Buddhism has captured the imagination of many in the modern (Western) world. Recently, scientists have seemed eager to discover whether claims about Buddhist meditation can be verified experimentally. Brain research is beginning to produce concrete evidence that mental discipline and meditative practice can change the workings of the brain and allow practitioners to achieve different levels of awareness, as measurable for instance in reaction times to stimuli. The goal of this section of articles in Zygon is to address recent developments (...) in this area. The contributions address a wide array of questions, although they certainly do not cover the whole ground of what one may consider “problems” of meditation. Yet, we believe that the issues addressed here have widespread implications and that they constitute a strong argument for the richness of the meditation domain. (shrink)

Religions commonly are taken to provide general orientation in leading one's life. We develop here the idea that religions also may have a much more concrete guidance function in providing systematic decision biases in the face of cognitive-control dilemmas. In particular, we assume that the selective reward that religious belief systems provide for rule-conforming behavior induces systematic biases in cognitive-control parameters that are functional in producing the wanted behavior. These biases serve as default values under uncertainty and affect performance in (...) any task that shares cognitive-control operations with the religiously motivated rule-conforming behavior the biases were originally developed for. Such biases therefore can be unraveled and objectified by means of rather simple tasks that are relatively well understood with regard to the cognitive mechanisms they draw on. (shrink)

A previous study has shown that the degree of trust into others might be biased by inducing either a more “inclusive” or “exclusive” cognitive-control mode. Here, we investigated whether the degree of interpersonal trust can be biased by environmental factors, such as odors, that are likely to impact cognitive-control states. Arousing olfactory fragrances (e.g., peppermint) are supposed to induce a more exclusive, and calming olfactory fragrances (e.g., lavender) a more inclusive state. Participants performed the Trust Game, which provides an index (...) of interpersonal trust by assessing the money units one participant (the trustor) transfers to another participant (the trustee), while being exposed to either peppermint or lavender aroma. All participants played the role of trustor. As expected, participants transferred significantly more money to the alleged trustee in the lavender as compared to the peppermint and no aroma conditions. This observation might have various serious implications for a broad range of situations in which interpersonal trust is an essential element, such as cooperation (e.g., mixed-motives situations), bargaining and negotiation, consumer behavior, and group performance. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected not only the health of populations but also their everyday social practices, transformed by orienting to risks of contagion and to health prevention discourses. This paper emanates from a project investigating the impact of Covid-19 on human sociality and more particularly the situated and embodied organization of social interactions. It discusses how Covid-19 impacts the design of ordinary actions in social interaction, how this is made publicly accountable by the participants orienting to the pandemic in (...) formatting their actions and in responding to the actions of others. Adopting an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic perspective, the analyses focus on a particular social activity: paying. The organization of payments in shops and services has been affected by the pandemic, not only by official regulations, favoring some modes of payment over others, but also in how sellers and customers situatedly adapt their practices to imperatives of prevention. On the basis of a rich corpus of video-recorded data, which spans from the pandemic’s prodromes to and after its peak, we show how money transfer is methodically achieved – imposed, negotiated, and readjusted – while variously taking into account possible risks of contagion. Thus, we show not only how pandemics affect social interaction, and how prevention is incarnated in social actions, but also how, in turn, situated solutions implemented by people during the pandemic reveal fundamental features of human action. (shrink)

This article deals with surgical practice as it is locally organized within the course of the operation; it focuses on the way in which surgical action shaping the body for the local purposes of the operation is organized in a timely, situated, interactive manner. In order to do that, I offer a systematic analysis of the instructions addressed by a chief surgeon to his assistant in the form of directives during a surgical operation, as well as of instructed actions of (...) the assistant following the directives of the surgeon. In this way, I aim to show how surgery is a methodic collaborative achievement, relying on finely tuned coordination between staff members. More generally, the article sketches a systematic and detailed analysis of instructions as situated accomplishments in time, and of instructed action as resulting from an embodied and indexical understanding of directives and requests as they are produced in time and in context. (shrink)

The article investigates a multimodal practice for self-selecting observed in a video-taped corpus of work meetings: the use of pointing gestures predicting possible turn completions and projecting the emergence of possible next speakers. This practice is analyzed in various sequential positions, namely at turn beginnings and at pre-beginnings. It displays recipients' practical online turn parsing, and their orientation to transition spaces, and to TCU, completions in a visible, recognizable, public way. It shows the emergent and progressive establishment of speakership, exploiting (...) both systematic features of turn-taking and specific features of the interactional space. The article explores the emic, locally situated and contingent definition of speakership by considering not only where pointing gestures begin but also where they end: pointing does not only end in pre-completion positions, projecting turn end, but can also persist through sequences, showing speaker's orientations to her turn's sequential implicativeness. Thus, by observing a particular multimodal practice within a specific interactional setting, the article explores participants' orientations to the rights and obligations associated with talk-related categories such as `non current speaker', `possible next speaker', `incipient speaker' and `current speaker'. (shrink)

The article analyses the chapter on dreams of the Specchio di vera penitenza by Iacopo Passavanti, a Dominican friar who lived in 14th century Florence, focusing on the philosophical sources employed by the preacher. This section of the Specchio is in fact peculiar, since Iacopo discusses here the value of dreams for human knowledge by means of Aristotelian concepts and doctrines, but it does not mention them explicitly. Moreover, while discussing on dreams, Iacopo lingers on the myth of the magnetic (...) mountain following the pseudo-Aristotelian De lapidibus and the treatise On Minerals by Albert the Great. The article studies also Passavanti’s other sources concerning this passage, such as the De lapidibus by Marbodus of Rennes and the Speculum historiale by Vincent of Beauvais. (shrink)

Studies of talk-and-bodily-conduct-in-interaction have inspired new insights into the way in which language, interaction and cognition might be articulated. More particularly, they have shown that participants mutually orient to the finely tuned multimodal details by which talk and action in interaction are sequentially organized. This article deals with this form of ‘participants’ multimodal online analysis’ by focusing on a particular phenomenon - the methodical practices and resources by which the end of a turn and of an activity phase is projected (...) and collectively achieved - in a specific videorecorded setting - a meeting in an architect’s office. It aims at questioning both how these local orientations are systematically displayed and exploited by the participants for the sequential organization of their activity and how they can be demonstrably observed by the analyst. (shrink)

Sensorial access to products in shop encounters constitutes a crucial aspect of the appeal to customers. This paper examines sensorial engagements with products in a specific ecology with a focus on the possible opening of a shop encounter. When passers-by stroll from one stand to another, open to local findings, unplanned discoveries, and emergent opportunities to buy, they orient to the sensory appeal of the products, becoming possible customers, stopping in front of a counter and engaging in a social interaction (...) with sellers and other customers. The analysis focuses on multisensoriality in action, studying how customers and sellers treat the sensorial qualities of the products, the relevance of the sensory engagement of the customer with their materiality, and their involvement in the social encounter with the seller, including normative expectations related to sensing and buying. It includes a discussion of how under Covid-19 sensorial access to products was restricted and the sensorial, interactional, normative, and economic consequences of these restrictions. Based on video recordings of market encounters, and on an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic approach of multimodality and multisensoriality, the paper reflects on how appealing to the senses of sight, touch, smell, and taste is methodically orchestrated, and its consequences for the interaction with the seller, the sensorial experience, and the economic transaction. (shrink)

As the result of an interesting experiment in co-research, the crs1 group provides us with a short but pointed political pamphlet that is worth reading for several of its aspects. First, by explicitly adopting a labour perspective, it helps us to unravel the highly ideological design which lies behind the recent ‘politics of production’2 of the Italian fiat.3 Second, by trying to connect a theoretical analysis of the transformations undergone by labour under neoliberalism with the need for renewed and more (...) effective labour organisation, it gives us the opportunity to rethink the relationship between theory and praxis, as originally envisaged by the Italian workerists.4 From this unique political and cultural background, and from Tronti’s theses in particular,5 the research derives not only its basic methodological tools, but also its overall interpretative key. Finally, at a broader level, the book can offer us a useful contribution to the current debate in Marxist political economy, by shedding light on issues concerning capital – labour relations, corporate strategies and resistance practices that are now globally characterising the production realm. The present article aims to highlight the relevance of the conflict lately emerged within the fiat plant under analysis, the possibility of reconsidering a workerist view, and the still strong need for antagonist positions to counter global capital strategies. (shrink)

This paper investigates the nature of emotional experience in relation to the senses, and it defends the thesis that emotional experience is partly non-sensory. In §1 I introduce my reader to the debate. I reconstruct a position I call ‘restrictivism’ and motivate it as part of a reductive approach to mind’s place in nature. Drawing on intuitive but insightful remarks on the nature of sensation from Plato, I map out the conditions under which the restrictivist thesis is both substantive and (...) plausible. I then present two arguments against it. The first argument, which I lay out in §2, draws on recent empirical results in emotion research to show that restrictivism cannot be reconciled with the possibility of knowledge of one’s own emotional state by acquaintance. The second argument, which I present in §3, individuates a claim on which most contemporary theories of emotional valence converge and uses it to demonstrate that restrictivism has a false implication: it must deny that valence is experientially felt. (shrink)

Ethical issues are often discussed in a normative, prescriptive, generic way, within methodological recommendations and ethical guidelines. Within social sciences dealing with social interaction, these ethical issues concern the approach of participants during fieldwork, the recordings of audio–video data, their transcription, and their analysis. This paper offers a respecification of these issues by addressing them in a double perspective: as a topic for research—and not just as a methodological resource—; as a members’ concern and not as a researchers’ problem. In (...) order to do so, the paper focuses on a particular ethical problem, which has not yet been submitted to analytical scrutiny: the anonymization of the participants. It studies the way in which participants treat their recorded actions as “delicate,” and therefore as having to be “anonymized”; as well as the way in which participants implement their practical solutions for the anonymization—by “erasing” or ‘anonymizing’ themselves the recording within the course of their situated action. Adopting the perspective of conversation analysis and ethnomethodology, the paper explores these issues through a sequential analysis identifying the particular moments within social interaction in which problems are pointed at by the participants and the way in which they are locally managed by them. (shrink)

Marco Biraghi’s Project of Crisis provides a broad introduction to the thought and working-methods of historian Manfredo Tafuri. It also explores how this framework informed his studies of contemporary architecture. This review foregrounds the most distinctive aspects of Biraghi’s analysis, focusing upon its attention to the diversity of Tafuri’s philosophical sources. However, it argues that the author’s decision to focus upon the letter of Tafuri’s texts pushes questions of cultural and political context into the background. On occasion, this obscures the (...) formative role that a set of historical, political and cultural changes had upon Tafuri’s work. It also undermines Biraghi’s capacity to grasp the political entanglements and limitations of Tafuri’s thought. (shrink)

Background and aims: Liver transplantation provides an opportunity of survival for patients with liver failure, however, this procedure is known to be psychologically and physically fatiguing for patients and their informal caregivers. The aim of this study was to investigate how perceived social support and the distribution of dependency were associated with the psychological wellbeing of patients waiting for liver transplantation and their caregivers, as a dyad. Methods: The present was a cross sectional study. 95 participants were recruited at a (...) hospital in Northern Italy, during the psychological evaluation for inclusion in the transplantation list: 51 patients (19 with alcohol-related illness), and 44 family caregivers. Both patients and caregivers filled in a Symptom Checklist and Kelly's Dependency Grids. Patients also compiled the Medical Outcomes Study Social-Support Survey, and caregivers the Family Strain Questionnaire Short- Form. Results: Caregivers reported important levels of strain, also strongly related to a worsening of their own and patients’ symptoms Patients with alcohol-related pathologies had a narrower social network, which corresponded to an increase in family strain. On the sample as a whole, regression analyses showed that perceived social support and dependency measures did not predict patients’ and caregivers’ symptoms. Nevertheless, cluster analysis identified a group of caregivers who distributed their dependency more and experienced lower levels of depression, anxiety and strain. Conclusions: These results suggest the usefulness of a dyadic approach in the research, prevention and care of liver diseases. A deeper comprehension of the functioning of dyads will help practitioners in the identification of situations at risk. (shrink)

The article presents the conception of biological conditionings of language in Konrad Z. Lorenz\'s approach. In Lorenz\'s works the category of fulguration is the main philosophical category. It means the creation of \'something new\' as result of the process of a sequence of phenomena that are causally related. Viewing the human race from the historical perspective Lorenz differentiates two important fulgurations, called superfulgurations. One of them is the transition from the \"experiencing I\" to the \"conscious I\". Development of man\'s mental (...) sphere made it possible to form \"verbal speech\". More broadly, in Lorenz\'s approach, also culture has its subjectivization in nature. Cognition is an element of an organism\'s behavior, and what is more, every mechanism of learning evolved phylogenetically. However, this does not result in strict determinism - various cultures are developed independently of one another. In the process of development of culture a special role is played by symbolization. Lorenz differentiates two types of symbols: symbols of a group (e.g. emblem) and language symbols. Language symbols were created in the regularity formed in the process of phylogeny, that is in conceptual thinking. In his philosophical explanation of the language structure Lorenz uses the data supplied by particular sciences. Moreover, language behaviors of particular people are conditioned by their personal experiences, and by the definite social and cultural milieu they live in. (shrink)

The article presents Konrad Zacharias Lorenz\'s views concerning man\'s axiological space. According to Lorenz the origin of the cognitive apparatus is defined by the need to maintain orientation in the world. The apparatus is determined (ambiguously) by the biological and cultural factors. Also tendencies to accept a given type of values are dependent on inborn instincts. The harmony of mutual coexistence of biological and cultural norms is a manifestation of a \'healthy functioning of the world of values\'. In recognizing values (...) an important role is attributed to emotions. The specificity of the act of valuation results from its subjectivity outside a direct control of acts of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper focusses on colour terminology as a tool for achieving ἐνάργεια in the Latin poetry of the first century c.e. After briefly outlining the developments in the concept of ἐνάργεια from Aristotle to Quintilian, the paper considers the use of Latin terms for black in three descriptive passages from Statius’ epic poem, the Thebaid. It is observed that the poet privileges the juxtaposition of the two adjectives ater and niger in a pattern of uariatio, where ater often carries a (...) figurative meaning and repeats established poetic clichés, while niger is part of unparalleled collocations that evoke a material notion of blackness. Further analysis of the uariatio in the context of each passage reveals that the juxtaposition of the two-colour terms enhances the vividness of the objects described not only by increasing their chromatic impact but also by establishing connections with other parts of the poem, and by inviting a reflection on the competing practices of imitation and transgression of poetic models. The analysis of one stylistic feature shows that this stylistic feature is used by Statius for achieving ἐνάργεια as an artistic effect, for reflecting on ἐνάργεια as an instrument through which poetic models are challenged, and for tying his own poetic practice to contemporary rhetorical discussions. (shrink)

Aristocles of Messene is a first century AD Aristotelian philosopher who discusses the thought of ancient Greek philosophers, including Plato, Zeno, Pyrrho, and Epicurus, as well as Eleatic and Cyrenaic philosophies. His main contribution is his testimony on Pyrrhonism, and his political verve makes his On Philosophy an interesting and amusing read for specialists and non-specialists alike.