anthropological explorations concerning the question of the human body, appear in a particularly interesting way, when they are considered in the context of those points of view which, in an essential way, refer to (...) the subjective character of the human being. It is a matter of reconstructing and analyzing how the subject's corporeality is given to the subject, originarily, according to the phenomenological rule zu den Sachen selbst. The aim of this paper is thus to put into some order the concerns of a variety of anthropologists with regard to the question of the human body, as it is given to, or experienced by, the subject. A metatheoretical analysis of this field proves it is possible to do so with the use of a tool, which is called here, a dimension of corporeality. (shrink)

The crux of the dispute on the mutual relations between attention and consciousness, and to which I have referred in this paper, lies in the question of what can be attended in spatial attention that obviously resonates with the phenomenological issue of intentionality. The discussion has been initiated by Christopher Mole. He began by calling for a commonsense psychology, according to which one is conscious of everything that one pays attention to, but one does not pay attention to all the (...) things that one is conscious of. In other words, attention is supposed to be a condition which is sufficient but not necessary for consciousness, i.e., consciousness is a necessary concomitant of attention, but attention is not a necessary concomitant of consciousness. Mole seeks to validate his stance with data from psychology labs. His view is, however, partly confronted, for instance, by Robert Kentridge, Lee de-Wit and Charles Heywood, who used their experimental research on a neurological condition called blindsight as evidence of a dissociation between attention and consciousness, i.e., that visual attention is not a sufficient precondition for visual awareness. In this meta-theoretical state of affairs, I would like to focus on the cognitive phenomenon most often referred to as Inhibition of Return and suggest that, following its micro dynamics from the perspective of micro-phenomenology, it can be used to actually showcase all of the options on both sides of the argument. One of my leading goals would be also to follow Mole’s attempt to link attention with agency but where we differ is that I wish to heuristically articulate the matter in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of embodied pre-reflective intentionality. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show the methodological power and potentiality of the concept paradigm of unity introduced originally in the ceremony on the occasion of honoring Chiara Lubich with the doctor honoris causa title by the Catholic University of Lublin in 1996. Originally this conception was used to suggest the societal activity of Chiara Lubich in building, via the Focolari movement, psychosocial infrastructures for unity in various social domains,, in public media, in ecumenism and inter-religious contacts This (...) conception is a kind of a great inspiration which would motivate the social sciences to build their own research paradigm of a type of mental and methodological power and potentiality which could give a new vision of social world ). Thomas Kuhn regarded the Copernician revolution as the one which, in the history of science, best illustrates the nature of scientific revolution. The essence of paradigm in a Kuhnian sense is a mentality change in its nature. Copernicus had to change the well-established geocentric system which functioned not only in the science of his day but also in culture, tradition, social perception, and even in the mentality of religious and political authorities. And he did it in a well prepared empirical, methodological and psychological way. In a similar way Chiara Lubich created by her social acting a revolutionary inspiration for building paradigm in social science She decided in an extremely difficult and risky situation in 1944 in Trento not only to escape from her own life emergency but she with her friends made a decision to help other people who were in a much more difficult situation to survive. She decided to take a war bombing risk to be with lost children and older people who were in need. It was a practical building of the unity with the real people who were in need. This kind of experience rediscovered the community as a model for the real life and made a concretization and clarification of the charisma of the unity. However, the development of this charisma shows that it is simply a concrete and practical actualization of the new vision of social, economic, political and religious relationships which advises, recommends, suggests, and promotes the unity with others persons. (shrink)

Jean Vanier is the founder of two major international community-based organizations for people with intellectual disabilities: the L’Arche Communities and the “Faith & Light” movement. He is a great Catholic and a teacher of merciful love. His life is a message to the world that each person is an infinite value for who they are, not for what they can do, and that each person is unique and sacred, no matter of their health condition, disability or fragility. Each person is (...) created in God’s image and each one has an inner beauty, a capacity to love and to be loved, and possesses inherent qualities of belonging, bonding, friendship and spirituality. Persons with intellectual disabilities are a gift for the society. Thanks to the testimony of his life, Jean Vanier has developed the international network of L’Arche Communities all over the world. The communities are based on family-like residential communities, where people with and without intellectual disabilities share life together in the spirit of faith, dignity of every human being, understanding, love and joy. The L’Arche homes and communities are rooted in the ideas of “living with,” and not just “doing for” those with mental disabilities. Weakness carries a secret power within, it can open up the hearts to God’s grace. Our contemporary world strongly needs the weak, as they evangelize us, transform us and help us to be more human. They help us discover that the good news of Jesus is announced not to those who serve the poor, but to those who are themselves poor and need God’s merciful love and forgiveness. (shrink)

The traditional approach to the relation between parents and their prenatal child presents the child as a fetus, a mainly passive recipient of the mother’s vital biological resources. Contemporary prenatal psychology and pedagogy recognizes this relationship in a quite different perspective: the prenatal child is a member of the family and may be seen as an active member of the wider family as a community, extended to grandparents and other relatives. Between parents and their child in the womb exists a (...) reciprocal relationship at a physiological, psychological and spiritual level. The prenatal child communicates with the parents in different ways and reacts to their stimulation. This dialogue of the parents and their prenatal child enriches each member of the family community. In this sense, the prenatal child is a gift and a challenge for the parents to develop their personality, social competences and spiritual life. The reflections presented in this paper fit the conception of the paradigm of unity applied into the area of prenatal education and prenatal pedagogy as a new pedagogical subdisciline. The concept of paradigm in the philosophy of science was introduced by T. Kuhn. In his understanding, paradigm means a mental breakthrough in the way of ujmowaniu/describing/approaching the subject of study, and/or in the research methods used, but above all in the theoretical and systemic vision of reality, which is the basis for formulating research questions and hypotheses, operationalising the research procedure, analyzing the obtained research results and a theoretical interpretation of these results. To Kuhn, a paradigm may be understood in such way only in the natural sciences, when new visions of the studied natural reality appear. This is accompanied by a mental change in the cognitive schema itself of understanding reality not only for the creator of this vision, but also in its/his/her broader scientific environment. Kuhn considered the most eminent example of such appearing paradigm in the history of science to be the Copernican revolution, thanks to which the view on the world of nature surrounding the human being has completely changed and there was a mental breakthrough in the 15th and 16th century not only in the area of science, but also in the worldview of people of those times, for whom the world has become more open and broad. Kuhn, however, did not consider a paradigm to be a methodological concept in the humanities or social sciences. He was of the opinion that they must first mature more and make their methodological status more precise if one wishes to talk about a paradigm in these sciences. A scientific event that gave an occasion to reflect on the possibility of introducing the concept of paradigm into social sciences was the occasion of granting the title of doctor honoris causa in the field of social sciences by the Catholic University of Lublin to Chiara Lubich. The Focolare movement, also called The Movement of Unity, founded and led by her, introduced, a new approach to the area of human relations at every level. The arguments for granting the title included the fact that the practical activity of Ch. Lubich in various areas of social integration may be described as a Copernican revolution in the cultural-religious relations, and even in social-economical ones, according to the new paradigm, understood practically, which may be called a paradigm of unity. It was stressed that these activities may play a serious/significant inspiring role in the methodological reflections on the paradigm of unity in the social sciences. Such reflections were actually brought up first generally in the social sciences, and then within the methodology of psychology and education. At present, one may consider introducing this paradigm into prenatal education and pedagogy. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that mammalian chromosomes contain discretecis‐acting loci that control replication timing, mitotic condensation, and stability of entire chromosomes. Disruption of the large non‐coding RNA gene ASAR6 results in late replication, an under‐condensed appearance during mitosis, and structural instability of human chromosome 6. Similarly, disruption of the mouse Xist gene in adult somatic cells results in a late replication and instability phenotype on the X chromosome. ASAR6 shares many characteristics with Xist, including random mono‐allelic expression and asynchronous replication timing. (...) Additional “chromosome engineering” studies indicate that certain chromosome rearrangements affecting many different chromosomes display this abnormal replication and instability phenotype. These observations suggest that all mammalian chromosomes contain “inactivation/stability centers” that control proper replication, condensation, and stability of individual chromosomes. Therefore, mammalian chromosomes contain four types ofcis‐acting elements, origins, telomeres, centromeres, and “inactivation/stability centers”, all functioning to ensure proper replication, condensation, segregation, and stability of individual chromosomes. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

This note presents a point of view upon the notions of programsubstitution which are the tools for proving properties of programs of algorithmic logics [5], [3] being sufficiently strong and universal to comprise almost all previously introduced theories of programming, and the so-called extended algorithmic logic [1], [2] and algorithmic logic with nondeterministic programs [4]. It appears that the mentioned substitution rule allows us to examine more deeply algorithmic properties of terms, formulas and programs. Besides the problem of Post-completeness and (...) structural completeness of algorithmic logics strengthened additionally by the rule of substitution is raised. (shrink)

Vaesen infers unique properties of mind from the appearance of specific cultural innovation – a correlation without causal direction. Shifts in habitat, population density, and group dynamics are the only independently verifiable incentives for changes in cultural practices. The transition from Acheulean to Late Stone Age technologies requires that we consider how population and social dynamics affect cultural innovation and mental function.

Quantum mechanics (QM) predicts probabilities on the fundamental level which are, via Born probability law, connected to the formal randomness of infinite sequences of QM outcomes. Recently it has been shown that QM is algorithmic 1-random in the sense of Martin–Löf. We extend this result and demonstrate that QM is algorithmic $$\omega$$ -random and generic, precisely as described by the ’miniaturisation’ of the Solovay forcing to arithmetic. This is extended further to the result that QM becomes Zermelo–Fraenkel Solovay random on (...) infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Moreover, it is more likely that there exists a standard transitive ZFC model M, where QM is expressed in reality, than in the universe V of sets. Then every generic quantum measurement adds to M the infinite sequence, i.e. random real $$r\in 2^{\omega }$$, and the model undergoes random forcing extensions M[r]. The entire process of forcing becomes the structural ingredient of QM and parallels similar constructions applied to spacetime in the quantum limit, therefore showing the structural resemblance of both in this limit. We discuss several questions regarding measurability and possible practical applications of the extended Solovay randomness of QM. The method applied is the formalization based on models of ZFC; however, this is particularly well-suited technique to recognising randomness questions of QM. When one works in a constant model of ZFC or in axiomatic ZFC itself, the issues considered here remain hidden to a great extent. (shrink)

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

v. 1. Nicomachean ethics. Politics. The Athenian Constitution. Rhetoric. On Poetics.--v. 2. Logic.--v. 3. Physics. Metaphysics. On the soul. Short physical treaties.--v. 4. On the heavens. On generation and corruption. Meteorology. Biological treatises.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is the most likely site where egocentric spatial relationships are represented in the brain. PPC cells receive visual, auditory, somaesthetic, and vestibular sensory inputs; oculomotor, head, limb, and body motor signals; and strong motivational projections from the limbic system. Their discharge increases not only when an animal moves towards a sensory target, but also when it directs its attention to it. PPC lesions have the opposite effect: sensory inattention and neglect. The PPC does not seem (...) to contain a “map” of the location of objects in space but a distributed neural network for transforming one set of sensory vectors into other sensory reference frames or into various motor coordinate systems. Which set of transformation rules is used probably depends on attention, which selectively enhances the synapses needed for making a particular sensory comparison or aiming a particular movement. (shrink)

Orthologic is defined by weakening the axioms and rules of inference of the classical propositional calculus. The resulting Lindenbaum-Tarski quotient algebra is an orthoimplication algebra which generalizes the author's implication algebra. The associated order structure is a semi-orthomodular lattice. The theory of orthomodular lattices is obtained by adjoining a falsity symbol to the underlying orthologic or a least element to the orthoimplication algebra.

Providing an original and systematic treatment of foundational issues in philosophy of religion, J. L. Schellenberg's new book addresses the structure of..

According to realist structuralism, mathematical objects are places in abstract structures. We argue that in spite of its many attractions, realist structuralism must be rejected. For, first, mathematical structures typically contain intra-structurally indiscernible places. Second, any account of place-identity available to the realist structuralist entails that intra-structurally indiscernible places are identical. Since for her mathematical singular terms denote places in structures, she would have to say, for example, that 1 = − 1 in the group (Z, +). We call this (...) the identity problem and conclude that nominalism is presently the safest route for the structuralist. (shrink)